When I first started doing conversion science back in 2006, I ruined several laptop screens. You see, it is very important that I be able to markup pages for my clients.
I started with crayons. However, it became more and more difficult to get the colors off of my laptop screen. Plus, the markup didn’t travel with the image.
Eventually, the crayons left ghosted images on the screen, like a burned plasma display.
Then, I found the pen computer. Now, I can create, markup and take notes analog style, with instant conversion to digital.
A Snapshot of Pubcon
One benefit of the modern pen computer is the ease with which analog input can be shared. So, I thought I would share some of my notes with you.
I chose these based on the following criteria:
1. I took notes
Many presenters don’t realize this, but you have to be “note-worthy.” You have to tee us up to take notes. You’re presentation has to be somewhat logically organized. You can’t throw too much at us too quickly, because we’ll just give up.
2. I was able to take notes on my computer
Props to PubCon for providing extension cords and power strips for us.
3. My notes are somewhat legible.
You be the judge.
Some People Prefer This
Some people prefer this mix of visual cue and text. You may find it helpful.
Click on any of the images to see a full-resolution version.
Some People Prefer Summaries
Here are some of the things I gleaned from notes that didn’t pass the three-point test:
Video
OneTrueMedia Video Editing and hosting
TrafficGeyser (use with care)
TubeMogul
12Seconds.tv
YouTube Insight
Google TV
YouTube Wonder Wheel
Handbrake Video Compressor
Why would I pay to advertise free information? Does it make sense?
The answer is, “Yes.” On December 10, I’m going to show you the techniques marketers use to make it pay, and I’m going to do it with your content.
Why, you might ask, does it make sense to use your scarce marketing dollars to advertise free stuff? The answer is this:
At any given time, more people are considering a product or service like yours than are ready to buy a product or service like yours.
Many more.
Thus, if you can get the attention of someone while they’re still thinking about how to solve a problem, you can expect more of them to visit you when they ARE ready to buy.
The key is content that converts, the kind of educational, helpful, informative content that your business generates all of the time. You may say, “My business doesn’t generate any online information.” Oh, but it does.
It’s hiding in plain site. It’s in the product specifications you write. It’s in the sales presentations you’ve created. It’s in the blog posts that you’ve written. It’s in the emails that your most grateful customers have written you.
Is it smart to advertise free stuff? It’s not actually free if you’re generating leads
If you are doing lead generation, your information isn’t free. The consumer of this helpful and informative knowledge pays with their attention, with a little information about themselves and by extending you some permission – on credit – to continue conversing with them.
The key is content that converts, the kind of educational, helpful, informative content that your business generates all of the time.
The results may well be better than your benefit-oriented ad copy
If I have decided to solve my problem with a product or service like yours, a benefit- or discount-oriented ad will do the trick. However, if I am part of the much larger audience that is still “in the question,” I won’t even know how to process your offer.
Content can help me decide. It can help me make cost tradeoffs. It can help me sell a solution to my boss. It can help me understand the real cost of not solving the problem. It can help me rationalize a purchase.
Which desk drawer is your gold hiding in?
You’re invited to spend a day with me and a panel of smart marketers as we transform plain, everyday information into content that sells.
Join us on December 10 in Austin, Texas for BYOContent: The Extreme Conversion Makeover Workshop.
By the time you leave, you will know:
How to identify ordinary content that your visitors will find extraordinary
How to present it in ads and on your website so that visitors can’t miss it
How to use it to generate leads with it
How to use it to entice prospects to buy
Where to find the free and inexpensive tools needed to transform and deliver your content
Join me, Apogee Search’s Alissa Ruehl, online marketing expert Jane Dueease and a room full of smart people like you as we turn ordinary information into online content that will grow our businesses.
Act before Thanksgiving, and we’ll knock $50 off the price. Breakfast, lunch, and a snack are on us.
If the Web is important to your business, this will be one of the most eye-opening events of the year.
Of course, I’d appreciate you sharing this email with other businesses, but don’t send it on until you’ve secured your own seat. I like to keep my workshops somewhat intimate.
Get the details and reserve your place in the room. This is going to be a fun one.
About eighteen months ago, the SEO agency of which I was then a member was hired by a company in the travel industry. Their websites were seeing a 20% drop in traffic from Google. Even more worrisome was the nearly 25% drop in sales from Google.
Meanwhile, their keyword monitoring tools were saying everything was fine. Their tools watched several thousand keywords on a monthly basis, and the rankings had not substantively changed. If a keyword was third last month, it was third again this month.
We were tasked with determining the cause of the drop and prescribing a remedy.
The culprit was the new Google Maps business listing. These are the seven (at that point ten) listings that come up with the Google Map on queries with locational intent.
Austin plumber Sample Google Maps business listing.
Note: The example image is from a different industry than the client in order to protect the client’s identity.
These Google Maps had begun popping up for a large number of the client’s search terms. A keyword that was third in the organic listings was likely to be pushed below the fold. As a result, the traffic from Google was dropping precipitously.
And conversion was dropping at an even higher rate. Clearly, it was the best traffic that was being lost.
I would posit that this represents the biggest change to Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) since they began including paid listings above the natural listings.
Does Local SEO Matter for You?
