Kevin Kemp – WSI Digital Marketing Consultant

Blogging can be a very intimidating task, especially when you are just starting out.  There are some key things you need to remember when putting together your first blog and building your new marketing strategy.

1) Don’t worry about length - I frequently hear people ask – how long should it be?  300 words, 500 words, like an article, etc?  There is no hard and fast rule regarding the length.  What you need to remember is that the blog should be well-organized and focus on one subject or topic.

2) Optimize if for SEO – Blogging is a key strategy for developing you SEO strategy.  Leveraging keywords, headings, and proper descriptions will be a very important foundation for your SEO.  I always suggest pushing out your blogs into Social Media, it will allow for further links.

3) Target to your audience – it is important to talk to your audience.  Talk about subject matters that are important to them, making sure that the topics are of interest and will continue to attract them back to your blog site.

At WSI Digital Marketing we coach companies on how to build inbound strategies that will leverage effective blogging, SEO, SMO, content marketing, and analytics.  Contact us today.

Mobile marketing is increasing at a rapid rate with some estimates having it reach $2.6 billion this year. eMarketer truly believes that this growth will continue $11 Billion by 2016.  While this is obviously a large opportunity it is important to understand the demographic that is most receptive to understand if it fits within your strategy.  Research by eMarketer showed that most men between the age of 18 to 29 were far more receptive to mobile marketing.  They generally liked to receive the ads and also were more likely to remember the ads.  Results showed that 40% enjoyed receiving the ads while 20% said they liked it “very much”.  Women in the same demographic liked it “very much” at a rate of 3%, while liking it in general was 15% – far below the 40% for men of the same demographic.  Another important factor, men were significantly more likely than women to recall having seen a mobile ad on their mobile phone, at 69%.  As smartphone usage continues to increase, mobile marketing will become an effective and important strategy within companies marketing strategies, but it is key to ensure you are investing correctly to target your specific market

Many people question whether you use Social Media strategies for branding or customer acquisition.  Marketers have had differing opinions in the past, but now they are thinking that it is beneficial for both.  A study was completed by Wildfire Interactive, a social media marketing software company. Over 700 respondents told them that social media had driven brand awareness.  Even more interesting was that 85% said it allowed them to engage in dialogue with customers and 58% said it increased sales and partnerships.  Another interesting finding from the survey was the value of Facebook Fans.  44% said that fans are important for customer recruitment.  They also claimed that they offer a higher conversion rate and make more frequent pictures.  It appears that while branding still remains one of the stronger uses for social media strategies, increasing benefits with customer acquisition are continuing to grow in value for marketers.

Google launched Google+ in 2011 for two main reasons: 1) to enter into the social media world with a strong offering and 2) Google Buzz was a bust. If you think about who can influence search engine results faster, Google + is definitely the leader. Preliminary results have shown strong growth capturing 40 million users already – 1/3 the size of LinkedIn at 135 million. It still lags behind the 800 million users on Facebook, but it is climbing fast.

Google+ allows businesses to create pages and develop relationships with prospects and customers on multiple levels. Individuals can add a brand to a specific Google+ Circle, share a Google+ page with their network, and interact with the content posted by that company. It is an effective tool to grow your marketing on-line and will continue to grow even further.

Marketers are well aware that any social media platform is important, but one that offers numerous effective tools and is able to improve rankings is a key tool in the arsenal. Google+ will be able to interpret information through your circle, determining and ranking your effectiveness. Unlike Twitter which only shows total followers, Google+ will show the links, quality, and quantity you share with your circles. Another benefit that Google+ brings to search is that results become much harder to cheat. Google can now more easily determine who is a spammer, and watch how they try to influence search results. Google also rolled out its version of the tweet or share button, the +1. These +1 buttons appear in Google’s search results and can be embedded on other websites as well. They are tied to a destination page address, just like shares or tweets are. Google has done a great job in making it easy to use, segment your followers, target more effectively, and ultimately improve lead generation.

Well we do not know if this will be bigger then Facebook, you can determine that it is going to be an important player in the social media realm.

Part of the power of social media is the ability to have your fans promote your brand, product, or business name. While all of us are using Twitter and Facebook to promote our brands, the struggle is to get our fans to talk about it. AYTM Market Research found that 57.8% of US Facebook users had not mentioned a brand in their status updates. The good news, only 0.5% actually made negative comments. When looking at Twitter they found 61.3% of users have not tweeted about a brand. Again, a very low rate of negative tweets were seen – 0.4%. The biggest gain in social media is still yet to be opened. Getting your clients to talk about your brand will grow the power of social media and take your brand to the next level.

