Marketing Technology Blog
More efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability in marketing.
After more than a decade in the corporate marketing mix, is business blogging experiencing a 2nd wave of adoption? A recent survey (PDF) by HubSpot of over 600 American marketers, business owners and executives revealed that companies are still jumping on the corporate blogging bandwagon in droves – and, more importantly, many of them are using the blogs to generate what they report as above average results in terms of lead generation and sales.
Blogging sounds like old news, but in an online marketing world where everyone seems to be buzzing about Facebook, it’s worth remembering that blogging can be a very effective part of your marketing mix.
The percentage of all respondents in the survey with a company blog grew from 48% to 65% from 2009 to 2011 – a majority for the first time. Note: 76% of the professionals in the sample are in business-to-business companies (ranging from technology to professional services and consulting to banking, insurance and financial services to communications).
57% of the companies using blogs reported that they acquired customers from leads generated directly from their blog. This was an 11% increase over last year and about 10 percentage points higher than companies who acquired leads directly from Facebook or Twitter.
Interestingly, 55% of companies who blog reported that leads generated via their blogging channel cost less than the average lead. The highest instance of “below average [lead] cost” in the survey was attributed to blogging (as compared to social media, organic search, pay-per-click, direct mail and telemarketing).
85% of businesses rated their company blogs as useful, important or critical to their business. In fact, almost 30% rated their company blog as critical to their business.
With ever increasing numbers of internet marketing avenues vying for marketers’ attention, it’s easy to lose sight of proven standbys like blogging. This survey might be interpreted as suggesting that business blogging is experiencing a revitalization, but looking at the historical trends its clear that corporate blogs have just steadily and consistently become entrenched as time-tested online marketing tools.
Photo via juniorbird
Businesses that have been building presences on Facebook have, for the most part, been doing so without knowing definitively whether all the effort being put into social media is having a real impact on their search engine rankings. But a recent study from SEOmoz indicates that the correlation specifically between Facebook “Likes” or “Shares” and search engine rankings – at least on Google – is quite strong. In other words the more times your link is shared on Facebook, it appears, the better it will perform in Google rankings.
Social media marketing – such as on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn – has been perceived by many businesses as a stand-alone effort, one that could be executed in a separate silo from search engine optimization (SEO). But as SEOmoz examined the top 30 ranking results for over 10,000 Google searches performed late last month they found a significant correlation between links which were shared on Facebook and higher Google rankings.
SEOmoz was careful to point out that the study did not indicate causation; it merely highlights the correlation that may indicate the direct influence Facebook sharing has on Google rankings. As the researchers pointed out, however, Google’s public statements about the influence of social media on search rankings do support the idea of causation. As with everything related to Google’s search ranking algorithm, the Facebook/Google relationship is not as simple as “more Shares = better ranking”. For example, Google has indicated that there is some consideration of “author authority” – a key-influencer’s Facebook share may be measured and weighted more heavily in search rankings.
It is clear that social media (Facebook, specifically) will continue to have a growing impact on search engine results, which only further solidifies the argument that businesses should at least consider the social media giant as a part of their online marketing strategy.
Photo via ChannelShip; Chart via SEOmoz.org
Dec
R3R Manages the Re-Launch of Web’s Biggest Joint Replacement Patient Community Site
Posted by: Jeremy Reither
BoneSmart.org
We’re pretty pleased with the year-and-a-half-long project we just wrapped up with our client, BoneSmart.org. So we’re going to toot our own horn for a second…right after we toot our client’s horn.
When we met them, they had already created the most popular joint replacement patient community and information portal on the web, but they were growing so fast they were outgrowing the functionality of their website. We helped them bring their brand, marketing, and technical infrastructure to a level on par with their glowing reputation in the industry. The 18 month project, co-managed by R3R, involved teams in 3 countries, and culminated in the launch of a handful of new web-based patient outreach initiatives and a shiny new website (a one-of-a-kind joint replacement patient resource).
