NuSpark Marketing Blog

SEO, Meta Descriptions, Content, and Generating Leads

Elizabeth Donkus — Sat, 05 May 2012 13:10:37 PDT

Hi, It’s Paul Mosenson, President of NuSpark Marketing. I welcome a guest post from our chief SEO tactician, Elizabeth Donkus. You’ll find this interesting.

Most SEO people aren’t marketers. They may be great technicians, but we need help when it comes to writing compelling content that drives leads. I am NuSpark Marketing’s chief SEO strategist, but I rely on the NuSpark content team to review my content recommendations and implement content within the SEO framework. An example of our SEO and content director integration is when writing meta tags and meta descriptions.

Meta description tags, though no longer as important as they once were believed to be in terms of achieving top search engine ranking results, still have incredible significance.

First, what exactly is the Meta description? A Meta description is a few sentences or a short paragraph that briefly highlights the content of the page. This tag is located in the section in the page code and is not visible to the visitors when they are on the page.

Oh so long ago, the Meta description could help a page rank in the search engines for the words that were contained within it. It’s no longer used by the top 3 – Google, Bing or Yahoo! as a factor for ranking.

Nowadays, whether you use keyword phrases that you are targeting in your Meta description tag or not, your search engine results will not be affected. So why not leave it out altogether?

There are several significant reasons why the Meta description should be used:

First, the Meta description can be used as the description on the search engine results page. It’s not always what is used as the description, as many people believe, depending on the search query, the most relevant text from the page may be used in the search engine result.

Second, the Meta description can be used in Google’s ‘Extended Sitelinks’ – again, not always. But from my research a well-crafted Meta description will more often be used as the description along with the extended sitelinks.

Third, and most important, when the Meta description is used in the search results page, it can help increase the click-thru-rate.

However, there is a certain structure that needs to be followed to create quality Meta descriptions that will ensure the best results. Every description needs to be:

Keyword optimized – targeted keywords should flow naturally and be used intelligently. They should not be stuffed or forced into the text.

Compelling – the description needs to motivate the searcher to click while still providing accurate information.

Unique – no two Meta descriptions should ever be the same, even if there is more than one tag for the same topic. All content needs to be original.

Concise – the paragraphs need to be brief and should be anywhere from 150 – 160 characters in length. Any longer than this and search engines will typically cut content. However, just because the search engine will only display a certain number of characters, does not mean that you cannot include as many characters as you believe to be necessary. If the page is being optimized for 3 keywords, write 3 optimized, compelling, unique and concise sentences for each word. Google will pull the best content from your Meta description for the search query – and it may not be a complete sentence. In fact, Google will pull from the Meta description as well as from the visible page content – whatever combination they believe will best match the search query.

The Meta description tag may have lost its ‘SEO’ value, but it still has a great deal of value when used to influence a potential visitor to click through to your site.

Let’s take a look at a sample search for Purchase Requisition Software. You’ll get an idea on how these meta descriptions should be structured for lead generation.

Page 1:

Bellwethercorp- Sure they are ranked first. Because of the 2009 date, this page is a blog, so I would skip this listing. It may be interesting reading, but not my intent for this search.

Evron- Nicely formatted and compelling content. This is a good one.

Erequester- The meta description is just keyword stuffing. Poor structure. No reason to click. Next listing..

Assetpoint- I like the lead generation tactic with the free purchase report, as long as it’s still available.

Trackeroffice- Content is too long and is a pure description. Doesn’t persuade me to click.

Mikrofax- Yes they have keywords in their meta, but the message just is not enticing to me.

Page 2:

Bellwethercorp- They show again; this time with a video and a free demo. That’s better. Notice the power of keyword optimization in the video title.

Ariett- This firm does have a meta description on the site, but doesn’t use the word “requisition.” Therefore Google looks for that content on other parts of the site. That’s why the fragments are shown. Lost opportunity for clicks.

10seconds Software. Good benefit statement; nicely worded although a little long. They get a click from me if I have an SAP platform.

In summary, SEO and Content Marketing need to collaborate for proper meta description structure. That’s how we work at NuSpark Marketing. No matter how much keyword research and backlink management you do in order to optimize search engine positioning, it’s still about persuading prospects to click. Once clicked, the opportunity for conversion and lead generation begins. Go ahead and search for your solutions on Google, make pretend you’re a prospect, and ask yourself, would you click?

I look forward to discussion.

An Overview of the Google Adwords Recent Changes & New Features

Paul Mosenson — Thu, 03 May 2012 06:38:37 PDT

Pity those poor writers who’ve written books on Paid search and Google Adwords. There have been so many modifications in search over the last couple of weeks that it makes those authors scrambling to update. Well, change is normal; just ask Google and Facebook. Many of the paid search changes are welcome; others are drawing controversy. Our challenge as lead generators is to stay abreast of the changes and action what makes sense for our clients.