Twitter originally started as a simple tool for people to easily communicate with each other. By 2011 it has changed into a much larger, successful social media tool. Celebrities, companies, political leaders, and executives use it for many different reasons. Many of the people I meet with always ask how can a business use Twitter. There are many uses for Twitter, some of these include:
1) Market Research – engaging with followers allows companies to gather instant feedback. Ask questions, feedback will be provided by those that are following you.
2) Improving SEO – it is expected that your site evaluation will be impacted by your Social Media. Having many followers, heavy engagement, and using keywords with links to the site will help your SEO efforts.
3) Trend Analysis – Understanding local activity, trends, and what is going on in the market can all be gathered through your followers and by interacting with them.
4) Base Marketing – promoting activities such as trade shows, tweeting promotions, and allowing sales to gather leads will be a use for Twitter.
5) Business Development – Twitter can help you make contacts through your Followers. Asking your supporters, that would be the followers, if they know someone or can introduce you to someone. I constantly see this on other social networking sites such as Happylink and LinkedIn.
6) Customer Service – Answering simple, easy questions can be completed through Twitter
7) Lead Generation – By sharing your information – blogs, articles, seminars, etc. it will allow you to promote these through links back to the activity. By driving them back to a landing page, it will allow you to gather information through registrants.

There are so many uses for Twitter in business, but it starts with creating the strategy, goals, objectives, and laying out the plan. Once you are into the behaviour, you will be able to grow your business.

The growth of social media for business is one of the hottest topics I deal with on a daily basis. Most business leaders question the value for a B2B business, but openly acknowledge the benefit for B2C businesses. A study by Accenture reflects this common discussion. Based on their research only 7% felt they were heavily engaged in social media. Their biggest concern with entering the new marketing world – fear of having to go through the learning curve.
The big opportunity lies in understanding the available tools to simplify the day to day management, but also having the right strategy laid out. No business would invest millions into a new building without making it part of the overall strategy. That is where businesses need to make the first change, start thinking strategic at the lower invested strategies as well. Once you have a laid out strategy, the social media role will become much clearer.

Many people are trying to determine if they should use pay-per-click programs on search engines or also in social media. PPC is the ability to bid on keywords and have immediate exposure on the first page. First you must decide what the objective is for the campaign. We tell clients there are generally three main reasons that you would want to do PPC: 1) immediate exposure and drive sales, 2) branding, or 3) consumer research. If you are looking at doing it for sales, then a return on investment analysis should be completed. If you are using it for a branding strategy, it can be to gain exposure of your brand. This is an investment in getting as many visitors to your site as possible, but having just the impressions is important. Lastly, you can even test consumer response. By offering different incentives, using different ads, changing bids to adjust position, etc. are ways to test the reaction of customers. It is a very cost effective way to conduct consumer research. The second decision is whether you will conduct your ads on search engines or social media. This really comes down to your product, demographic, and how targeted you would like it to be. The key to maximizing your PPC campaign – quality landing page, properly written ads, knowing the right media to use, and understanding the proper budget required. It can seem overwhelming, but some people will do the research, invest the time, and learn through trial and error. Others will bring in an expert to get the job completed. Either way, PPC is an effective way to market your brand.

Microsoft Advertising and Advertiser Perceptions surveyed social media marketers in six countries around the world and found that 74% of them thought it was very important to have a presence on Facebook. The challenge is that many of these same marketers do not feel that the return on investment (ROI) is clearly measurable. This is where I have to disagree with them and feel that they are looking far too deep into developing a mathematical or statistical equation. It starts with the upfront assumptions and metrics you need to set prior to engaging in social media. Understanding why you are engaging in social media will allow you to set your metrics. If I am a B2C business, looking for aggressive growth, and I know that every 1 out of 10 people purchase from me I can build some metrics. If I understand the average sale per customer then I can take my estimated costs and determine what I need to see in sales. While social media does not drive sales directly, it does create them by creating new relationships. For example if I know the average sale is $100, my cost for social media marketing is $1,000 then I need 10 sales. To get ten sales, I will need to increase my new followers by 100 people. Now I factor in my level of growth and I have set some metrics on how many followers I need. This does not even measure customer loyalty, recurring revenue, or any other incremental volume driven by maintaining the relationship. While it may seem difficult to measure, it is more about being comfortable with your assumptions and understanding your business.

Today’s on-line marketing strategy always starts with blogging, yet the majority of people do not understand why they are blogging. Do you have an objective? A plan? KPI’s? If not, why are you doing it. It is important to understand why you are blogging. The two main objectives of blogging are usually to increase recognition or to increase engagement with clients or prospects. Once you identify what is your objective, then you can establish the plan. Understanding who you are targeting and why will allow you to develop a content plan that will make sure you are addressing the right subjects.

Now you need to understand what you will use as KPI’s. The key to any strategy is to make sure that you are measuring it effectively. This is where the KPI’s play a major role. For blogging you should set KPI’s such as:

• Audience growth- unique and returns
• Conversation rate
• Conversions
• Subscribers
• Inbound links
• Technorati, Alltop, and other directory listings
• SEO Improvements

With any strategy, it is important to make sure you have an objective, plan, and KPI’s to measure your success.