BoneSmart.org is more than just a website – it’s a well respected orthopedic patient outreach organization founded by former marathon runner, business man, and grateful joint replacement patient, Richard Warner. Mr. Warner’s background is in finance – not medicine, and not internet – so it is a testament to his passion, drive, and commitment to helping patients like himself that he founded BoneSmart, attracted direct sponsorships from virtually every major orthopedic manufacturer, and reached over a million people with the site in 2009 alone. By that time BoneSmart’s network of staff, board members, and associates numbered in the dozens – astounding growth for a niche non-profit – and we’re proud to say they looked to us to help them take their web presence to the next level.
Prior to the re-design, BoneSmart.org had over 30,000 pages of content and 2,500 active users. The organic growth that BoneSmart.org achieved in its early years (by providing an online patient forum, information about advances in joint replacement technologies, and a nation wide joint replacement clinic locator) will be compounded by the improvements made to each of its online services, as well as the new marketing tools, search engine optimized website, and media syndication processes we helped them put in place.
Our first major project with BoneSmart has ended, and we’ll be celebrating for a little while. But we’re partnering with them for the long term, and we’re going to ensure that this organization and their patient outreach program continue to thrive!
Oct
Studies Indicate Social Media & Search Marketing, 2 Tools That Work Well Together
Posted by: Carrie G.
Social and search as marketing tools
Social media’s whiz-bang-cool factor can sometimes make companies forget about their actual marketing communications goals. All the “marketing is no longer a monolog, but a dialog” stuff is impressive, because it means companies can easily communicate directly with consumers, but effective business use of social media should still help a company achieve its marketing goals. So how does social media stack up as a marketing tool? Turns out one of social media’s best benefits might be the boost it gives your search marketing campaign.
eMarketer featured a compelling article about how social media can boost search results. The article’s conclusions were based upon a BtoB magazine and Business.com online survey of 464 business to business marketers conducted in July of 2010. The survey attempted to answer what many SMB marketers must consider: what is the impact and ROI of social media on search performance?
Positive, Especially When Paired
When questioned about the overall impact of social media upon the search performance of their company’s website, marketers answered: >> Continue reading
Sep
Do doctors 'heart' greater transparency?
In a recent post about testimonials, I touched upon how consumers assign a high value to other consumers’ reviews and testimonials – more so than any other type of advertising, online or traditional. But in complex services industries, such as medical and legal, many practitioners have shied away from review websites due to the fact that consumers often don’t fully understand the services being rendered. Change is coming, however, as the healthcare industry gives into pressure to share patient satisfaction data online. What those groups with the highest ratings are bound to find out is that a satisfied customer is the best marketing tool around.
In the medical field, potential patients are now accessing online content to assist with their healthcare decisions per last year’s Pew Internet study on social media and health. Pew reported that 24% of patients have consulted rankings or reviews online regarding doctors, providers, hospitals, or other medical facilities. Consumer Reports has apparently taken note, according to the New York times, because they are now posting heart bypass surgery ratings online for subscribers, as well as in the October issue of their magazine. What’s more, the ratings will be made available to the general public through the Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ website.
An important differentiator between these ratings and, say, Yelp is that these ratings are peer reviewed and take into consideration criteria that can affect outcomes such as the patient’s health before surgery. These ratings do not name individual doctors, but, instead, rate surgical groups. Inclusion in the posted ratings is voluntary, with only a quarter of the eligible groups deciding to participate.
Groups can receive one to three stars, for below average, average, or above average, based on factors that include complication and survival rates, surgical techniques, and what medications are sent home with patients. The decision was made to share this information online, collected by the Society since 1989, according to Dr. Fred H. Edwards, the chairman of quality and research for the STS, due to various reasons: >> Continue reading
Practice good viral marketing hygiene!
Now that the “Old Spice Guy” campaign has been officially retired (the Old Spice Guy having been replaced by NFL star Ray Lewis in the latest OldSpice YouTube video), enough time has passed to measure results and see what ideas can be taken from this award winning campaign and applied to your own marketing efforts.
