Online Marketing Made Simple - Gary Ware's Blog

Does your product make your customers feel good on the inside?

2008-11-24T22:22:00.000-08:00

If someone interacts with your brand, does it make them feel like they are contributing to the greater good? Last month I got the pleasure to hear Will Marre talk at San Diego AD2's Cause Marketing Night. He said that a person is more likely to get involved with your brand if it aligns with one of their core values; therefore making them feel like they are doing something good for the environment, humanity, themselves, etc. Well the new Green Notebooks from Apple do just that. I might be a bit bias because I'm an Apple fanatic, but I don't hear Dell talking about how their laptops are fully recyclable and mercury free.

Look at it like this; if there are 2 products that are even all around, but one is aligned with good cause, which one do you think will sell? People aren't just buying a product or service, they are buying the story that comes with it. They want to be able to tell people that their laptop is made from recyclable materials, or the company that they bought their shirt from gave a percentage of that sale to breast cancer research.

Will Marre also talked about about how Reef created a line of products that are made from recyclable materials, and 1% of the sales go to nonprofits like SurfAid International They called this project Reef Redemption. I think the lesson here is that it's more than just giving to a charity, or sponsoring an event. It's about aligning your company with a non-profit or cause that makes sense for your company.

We need to start thinking about becoming more socially responsible and creating sustainable abundance like our friends at Apple and Reef.

View The New Macbook Ads

See the story behind the new Macbook

4 SEM Tips to Help eCommerce Sites Boost ROI This Holiday Season

2008-11-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

With the holiday season here once again a lot of you eCommerce companies are probably trying to figure out the most effective way to spend your marketing dollars. Well for those of you that are using paid search in your online marketing mix, rest assured you are in the right place. According to the 2008 Google Holiday Shopping Intentions Study, search will play a key role in helping consumers do research and make purchases this holiday season. The study stated that consumers started doing research way before Halloween and plan to do the majority of their shopping in early - mid December. If you are a eCommerce company who uses paid search to drive traffic to your site, then you are in the right place to engage consumers throughout the whole buying process. To help you succeed this holiday season I have put together a few tips that will help you maximize your search marketing campaigns, and hopefully increase your ROI. These tips will help you spend your budget effectively, research trends in search volume, write compelling ads, and close the deal with engaging landing pages.

Google Insights can help maximize your budget
Google has a cool tool called Google Insights for Search that allows you to compare search volume over a specific time period. This can be a useful way to figure out the optimal time to increase your spend on a specific keyword or ad group. If you sell computers you can look at the search volume for the keyword "computers" over various time periods to compare trends in search volume.

In the above example you can see that for the past 2 years there have been a major spike in search volume on Black Friday, and the day after Christmas. With that knowledge you can make sure that you have a high position & strong ads running on those days.

You can also make good use of your budget with dayparting and geo targeting. If you find that you get higher conversions midweek during the day then you might want to consider running hotter during those times and pulling back during times where you have lower conversions.

Group keywords according to the consumer's intent
When you group your keywords according to the consumer's intent you will be able to write ads that are aligned with that the consumer is looking for. If a consumer is searching on a research related term like "best computer gifts", you want to make sure your ad copy encourages them to click through to gather more information. Likewise if a user is searching on a purchase related term like "computer deals online", you want to make sure that your ad copy has a strong call to action that urges them to make a purchase.

Write compelling ads that offer value and savings
Just because consumers are cutting back doesn't mean that they are not buying. They are looking for the best possible deal. According to Google's holiday study 86% of the respondents said that they are more likely to take an offer if there was some sort of price discount or sale. Free shipping came in second with 75%. So consider testing as that offer price discounts, sales, free upgrades, or free shipping. Also a search on Google for your top performing keywords to see what type of ads your competitors are running. If you see that a majority of your competitors are running discount or percentage based ads you may want to try a different approach like No money down, or Interest free financing so that you stand out in the sea of online sales. Finally if you are running a sale on the last day run ads like "Final Day to Save" or "Last Day Act Now" to create a sense of urgency. We just recently ran a 48 hour sale for a client, and on the last day we saw a higher CTR on our urgent messaging. This also lead to higher conversion rates.

Close the deal with engaging landing pages
You did all that hard work to get the user to click your ad, you can't let them down by sending them all to the same product page with a million different offers. When it comes to paid search on size does not fit all. You need to take the time to create a specific landing page for each of your holiday ad groups that is relevant to the offer. The landing pages should be simple with not too many choices. If you leave it up to the consumer to figure out what to do you will fail. If your ad is offering 45% off & free shipping the landing page should reelect that. For your ad groups that are geared around product research consider a gift guide landing page. Finally spend time variations to see what converts best. Im a big fan of A/B testing. Test different call to actions, headlines, or imagery. When you find out what works best document it so that you can use for campaigns.

Making Decisions

2008-11-07T07:22:00.000-08:00

I was sitting in a brainstorming meeting the other day, and the CEO of my company made an excellent point. He said, "A good decision is better than a bad decision, but a bad decision is better than no decision at all." We live in a society where we are discouraged from taking risks and making mistakes. We would rather make no decision than make the wrong one, so we end up wasting so much time looking for the best possible choice. Just think of how many opportunities you could be missing out on because you are spending more time trying to make a decision than choosing one and acting on it. Sure there is a chance you could be wrong, but a wrong decision doesn't have to be a bad thing. You just learn from it and correct it. I bad decision ends up being a bad thing when you notice it but fail to do something about it. A good example is our current mortgage situation, or the issue in Iraq. What if the Pilgrims sat around trying to figure out if it would be better to leave or stay, then we may not be here today.

