Three Golden Rules for Internet Marketing

I've spent quite a bit of time on this blog looking at digital marketing that were successful, but I wanted to take a look at some of the hard and fast rules of what makes a successful digital marketing campaign.  


Pete Caputa over at HubSpot Blog covers three rules - just three - that will do more to impact the success of your digital campaign than you could ever think they would.  He presents them as mistakes, but I want to turn them around into positive rules


Rule #1: Keyword research should guide your internet marketing activities


Keyword research helps marketers determine which keywords will be most effective in your advertising efforts. Through keyword research you have an opportunity to learn more about your customer base, which is a group of people you can't know enough about.  Caputa explains that keyword research is a constant process, which needs to be continually readdressed to look for shifts in what customers are responding to.  

Marketers need to identify keywords that are:

• Relevant
• Have high search volume
• Are relatively easy to rank for

Keyword research also allows you to monitor: 

• Where you rank for each keyword
• How much traffic you're getting from each keyword 
• Whether that keyword is producing leads

Rule #2: Have offers, calls-to-action and well optimized landing pages on your site

Landing pages can be seen as one of the most under-utilized opportunities in marketing campaigns.  By having landing pages that are focused and urge the viewer to act, you are encouraging a response.  If your landing page is somewhat vague or unclear, it is unlikely that you will gain many customers, simply because they don't know what to do on your page.  

Caputa continues: 

You should also notice that it's not about having one or two offers. It's about coming up with multiple offers that will resonate with your audience and that can help your prospects start making the correlation betwen their challenges and goals and how your product helps them get where they need to go. 

Rule #3: You must measure where your leads come from


A big part of effective internet marketing is analytics. Not just analytics, however - the RIGHT analytics.  One of the best tools at your disposal are analytics sites that allow you to discover where traffic sources are coming from.  So, if you send out an email blast with a link to a landing site, you're able to see how many people came from that email and how many people acted on your call-to-action.  These analytics sites also give you more information on specific keywords that are directing people to your site - and which ones are not - which gives you more information to use in future endeavors.

McDonald's Monopoly Mobile Marketing (Alliteration is clearly my strong suit)

McDonald's received some praise throughout the duration of their mobile marketing campaign for their Monopoly game promotion.  The advertisements were inserted into the Pandora iPhone app and directed consumers to a landing page where they could enter the 11-digit code from their Monopoly game pieces - found on McDonald's food containers - to see if they were prize winners.  Users could also access information about the Monopoly game and a complete list of prizes that could be won.  


A walk-through of the landing page:

The proper use of a landing page really stood out to me here - the landing page had a focused purpose and was refreshingly uncluttered.  When someone hit that page, they knew what to do, and could easily learn more information if they didn't.

Mobile marketing seems to be something that marketers either get really right or reallllly wrong. I think McDonald's got it right here. They have had previous successes in the mobile market, in order to distribute coupons to promote new coffee drinks in 2008. They recently utilized FourSquare and Twitter earlier this year in an attempt to promote their new McCafe Shakes and raise money for the Ronald McDonald Foundation ($1 donated per FourSquare Check-in in the Philadelphia area when sent to  Twitter and mentioning @McDPhilly).  A new mobile app introduced in Canada allows McDonald's customers to "create their tray" and offers nutritional information on their choices.

McDonald's has been really effective in utilizing new forms of marketing available to them.  They are connecting to young adults, who comprise a portion of McDonald's adult market, with these mobile advertising efforts, and the campaigns have been successful.

Hulu's Long Form Ads

As I spend my Thanksgiving break catching up on my favorite TV shows on Hulu, I have come to appreciate one thing: Hulu often gives their audience the option of watching multiple 30 second commercials throughout the video or watching one 2 minute commercial at the beginning of the viewing experience and watching the rest of your video uninterrupted. 


I am so, so, SO in favor of watching a 2 minute commercial to have a interruption-free 22 minutes of Parks & Recreation. Hulu viewers seem to agree: a recent study found that 88% of viewers would prefer to watch a long form ad in place of multiple short ads. Personally, multiple short ads frustrate me during my viewing experience and don't necessarily leave me with a positive view of the brand that is interrupting my stories. 


