SAINT PAUL, MN, May 3, 2012 – Cloud-based marketing platform will optimize independent remodeler’s online marketing focus, increase local lead flow and measure sales impact

Crossfuse technology has been selected to streamline online marketing for James Hardie’s contractor program members. Crossfuse will centralize pay-per-click advertising, local search engine optimization and social media for more than 200 independent home remodelers.

Crossfuse is a lead generation platform designed to bring consistency, focus and accountability to the hyper-local marketing efforts of independent sales teams. Crossfuse was created by Three Deep Marketing, a digital marketing agency that specializes in online lead optimization and customer conversion programs.

“Leads are really the new currency in home improvement, and we needed a flexible marketing tool that could integrate with our corporate website, generate more online leads and allow us to centralize lead generation efforts for all our key remodelers,” said Marc Setty, marketing manager, James Hardie. “Crossfuse will centralize our demand generation to send all online sales inquiries directly into each contractor’s SalesForce.com environment, which will be a benefit for both James Hardie and our contractor network.”

Crossfuse widens the sales funnel, helping potential customers find participating brands and local resellers online, earlier in the buying process. The platform itself is a scalable, easy-to-use software program backed by the expertise of Three Deep’s web development team and digital marketing professionals. Other benefits include:

• A program monitoring dashboard customized to a participating brand’s business goals
• An open technology system that makes integration with existing web technologies seamless
• Speed to market – Crossfuse can be up and running for hundreds of independent resellers in an average of 90 days
• Proven performance, increasing the number of sales leads, reducing the cost per lead and driving incremental sales
• Ongoing platform development and technical support

“Searching online is the easiest and most frequent way for prospects to find a product or service,” said Jeff Sauer, vice president, Crossfuse. “Unfortunately, most dealers and distributors aren’t marketing experts, so their effort – particularly online – can be fragmented and underleveraged. Everyone, from manufacturers to dealers, wants to take part in the online marketing gold rush and get their fair share of leads. We developed Crossfuse to provide a best-in-class online marketing program that provides the manufacturer with improved online visibility and dealers with increased lead flow. We are honored that James Hardie has chosen us to help them amplify their marketing efforts for success now and into the future.”

About Crossfuse and Three Deep Marketing

Crossfuse, a product of Three Deep Marketing, is an integrated online lead generation system. It centralizes web pages, digital advertising, social media and measurement for manufacturers and distributors with hundreds of independent locations. The Crossfuse team specializes in lead generation and is certified in Google AdWords, Google Analytics and Salesforce.com. Three Deep Marketing is a digital marketing technology firm focused on improving online lead generation for corporations that leverage independent sales channels. Visit www.crossfuse.com for more information.

About James Hardie Industries

With net sales of $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2011, James Hardie is the largest manufacturer of fiber cement products and systems for internal and external building construction applications in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. Their fiber cement products are used in a number of markets, including new residential construction, manufactured housing and repair and remodeling and a variety of commercial and industrial applications. James Hardie manufactures numerous types of fiber cement products with a variety of patterned profiles and surface finishes for a range of applications, including external siding and soffit lining, internal linings, facades and floor and tile underlay. James Hardie Industries’ shares are listed on the Australian Securities and New York Stock Exchanges and can be found at www.jameshardie.com .

Related posts:

1. Why We Created Crossfuse
2. Client Minnesota Exteriors Participates in Television Show

Why are results from Yellow Pages PPC programs so bad?

Yellow page representatives sell their programs on a “per click” basis.  For $1000 per month you might get 250 guaranteed clicks.  For $1500 per month, you’ll get 400 clicks etc.  To an unsophisticated client, this pitch sounds enticing.  Imagine 250 leads a month for only $1000!  The problem with this approach is that, a click really doesn’t mean anything if that click doesn’t convert into an actual prospect.  

In fact, the average landing page only converts at about 2% (and that doesn’t factor in when the pages look exactly the same!) What that means, is that for that 250 click package, you might only receive 5 inbound calls out of the $1,000 spent.  If only 1-2 of these calls are set into appointments, a contractor is looking at an unsustainable $500 appointment cost — which obviously won’t work in the long run!

In order to convert a click into a prospect (either a phone call or a web form conversion) a site needs to have a strong call to action.  None of the landing pages in our previous example (compare this landing page to this one) use a call to action or even an online form to request more information.  They are little more than an online version of a traditional yellow page ad.  The yellow pages are still stuck in the pre-millenium mode of advertising, where ad impressions define success.