So if you find yourself pondering over a decision, just put something down and try it out. If it doesn't work fix it, because a bad decision is better than no decision at all.

Optimization can help you work smarter, not harder

2008-10-15T18:08:00.000-07:00

This is an update to the My Reaction of the Boston MarketingSherpa B2B Lead Gen Summit post.

MarketingSherpa just put out an article Seven Tactics to Improve Your Lead Gen: Top Takeaways from Sherpa’s B2B Demand Generation Summit ‘08 . I was quoted in tip #6. Optimization can help you work smarter, not harder, where I was talking about how we get together monthly to review results and see what can we test that will help move the needle.

These are some excellent takeaways, and I highly recommend reading all of them.

I also got kudos from my friends at ion interactive on my presentation in their blog entry titled Marketing Sherpa B2B Lead Gen Recap.

That's it for now; I'm headed home to catch the rest of the debate.

4 Important Lessons In Landing Page Optimization

2008-10-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

For those of you that were unable to make it out to Boston to hear me speak at the MarketingSherpa B2B Lead Gen Summit; here is a segment of my presentation that a lot of people found very valuable, and for those that will be attending the San Fransisco version of the summit, consider this a sneak peak.

4 BIG takeaways/lessons that we learned from our paid search optimization program.

1. More Specific Landing Pages
When we first launched our paid search program we would send users to deep links within the site. This was a problem for many reasons:

Hard to convert: A deep link within a site is not geared towards getting a user to convert and therefore is filled with distractions. A user will end up not following the path that you want them to, and ultimately end up leaving the site and not converting at all.
Hard to track: Deep links made it difficult for us to accurately know which keywords and landing experiences were driving results.

Because of the challenges that we faced with sending users to deep links within the site we turned to landing pages.

We currently use ion interactive's LiveBall SaaS to easily create, test, & optimize our landing pages.

2. Match the experience to the search.
Now that we are using unique landing pages, we made sure that the pages were VERY relevant to the terms/intentions that the user was searching on. We also were able to keep the pages focused on conversion and distraction free.

3. Self-segmentation after the click
Our landing pages aren't the traditional pages that you may find in the space that have the standard headline, subhead, bullets, and form. We use multi-step landing page experiences that with start with a preconversion question. The question can be as simple as "What is your capacity size?" The user has 2 options to choose from, and based on their choice they are sent to a page that is relevant to their need. This simple question not only helps us provide a more relevant experience to the user, but it also helps us learn more about the user and what they are looking for. Finally it increases our odds of getting that user to convert even more.

Scott Brinker from ion recently posted an excellent article on this topic Why 2 clicks are better than 1.

4. Keep on testing
We were always testing. Monthly we would review the results from previous tests combined stats from google, and our omniture analytics; decide what's was working and what needed improvement. We used A/B tests to test elements like messages, images, and whole experiences to see what would move the needle. Our mantra was "Just Keep Testing."

Bonus: Analytics is key!
If it wasn't for the analytics that came with the LiveBall Software, and our implementation of Omniture SiteCatalyst we would just taking shots in the dark. They allowed us to easily measure the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that were key to moving the needle, and optimizing our campaign.

Just remember you don't need to have high-end analytics to be successful, you just need something that will allow you to measure the important KPIs for your business. If you don't have analytics, start with a solution like google analytics. It's free and easy to implement.

If I had to choose the 2 most important items from this list, I would have to say Testing & Analysis. In today's economy you cannot afford to not test, and optimize your landing pages. Also on the flip side testing without analytics is like taking a shots in the dark.

If you are going to the west coast version of the MarketingSherpa B2B Lead Gen Summit make sure you check out my session titled Optimizing SEM Strategies from Keyword to Conversion. It's on Monday Oct 27 at 11:15am. Hope to see you there!

My Reaction of the Boston MarketingSherpa B2B Lead Gen Summit

2008-10-07T12:40:00.001-07:00

Since I have some time to kill before my flight back home I thought I would post my reaction to the Boston MarketingSherpa B-to-B Lead Gen Summit. Over all I thought it was a good summit. The case studies were insightful, there were the right number of "relevant" vendors, and there were plenty of chances to network with the attendees.

The one thing that I would change about the format is that I would make the summit on a track schedule and give the presenters 45 minutes instead of 30. I know the benefit of having all the presenters in one room is that you don't miss anyone. I just felt that 30 minutes wasn't enough time to really get into some of the topics, with ample time for Q&A. Also by having the summit on a track schedule you can omit the sessions that you are not interested in without feeling like a jerk when you walk out. We all know that there are those one or two session that don't peak your interest.

Here are some of my important takeaways from the summit.

People buy from people, not websites
Make sure that your website, landing page, email blast, etc has a human feel to it. Consider the users intention or motivation when your are creating these elements. At the end of the day people would rather buy from people. Your website is just a tool to pass along your message.

Change your thinking when it comes to lead gen.
Think of People rather than Process.
Think of Touches rather than Attempts.
Think of Relationships rather than Contacts.

There are 4 areas of the buyer cycle Invitation, Initiation, Intensification, & Consummation.