If your business needs to generate website visitors, phone calls, or foot traffic from people in particular geographies, then local SEO is likely appropriate for you.
Do your keywords include a city (or neighborhood in them)? When you search on them, is the so-called 7-pack (or any Google Map) returned?
Google is constantly enlarging the universe of keywords that generate map results. So if the map is not returned today, it may begin doing so in the future.
Google is even assuming local intent when none is expressly stated.
For instance, if you search on [coffee shop], Google will determine your location from your IP address, and return you a list of coffee shops your area.
Impact on Conversion Rate
The impact of this change by Google can hardly by overstated. Even if you’ve worked your website to the top of the organic listings, the addition of the Google Map listings will have a substantial impact on Click Through Rate (CTR) and post-click conversion rate.
Which begs the question, what impact does placement within the 7-pack have on CTR?
While no studies have been published on this topic as yet, the assumption is that the curve of traffic decline within the seven maps listings is not as steep as it is for the ten organic listings.
Also, the company name within the Google Maps listing can have an effect. Known, branded companies certainly have an advantage. And those that are nothing but a list of keywords are likely at a conversion disadvantage.
Reviews and Their Impact on Conversion Rate
The Google Maps business listings very prominently list the reviews a company has received. These reviews may have been placed directly with Google, or may have been pulled into Google from third-party systems such as CitySearch.
The number of reviews greatly impacts the ranking of the business listings. If all else is equal (which it never is, of course), the ranking with the greater number of reviews will be higher. A large number of reviews can overcome many other deficiencies in Google Maps optimization.
I have not seen any studies on the impact of the number of reviews on conversion, but I expect they are positively correlated. If there are two listings, one with twenty-five reviews and one with no reviews, people will tend to look at the business with reviews first.
And while the quality of reviews has little to no impact on rankings, it can certainly have a significant impact on conversions.
This is not to say that an occasional bad review is going to drive you out of business. We’ve all read reviews from clearly unreasonable people, and most people will give a company the benefit of the doubt.
But if the preponderance of reviews are negative, and the reviews seem reasonably written, you had better work to improve your product/service quality, and encourage happy customers to write reviews for you.
Brian Combs is the founder of ionadas local, a provider of Google Maps optimization in Austin, Texas. ionadas local 13359 N Hwy 183, #406-245, Austin, TX 78750, (512) 501-1875
It was a room full of very smart, inquisitive and curious communicators. We spent two days immersed in the challenge of giving our Web site visitors what they need, and in doing so, knew we’d be growing our businesses.
Brian Massey presenting at DMA 09.
You know the experience: you’re engaged in a conversation or a training or reading a book, and you KNOW everything you’re taking in is true. In fact, you already new much of it.
But, at work, where you’re supposed to be exercising these truths, conversations like this don’t happen. What is that all about?
We covered a lot of ground in my DMA 90 pre-conference intensive “Optimizing Your Web Site for Conversion and Business Success.” I learned a great deal from my audience.
But underneath the energy was an undertow dragging us away from shore. It was the knowledge that we would be returning to marketing departments that are understaffed, under budgeted, and — worst of all — focused on the wrong things.
I heard it from many attendees.
We don’t have the resources to do the things we need to do
Dear CMO, have you considered building an organization that doesn’t have the resources to NOT do the things you need to do? What would that look like?
Let them communicate
It would be a group of people so focused on delivering content that the prospect needs, that they wouldn’t even consider wasting time on the self-aggrandizing, posing communication that so many brands seem to treasure.
Clear the obstacles
They would sweep obstacles out of the way (this is really your job, CMO) so that they could communicate faster, with better data and known results.
They would have ways of working with IT and legal so that their communications are frequent, human and transparent.
Let them experiment
They would make many mistakes, but they would only make them once. They would know which half of their advertising wasn’t working.
Think of an entrepreneurial product development group.
Let them publish
They would produce a volume of content far greater than they do now, with greater accuracy, consistency and efficiency.
Think of a world-class newspaper.
Marketers, take the reigns
A little of the Schwag I collected at DMA 09
If you want to see the most amazing collection of schwag, go to a marketing conference. What surprised me was the amount of goodies that were given away without any qualifying activity.
This is not lead generation or even demand generation.
If you get the freedom to communicate, do so with all of your heart, knowledge and art.
If you want to join a group of marketers and business owners bent on communicating, join us on December 10 in Austin, Texas for the BYO Content Extreme Conversion Makeover. You’ll soon have the leads and revenues that prove you’re a communicator.
‘Bring your most tired white papers, your most mundane articles, and your raw video. We’ll show you how to weave it into a conversion scenario that will generate leads and sales for your business.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Teach a woman to fish and you feed a village.
Every entrepreneur should come to understand what microcredit is teaching us. This movement is teaching us about the very foundation of our free enterprise system. It is teaching us where compassion lives within our framework of self interest. It is showing us that we are right to believe that opportunity brings out the best in us in ways that charity does not.
In terms of providing “aid” to struggling countries, the US is quite generous. However, the results of our aid are often heart breaking, with much of it being wasted by the governments that are supposed to get it to their people.
