Online Marketing

Liquid Content Marketing

A brilliant piece on how the marketing game has changed from Coca Cola. Even if you don't like Coke (like me) this marketing strategy is something you should all have a look at.

It's essentially saying that our challenge as businesses and marketers is to create content that people not only want to share, but also participate in creating.

To do so takes a different kind of thinking that embraces customer story telling, brand stories and the new technology that helps us share these stories.

Fantastic. Highly recommended viewing.

If you're looking for an online marketing strategy then this is probably as good as it gets.

Conversion Rates Report 2011 - Nothing's Changed

Econsultancy has just released its Conversion Rate Optimisation Report for 2011, and sadly the rates are still stuck around 2% to 3%. The same as they’ve been for the past decade and more.

So Econsultancy asks the question: “...why are conversion rates not better than they are?” and it suggests it’s “...because conversion rate optimization is complex.”

I disagree.

While conversion rate optimisation undoubtedly takes work and discipline, it’s not like we don’t know what to do.

Leading Conversion Rate Optimisation consultants such as Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, Tim Ash, Steve Krug and others have been proclaiming the techniques and benefits of conversion rate optimisation since the 1990’s.

Yet marketers and businesses still do almost nothing about it.

Why? Read on...

Improve Your Shopping Cart Conversions

(How to make your shopping cart suck less)

Saw this cartoon over at The Oatmeal and I just had to share it. It highlights what's wrong with just about every shopping cart and registration process on the web.

Underneath the humour, and despite the scatological language, there are lessons for us all to learn here. This will help you reduce your shopping cart abandonment rates and increase your conversion rates. Study it hard.

All images courtesy of The Oatmeal

Read on...

Marketing as Theatre

Does your marketing entrance, engage, enrapture and encourage your customers to want more?

Because it’s not how good (or not) your product is, what matters is how you sell it.

The company or salesperson that puts on the best performance wins.

A clear reminder of this occurred the other day when I was attending the Perth Home Show at the Exhibition and Convention Centre.

I bought something didn’t even know I wanted because the salesman’s show was so good - The World’s Most Advanced Broom

Step right up folks, because of all things, he was selling rubber brooms, supposedly a technically superior alternative to the normal hair broom.

Certainly unique and different, I’d never even heard of, or could imagine a broom made of rubber; I mean it just sounds ridiculous.

But the sales guy was good; it was like watching a finely tuned performance, which is exactly what it was. I knew it, and I paid more out of admiration for his “game” than for the actual product.

Read how to up your marketing performance level...

80% Conversion Rate!! I'd Like To See That

Seth Berman over at Post Click Marketing recently posted on how some large companies such as Mattel are getting an 80% conversion rate for some of their website properties.

Unfortunately he didn't say too much more, so I immediately chastised him for being such a tease and begged him to do an interview, share some slides or whitepaper with the companies in question.

He promised to do that, so stay tuned.

What Seth did add was that Mattel wasn't the only one getting such high conversion rates. He cited Mozilla and this page as another example.

This is the Firefox 4 download page See pics below.

My first reaction was: “Well, yeh, of course, that's what you'd expect from such a page.”

But after engaging my marketing and optimisation brain, I realised there was plenty we could all learn from Mozilla's page.

So here are my seven top tips of what you can learn from the Mozilla Firefox page:

read more...

Online Marketing Success in One Easy Step

Online Marketers Still Clueless

The Insanity Continues

Most online marketers are still clueless as to where to spend their money, or your money more to the point.

For every $80 spent online to get a prospect to just come to your website, only $1 is spent on actually turning them into a customer once they get there, according to Omniture.

This is madness, and unfortunately it's been going on for over a decade.

According to Omniture in 2008

•  $23 billion was spent on online search and display ads

•  But only $250 million was spent on site optimization

I'm sorry, let's read that again, that's billions vs millions.

read more...

Clever Copywriting

This clip with Ronnie Corbet and Harry Enfield is a short masterclass in clever copywriting.

Obviously it's funny, but it's funny because the writers have done their research.

Every line is packed with meaning, both subtle and obvious.

The skit appeals to all personality types.

What Australian Business Must Learn From the Gerry Harvey Fiasco

We should all thank Gerry Harvey for giving us one of the best case studies on online shopping and social media for a long time.

His New Year attack on online shopping was over almost as soon as it began. While there has been a mountain of criticism over Harvey's ill advised campaign, there are lessons from this one act tragedy all Australian businesses to heed.

1: Respect the Customer

Harvey's first mistake was to treat shoppers and the wider public as fools. Telling people to buy goods from his stores where they are 30-40% dearer, rather than buying them online was never going to wash. Even mainstream media could see this was nonsense, and he was deservedly castigated for this.

If shoppers want to save money don't attack them for it, it won't win you any friends or new customers.

If shoppers want to shop online, then make sure you're online store is the one they go to.

Respecting the customer is one of the golden rules of business and marketing. It shouldn't be necessary to restate this rule, but obviously it is as Gerry Harvey was merely the public face of a campaign supported by other Australian retailers.