The key to moving a prospect through this process is to know what the prospect is thinking at the transition of each of these elements, and act accordingly. At the transition from Initiation and Intensification you are building trust. This is when the user is looking closely to character, and how effective you are.

Clarity trumps persuasion
In regards to landing pages, no matter how strong your call to action or offer is if your page is not easy to use and clear you are going to loose that user.

There should be a marketing funnel and a sales funnel
Leads should not go to sales till it has been worked through the marketing funnel. Some people may consider this the "nurturing" process. In this phase you are establishing trust, building thought leadership with the user. The fact is salespeople don't have time to deal with leads that are not ready to buy. Also by having a sales person call too early is an easy way to scare the lead.

70% of all leads are not "sales ready"
Because of this fact you need to make sure that you have a marketing funnel with processes in place to move the lead through the funnel. That way you only deliver high quality leads to sales.

Every company needs a Universal Lead Definition (ULD)
A ULD are the elements that make up a "sales ready" lead. With a ULD in place you will have no question on if the lead is "sales ready." Brian Carroll used the acronym BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline)

There should be a process in place on how to hand off a lead from marketing to sales
If you do not have such a process in place you there will be problems. You will have leads that fall through the cracks, and know one will know why. This process will also establish accountability.

People, Process, Technology....In that order
Once you know the people that you want, and the process to get them, then bring in the technology. Dennis Head quoted IDC, and said that "Technology alone is not going to move the needle, you need a defined process."

Those are a few of top themes from the summit; if I get some time over the next couple of days I will post some more. I would love to hear what your thoughts are on these topics, so if you have an opinion or something to add please leave a comment.

Microblogging can be used for more than just recapping your actions

2008-10-03T01:03:00.000-07:00

For the longest time I wanted to know what was the big deal with microblogging sites like twitter. Do your friends and colleagues really want to know what you are doing at every moment of your life. Since I like to think of myself as a Web 2.0 enthusiast I decided to give it a try. Soon after I created an account I got bored with it. Even though I was able to update my account from my phone it was still a very tedious experience from me. Plus I really didn't see the benefit of being on twitter, because everyone was doing the same thing. Sure it gave me a bit more insight into the lives of my friends, and it allowed me to pimp my blog. It was still too overwhelming at times. It was almost like watching 100 different reality shows at once.

Well recently my opinion of twitter has changed. I realized that I was seeing the concept of microblogging from the wrong angle. Twitter allows people to give commentary in a way that they could have never before. I am noticing that people are starting to use hashtags as a way to group a collection of related topics so they form one mass conversation. Last week at OMS was my first time getting involved with using hashtags. I wanted to try it out for 2 reasons: 1. To see what the big deal with hashtags was about. 2. To see if using twitter was a good way to take notes. I was really impressed to find out that twitter makes an excellent note taking tool. Now if I want to review them all I have to do is search on the OMS hashtag #OMSSD08 and I get a transcript of whole day. It includes my notes along with everyone else who participated. This also gives me info on sessions that I didn't get to sit in on. Using hashtags is also a benefit to the organizers of the event, because they get instant feedback on how the conference is going.

I also feel that Twitter is making watching TV an interactive experience. Twitter allows everyone to become participants of the event, and give their commentary on the program. I used twitter as a tool while I watched the last 2 presidential debates. It made something that would be normally "dullsville" a rather enjoyable experience. Along with giving my own feed back I got to hear in real time what other people thought of the debate. If you are interested do a search on #tweetdebate or #vpdebate to view the commentary. Social Media Analyst Jeremiah Owyang also did a recap on the #tweetdebate experiment if you care to take a look.

The online news site, Current is taking this phenomenon to a new level by allowing people to "Hack the Debate." If you post tweets with the #current hashtag they will overlay it on their broadcast of the debate in real time. I'm curious to see how this concept will evolve over the next couple of months, or even the next year. If you have any ideas leave a comment and let me know.

Now that the wedding is behind me time to get back to blogging

2008-09-26T00:34:00.000-07:00

Wow it really has been a while since my last post, but I have an excuse. For those who don't know me personally I got married to my sweetheart of 6 years on Aug 16th up in Malibu. So for those of you who are already married, you know what it's like when it's "crunch" time. And for those of you who are about to get married hang in there cause it's worth it!

I have to say the last 6-8 weeks before the wedding was the most stressful time of my life. There were so many little details that we had to take care of. Making sure the rooms were booked, getting gifts for the bridal party, planning the rehearsal dinner, making sure Courtney (my wife) was sane. So with all of that, and all the stuff going on at work there was no time for blogging.

I have to say even though it seemed like it came and gone in a flash, the wedding was a big hit. Everyone had a good time, and there were no major train wrecks. That is all thanks to Courtney, she did most of the planning. I just tried to be as supportive as possible and not get in the way. =oD

After the wedding we spent a week in Hawaii on the big island to un-plug and relax. Someone told me that my honeymoon would be the best vacation of my life, and they were right! After a year of planning a week in paradise it the perfect way to unwind.

So now that my second job of wedding planner support is over I can get back to the business of online marketing. Before I took my hiatus I was planning to write a 3 part series on analytics, but I just attended the Online Marketing Summit, and my head is swarming with ideas so I might have to change it up a bit.