Charity has its place. Opportunity, however is the jet engine that moves charity to increase a person’s standard of living. As Americans, we believe that opportunity is the seed from which freedom springs.
Microcredit is opportunity. It is the process of making small loans to individuals in countries that do not share our freedoms… yet. These loans are given to individuals who wish to build businesses in their communities. Initial loans are often no more than US$50.00. Payback rates are well above 90%, and typically approach 100%. It is women who are taking the most advantage of microlending opportunities. This is good, because they tend to invest their profits in their children and their community.
Discover Hope uses music to foster entrepreneurship for export
DiscoverHope is a “blended” microcredit organization headquartered in Austin and focusing on South America. I support DiscoverHope because they don’t just loan money, but have built education centers to teach their clients how to build and run a business.
I love the thought that my donations to DiscoverHope will create value over and over and over. This is what we want in our businesses. Why not demand it of our giving?
DiscoverHope is home-grown goodness, started right here in Austin, Texas. In classic Austin tradition, DiscoverHope is using music to express their gratitude and raise more funds for sprouting entrepreneurs in Peru. It’s Saturday, September 26.
You should buy a ticket. The $25 you pay goes right to DiscoverHope activities.
You should also plan to come. You’re going to meet people who have a positive, expansive vision for how we can give back some of the bounty we enjoy here in America.
Do you give out of guilt, or give out of gratitude? Come mingle in a room full of the grateful, and see if you don’t start the next day with a fresh attitude.
Conversion Sciences is a proud sponsor of Band Together for Hope and a donor to DiscoverHope.
Would you believe that e-mail marketing is still in its infancy?
A couple of graphs from MarketingSherpa drive an important point home about the use of e-mail for marketing. It works, it has always worked, and it will continue to work. You just have to know how to use it.
House list email continues to outperform third-party email in 2009.
In this graph, “Emailing to house lists” falls behind “Pay-per-click search ads.” However, since fewer marketers are reducing the use of house list email, it should be #1.
I’ll go so far as to state this:
If you don’t have your email marketing efforts nailed, you have no business investing in social marketing.
Social marketing has its place, and is not a fad. But, we know so much about good, permission-based email marketing, that it is criminal to ignore it. Don’t let email superstitions drive your marketing strategy.
The more sophisticated a marketer you are, the more likely you are to use house list email marketing.
MarketingSherpa has some choice interpretations of this graph:
Those that see the effectiveness of their email programs diminishing are much more likely to have short-sighted organizational attitudes toward the tactic.
Organizations with investment-oriented views of email reap the rewards. They have higher open, click and conversion rates. In addition, they are much more likely to have a metrics-based grasp of how email works for them. Those with the “email is free” view, on the other hand, are more likely to fall into the group that doesn’t track conversion.
It is so easy to measure email’s effectiveness, that I would argue that you can’t call yourself a marketer if you’re not watching your results. We call you a spammer.
You’re not marketing if your not measuring.
Essential for any Considered Purchase
If all of your customers buy spontaneously on their first visit and never buy again, then you may not need to invest in email marketing. I don’t know of any business like this.
If your customers take weeks or months to come to a purchase decision, you cannot ignore email. Email is the biggest social network on the planet. Even retirees use email.
Your House List is the list of people who have given you permission to enter their inbox. This means they want what you have, and should be given every opportunity to opt out.
Email Isn’t Promotional, It’s Social
Don’t use email purely to promote sales and discounts. Use it to educate, inform and entertain. If you have a blog, send your most interesting posts via email. Most of us aren’t using RSS. Email is your ticket to growing your blog readership.
Then simply advertise in your own emails.
It’s Time to Get Your Email On: Get Started Now
It does take time to build your house list, so start now. Email can be fun if you’re sending content that reflects your passion for your company, your industry and your brand.
Then you can start investing in the smaller, less intimate social networks out there.
Personas provide three powerful points that will help you focus your marketing and advertising dollars, and justify more spending.
This is why Personas can mean bigger online projects.
The power of fake people
Imagine your most important customer, let’s call her Melissa, walking into your meeting room and laying the law down to your manager, telling them exactly what she wants from your Web site.
Now imagine that she’s not just your most important customer, but a representative of hundreds or thousands of your customers. Would she be able to change minds and influence decisions?
This is the power of Melissa. She is your Market Segmentation Study personified. She is your analytics report in a skirt. She is legal counsel for your creative team and a force to be reckoned with.
Melissa is an example of a persona. She represents the desires and fears of a large number of your prospects and customers in the most human and compelling way.
She isn’t real, but she will seem more real than any chart you can concoct.
Personas provide three powerful points that will help you focus your marketing and advertising dollars, and justify more spending. This is why Personas can mean bigger online projects.
Why Personas Have So Much Power
Roy H. Williams puts it best.
“Your business has three or four customers living at thousands of different addresses.”
Get to know them and they will lead you in the right direction.
Personas provide three powerful points that will help you focus your marketing and advertising dollars, and justify more spending.
1. You can Relate to People More Than Data
Melissa has a name, a face and a story. She is the perfect age, has the right income, and the ideal home environment to represent large numbers of your customers. With each little decision that marketers and business people make each day, you can ask, “What would Melissa do?” Each time you’re asked to make changes to your messaging, media, or offers, you can ask, “Would Melissa want this?”