Neuromancing the Stone

A thought piece I posted over at Stone Soup on how the pace of the online world is leaving all of us behind. Even those of us who are already highly active in cyberspace. Businesses and individuals can't afford to wait anymore, we must all dive in and start paddling like hell.

It’s No Longer About Websites

And Why Current Online Marketing Techniques Are Already Outdated

See http://stonesoup.com.au/website-development/neuromancing-the-stone/

Does Online Advertising Work?

The Best Report I've Seen in Awhile

Adage has just released a report that basically sums up the state of online marketing advertising.

Titled Building Brands Online, it actually provdes a very detailed look at all the arguments of branding vs direct response, the results of various research into the effectiveness of online advertising, the problems and opportunites faced not just by online marketers but by the marketing and advertisng industry as a whole.

It's not a light read, but it is an essential one. Sort of like an online marketing and advertsing primer for 2010.

Some of the interesting points are:

Traditional offline advertsing still accounts for the vast majority of marketing and advertising spending accounting for:

Online Conversion Rate Calculator

Try our online Conversion Rate Calculator to see how much extra business you can gain just by using smarter marketing techniques.

Are you at 2% like almost everyone else, or closer to 40% like the very best?

Try it and see.

The Problem With Viral Videos

Or Viral Anything - Why chasing viral video success is a bad idea.

Great article from Advertising Age on the why focusing on trying to create viral content isn't helpful for your business.

http://adage.com

Regular readers of this column may suspect that I'm continually bashing online video, I'm not. I just don't see it being used very well that often.

This article sums up my thoughts pretty well.

Why the Old Spice Guy Campaign Flops

Was the "Old Spice Guy" campaign really successful? A lot of respected marketing and ad people had their doubts right from the beginning, and evidence is starting to emerge that the campaign's success may be as limp as a dead fish.

The arguments about it's success or failure centre around the age old divide in advertising and marketing about whether the purpose of an ad is to sell something or win creativity awards.

As far as the latter is concerned, there is no doubt that the ad is brilliantly creative and hugely entertaining, but did it actually boost sales of Old Spice?

Kill Your Online Marketing Guru

"If you meet your guru on the road, knock him on the head and kill him."

Old eastern spiritual saying.

Such old wisdom applies even more to modern online marketing. Snake oil seems to abound, and it's often hard to determine who really knows what they are talking about.

The following video aptly portrays the dangers of blindly following self proclaimed gurus, social media or otherwise.

Warning: Mild coarse language is used. It's also very funny.

Marketers See Thru Seth Godin

Recently a post appeared over on Linkedin's Digital Marketing Group over one of Seth Godin's blog posts.

In a nutshell it seems that many marketers have a pretty low opinion of Godin.

The original author of the Linkedin post originally feared she was going to get hate mail over her criticism.

Instead she found many marketers had an even harsher opinion than hers.

Comments such as "empty suit" and "regurgitator of other people's ideas" were among some of the colourful descriptions.

Also, see this video on the problems of online marketing gurus.

Online Video Sucks

After you've finished choking on your Red Bull, we can begin today's lesson. Darren Rowse over at Problogger recently posted about why he always transcribes his video's on his blog.

And judging by the response he got, many people feel the same way about the need to always provide a transcription.

Rowse's three main reasons were:

1: Accessibility: Some people simply can't consume video, whether it be from technical reasons or disability reasons.

2: Learning Styles: Some people just don't like videos, or prefer other ways of getting their information.

3: SEO: Search engine obviously love textual content.

Rowse's post highlights a bigger issue in that the explosion of online video is being greatly abused by many people. While video is a powerful means of communicating, it is not a magic solution for all your online marketing desires.

Email Still Beats Social Media

Email still remains the king of online marketing, and even snail mail performs much better than social media.

A recent survey by Crossview revealed that 39% of customers preferred to receive promotional messages via email as opposed to just 9% from social media.

The old fashioned direct mailer (via snail mail) also remains a potent tool, with 23% preferring it over social media.

That's not to say that social media isn't an effective tool, it's just that as marketers and business owners we need to keep perspective on where we're focusing our marketing efforts.

In other words don't abandon email and mailers for the latest "flavour of the day" internet marketing technique.

Kiss and Sell - Conversion Rate Optimization - Tip # 4

The simpler you can make your online processes the better.

The easier it is for your customers to interact with your site

the more money you’ll make,
the more leads you’ll get,
the more conversions you’ll get etc.

Just think of Google.

Late to the search engine game, it made searching so simple it eventually trumped all the long established players. (Some of you don’t even know who the players were before Google.)

Not only did Google become the premier search engine, it went on to become one of the dominant technology companies, even putting the wind up Microsoft.google

Simplicity is a very powerful marketing tool. Don’t under estimate it.

Remember the KISS principle – Keep it Simple Stupid.

Conversion Rates - The Missing Improvement Secrets

Conversion rates can be 400% higher or more when running a marketing campaign. This means there is more to website conversion rate improvement than conventional conversion rate practices such as landing page optimisation, and tweaking website design factors.