If you were not able to attend the summit, you missed a good summit. The information was fresh, the speakers were very knowledgeable on their subject matter, and above all it was a good place to network and learn. There was some really good takeaways; one of my favorites was on the topic of social media. In the final keynote: Big Brands, Big Plans I asked if there was a measurable way to measure ROI in social media. The collective response was that with social media it shouldn't just be about ROI it should be about engaging with your users. If you get your users more engaged in your brand eventually the sale will happen. Also another good point is that social media doesn't have to just be about blogging, or being on facebook. If you have a product letting your customers rate the product and give feedback is a form if social media. Finally one of the panelist said "Don't just jump in to social media just to check something off of a list. You should use social media in a way that is aligned with your overall marketing strategy." If you want to check out some more good points from OMS check out my twitter feed. If you were at OMS please feel free to comment with your feedback.

So stay tuned because over the next few weeks Im going to be posting some good topics on analytics and paid search.

Also if you are going to the MarketingSherpa B-to-B Demand Gen Summit in Boston or San Francisco let me know. I will be co-presenting with ion interactive on the topic of Optimizing SEM Strategies from Keyword to Conversion. We will be talking about our success with increasing our paid search conversion rates. The whole summit looks to be a promising event, so if you have the extra time and money I encourage you to come out.

So I'll leave you with a couple of pics from my wedding & honeymoon, Enjoy!

Use Google Local to Provide added Value to Your Customers....

2008-07-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

...and help with Search Engine Visibility.

I don't know if you are aware of this, but a top 10 listing in google is not what it used to be. Because of customized search, local, news, and image results organic results are showing up lower and lower on the page. Catfish recently wrote an article titled Why a Top 10 Listing in Google Continues to Mean Less in SEO that goes into more detail on the topic. So you are probably thinking, well what can I do to improve visibility. The answer is that it takes a combination paid, local, & organic search campaigns to remain visible on search engines these days. As a business owner you can take advantage of Google Local to assist with your local ranking. Setting up a Google Local listing is easy to do, and I will give you a basic overview to help your setup your listing.

Claim Your Business
If you have an established business most likely you are already listed on Google Local. Google pulls business listings from various different sources to populate their local directory. The first step in creating your local listing account is to claim your business. If you find your company's listing in the Google Local directory you can click on the "Add or edit your business link"

If you are unable to find your listing you can add your company to the directory by going to http://www.google.com/local/add You will need a Google account to add or claim your business listing.

Once you are logged into the system click the "Add a new listing" link. (If you claim your company from an existing listing you will skip this step)

Add Your Basic Contact Information
Populate the form with your company's basic contact information, and make sure you use a keyword rich description.

Tip
Include a keyword rich phrase along with your company name. This can help your SEO, and provide more info to potential customers. Note:Don't go overboard with this, because you run the risk of confusing your customers, and being penalized by Google for keyword stacking.

Give Value to Your Customers
After you provide your basic information you have the option of adding even more information to give value your customers. By doing this you can stand out from your competitors. You can add your office hours, payment options, photos, and YouTube videos. You can even add categories that your company fit into to help Google place you into their directory.

Validate Your Listing
Once you finish your listing Google will mail a postcard to the address that you provided with a pin number. You will use to the pin validate and activate your listing.

Adding a Google Local listing will help improve your local search visibility, but it's not a silver bullet for success. Your local listing along with constant paid and organic optimization will improve your chances driving targeted traffic to your website, and business location.

You cannot fake social media

2008-06-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

I was watching a really good video the other day titled Social Media Mistakes of Five Big Marketers. It is a segment from Joseph Jaffe's speech at the Association of National Advertisers' Integrated Marketing Conference. Jaffe explains some blunders that some major corporations make when it comes to social media. I think the biggest nugget that I took from that segment was the idea of "No Faking." I know this may seem simple, but some big corporations are still not getting it. They think they can treat social media just like any other media; make something up so it looks "social media~ish. The problem is that it stands out like a sore thumb, and your users will hate you for it.

If I could pass anything along it would be this: Don't be afraid about losing control, and just go with the flow. People are going to say what they want to say and it may not all be good. I feel that it's better to have these negative remarks it in an arena where you have a chance to fix the problem right away; rather than hearing it second hand.

You need to be honest with yourself. If you don't think you can handle this level of translucency then social media is not right for you. In a case like this Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing you can do.

2008 American Business Award Finalist

2008-05-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

Two of the websites that we created at Overland are Finalists for a "Stevie"! Our Deduplication Microsite is a finalist in the Product Information category, and our Tiered Data Protection Micosite is a finalist in the Writing/Content category

We will get the results on June 12th at the awards banquet. It's going to be a tough competition. We are up against companies like HP, Nikon USA, and Jack Daniels.

Wish us luck!

Behavioral Targeting & Mobile Computing May be Here Sooner Than we Think

2008-05-21T23:46:00.000-07:00

On my flight home from Seattle I was reading the most recent issue of Mac | Life and came across an interesting article. The article was talking about the upcoming iPhone update and the different views people had of the software developer kit (SDK). Half way through the article was a little sub story on these venture capitalist and how they created an "iFund" that they would use to invest in companies that are going to "invent the future" using mobile computing in the areas of social networking, mobile payments, entertainment, health, and the enterprise. So you are probably thinking "Gary where are you going with this." Well here is the point. One of the companies that the iFund have invested in is a Seattle-based company named Pelago. They are developing a location-aware program called Whrll that helps you find places, events, & people when you are on the go.