You will relate to her as a marketer, manager, owner, CEO, Vice President or agency. This means better decisions, defendable positions, and consistent execution. Melissa is good.
2. Personas Create Consensus
The process of creating personas must involve anyone who would “know” Melissa. She is the personification of data, sales experiences, product research, customer support calls and personal experience. To make her whole, you must involved these functions in her creation.
Then, when budget time comes around; when knee-jerk initiatives seek to copy a competitor; when programs are proposed that are questionable, everyone will remember Melissa when you invoke her name.
3. Personas Turn Your Focus Outward
In any organization, it is easy to turn inward; to focus on the next product or the next campaign. Too many marketing conversations begin, “How can we get our message out more?”
Melissa changes the conversation.
“What could we do to get Melissa interested faster?”
“Why isn’t Melissa visiting the site?”
“What does Melissa need to know to go ahead and buy?”
These questions are fundamentally different. They are outward looking. Everything from strategy to copy to design will open to Melissa like a flower, and she will react.
The Key Components of an Online Persona
I’ll be covering the key components of an online persona in my SXSW Panel, provided you vote for it and it gets accepted.
I’ll also show you some of the decisions personas have influenced for my clients.
Social Media is not just about creating more Awareness.
There are some very specific things you want to accomplish when you engage your prospects and customers.
You want them to use your product, service or communication.
You want to help influence their opinion of your product, service or communication.
You want to help them talk about your product, service or communication.
This is the Social Media Cycle as defined by Dave Evans. It has two distinct parts:
The pre-purchase funnel
The post-purchase funnel
The Social Funnel includes both the traditional and post-purchase funnels
It is important to define “purchase” for the sake of our conversation. Your customers may only have “purchased” a communication, paying with their time, attention and contact information if they want to continue the conversation. So, downloading a sample is modeled as a “purchase” in this scenario.
Just as it takes a series of “conversions” to move a prospect through the traditional sales funnel — to Awareness, then Consideration, then Action — you must likewise move them through the post-purchase funnel.
This is How You Prioritize Your Social Media Strategies
Yes, you have to convert a buyer into a user.
Then you have to help them form an opinion. Social media is great for this, because others’ opinions will shape their opinion. Focus on strategies that reveal what others are saying about your service or brand.
Finally, you must convert those with an opinion into talkers. Provide ways for them to share their experience. They will, in turn help you:
1. Convert more users into opinion holders
2. Direct new prospects to your funnel, often starting them in the Consideration stage
Look at any product description on any website. Peruse any brochure. You will find a list of features designed to tell you why the product will do the things you need it to do to solve your problem.
Communications Products are the first purchase
They will probably have a check mark next to them.
What you will not find on these lists are features like these:
A helpful website so you make the right decision
Informative reports and white papers offered free of charge
An active Facebook page full of the opinions of our users
A well-labeled box placed in the right part of the store so you can easily find it
How a product or service communicates is not considered an important feature. This is why marketers — who develop the communication features — struggle to keep their staff and budgets during a downturn. This is why Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) don’t have a seat at the executive table with the CEO, President, COO and CFO.
To the executives, marketing doesn’t create products or sales. Marketing is a cost center.
Prospects actually become customers when they buy your communication products
The first purchase a prospect makes from your company is a communication product. It is the flyer, brochure, website, report, article, press announcement, blog post, webinar, etc. that you provide, ostensibly to help them understand how your product will help them solve a problem or entertain them.
They only occasionally pay with money. More often, they pay with their time, their attention, or with their contact information to continue the conversation. Since they don’t pay with money, marketing never shows up on the bottom line. It’s always seen as a cost.
Now, if a customer is satisfied with their “purchase,” they become a repeat customer taking more communication products. They also buy your company’s offering — for real money. Sales will get credit for the latter.
The mistake marketers make is creating communication products that are only focused on persuading prospects to buy the money-based products. How would things change if they focused on building great communication products instead?
The New Marketing Department
Imagine a marketing department run like a product development department. How would that change the focus?
Marketing Department
Communications Products Department
Develops campaigns
Develops products that communicate (educate, inform and entertain)
Creates promotional content
Creates relevant, educational, or entertaining content
Targets product users
Targets influencers, approvers and gatekeepers as well as product users
Watches marketing metrics and buzz
Watches time spent with the “products,” customer satisfaction, repeat “buys”
Has a website
Provides online services to help prospects solve their problems
Creates a competitive matrix
Creates better communications products than competitors (who are stuck with a marketing department)
Prepares “messaging” and approved copy matrices
Discovers new ways to help their communications product customers
Stays “on brand”
Improves the brand with great communication experiences
Bases budgets on the cost of campaigns
Bases budgets on the feature set needed to win in the communications marketplace
Builds brand with frequency and relevance
Builds brand by frequently helping prospects find information they are looking for
Segments the marketplace and creates targeted messages for each segment
Creates buyer personas for their communication products, and then delivers the products that serve them
This list could go on. What would you add? Tell us in the comments.
I’ll be talking about how buyer personas drive bigger marketing budgets at ProductCamp Austin on Saturday, August 15. Come out and let’s talk about great communications products.