The difference between the yellow pages and a company like Three Deep is that we feel our job is only 1/3 done when we get that click!  In order to be effective, you have to convert that click into an inbound inquiry (prospect), and often times help our Client convert that prospect into an actual appointment (lead).

Our methodology includes custom landing pages designed specifically for each Client.  These landing pages highligh each Client’s company story and unique selling proposition. These pages use persuasive language and calls to action that speak to prospects all along the buying spectrum; from prospects just looking for information all they way to “now buyers” who are ready to make a purchase.

We continually measure, test and optimize our campaigns in order to achieve the lowest cost per conversion possible — how little can our clients pay to have someone interested in their services contact them.  We do keyword research and develop keyword lists unique to each Client in order to put them in front of those prospects looking for their product; but we’ll also make sure our ads are not showing in front of irrelevent traffic. For example, a person searching for windows might be looking for auto glass, windows for their home or computer software.

If you are paying “per click” are you getting the right kind of clicks?   Our fees are for real people to provide ongoing management, optimization and reporting to our clients — something rarely provided by yellow page companies who place campaigns on autopilot until the Client wakes up and cancels the service in order to stop the bleeding.

Our experience has shown that paid search, when managed and effectively optimized and deployed for a company that has good internal sales and appointment setting methodologies — can be one of the most cost effective lead generation tools available to a home improvement contractor.  However, if it is not deployed correctly can be a receipe for disaster.  A company can literally hemmorhage money!   Which group is your company in?  If it’s the latter, call us and let us help fix it!

Related posts:

1. Home Improvement Contractors Should Avoid Yellow Pages Paid Search Programs
2. Home Improvement SEO: Three Deep in Remodeling Magazine
3. 6 Reasons Why Internet Marketing Isn’t Working For Your Home Improvement Business

Why Home Improvement Contractors should avoid Yellow Pages PPC

In these cases, paid search gets a bad name not because it is not an effective means of advertising (it should be among your most cost effective), but because  they hired the wrong people to get the job done. The truth is that hiring the yellow pages to manage a paid search campaign makes about as much sense as hiring a plumber to fix your roof. They just don’t have the expertise needed to make search advertising effective.

It’s no secret that advertising in the yellow pages is an endangered species. Due to the growth of the Internet, fewer and fewer people let their fingers do the walking in the old book.  In fact, millions of dollars worth of advertising goes right into the garbage or recycling bin the minute the book is delivered to homeowners’ doorsteps.

In an attempt to build back declining revenue, yellow page advertising reps now sell “online click packages” to their customer base – to the point that directory companies are giving yellow page ads away for free when they accompany an online click package order.  The result is a commoditized and inferior product being delivered to companies who frankly aren’t educated enough with online advertising to know any better.

Many contractors advertise with the yellow pages because they always have, and trust that these companies will lead them into the 21st century. We don’t blame them – the marketing materials from the yellow pages promoting their online services are slick and present their solutions as a high quality offering; a bridge onto the information super highway. But in reality these products rely on a “cut and paste” template that does little to differentiate one business over another, doing a disservice to both the advertiser and the end user.

Want proof?

If you do a search on “roofing contractor minneapolis” you will see the following paid results.  7 of the 8 paid listings are run by the local yellow pages:

The strategy deployed by the yellow pages on behalf of these roofing companies is extremely simple:

1. Load company info into a standard landing page template
2. Swap out an image and logo here and a little contextual text there on those landing pages.
3. Launch the paid search campaign across the exact same keyword lists, using essentially the same ads, with a different phone number.
4. Collect a check each month for the negotitated monthly rate for the “guaranteed click package” the client company was swindled out of sold by the sales representative.

As you can see, the ads written for each of these companies really don’t differentiate one company from another at all.  If you were a Minneapolis consumer looking for a roofing company, which one would you click?  Do any of them really stand out to you?

The template strategy really becomes obvious when you compare the landing pages to each other.  Conduct a search for “roofing contractor minneapolis” and you can see what we mean. Or just compare this one to this one.

If the first rule of marketing is differentiate yourself from your competitors, how well are the yellow pages helping set these companies apart from each other?  Again, if you were a consumer looking to choose a roofing company, who would you call?  If none of these landing pages immediately grab your attention — the answer more than likely is none of them.  Leading to the dreaded words:

“We tried PPC from the yellow pages and it didn’t work“

It’s not Pay Per Click programs that are the problem. It’s your choice in providers.