The Old Spice Guy first appeared in a humorous Super Bowl commercial in February as part of the ‘Smell Like a Man, Man’ campaign. There was some viral marketing build-up orchestrated by the Portland based Wieden+Kennedy marketing agency, who had established the Old Spice Channel on YouTube and made some smart decisions about SEM.
Follow-up commercials were released in June, but then came the genius move—for three days, July 12 – 14, the Old Spice Guy responded to questions and comments from the social media community in clever YouTube videos. Nearly two hundred real time Old Spice Guy responses were filmed and posted, setting new records for viral marketing engagement.
The first wave of results was the Internet success of these ‘Responses’ receiving 5.9 million views, with the entire campaign receiving 102 millions views to date (Sept 7, 2010). This much is clear, but sales results were a bit more dicey to judge. Incomplete data released in July suggested that Old Spice product sales actually dipped by 7%. But it appears that this initial data was wrong according to a case study video posted by W+K. Old Spice is now the number one body wash brand for men, per W+K and Brandweek, showing an increase in sales of 107% by the end of July in response to the social media campaign. Again, there exists speculation that this bump was due partly to coupon offers and similar promotions, but one school of thought is that the social media campaign was actually successful in boosting sales and in it’s overt goal of rebranding the product as cool and fun (no longer just for grandpa).
Lesson # 1 – Produce the Right Type of Video for Viral Marketing
The Old Spice Guy will held as an example for years to come of the right way to produce video meant to engage a viral following, i.e. have people send it to friends on Facebook, Twitter and link to it on their blog sites. Per this case study keeping the videos simple and brief was key to making them suitable for social media purposes. Too often videos can be too long or complex to engage viewers.
Lesson # 2 – Give up Creative Control
Another point one analyst made was that the videos were produced in real-time without months of production (compared to the average commercial), giving them an immediacy and relevancy to viewers. This allowed get-well wishes, marriage proposals, and other entertaining interactions to take place in the videos. Brands need to hand over a certain amount of control to allow this to happen. This all seems straight-forward, but be aware that the majority of viral marketing campaigns fail, either to find viewers, or to increase the bottom line through sales.
Lesson # 3 – Engage Influencers
There are influencers who can act as your SpokesBlogger or SpokesTweeter. Plan to identify, target, and engage these people in order to enable your campaign to go viral. Capture their attention. This is probably the most repeated best practice cited by the majority of opinion pieces written about this successful viral campaign – and in this case it’s right on point.
Photo credit: Bob Bobster
Sep
How do you measure success?
For any remaining doubters regarding whether social media has the ability to contribute to a business’ bottom line, a recent eMarketer article (via Hubspot) highlighted how the use of two social media outlets greatly increased the volume of monthly sales leads for small and medium sized businesses (SMB’s). The effective use of Twitter led to a doubling of lead volume in some cases, while frequently updated blogs bumped results by 40 percent (compared to businesses of the same size that did not use Twitter or blogs).
Creating a community of followers through Twitter and a regularly updated stream of content on a blog builds engagement, boosts the company’s presence on Google and ultimately bring in more potential customers.
Adoption of social media as a marketing platform for SMB’s is growing, and smart companies are taking cues from leaders in their industries – which are often much larger companies.
USAA’s Private Social Media Platform Boosts the Bottom Line
In a compelling case study of USAA (an insurance, banking and investment provider for military personnel and their families), the company built their own social media platform on their site. The platform allows customers to rate and review USAA’s products and services. Leads are measured by online applications and quotes received. In the first year since implementation of this social media feature, they have seen an additional ~16,000 products/policies sold.
USAA built its reputation and grew its member base largely through word-of-mouth. But in this digital age, USAA recognized the growing shift in how customers research and purchase products, and adapted its view to see social media and online user-generated content, including ratings and reviews, as the digital evolution of that word-of-mouth concept.
Small Insurance Agency’s Unconventional Facebook Policy Generates Leads
In the case of ISU Insurance Services – ARMAC agency, a family owned insurance agency in California utilizing social media metrics to guide their marketing strategy, CEO Krystal McEachron set up an Intranet to track all their social media activity on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. She then watched what specific social media activities led to an increase in traffic and leads via their website. For ISU ARMAC online marketing through social media has literally replaced the Yellow Pages, bringing in a couple hundred new leads each month. Facebook is their third largest source of leads, per the case study article.