One Million Things I Learned at PubCon Las Vegas
News & EventsBrad Geddes, bgTheory.com
Tim Ash, SiteTuners.com
Kristine Schachinger, S@schachin
Heather Lloyd-Martin, SEOCopywriting.com
Mark Robertson, ReelSEO.com
Gillian Muessig, SEOmoz
Books to Read
I started with crayons. However, it became more and more difficult to get the colors off of my laptop screen. Plus, the markup didn’t travel with the image.
Eventually, the crayons left ghosted images on the screen, like a burned plasma display.
Then, I found the pen computer. Now, I can create, markup and take notes analog style, with instant conversion to digital.
A Snapshot of Pubcon
One benefit of the modern pen computer is the ease with which analog input can be shared. So, I thought I would share some of my notes with you.
I chose these based on the following criteria:
1. I took notes
Many presenters don’t realize this, but you have to be “note-worthy.” You have to tee us up to take notes. You’re presentation has to be somewhat logically organized. You can’t throw too much at us too quickly, because we’ll just give up.
2. I was able to take notes on my computer
Props to PubCon for providing extension cords and power strips for us.
3. My notes are somewhat legible.
You be the judge.
Some People Prefer This
Some people prefer this mix of visual cue and text. You may find it helpful.
Click on any of the images to see a full-resolution version.
Some People Prefer Summaries
Here are some of the things I gleaned from notes that didn’t pass the three-point test:
Tools to Check Out
Organic Keyword Search
SEO “Quake” Plugin
SEO for Firefox
Yahoo Site Explorer
Adwords Preview Tool
ExcellentAnalytics.com (Excel)
Tatvic
SEM Rush (Mark Jackson)
Google Trends
MSN Commercial Intention Tool
validator.w3.org
Bing Webmaster Tools
Landing Pages
RingLead.com Lead Management
Social Evaluation
Quarkbase
Woopra
Trackur (Andy Beale)
Brandseye
Twitter
Twitalyzer
WeFollow
Tracking Twitter
Twellow
Twilert
Facebook Apps
Sprout Publisher
AppBank
Involver
Facebook Notes
Site Design
MeasureIt Firefox Plugin
Aardvark Firefox Plugin
Colorzilla Firefox Plugin
Firebug Firefox Plugin
Headspace2 WordPress Plugin
WordPress Themes
Thesis ($)
Flexibility 2
Corrington
Affiliate Theme
eArtisteer (random theme generator)
Video
OneTrueMedia Video Editing and hosting
TrafficGeyser (use with care)
TubeMogul
12Seconds.tv
YouTube Insight
Google TV
YouTube Wonder Wheel
Handbrake Video Compressor
Is it smart to advertise free stuff?
Conversion Marketing StrategyThe answer is, “Yes.” On December 10, I’m going to show you the techniques marketers use to make it pay, and I’m going to do it with your content.
Why, you might ask, does it make sense to use your scarce marketing dollars to advertise free stuff? The answer is this:
Many more.
Thus, if you can get the attention of someone while they’re still thinking about how to solve a problem, you can expect more of them to visit you when they ARE ready to buy.
The key is content that converts, the kind of educational, helpful, informative content that your business generates all of the time. You may say, “My business doesn’t generate any online information.” Oh, but it does.
It’s hiding in plain site. It’s in the product specifications you write. It’s in the sales presentations you’ve created. It’s in the blog posts that you’ve written. It’s in the emails that your most grateful customers have written you.
Is it smart to advertise free stuff? It’s not actually free if you’re generating leads
If you are doing lead generation, your information isn’t free. The consumer of this helpful and informative knowledge pays with their attention, with a little information about themselves and by extending you some permission – on credit – to continue conversing with them.
The key is content that converts, the kind of educational, helpful, informative content that your business generates all of the time.
The results may well be better than your benefit-oriented ad copy
If I have decided to solve my problem with a product or service like yours, a benefit- or discount-oriented ad will do the trick. However, if I am part of the much larger audience that is still “in the question,” I won’t even know how to process your offer.
Content can help me decide. It can help me make cost tradeoffs. It can help me sell a solution to my boss. It can help me understand the real cost of not solving the problem. It can help me rationalize a purchase.
Which desk drawer is your gold hiding in?
You’re invited to spend a day with me and a panel of smart marketers as we transform plain, everyday information into content that sells.
Join us on December 10 in Austin, Texas for BYOContent: The Extreme Conversion Makeover Workshop.
By the time you leave, you will know:
Join me, Apogee Search’s Alissa Ruehl, online marketing expert Jane Dueease and a room full of smart people like you as we turn ordinary information into online content that will grow our businesses.
Act before Thanksgiving, and we’ll knock $50 off the price. Breakfast, lunch, and a snack are on us.
If the Web is important to your business, this will be one of the most eye-opening events of the year.
Of course, I’d appreciate you sharing this email with other businesses, but don’t send it on until you’ve secured your own seat. I like to keep my workshops somewhat intimate.
Get the details and reserve your place in the room. This is going to be a fun one.
Best regards,
Brian Massey
Conversion and Google Maps Optimization
Conversion OptimizationThis is a guest post by Brian Combs of ionadas local.