In part 2 of this post, we will explain how to get the most out of pay per click advertising.

Related posts:

1. Home Improvement Contractors Should Avoid Yellow Pages PPC – Part 2
2. A Home Improvement Blog — Your Best Way To Increase SEO
3. 6 Reasons Why Internet Marketing Isn’t Working For Your Home Improvement Business

Target’s Timeline

Awhile ago, I was browsing through Facebook and I saw a great post from Target. It reads “What’s your first Target memory? We’re reliving our first (almost) 50 years as we start filling in our new Facebook timeline, with more milestones to come.”

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find this to be an utterly brilliant social move by Target. As you can see there were already 1,000 comments and 50 shares when I first spotted it. People were sharing stories of shopping with their parents, and now shopping with their own children, or even how Target team members helped keep a store of customers safe during a tornado in Ohio. It’s personal, it’s engaging, it’s brilliant.

Not only does this encourage people to share their memories of Target for further consumer engagement, but for many of the top stories, they can pop them up on their timeline and give a deeper perspective to the brand.

Personal Posting

While Target is making the most of their timeline use, brands also have the opportunity to leverage Timeline for their consumers. Here’s an easy example: I purchased a car recently. I want to show my car off to the world, because I’m thrilled about it! I took some quick photos on my camera, and then went to Facebook to upload them into an album, which quickly became littered with likes and comments.

Out of curiosity, I searched to see if there was a “life event” on the Timeline that I could add for purchasing my car. Sure enough there was. It asked for the Make/Model of the car and where I purchased it, and next thing I knew, it attached both a page for the model, and for the dealership I worked with, which I didn’t even think of “liking” before. Thumbs up for both.

The life event asked for a story and for a photo, I added that I “Love my car!” and one of my photos and there was my new glowing life story.

Little does the dealership know this, but I just provided them with a great advertisement geared toward my social network. If any of my friends are considering purchasing a car and they see this good-looking car and that I’m completely happy with it, they might just ask me for more information, or check out the pages to get more information.

Brands: Encourage the Recommendation

While my experience at this dealership was great, and I’ve certainly rated them high on their rating systems, one dealership wasn’t so lucky. Unfortunately for them, the salesperson I worked with provided a link in email correspondence to their “glowing ratings” and in return, I gave them a piece of my mind.

When it comes to a large-scale purchase like a car, buyers will often consider customer service as a deciding factor on where to purchase. It’s crucial that they establish a high reputation for customer service, and customer recommendations can help in that regard.

Wouldn’t it be great to send a new eager buyer home with a card that says (using my own example here) “Welcome to the Hyundai family! Snap a photo and let us see your new Elantra on our Facebook page!” with a QR code linking there? Most dealerships want to help with the taking of pictures and enjoying your excitement, so it wouldn’t be that hard for a salesperson to include that in the final run through of the car. Doing this at the point of sale instead of asking a few weeks after, gets the most excited response and a greater likelihood that the buyer will be enthusiastic about recommending their experience.

The same goes for really any sort of product or service, whether repairing/installing windows, or a hospital visit (minus the pictures, of course). Ask for the review at the end of the visit and encourage them to write about it on your Facebook page or theirs (while tagging you). Your prospective customers will be excited by the stellar reviews of your current customers and more motivated to choose you for their next purchase.

With these tips, not only will you re-engage your current customers, but you might also get some prospective customers to tune in as well. What are your thoughts on these Facebook strategies? We’d love to hear them in the comments!

Related posts:

1. Will Facebook Cost Me Money?
2. Facebook Ads Effectiveness
3. Facebook Ads Perform Poorly

Our SEO Contributors

Jeff Sauer – VP of Interactive

Manos Kalaitzakis – SEO Manager

Alex Pokorny – SEO Specialist

No related posts.

As we have added a great web development team to Three Deep Marketing, we have built in house tools to bring scale to our paid search, organic search and lead generation efforts. However, most of these tools rarely made it beyond Three Deep’s walls, merely known by internal code names such as Project Skunkworks, Three Deep Engine and Connxes.

Not until 2011 did we make a decision to give our internal project a name for the outside world, finding Crossfuse to be a worthy representation of the all encompassing nature of our platform. Cross represents the way our platform can be deployed across the entire spectrum of customer acquisition, nurturing and retention.  Fuse represents the fusion of technologies used in order to create a truly integrated marketing platform.