There are issues with this new type of advertising to these types of audiences. First, audience attention can be difficult to hold for a solid two minutes. This presents a challenge to advertisers, but it can hopefully force them to be more creative and innovative with these advertisements.  A way that I've seen that challenge addressed is through interactive games or requiring audience participation in various parts of the ad. Another concern is that some advertising just wouldn't translate in this type of format and much of that has to do with user engagement.  


The bloggers at Parks Associate think the way to end this problem of engagement is to offer two 1 minute ads in place of one 2 minute ads. This makes it easier for advertisers to keep audience engagement and easier for audiences to remain engaged. 


I was surprised to read that HuluPlus was not going to be an ad free service, even though users pay for it. Hulu did state that they would attempt to optimize the ad experience for each device that HuluPlus is authorized for use. Their website offers this explanation:

Hulu's goal for this subscription product has always been to offer the largest content selection to users for the lowest price. By making Hulu Plus an ad-supported subscription service, we were able to offer the low price of $7.99 to subscribers for the deepest library of current TV programming online.

 All in all, I think Yan at YanPritzker.com has it correct: "When the ad content get interesting, user attention is captures, users aren't annoyed by bad and irrelevant ads, everybody wins." 

Mashable's Predictions for 2011 - #6

Prediction #6 - Facebook "likes" will be important for your brand


We all knows that A/B testing is a common occurrence in advertising and can help advertisers figure out which ad elicits a more favorable response in their target audiences. Now, advertisers are taking this process further - using multiple (sometimes thousands) of different ads presented on their Facebook page to figure out which one garners fares best, which is measured by how many likes it receives from fans of the page.


Attempting to assign monetary value to a Facebook like is another story, however. Eventbrite, an online event management service, delved a bit deeper into the process of monetizing online sharing and came up with a number (specific to Eventbrite) with an initial average DPS (Dollars per Share) of $2.53 per Facebook share, $1.34 per Facebook like and $0.80 per Tweet. As their study continued, they uncovered various items of interest, including that the type of event has an impact on the amount of shares and that higher sharing rates occurred once customers were on the order confirmation page of the ticket ordering process. The full results of the study can be found HERE. 


EContentMag.com posits that Facebook likes are more about increasing brand awareness, not sales. 

A Forrester report published in April by Mulpuru titled "Will Facebook Ever Drive eCommerce?" shows that only 3% of respondents had used Facebook to purchase products. For certain businesses, mostly those offering online games or virtual goods, Facebook as a source of ecommerce is plausible, but the social model will not work for most other companies. Mulpuru says that the only "reasonable figure" quantifying Facebook's monetary value would look at a "direct and tangible benefit that is tied back to sales."

The article goes on to claim that the key purpose of Facebook fan pages is for listening - attempting to strengthen customer relationships with the brand by figuring out what it is they want and expect from the brand. 


I've seen an increase in social media interaction between companies and their customers in the past year, and can only imagine that it will continue to become a larger and larger influence in building these relationships.  It will be interesting to see if more companies can attempt to monetize their social media outlets and measure their Facebook effectiveness in terms of sales per like.

Mashable's Predictions for 2011 - #5

Prediction #5 - Brands will become more like media companies


Social media has the capability to allow brands more control over what is sent out into the world about their brand and affords them less reliance on PR firms and press releases to respond to criticisms.  


Recency is an important asset for any brand - if something negative is presented about a brand, social media will help them do two important things. First, because social media is dynamic, brands with social listening and monitoring tools can quickly find out when their brand is mentioned - either positively or negatively.  The second pro of social media is that it allows brands to respond quickly, efficiently, and to a wide audience.  One often hears about companies who blunder the opportunity to respond to criticisms quickly, but with social media teams devoted to such tasks, companies have a better chance of responding quickly and making it count - hopefully with a diminished impact on the brand reputation.


By focusing on the core message that a brand wants to send each time they utilize social media, they can quickly begin to figure out what works in building their brand and what doesn't work, using analytics and monitoring tools to gauge the public's response.  However carefully crafted these measures are, Mashable makes the point that maybe the future of this type of branding lies in "redefining relevance" - that is, redefining what a company should update their Facebook status about or tweet about, and looking more at what works. 