When I read that my ears popped up. It reminded me of one of the conversations that I had ad the Ad2SD event,"Myspace vs Yourspace." We were talking about behavioral targeting and how it would be awesome to be on the go and have alerts when you are near areas of interest. Or better yet know your fuel spending habits & let you know when you are near a cheap gas station. I know that this may open the door for a wide array of privacy issues. You can read my blog entry "Reality Mining: The future of marketing, or a privacy nightmare" to get my view of the topic.

I haven't had the chance to research the product yet so I don't know if the app will have those abilities, but I'm excited to see that technology is moving closer in that direction. When I get a chance to research Whrll I will post my findings. Also If anyone has any info please let me know.

5 Strategies to Improve Your Online Marketing

2008-05-04T16:06:00.000-07:00

I was in Chicago for my company's partner summit where I led a session give our partners tips to help them improve their web marketing, and to get feedback on some upcoming web programs that we are launching. The focus group was held at 7am on day two of the summit, so we weren't expecting a large turnout. The partners that did show up really enjoyed the tips, and provided us with excellent feedback. Our product syndication program was well received. We learned that one of their major issues with the web is maintaining their website. A lot of our partners don't have an in-house web person, so any changes that come up can be a long costly process. The content syndication program will allow them to focus on what they do best, and not have worry about maintaining our product info on their websites.

Below you can view the presentation & the takeaway doc that I passed out. The partners aren't web guys, so I kept everything as high-level as possible. Even though the presentation was designed for a storage reseller the concepts can translate to any industry.

| View | Upload your own

5 Simple Strategies to Improve Your Online Marketing Results

Purchasing Fact:92% of all technical buyers go online FIRST to research a possible purchase*

*According to Forrester Research

Is your website portraying the right impression of your company? With the customer now in control of the experience, they are able to gather information without interacting with you directly. Thus, your web presence is the digital representation of your company, and a poor web presence can lower the amount of online and offline sales. Here are some simple strategies to improve your web presence and increase your conversion rates.

1. Provide Your Users With Fresh, Relevant Content
Because most users stop by your website first to do research, it should always contain fresh, relevant content. This will make an impression when the user is ready to purchase. According to a recent study by Enquiro Search Solutions on technical buyers, the number one influencer of purchase is the vendor's website. Websites that contain inaccurate or fragmented information gives an unprofessional impression of your company which can lead to missed opportunities, loss to competition, and negative impact to the bottom line.

2. Present Simple Website Usability
Poor website usability is another factor that can drive away potential sales. Make it easy for the user to find what they need quickly and effortlessly. The harder it is to use your website, the less people will want to buy from you. You can improve the usability of your site with the following tips:

1. The main navigation should be easy to use.
2. Your users should be able to find what they need in three clicks or less.
3. It should be obvious how to purchase your product.
4. Contact information should be highly visible.
5. Use layman's terms. Stay away from corporate or technical terms that might be hard for your user to understand.

3. Develop and Utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
According to Marketing Sherpa, 98% of B2B buyers search in Google, so if you apply proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques you have a better chance of being found in search engines by potential customers. Contrary to popular belief, SEO is not a trick that you play on search engines in order to rank higher. Optimization is defined as organizing your content to provide the most relevant experience. Search Engine Optimization is not an overnight process. It takes time to prove to the search engines that your content is relevant. Here are some techniques to improve your overall SEO:

1. A unique 6-13 word page title that contains important keywords from the page content.
2. Description meta tags that match the body content.
3. Keyword phrases that users apply to search for you.
4. Link important pages throughout your site using a keyword phrase rather than a product name (ex. Disk Based Backup Solution rather than REO® 9100).
5. Stay consistent in the way pages are linked and the phrases used.

4. Increase Conversions with Landing Pages
Whatever the marketing activity might be, landing pages provide users a custom experience and keep them focused on the offer at hand. The goal of the landing page should be to convert users into customers. If you are able to get more conversions with the same amount of marketing spend, then you will deliver more net business and lower your cost per lead. This cannot be achieved by just dumping users to the homepage of your website, they will get distracted and navigate elsewhere. Here are some tips for successful landing pages:

1. Start with a clear call to action.
2. Include document downloads; white papers and case studies are preferred over product literature.*
3. Keep your lead forms short and concise. Only include the fields that are vital to helping your sales team spot qualified leads.

*According to Marketing Sherpa

5. Use Web Analytics to Measure Your Site's Effectiveness
Web Analytics are essential for measuring the success of your web marketing and refining your process. With analytics, you are able to determine which keywords customers use to find your site, what pages customers find valuable, and what online campaigns are successful. There is a variety of web analytic solutions on the market, but if cost is an issue, consider starting with Google Analytics; their solution is free, and easy to use. Web analytics can be a little overwhelming, but it is important to remember to measure what matters. Measure metrics that are going to help improve business. High web traffic may look good on paper, but it doesn't mean anything if your site has low conversion rates. Every company has a different set of metrics that they find valuable, so it is important to sit with your team and decide which metrics are important to your business, and which metrics should be omitted.

What I learned from a 9 year old

2008-05-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

My flight back from Chicago was on Southwest, and if you have ever flown on Southwest you know how hard it can be to get a good seat. Well it was a packed flight, and this Mother was having a hard time finding a seat for her and her three boys. After some shuffling around the oldest son sat between my colleague and me, and the lady and the other two boys were able to get a row to themselves.