Many large companies will spend years searching for the holy grail of integrated marketing autonomy – a silver bullet that can handle all online marketing activities in a single platform. Most of these companies will fail to achieve their goals because the projects are highly customized, expensive, and never ending. The only people who benefit from the project are the consultants and experts hired to work on a consistently lucrative stream of billable hours.

These companies have a need to fuse their efforts across their entire marketing spectrum, but don’t always have the proper staff and technology acumen to get things done. This is what gets us most excited about launching the Crossfuse platform; it gives our clients a truly integrated marketing program complete with managed services, strategy, execution and a strong technology back end.

There are many software companies that make the same claim of integrating marketing efforts, but they require a lot of self service configuration and hand holding to be effective.  Here is how Crossfuse is different:

• You don’t need to buy the whole thing at once. You can simply use Crossfuse to build landing pages for your paid search program if that’s all you need today.
• Services are required as part of Crossfuse. You can’t buy Crossfuse as an off the shelf software.  When you sign up for Crossfuse, you are actually buying the great minds of one of the fastest growing marketing agencies in the United States.
• We work with your current technology investments. Crossfuse is not reinventing the wheel by creating an email delivery engine, CRM tool or search management software. We prefer to use off the shelf technology to execute marketing whenever possible. Crossfuse simply manages the flow of information between these tools. This makes new technology integrations an API call away.
• Crossfuse grows with you. The decision to host Crossfuse in “the cloud” was an obvious one. We want to be able to deliver excellent features and functionality to our clients without making them pay custom development prices. By hosting our service in the cloud, we can deliver new functionality to all of our clients in a single product release. The product becomes infinitely more valuable to our clients over time, yet they are not charged individually for these innovations.

Crossfuse was built by a digital marketing agency to streamline the marketing process for online marketers.  If you sign up with Crossfuse, you are not just getting a piece of technology: you are getting a top notch digital marketing agency in a box.

If you have ever struggled with underwhelming technology launches, rising agency costs and a sense of frustration with the overwhelming list of things you want to get done with your marketing dollars, then you should seriously consider Crossfuse.  Our team is eager to work with you.

Related posts:

1. Press Release: Crossfuse Selected By James Hardie Industries
2. Google Presentation: An Industry Created By Google

Paid Search

• PPC Hero: Everything You Need to Know About Ad Position in AdWords
• Search Engine Land: Two Weeks In, Google Says “Search Plus Your World” Going Well, Critics Should Give It Time
• PPC Hero: PPC & Time Management: A Make-It-Better Checklist
• Pandia Search & Social: How to Benefit from Google’s Search Plus

Search Engine Optimization

• Search Marketing Standard: Good SEO Requires Good Content
• Search Engine Journal: Tips on How to Help Uninteresting Pages Rank Better
• Search Engine Watch: Reach and Frequency: SEO Secret to Brand Building on Google?
• SEOMoz: Anchor Text Distribution: Avoiding Over Optimization

Social Media

• Search Blog: GOOGLE+ SPREADS TO ADSENSE, WILL IT SPREAD TO THE WHOLE WEB?
• Social Media Examiner: Top 10 Social Media Blogs: The 2012 Winners!
• Google Operating System: New Google Accounts Require Gmail and Google+
• Social Media Examiner: 9 Tips for Integrating Social Media on Your Website

Mobile

• Search Engine Land: Study: Reviews & Images Drive Clicks In Mobile
• Acquisio: Mobile PPC Strategies
• Marketing Profs: Seven Tablet and Mobile Trends to Expect in 2012
• POST Advertising: The Future Of (Auto)Mobile Advertising

Email

• Clickz: 25 Things Email Marketers Must Avoid in 2012
• 60 Second Marketer: Which Email Subject Line Beat the Other by 40%?
• Market Fish: 5 Benefits of an Email Newsletter

Web Analytics

• Google Analytics Blog: Google Analytics Tutorial: 8 Valuable Tips To Hustle With Data!

Related posts:

1. The Search vol 10: Top Online Marketing Articles
2. The Search vol 11: Top Online Marketing Articles
3. The Search vol 6: Top Online Marketing Articles

The space was packed, but so was Taylor’s presentation on SEO tools, ranging from keyword research to conversion tools, and even PPC tools! It was a comprehensive overview of the quality tools in the industry and Taylor’s own tips on what to look for in the technology. The slides can be found on Slideshare. Trust us, there are a lot of fantastic tools to take a look at!

After his presentation, Taylor gave a great demo of Raven’s suite of tools to anyone who wished to learn more about what Raven had to offer.