The Mashable article mentions that Skittles hired comedy writers to keep the content on their Facebook fan page humorous and replete with fresh content.  By asking a simple question, such as "What is your favorite flavor of Skittles?" the brand may be able to gain more customer interaction with their page, which hopefully translates into more customer loyalty. 


In the past year, I have certainly seen an increase in Facebook fan pages and have even been compelled to act as a result of a fan page. By building a company's brand in this way, it feels as though it may be easier to 'humanize' the brand, which in turn allows one to interact with and feel affinity towards the brand.

Mashable's Predictions for 2011 - #4

Prediction #4 - Small will be the new big for social networks


We've all done it - my great Facebook Cleanse came in the summer of 2010, when I whittled about 400 people off my friends list to focus on the people I, you know, actually care about. Some people have the "Birthday Rule" - if you wouldn't say happy birthday, axe them. 


This is becoming more of a trend as fewer people are 'collecting' friends on Facebook and want to interact more with fewer people. Path is a new-ish photo sharing site that limits your friend base to just 50 - the 50 people you care most about interacting with. Path isn't about building a brand or promoting yourself, as the sweet video on their homepage prompts the user to "Share Life," you get the feeling that Path is more about connecting with close family and friends who really, really care about that 1,563th baby picture you just posted.


Okay, so maybe the world isn't ready for all that - but even Facebook is taking strides towards segmenting friend groups with their "lists" function, which allows users to group friends into various categories - work friends, close friends, family, etc - and limit sharing according to those groups. 


I do think that people who have thousands of friends on Facebook (really, who do you think you're kidding?) are insane - I can't imagine keeping up with that newsfeed - and my 409 friends suit me just fine (And you bet I'll be doing a Post-Collegiate Cleanse come January), but I see giant social networking sites as being here for the long haul - with tools built in that allow the user to customize which of their friends views each piece of content they post.


FUN FACT: My Facebook-friend-who-has-the-most-friends award goes tooooooo: Ryan Roemerman, clocking in 2,918 friends as of this writing. 

FUNNER FACT: I've never actually met him, but worked on a project for the non-profit he works for, so him friending me was mostly justified ;)

Mashable's Predictions for 2011 - #3

Prediction #3 - Influencers will be the celebrities of social web


Social tools like Klout, Kred and PeerIndex are sites that use social media analytics to measure a person's influence across their various social network profiles. Klout especially has made identifying influencers in a specific area more accessible to those looking to be influenced, and those looking to influence. Companies are now able to offer incentives to Klout users that influence their potential customers, often hoping for more mentions on their social media outlets, which could result in higher sales at a minimal cost to the company.


Through analyzing my specific social media interactions, Klout has deduced that I am influential in one very important topic: BACON. Hopefully, by mentioning BACON a few more times within this BACON filled post, I can continue to influence other people in the wonderful realm of BACON.


Okay, that was enough BACON for today, you BACON - ites.  


Klout allows users to view the top influencers and the top people who have been given a +K, which is given to influencers by those they have influenced.  

So, as we can see above, within the realm of "Social Media", Mashable is the top influencer, followed by Chris Brogan, who seems to have moved recently. Neat!  Users can also access various other topics, such as film, fitness, and style - and view the top ranked influencers to find people who are probably more knowledgeable about certain topics than the average person.


Overall, I think that Mashable hit the nail on the head for this one - I am much more likely to take the advice of someone I know to be knowledgeable about a topic than to trust a celebrity endorsement.  KLOUT SCORES ARE THE FUTURE. 


(BACON)

Mashable's Predictions for 2011 - #2

Prediction #2 - Silicon Valley will be the next Madison Avenue


Mashable makes the argument that the Meccas of advertising used to reside in New York City and Chicago, but have since moved to Silicon Valley - located in the San Francisco Bay area - which is home to most of the nation's largest technology corporations.


As Twitter and Facebook become less about awareness of products and move towards being more revenue based, more marketers and advertisers will be making a move west to be a part of this new "gold rush." 