About eighteen months ago, the SEO agency of which I was then a member was hired by a company in the travel industry. Their websites were seeing a 20% drop in traffic from Google. Even more worrisome was the nearly 25% drop in sales from Google.
Meanwhile, their keyword monitoring tools were saying everything was fine. Their tools watched several thousand keywords on a monthly basis, and the rankings had not substantively changed. If a keyword was third last month, it was third again this month.
We were tasked with determining the cause of the drop and prescribing a remedy.
The culprit was the new Google Maps business listing. These are the seven (at that point ten) listings that come up with the Google Map on queries with locational intent.
Austin plumber Sample Google Maps business listing.
Note: The example image is from a different industry than the client in order to protect the client’s identity.
These Google Maps had begun popping up for a large number of the client’s search terms. A keyword that was third in the organic listings was likely to be pushed below the fold. As a result, the traffic from Google was dropping precipitously.
And conversion was dropping at an even higher rate. Clearly, it was the best traffic that was being lost.
I would posit that this represents the biggest change to Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP) since they began including paid listings above the natural listings.
Does Local SEO Matter for You?
If your business needs to generate website visitors, phone calls, or foot traffic from people in particular geographies, then local SEO is likely appropriate for you.
Do your keywords include a city (or neighborhood in them)? When you search on them, is the so-called 7-pack (or any Google Map) returned?
Google is constantly enlarging the universe of keywords that generate map results. So if the map is not returned today, it may begin doing so in the future.
Google is even assuming local intent when none is expressly stated.
For instance, if you search on [coffee shop], Google will determine your location from your IP address, and return you a list of coffee shops your area.
Impact on Conversion Rate
The impact of this change by Google can hardly by overstated. Even if you’ve worked your website to the top of the organic listings, the addition of the Google Map listings will have a substantial impact on Click Through Rate (CTR) and post-click conversion rate.
While no studies have been published on this topic as yet, the assumption is that the curve of traffic decline within the seven maps listings is not as steep as it is for the ten organic listings.
Also, the company name within the Google Maps listing can have an effect. Known, branded companies certainly have an advantage. And those that are nothing but a list of keywords are likely at a conversion disadvantage.
Reviews and Their Impact on Conversion Rate
The Google Maps business listings very prominently list the reviews a company has received. These reviews may have been placed directly with Google, or may have been pulled into Google from third-party systems such as CitySearch.
Both the number and the quality of reviews within Google have an impact.
The number of reviews greatly impacts the ranking of the business listings. If all else is equal (which it never is, of course), the ranking with the greater number of reviews will be higher. A large number of reviews can overcome many other deficiencies in Google Maps optimization.
I have not seen any studies on the impact of the number of reviews on conversion, but I expect they are positively correlated. If there are two listings, one with twenty-five reviews and one with no reviews, people will tend to look at the business with reviews first.
And while the quality of reviews has little to no impact on rankings, it can certainly have a significant impact on conversions.
This is not to say that an occasional bad review is going to drive you out of business. We’ve all read reviews from clearly unreasonable people, and most people will give a company the benefit of the doubt.
But if the preponderance of reviews are negative, and the reviews seem reasonably written, you had better work to improve your product/service quality, and encourage happy customers to write reviews for you.
Brian Combs is the founder of ionadas local, a provider of Google Maps optimization in Austin, Texas. ionadas local 13359 N Hwy 183, #406-245, Austin, TX 78750, (512) 501-1875
CMO, Let My People Go
Conversion Marketing Strategy, News & EventsIt was a room full of very smart, inquisitive and curious communicators. We spent two days immersed in the challenge of giving our Web site visitors what they need, and in doing so, knew we’d be growing our businesses.
Brian Massey presenting at DMA 09.
You know the experience: you’re engaged in a conversation or a training or reading a book, and you KNOW everything you’re taking in is true. In fact, you already new much of it.
But, at work, where you’re supposed to be exercising these truths, conversations like this don’t happen. What is that all about?
We covered a lot of ground in my DMA 90 pre-conference intensive “Optimizing Your Web Site for Conversion and Business Success.” I learned a great deal from my audience.
But underneath the energy was an undertow dragging us away from shore. It was the knowledge that we would be returning to marketing departments that are understaffed, under budgeted, and — worst of all — focused on the wrong things.
I heard it from many attendees.
We don’t have the resources to do the things we need to do
Dear CMO, have you considered building an organization that doesn’t have the resources to NOT do the things you need to do? What would that look like?
Let them communicate
It would be a group of people so focused on delivering content that the prospect needs, that they wouldn’t even consider wasting time on the self-aggrandizing, posing communication that so many brands seem to treasure.
Clear the obstacles
They would sweep obstacles out of the way (this is really your job, CMO) so that they could communicate faster, with better data and known results.
They would have ways of working with IT and legal so that their communications are frequent, human and transparent.
Let them experiment
They would make many mistakes, but they would only make them once. They would know which half of their advertising wasn’t working.
Think of an entrepreneurial product development group.
Let them publish
They would produce a volume of content far greater than they do now, with greater accuracy, consistency and efficiency.
Think of a world-class newspaper.