I thought that the little guy might feel awkward sitting between two strangers, but I was wrong. On the four hour trip home he told us story after story of his various adventures, and different things that he have learned over the years. I have to say if you pay attention you can really learn a lot from kids. Kids have so much imagination, and to them nothing is impossible. While we were looking through a magazine the little guy looked over at me and said "Did you know big-foot lives in South America?" Not really knowing what to say I said "Oh really?" He said "Yeah, I have never seen him, but Im sure he looks like a big gorilla." They are also willing to give anything a shot, and work at it till they get the hang of it. In one of the stories the little guy told me about some of his favorite Wii games. He said that he is not that good at Super Smash Bros, but he likes to play it anyway, because one day he will get better. Finally kids are so curious, and love to learn. The little guy had no problem asking questions. He asked me about my job, if I liked my job, what sports I liked to play, if I went to college, if college was hard, if I had any kids, and the list goes on.

Kids aspire to be just like us, but I think we should try to be more like them.

I survived the San Diego Mud Run

2008-04-20T13:40:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I ran the 5k San Diego Mud Run. Since I got back into shape I thought it would be something cool to try. Looking at all the past photos everyone looked like they were having a blast getting all muddy and such. So after some pressure from my mom - who was also participating in the mud run - I signed up. Besides how hard could running 3.1 miles though the mud be?... I'll tell you, that run was one of the most challenging experiences that I have ever had to face.

The course was a 5k adventure through mud, over walls, and over a large hill. Half way though as I looked up at the huge incline that I still had to tackle, I thought to myself "Gary, what did you get yourself into?!?" But I kept pressing though, and did rather well. My goal was to finish the course in 40 minutes, and I ended up finishing in 34:30. I ranked 33 in my age class, and 180 overall. Not too bad for my first mud run.

I worked so hard over the last year to loose weight and get back into shape; So to be able to run a 5k event through the mud is big deal for me. If this was a year prior I think I would have killed myself trying. Come to think of it I don't think I would have given it any thought.

I do have to give a big thanks to my iPod. Since I didn't run with a team my iPod was there to keep me motivated. I don't know about you, but running is BORING, and I needed something to keep my mind off of the heat, and my pounding heart. Everyone said I would be sorry for bringing it along, but my little armband did it's job and kept the iPod dry. I had songs like Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" that helped me keep a good pace. I also had the motivational songs like "My Hero" from the Foo Fighters that helped me over the hill.

If you are considering doing an event like the mud run, I say go for it. The feeling you get when you cross the finish line is a feeling like no other. If you were at the mud run, or did something similar I would love to share experiences.

Here are some photos of the event

I'm Almost there!

My niece wanted to join the fun

My mom, my niece, and myself

The American Gangster is the Ideal Marketer

2008-04-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

So this post goes out to my buddy Steve. He kept pushing me to watch The American Gangster. He wanted me to watch it not just because it was a good gangster movie, but because it was all about marketing. He knew I would like it so much that he bought it for me for my birthday. So I finally got around to watching it, and I have to say he was right I LOVED it. Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe did an awesome job. This movie is up there with Blow, and Scarface.

My friend Steve was right about the marketing as well. Unless you are a marketing geek like myself you might have got lost in the gangster theme and not had paid any attention to the marketing undertone. Denzel's character was the ultimate marketer. He wasn't like the typical gangster/drug dealer. Brand awareness, and customer loyalty was everything. He did the opposite of all his competitors; he made sure that they had the highest quality product at the fraction of the price. He made sure his brand "Blue Magic" stood for high quality. At one point in the movie he found out that someone was impersonating his brand with a lower quality product. He put a stop to that, because it was bringing down the brand.

We should all strive to be like Frank Lucas...
Let me rephrase that; we should all model our business practices after Frank Lucas. He said to run a TRUE business it takes honesty, integrity, hard work, and dedication.

Is Marketing becoming too easy?

2008-03-25T23:06:00.000-07:00

I read a post titled Idiocracy in Action in the SEOBook.com Blog where Aaron Wall made a point about how easy marketing has become to implement and measure that makes everyone thinks that they can be a marketer.

One would argue that be allowing everyone the ability to be a marketer it takes the "art" out of marketing. I have to disagree with that. These are just tools that allow us to do our jobs easier and more efficient. It still takes a skilled marketer to know the best way to break through the noise. It goes back to my post on Reality Mining, with all the noise it's becoming more challenging then ever before to engage our target audience. There are just too many choices. Because of this we need to streamline our process, and that's what these tools do. Also in the corporate environment marketing teams are becoming smaller, but expectations still continue to rise. So we look to these tools to help us do more with less.

I see it like this; just because I have a hammer and some nails doesn't make me a carpenter. In turn just because you have purchased paid ads, and have a google analytics account doesn't make you a marketer. It's what you do with those tools that matter. Are you able to look at the data to determine ways to enhance the user experience, or do you just throw money at it and hopes something stick?

I think one of the main things to take away is that it levels the playing field in some cases. We have the ability now to run more targeted campaigns, which in turn cost less. This allows the smaller fish to compete with a much larger fish and come across as an equal.

Yes there are tools that make marketing easier, but do you have what it takes to use these tools to their full capacity?

Dinner with Sam The Cooking Guy

2008-03-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my fiancée and I went to a cooking class that was put on by Sam The Cooking Guy. For those of you who don't know who he is, Sam has a cooking show that airs on CTN / SD 4 out here in San Diego along with Discovery Health. His show is really entertaining, and it's not like your average Food Network show. He calls his show a "Reality Cooking Show." The show is shot from his house, there are no scripts, and he does everything in one take (mistakes and all). The recipes are easy to make, and all the ingredients you can get from the local market. One of my newfound hobbies has been cooking, and I have to say a majority of the things that I have made have come from his show.