Krystal also discovered that the greatest number of Facebook click-throughs to the corporate website came from individual employee Facebook pages (after employees comment and share regarding blogs or new content added to the fan page). She now encourages employees to update their individual Facebook pages during work hours – an atypical practice, as many small to medium businesses actually block access to social media sites.
Establish a Baseline and Track Your Results
A major benefit of digital marketing is all the user activity and web analytics that can be measured, giving you insight into which marketing campaigns had the greatest impact. This wealth of data that was never available with traditional advertising/marketing (newspapers, magazines, and television) is still under-utilized by SMB’s in general. Just establish a baseline and track your results!
How do you judge the success of your social media efforts? Website traffic? Leads? Brand awareness? Customer retention? Overwhelmingly, the metric of choice for service businesses is leads. Brand awareness and customer retention can be difficult to measure or attribute to a specific marketing campaign, and website traffic is nice, but it’s typically measured in aggregate and is not the web’s best measure of real customer engagement. A lead is the first step in identifying an individual consumer online, and therefore can be tracked all the way through the sales process to give a very granular idea of a marketing campaign’s return on investment.
Photo credit: StevenHarris
Trust Me, I'm a Testimonial
If ever there was a magic marketing ingredient that creates consumer trust, it’s the testimonial. No matter how artfully you describe your services, it’s not going to be as convincing as a legitimate testimonial from a previous client. But for some reason so many SMB service firms fail to provide them on their websites.
Not only are testimonials for a service provider the equivalent of product reviews for a retail business, but for especially complex and custom services, they’re so much more. Businesses will spend countless hours trying to describe the value they provide to customers – but a testimonial does one better by describing client satisfaction - that’s the real value consumers are seeking. >> Continue reading
Making Friends and Influencing Others
Among what Retail Info Systems News (RIS) considers the the top nine retailers in social media, there is not a single retailer that qualifies as a stand-out on more than one of the top three social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube). Even with their deep pockets these companies haven’t attained leadership levels of success on more than one channel – a focused social media marketing approach that smaller businesses can learn from.
In a recent blog from RIS, editor Joe Skorupa researched the top retailers utilizing the big three social media sites. He meant to compile a top ten list of leaders across all channels but he was disappointed to discover that there were not ten retailers who had dominant success across all three social media channels – there was not even one. In the end, Joe was forced to only name nine retailers that had a leading presence in one of the three channels.
His criteria were a million fans on Facebook; 10,000 followers on Twitter; or 100,000 channel views along with 500,000 upload views on YouTube. The companies who achieved at least one of these metrics (in alphabetical order) were Best Buy, Forever 21, Gap, Home Depot, REI, Sears, Target, Wal-Mart, and Whole Foods.
Knowing that none of these big name retailers have been able to dominate all three top social media channels offers a couple lessons in social media marketing: effective marketing and brand building via social media is much more complex than it appears; and dividing resources to conquer multiple channels is a likely path to mediocrity.
Photo credit: Luc Legay
Your Consumers Are Easier to Spot Online
Behavioral Targeting (BT) – the practice of directing advertising at users whose online activities suggest an interest in a specific product or service – is one of the hottest trends in online advertising today. User interest can be gauged using existing technologies that track a user’s activity online, over time. This information can be used by marketers (like you) for a customized online advertising campaign targeted at the individual users who are most likely to be interested in your ads.
Tracking technologies include: third party cookies, flash cookies, and beacons (little text files that are downloaded onto a user’s hard drive), upon visiting a site, which then track search queries, pages visits, ad clicks, and purchases.
You may be familiar with Amazon.com’s on-site Behavioral Targeting, which, based on tracking your searches and purchases, will recommend other related or complementary items that may interest you. Behavioral Targeting advertising takes it a step further, applying the same concept to the entire Internet. >> Continue reading
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