Although I couldn't find numbers (or much information at all, really) on marketers moving to Silicon Valley, I did find one bit of related information quite interesting. It seems that in today's world, start-up companies don't NEED to move to Silicon Valley to be successful.  We live in a connected world, and those connections don't all stem from a small community in Northern California.  Silicon Valley is home to a staggering number of tech companies, but success can be born and raised anywhere in the United States.


As we talked about in our Digital Advertising course, Des Moines based company Dwolla has spent the past year growing and was named one of the 20 Most Innovative Startups in Tech by Business Insider this year. They're moving between $30-50 million per month, and has major credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard taking notice. (Although six of the companies on Business Insider's list were based in San Francisco, there was representation from other cities - Boston, Portland and Denver also made the list)


I don't really believe that the world of tech advertising has transferred to Silicon Valley, but I also don't forsee Silicon Valley - as a concept - going away any time soon, even with the advent of a more national setup)

Mashable's Predictions for 2011 - #1

In searching for blog topics, I came across Mashable's Predictions for Digital Advertising in 2011 and I thought it would be interesting to go through them (11/12ths of the way through 2011), and see how they did with their foresight!

Prediction #1: Local Advertising Becomes Relevant Again with Location

Even without extensive research on this topic, I can say that as a consumer, I have certainly noticed an increase in local businesses utilizing - and thriving as a result of - social media.  An example in Cedar Falls is with Scratch Bakery who often offer specials or giveaways to their customers who frequent their Facebook and Twitter pages. An example can be seen below:

Scratch was not only able to engage their customers, but received over 800 shares, mostly by people within their geographic customer area, that resulted in essentially free advertising for their locally owned business

Google has also been instrumental in local relevancy of national companies- a quick search on Google for "pizza" from my parent's Urbandale, Iowa home returns the following results:

The paid search results advertise the Pizza Hut and Sarpino's Pizza locations nearest to my home, and the organic search results all have the address (and map integration) and phone number of their closest location - making my job as a consumer that much easier.

All in all, I think that digital advertising has properly begun to utilize such services as Yelp and FourSquare to really cater to the immediacy felt by consumers today. Many of these services also include coupons for close locations, which can certainly sweeten the pot for any potential customer.

Sexist Marketing and the Automatic Transmission

This is a little unrelated, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

Article: How Sexist Marketing Sold America on the Automatic Transmission [Jezebel]

There is a gallery of 1950s advertising attempting to sell automatic transmission cars, mostly based on exclaiming that women are too dainty to use a manual transmission, so why not buy them this newfangled automatic!? This was during an age where car manufacturers were adding every automatic component to automobiles they could fathom, so an automatic transmission was a likely continuation of that.  However, gender roles in the 1950s purported that men made the purchases for their families and did so rationally and non-frivolously, and women were given to ease of use and time saving products, so advertising for automobiles with automatic transmission makes sense when directed toward women.

Too Smart to Subscribe to Gender Stereotypes

JC Penny's released a shirt aimed at 7 to 10 year old girls earlier this year, and the internet was quick to show its distaste for the product choice.  The shirt proclaims "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me"

Not surprisingly, there were many who took issue with the shirt (and took to the interwebs to express their distaste) that enforces the stereotype that boys are smart and girls are ~*~pretty~*~.  

After numerous Tweets and a petition on Change.Org, JC Penny's responded with the following statement:

J.C. Penney is committed to being America's destination for great style and great value for the whole family. We agree that the "Too pretty" t-shirt does not deliver an appropriate message, and we have immediately discontinued its sale. Our merchandise is intended to appeal to a broad customer base, not to offend them. We would like to apologize to our customers and are taking action to ensure that we continue to uphold the integrity of our merchandise that they have come to expect.

Future contact by the Village Voice with Kate Coultas of JC Penny's Corporate Communications elicited these additional comments:

One of the reasons we're so outraged is that this is not what we stand for. We've facilitated over $100 million [in donations] over the past 10 years to support after school programs in local communities. That's a key important message for us.

 The shirt was only sold online and was removed from the website immediately.  JC Penny was quick to speak up and align themselves with the public, which gained them favor among those who were protesting the message of the shirt.