When I saw that he had a class on Mexican Food (One of my favorite cuisines!), I had to sign up. The class was held at the San Diego Wine & Culinary Center, and it was an intimate crowd of about 40. It was a really fun evening. Sam went over 6 dishes and 2 cocktails. My favorite was the Chicken Enchiladas. Throughout the evening he told funny anecdotes, and at the end of the night he stayed around to chat, take photos, and sign autographs.It was refreshing to see that he was same the happy go lucky guy that you see on TV.

I think one of the things that I really admire about him is his drive and determination. When he quit his job, and decided to start a cooking show there were tons of people that criticized the idea, and said that he would never make it but he didn't let the naysayers discourage him. He was very passionate about the project, and he kept working at it till he succeeded.

Using Online Media to Mesure the Success of Offline Media

2008-03-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

First tip of the day ALWAYS carry your camera with you, because you never know when you are going to need it.

So with that said I was driving up in LA last weekend, and I get to a stoplight and right in front of me is a white billboard with huge black letters that read "I am over you Sarah Marshall." with a link to www.ihatesarahmarshall.com Of course I was currius, so when I got home I went to the website. At first glance it looks like a typical guy who's ranting about his ex-girlfriend Sarah Marshall. If you look further you find out that it's promoting a movie called Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It's produced by Judd Apatow, those who do know him he is the guy who produced Superbad, Knocked up, and 40 Year Old Virgin. At first glance this movie looks like it's going to be just as funny, but Im getting off track...

This is a BRILLIANT way to crate buzz for a movie. It looks like some rich shmoe is pissed off at his girlfriend, and wanted to let the world know. The billboard demands attention. The billboard is simple, look handwritten, and point back to a microsite. That way the success of their offline efforts can be measured.

And for you movie buffs it even comes with a Red Band Trailer

When I look at the billboard it makes me think that this is what life would be like if the world of myspace & facebook was offline. We would see billboards promoting our favorite youtube videos, and links to our blogs.

So even though I wasn't able to snap a picture I was able to find this pic on the ihatesarahmarshall.com website

I have the SEO Blues

2008-03-19T23:04:00.000-07:00

My Buddy Ray Catfish Comstock, from Business Online just wrote a new song The SEO Blues if you deal with SEO on a daily basis you could relate. I spent a good portion of this week working on our SEO, and I know most of the points in the song hit home.

Wow I must be in a promoting mood, but that should tell you something about good content it begs to be spread. You feel like you are doing a disservice to your fellow man if you keep it to yourself.

When it comes to viral marketing you can't fake the funk. If you want your message to spread it has to be something that your audience can relate to, and would want to share without you asking them to.

With that said make sure to pass this to all your friends regardless if they like SEO, post it on your twitter, myspace, facebook, linkedin, Wiki, and blog ;o) hahaha!

I guess that makes me a New Media Douchebag LOL

Happy Spring!

Are you a New Media Douchebag?

2008-03-19T22:29:00.000-07:00

Do you use facebook, myspace, twitter, blogger to rant and rave when you should be working? I guess you too are a New Media Douchebag. Big thanks to my Friend Larry Van Doren for sharing this funny video with me.

While you are watching the video think of this... What should we call new "New Media" since it's not really new anymore?

Reality Mining: The future of marketing, or a privacy nightmare

2008-03-12T23:08:00.000-07:00

I read an article the Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog Titled: What’s Next for Marketing? Reality Mining, where Paul Barsch talked about how with the advances that have made in the cellular industry with GPS and internet enabled phones they have the potential to be able to mine more than just your calling info. MIT professor Sandy Pentland calls it "Reality Mining". He believes that they have to ability to record everything from your physical activity to your conversational cadences. With all this information at their disposal they have the ability to proivde customized plans based on all of these traits. As a marketer I feel that this is exciting news. We will have more advanced tools at our disposal to take behavioral targeting to the next level. We can further segment our audience and provide them with a more personalized marketing experience. But on the flip side of the coin one will argue that this is borderline invasion of privacy, and have the potential to compromise our personal information. Maybe cause I'm on the marketing side, but I don't really see any problem with this as long as the user is aware that this is going on, and have the ability to opt-out if they choose to. With the decline of mass media, its tools like this that will allow us to scope out that niche market that will actually find value in our message.

The "Secret" to Marketing Success is Gaining Momentum

2008-03-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know me personally, you may not know that I over the last year I have lost a good deal of weight. The other day ago a friend ask what my "secret" was. I said that I didn't have a secret. Then they said, "Then how did you do it, what was the formula to your success?" I then went on to explain that I didn't have one thing that led to my success. I tried a bit of everything some things worked and somethings didn't. Just like everyone I had good days and bad, and at times it seemed like it would be impossible. When I found out what worked, and started gaining momentum i just got easier. Then it just felt like I was on autopilot.

You are probably thinking what does this have to do with online marketing. Just like in the scenario with my friend a lot of people wants to know the "secret" to success with online marketing. I look at it like climbing up an over a big hill on roller skates. When you are at the bottom looking up it may seem like an impossible task. As you start up the hill your progress is slow. There may be times when you feel like you may loose control at any minute and slide all the way to the bottom. As you continue on you may slide back a bit, but you keep pushing. Once you get the hang of and you start to build momentum it gets easier and easier. By the time you are up and over the hill it requires very little effort on your part, and you just coast along.