Marketers, take the reigns
A little of the Schwag I collected at DMA 09
If you want to see the most amazing collection of schwag, go to a marketing conference. What surprised me was the amount of goodies that were given away without any qualifying activity.
This is not lead generation or even demand generation.
If you want to join a group of marketers and business owners bent on communicating, join us on December 10 in Austin, Texas for the BYO Content Extreme Conversion Makeover. You’ll soon have the leads and revenues that prove you’re a communicator.
‘Bring your most tired white papers, your most mundane articles, and your raw video. We’ll show you how to weave it into a conversion scenario that will generate leads and sales for your business.
We’ll announce the details here shortly. Don’t miss the post.
Online Display Advertising Can Rock Your Marketing
Advertising CROEntrepreneurship – One thing the US could export to change the world
News & EventsEvery entrepreneur should come to understand what microcredit is teaching us. This movement is teaching us about the very foundation of our free enterprise system. It is teaching us where compassion lives within our framework of self interest. It is showing us that we are right to believe that opportunity brings out the best in us in ways that charity does not.
In terms of providing “aid” to struggling countries, the US is quite generous. However, the results of our aid are often heart breaking, with much of it being wasted by the governments that are supposed to get it to their people.
Charity has its place. Opportunity, however is the jet engine that moves charity to increase a person’s standard of living. As Americans, we believe that opportunity is the seed from which freedom springs.
Microcredit is opportunity. It is the process of making small loans to individuals in countries that do not share our freedoms… yet. These loans are given to individuals who wish to build businesses in their communities. Initial loans are often no more than US$50.00. Payback rates are well above 90%, and typically approach 100%. It is women who are taking the most advantage of microlending opportunities. This is good, because they tend to invest their profits in their children and their community.
Discover Hope uses music to foster entrepreneurship for export
DiscoverHope is a “blended” microcredit organization headquartered in Austin and focusing on South America. I support DiscoverHope because they don’t just loan money, but have built education centers to teach their clients how to build and run a business.
I love the thought that my donations to DiscoverHope will create value over and over and over. This is what we want in our businesses. Why not demand it of our giving?
DiscoverHope is home-grown goodness, started right here in Austin, Texas. In classic Austin tradition, DiscoverHope is using music to express their gratitude and raise more funds for sprouting entrepreneurs in Peru. It’s Saturday, September 26.
You should buy a ticket. The $25 you pay goes right to DiscoverHope activities.
You should also plan to come. You’re going to meet people who have a positive, expansive vision for how we can give back some of the bounty we enjoy here in America.
Do you give out of guilt, or give out of gratitude? Come mingle in a room full of the grateful, and see if you don’t start the next day with a fresh attitude.
Conversion Sciences is a proud sponsor of Band Together for Hope and a donor to DiscoverHope.
It’s Time to Get Your Email On
Conversion Marketing StrategyA couple of graphs from MarketingSherpa drive an important point home about the use of e-mail for marketing. It works, it has always worked, and it will continue to work. You just have to know how to use it.
House list email continues to outperform third-party email in 2009.
In this graph, “Emailing to house lists” falls behind “Pay-per-click search ads.” However, since fewer marketers are reducing the use of house list email, it should be #1.
I’ll go so far as to state this:
Social marketing has its place, and is not a fad. But, we know so much about good, permission-based email marketing, that it is criminal to ignore it. Don’t let email superstitions drive your marketing strategy.
The more sophisticated a marketer you are, the more likely you are to use house list email marketing.
MarketingSherpa has some choice interpretations of this graph:
Those that see the effectiveness of their email programs diminishing are much more likely to have short-sighted organizational attitudes toward the tactic.
Organizations with investment-oriented views of email reap the rewards. They have higher open, click and conversion rates. In addition, they are much more likely to have a metrics-based grasp of how email works for them. Those with the “email is free” view, on the other hand, are more likely to fall into the group that doesn’t track conversion.
It is so easy to measure email’s effectiveness, that I would argue that you can’t call yourself a marketer if you’re not watching your results. We call you a spammer.
Essential for any Considered Purchase
If all of your customers buy spontaneously on their first visit and never buy again, then you may not need to invest in email marketing. I don’t know of any business like this.
If your customers take weeks or months to come to a purchase decision, you cannot ignore email. Email is the biggest social network on the planet. Even retirees use email.
Your House List is the list of people who have given you permission to enter their inbox. This means they want what you have, and should be given every opportunity to opt out.
Email Isn’t Promotional, It’s Social
Don’t use email purely to promote sales and discounts. Use it to educate, inform and entertain. If you have a blog, send your most interesting posts via email. Most of us aren’t using RSS. Email is your ticket to growing your blog readership.
Then simply advertise in your own emails.
It’s Time to Get Your Email On: Get Started Now
It does take time to build your house list, so start now. Email can be fun if you’re sending content that reflects your passion for your company, your industry and your brand.
Then you can start investing in the smaller, less intimate social networks out there.
Personas Can Mean Bigger Online Projects
Conversion Marketing StrategyThis is why Personas can mean bigger online projects.
The power of fake people
Imagine your most important customer, let’s call her Melissa, walking into your meeting room and laying the law down to your manager, telling them exactly what she wants from your Web site.