Photos from the MnSearch Event

Photo taken by @jlbraaten

Photo taken by @MnHeadhunter

Photo taken by @causinruckus

What did you think?

So far, all of the feedback we’ve received about the event has been extremely positive. If you attended the event, or watched it via live streaming, what did you think of the event? Do you believe that you will take part in future MnSearch events? Sound off in the comments!

A big thanks to Taylor Pratt for being a part of this inaugural event, and to the MnSearch group for allowing us to take part in it! We can’t wait to help with more events in the future.

Related posts:

1. Three Deep Welcomes MnSearch!
2. 2009 Google Analytics Partner Summit Recap

How To Choose The Right SEO Tool

The MnSearch group will be welcoming Taylor Pratt, the VP of Product Marketing for Raven Internet Tools. Taylor will be discussing the ever important topic of search marketing: How To Choose The Right Tool? Taylor will address the variety of options open to you and your company to better optimize your website(s) for search. As an added bonus, Taylor will be available after the presentation to walk through the capabilities of Raven’s suite of tools and answer any of your questions.

About Taylor Pratt

Taylor is the Vice President of Product Marketing for Raven Internet Tools. Before coming to Raven, Taylor served as a senior search specialist for both nFusion and LunaMetrics. At Raven, he promotes the use of conversion-focused, analytics-based SEO for clients ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies.

Launching MnSearch

We are also proud to be a part of the official launch of MnSearch. Three Deep has been a part of the beginnings of the Minnesota Search Engine Marketing Association, with our own Jeff Sauer as a board member. Jeff and other members of the MnSearch board will be on hand to answer all of your questions about the new organization and how you can get involved.

Ready to Sign Up?

If you’re thinking that this is an event that you definitely want to attend, we encourage you to register for this event! We look forward to welcoming you to our offices! 15 tickets remain as of this posting, so sign up soon!

Related posts:

1. Recap on the MnSearch Inaugural Event with Raven’s Taylor Pratt
2. MnSEM Search Party II – February 10th at Three Deep’s Offices

Here are the top 4 reasons as we see them:

SEO Enhancements

By using Google+ to post and promote your website content, you are allowing Google to directly understand the impact and popularity of the content you provide.  There have been strong indications that if many influential users of Google+ post links to your content, Google will rank your pages higher in organic search results.  Since Google owns all of this data and factors it into their search results, adopting this platform becomes extremely important for brands wishing to achieve SEO success.

Understand Who Shares Your Content with Google+ Ripples

When great content is posted to Google+, there is a good chance that it will be shared by others in your Google+ circles. This was very much a nebulous activity that took time and effort to measure how content spread throughout a social graph.  Google+ has added a feature called Ripples that creates a gorgeous illustration of how content is spread across the network.  Use this information to target influencers and work with the to help promote future content.

Paid Search Enhancements through Social Extensions

In order to link Google+ data with paid search efforts, Google AdWords has recently enabled a feature called Social Ad Extensions.  Enabling this feature allows an advertiser to display the number of people who have subscribed to a businesses Google+ page inside of the ad unit as a +1.  This was previously reserved only for people giving a +1 to a single landing page.  Now you can display a much larger +1 count based on the total number of followers on Google+.  This brings instant credibility and differentiation to advertisers active on Google+

Google+ Hangouts to Deeply Connect with Customers

While a one-on-one connection with consumers is a great goal for companies, often connecting on a one-on-one basis with customers can be expensive and requires a huge commitment.  One way to make this more palatable for businesses is to arrange a Google+ hangout, where they can talk with a group of people in a single setting.  You could have a hangout between fans and product development teams, customer service, spokespeople, marketing – anyone really!

Google+ Hangouts can provide a way for companies to spontaneously and genuinely connect with their biggest supporters, or even turn casual fans into brand advocates.

More to Come

Google is making a huge push to integrate Google+ into their entire portfolio of products and services.  Unlike their previous forays into social networking, Google+ has already seen wide adoption and support, and is going to be baked into everything Google does moving forward.  Early adopters of the service can really get ahead of the game by embracing features that provide short term benefits, while amassing a list of loyal fans to help spread the word about future initiatives.  Companies that are serious about the future of their search marketing programs really need to consider making a push into Google+.

Related posts:

1. 6 Reasons Why Internet Marketing Isn’t Working For Your Home Improvement Business
2. The Search vol 7: Top Online Marketing Articles
3. The Search vol 11: Top Online Marketing Articles