In The Wizard of Ads, Roy Williams used the analogy of pushing a car and inertia. When you first start you use every ounce of strength that you have to get it going, then as you get going you find strength that you didn't know you had. It gets easier, but you still have doubts. Once you get some distance behind you get confidence and push even harder. Before you know it are trotting behind the car barely having to push at all. He goes on to state that the law of inertia is your enemy at first, but becomes your ally in the end.

When it comes to online marketing there I don't think that there is a "secret recipe" or "formula" for success. Just because it worked for one person doesn't necessarily mean it will work for you. What you have to do is take a little bit from here, and a little bit from there. Some things will work and others will require a little tweaking. But once you start gaining momentum you can glide along and bask in the glory of your success.

Research the voice of your user

2008-02-26T23:03:00.000-08:00

My original plan was to finish my recap on OMS, but I feel that this is an important topic to touch on.

The success of your company depends on how you are able to align your business to the needs of your audience, The best way to do that is to make sure it's in a way that they understand. Sounds simple doesn't it? Well it's harder then most people think because they don't take the time to research their audience. The easiest thing you can do is tap into your current customer base. You already won them over, and they will be happy that you value their opinion. Find out what they like or dislike about what you have to offer, and how can you do it better. Too many companies don't do this because they are scared of negative criticism. If we all agree that everything should be about the user, they should be the first person you turn to when you need feedback. They are the ones buying your product. Not only do you have to listen to their needs, but you also have to put it in a way that they understand it. On Saturday I got to hear a session on Business Intelligence by Doug Lenos, and he said you need to harvest the voice of the user. Well how do you do that you might ask. When you are doing your keyword research you need to find out what types of keywords that your users are searching on to get to your site, and use those keywords to write your copy. You don't want to make it hard on them, because you would have lost them before they even got to your door. The reason why this topic is fresh on my mind is because I had a friend come up to me and ask me to help him do some research on a product that he wanted to buy. I sure no sweat, and spent an hour or so on google, and sent him a whole list of links to check out. He was shocked to see that I was able to find so much "useful" information. He was shocked to hear that all I did was search on google. I asked him what resources did he use when he was researching, and he said google. Then I asked him what keywords did he use. The keyword phrases that he used were very broad. He told me that he didn't spend much time, and was hoping to find something rather quickly. He also told me that not once did he go past the first page. When I told him what phrases, and techniques that I used he said he would have never thought of that. This is a perfect example of how end users search. If you do your homework, and research what keywords and phrases your customers are using to get to you and provide them with relevant information you will get them every time. Sometimes I forget that figuring out keyword combinations is what I do, and this is not something that the average user does.

When we are marketing our product a lot of the time we don't take the time to view it from the eyes of the user. I guarantee you this: If you take the time to research the voice of your user, and align your business around them you WILL be rewarded.

Greatings from the Online Marketing Summit!

2008-02-21T22:44:00.000-08:00

Today was day 1 of the Online Marketing Summit here in San Diego. I feel that this is one of the best marketing summits of the year. It's a place were marketers from all markets could get together and talk about best practices, strategy, and get feedback on marketing ideas. It is a vendorless environment, and the sponsors that presented provided advice and case studies on what worked. In fact if they plug their company we are encouraged to boo them. =oD Leading up to the event we were asked to participate in the OMS forums so that we could get the ball rolling, and give the presenters an idea of what what we wanted to learn about. Some of the topics of discussion were Social Media, SEO, Paid Search, and Email Marketing. I am a big advocate on education, and I think the topic is excellent. If we all get together and go over the issues we can work things out, and build a better environment for the user.

With that said I will step off my soapbox, and get to the good stuff. The day started out with a panel discussion on Social Media and it should be leveraged by marketers. The big idea from that discussion was Social media is still too new to pinpoint the best ways to provide ROI. When it comes to Social Media ROI shouldn't be the focus. The focus should be more on building connections, and providing a platform for communication between you and your end users.

In the SEO session, lead by Ray "Catfish" Comstock we went over SEO best practices. The highlights from the session included using Goggle's Webmaster tools to better understand your organic positioning. Also the best way to optimize your site is to provide authoritative content. Finally the end result for all your SEO efforts should be about the end user.

In the Email Marketing session they covered that you should treat your different subscribers different. You shouldn't market to your new users as the same as you would frequent buyers or lapse visitors. Also you should consider your subject line early in the process.

After lunch I got to lead a round table discussion on online conversion. It was refreshing to know that even though we are all in different markets we all share similar challenges. Some of the challenges included being able to bring in targeted leads, and dealing with internal politics.

The advanced tactics in paid search provided the Ah-ha! point of the day. You should include your channel partners in your search efforts in order to take over the google ad space. Also you should work with dayparting and geotargeting, to increase clicks, and provide a more targeted campaign.

At the end of the day we had another panel discussion where the gurus gave insight on the future of marketing. We all agree that the web should be the epicenter of all your marketing efforts. All of your marketing activities should point back to your website.

Finally we had a town hall meeting were we got to get everything off of chest, and go over what worked for the day.

Day one was awesome, all the panelist had an excellent insight on all the issues, and where the market is headed. The day ended on a high note with cocktails and dinner.

I'm excited to see what's on deck for day 2!