Now imagine that she’s not just your most important customer, but a representative of hundreds or thousands of your customers. Would she be able to change minds and influence decisions?
This is the power of Melissa. She is your Market Segmentation Study personified. She is your analytics report in a skirt. She is legal counsel for your creative team and a force to be reckoned with.
Melissa is an example of a persona. She represents the desires and fears of a large number of your prospects and customers in the most human and compelling way.
She isn’t real, but she will seem more real than any chart you can concoct.
Personas provide three powerful points that will help you focus your marketing and advertising dollars, and justify more spending. This is why Personas can mean bigger online projects.
Why Personas Have So Much Power
Roy H. Williams puts it best.
Get to know them and they will lead you in the right direction.
Personas provide three powerful points that will help you focus your marketing and advertising dollars, and justify more spending.
1. You can Relate to People More Than Data
Melissa has a name, a face and a story. She is the perfect age, has the right income, and the ideal home environment to represent large numbers of your customers. With each little decision that marketers and business people make each day, you can ask, “What would Melissa do?” Each time you’re asked to make changes to your messaging, media, or offers, you can ask, “Would Melissa want this?”
2. Personas Create Consensus
The process of creating personas must involve anyone who would “know” Melissa. She is the personification of data, sales experiences, product research, customer support calls and personal experience. To make her whole, you must involved these functions in her creation.
Then, when budget time comes around; when knee-jerk initiatives seek to copy a competitor; when programs are proposed that are questionable, everyone will remember Melissa when you invoke her name.
3. Personas Turn Your Focus Outward
In any organization, it is easy to turn inward; to focus on the next product or the next campaign. Too many marketing conversations begin, “How can we get our message out more?”
Melissa changes the conversation.
“What could we do to get Melissa interested faster?”
“Why isn’t Melissa visiting the site?”
“What does Melissa need to know to go ahead and buy?”
These questions are fundamentally different. They are outward looking. Everything from strategy to copy to design will open to Melissa like a flower, and she will react.
The Key Components of an Online Persona
I’ll be covering the key components of an online persona in my SXSW Panel, provided you vote for it and it gets accepted.
I’ll also show you some of the decisions personas have influenced for my clients.
Give the panel idea your vote and then attend SXSW Interactive.
Meanwhile, check out Best Buy Customer Profiles or Personas.
This is How You Prioritize Your Social Media Strategies
Conversion Marketing StrategyThere are some very specific things you want to accomplish when you engage your prospects and customers.
This is the Social Media Cycle as defined by Dave Evans. It has two distinct parts:
The Social Funnel includes both the traditional and post-purchase funnels
Just as it takes a series of “conversions” to move a prospect through the traditional sales funnel — to Awareness, then Consideration, then Action — you must likewise move them through the post-purchase funnel.
This is How You Prioritize Your Social Media Strategies
Yes, you have to convert a buyer into a user.
Then you have to help them form an opinion. Social media is great for this, because others’ opinions will shape their opinion. Focus on strategies that reveal what others are saying about your service or brand.
Finally, you must convert those with an opinion into talkers. Provide ways for them to share their experience. They will, in turn help you:
1. Convert more users into opinion holders
2. Direct new prospects to your funnel, often starting them in the Consideration stage
Would you like to know which social strategies lend themselves to each of these conversions? Would you like to know how to measure your success in the post-purchase funnel?
Vote for my SXSW Panel “What is your Social Conversion Rate?” Then attend.
Your vote will help educate business owners and marketers on a model that will make social media more helpful and interesting for all of us.
The First Thing Your Customers Buy From You Isn’t Your Product
Conversion Marketing StrategyLook at any product description on any website. Peruse any brochure. You will find a list of features designed to tell you why the product will do the things you need it to do to solve your problem.
Communications Products are the first purchase
They will probably have a check mark next to them.
What you will not find on these lists are features like these:
How a product or service communicates is not considered an important feature. This is why marketers — who develop the communication features — struggle to keep their staff and budgets during a downturn. This is why Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) don’t have a seat at the executive table with the CEO, President, COO and CFO.
To the executives, marketing doesn’t create products or sales. Marketing is a cost center.
Prospects actually become customers when they buy your communication products
The first purchase a prospect makes from your company is a communication product. It is the flyer, brochure, website, report, article, press announcement, blog post, webinar, etc. that you provide, ostensibly to help them understand how your product will help them solve a problem or entertain them.
They only occasionally pay with money. More often, they pay with their time, their attention, or with their contact information to continue the conversation. Since they don’t pay with money, marketing never shows up on the bottom line. It’s always seen as a cost.
Now, if a customer is satisfied with their “purchase,” they become a repeat customer taking more communication products. They also buy your company’s offering — for real money. Sales will get credit for the latter.
The mistake marketers make is creating communication products that are only focused on persuading prospects to buy the money-based products. How would things change if they focused on building great communication products instead?
The New Marketing Department
Imagine a marketing department run like a product development department. How would that change the focus?
This list could go on. What would you add? Tell us in the comments.
I’ll be talking about how buyer personas drive bigger marketing budgets at ProductCamp Austin on Saturday, August 15. Come out and let’s talk about great communications products.
Photo courtesy lusi