Offline and offsite marketing factors such as better advertising, better offers, better products etc are equally as effective.

The fact that marketing/ advertising campaigns can increase conversion rates by four or even eight fold seems obvious in hindsight. It’s really just marketing 101: If you’re marketing is any good it should be driving more highly qualified customers to your website who are more likely to convert at a higher rate. (If that isn’t happening then review your marketing and your landing pages.)

But the effect of good marketing brings up a number of key points that aren’t usually part of the current conversion rate improvement conversation.

Busy People Don't Blog

For most of this year I have been extremely busy. Too busy to blog regularly. Also, everyone I know is very busy. So it got me thinking:

"Who has time to blog?"

Not many of us as it turns out.

According to a recent Technorati survey, of the 100's of millions of blogs it tracks over 95% have been abandoned. And while that still leaves about 10 million, only 1% of them are getting read.

Are we all too busy or did we just get bored?

How Much Does SEO Cost?

photo credit: bradleygee

“… optimizing one site will take five people a whole year and cost $500,000 …” according to Craig Macdonald, CMO of Covario.

Mr Macdonald was talking about something else when he made this comment, but the impact of this casual remark immediately struck me.

Many companies seem to regard search engine optimisation as something that can be done on the cheap and by lowly paid personnel.

Well, you get what you pay for.

Everybody seems to recognise the importance of SEO, but few seem willing to pay to have it done properly and professionally.

Ten Free Online Marketing Tools

A while back, I put together a list of 10 free tools to enable you to build an online business for free. (Actually, it ended up being 21, but who’s counting.)

Anyway, I already have another 10 that I just have to tell you about, that are not only free but actually really very useful.

How Word of Mouth Marketing Works

A real life example.

Today I signed up a client to Jobthread , an easy to use jobs board service. I heard about Jobthread from the wonderful Society for Word of Mouth , (SWOM) which I in turn found out about from Michele Miller of Wonder Branding and co-author of "The Soccer Mom Myth ".

I found out about Michele from Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg at Future Now who I was fortunate enough to have worked with many years ago.

This is a very definite path, and one I can personally recognise.

Can This Be Measured?

Content is Not King - it is Supreme

How Web 3.0, the Semantic Web Will Affect Everything

The web of the future is going to make content supreme. What’s more, it’s going to make it incredibly valuable in ways that may finally see content creators get real reward and value for their efforts.

Almost since the start of the modern web, industry experts have been continually saying that Content is King: And they’ve been right, but now they’re right in ways that they couldn’t have possibly imagined.

The coming semantic web, known variously as the data web, microformats, FOAF, RDF, Linked Data, Web 3.0 and a whole host of new acronyms is pointing to big changes in cybersphere.

Yahoo recently announced it was embracing semantic web standards , and has already released some interesting tools that point to the future. Many are seeing this as a good thing and direct challenge to Google.

The End of Google?

How To Get More Customers Online

Some interesting reports have recently been released detailing what techniques and strategies many direct marketers are using to acquire and keep customers.

Direct marketers are usually the sharpest cookies in the marketing arena because they are obsessed with producing financial results, and will usually do whatever it takes to turn a dollar. (No bad taste jokes please.)

Therefore, they are usually worth listening to as they can always back up their marketing strategies with hard results.

The Number One Tactic

According to Target Marketing’s Media Usage Report, the number one tactic for getting more customers and giving the strongest return on investment (ROI) was direct mail.

That’s the printed, personal letter in an envelope with stamp kind of mail.

To Market Online You Must Market Offline

Traditional offline marketing is one of the most effective ways of driving qualified customers to your online business.

However, it is often totally overlooked by many in the ecommece and online marketing arena. Scratch any online marketer and you'll find an almost obsessive focus on search engine optimization, search engine marketing and online advertising.

There will probably be some talk about email marketing, and, if they are really on the ball, a discussion about conversion rate improvement, but traditional offline marketing methods will probably barely rate a mention.

As a business owner, this means you're missing out on a huge opportunity to drive customers to your site and generate revenue.

Traditional marketing's effectiveness at generating online customers was recently highlighted in research by The e-Tailing Group.

It found that consumers are most motivated to go online after:

Online Advertising Doesn't Work - Yet More Evidence

I recently came across a DoubleClick report entitled: Video Ad Benchmarks: Average Campaign Performance Metrics, which enthused about how video ads were 5 times more effective than graphic ads.

“Big deal,” I thought. Traditional graphic ads, banner ads etc have a click thru rate barely above zero, so 5 times zero is still nothing.

My assessment was confirmed later in the report where it stated: “…the click-rate for plain GIF or JPG image ads based on DoubleClick data is approximately 0.1%”

So let’s be clear about this. For every 1,000 people who see the ad, only 1 will actually click on it. If you couple that with the appallingly low conversion rates of 2% for most sites, then you need 50,000 people to see the ad just to make one sale.