Here, then, is a roundup of what occurred, with my own thoughts and grades of the changes (1-5, with 5 being highest approval).

Ad Rotation Changes

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-changes-to-ad-rotation.html

What: You no longer can rotate ads evenly long-term. After 30 days of even rotation of ads, Google will start displaying ads that are most likely to get more clicks.
The Good: Ads that perform better should be displaying more frequently anyway.
The Bad: Limits testing options. Allows Google to make ad rotation decisions rather than yourself.
Suggestion to Google: At least have us choose between 30, 60, or 90 day testing periods before “settling”
Grade: 3

Improved Keyword Tool & Traffic Estimator

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2012/04/making-campaign-planning-and-build-out.html

What: The Keyword Tool is now better integrated with the Google Traffic estimator. Keyword ideas can now be grouped by themes and added to campaigns as adgroups. With the Traffic estimator, performance estimates can now be graphed; ad groups drafted, and added to Adwords accounts.
The Good: Adds more functionality to keyword and traffic research. Love the Idea saving options as well.
The Bad: None seen yet.
Suggestion to Google: One of these days, they need to have a negative keyword tool. My Concept- Based on chosen keywords, Google shows most popular words that are included in queries, which then gives us an option to add those additional words as negatives.
Grade: 5

More Details on Quality Score Calculation

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2012/04/increasing-transparency-in-quality.html

What: Google has given us more transparency on how they are determining quality score. By hovering over keyword status, you can now see Google’s rankings (below average, average, above average) for three key attributes: Expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
The Good: The feature allows you to troubleshoot and optimize keywords a little better to improve Quality Score.
The Bad: The formula is still a mystery. Many of Google’s ratings are not consistent.
Suggestion to Google: Would like to see more detail on Google’s ratings and why one keyword is a 7 quality score and the other a 5, and a specific suggestion to improve the 5, especially when two keywords are closely related to each other.
Grade: 4

Adwords Labels

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2012/04/slice-and-dice-your-data-using-adwords.html

I covered this in an earlier blog post.

http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/2012/04/how-labels-works-in-google-adwords/

What: A labeling feature that allows you to categorize groups of words, ad groups, ads, and even campaigns.
The Good: You’re able to analyze keywords and ad groups by specific groupings based on themes (labels)
The Bad: I’d like to be able to add multiple labels to keywords, as some long tail terms may fall under multiple labels or themes.
Grade: 3

Near Matches for Exact and Phrase Matches

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-matching-behavior-for-phrase-and.html

What: Now you have the option to cover plurals, misspellings, and other close variants for exact and phrase match keywords.
The Good: Saves time by allowing for slight variants for these matching options.
The Bad: Sometimes plurals and singular terms mean two things entirely. I run “Paid search” for many clients; not “paid searches”
Suggestion to Google: Rather than having this option across the board, Google should add a settings exception feature, to exempt certain keywords from certain global settings options.
Grade: 4

Promote Mobile Apps

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2012/04/making-search-ads-work-for-businesses.html

What: If you have a mobile app, Google has improved how to promote those apps on mobile devices.
Grade: Incomplete. I am still reviewing this, but looks like a great way to promote custom apps for audiences to download.

Google Adwords for Video

http://www.google.com/ads/video/

What: A self-serve video ad campaign that can complement text ad campaigns. Pricing based on Pay-per-view rather than pay-per-click.
The Good: Contributes to branding as well as direct response. A multitude of targeting options- YouTube, Google Display Network, keyword targeting, channel targeting, topic targeting, and a variety of unit options.
The Bad: The power of video is undeniable, but the jury is out on using video under this program as a lead generation strategy.
Suggestion to Google: Do a better job of explaining strategy as compared to tactics. Perhaps include a button within the video for CTA offers.
Grade: 3
Note: Stay tuned for a more detailed post on how to promote videos on Google and YouTube, and how to generate leads with them.

The above covers paid search changes/improvements the last 2 weeks. A look at my Google blogs showcases many more potential features in the works, currently in limited release or beta. It’s all about improving the search experience. As digital lead generation and internet marketing continues to evolve, we need to keep evolving with it, and continue to optimize and tweak.

What do you think of all the recent Google Adwords changes?

How Labels works in Google Adwords; benefits of the new feature

Paul Mosenson — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:22:52 PDT

For those who manage multiple paid search campaigns for lead generation (like yours truly) with Google Adwords, or have others do it, I started testing a new feature that was rolled out this week, called Labels. The new feature allows you to organize campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords by label classifications, so that you can see what types of categories work better than others. This does not replace creating unique ad groups for quality score improvement, but allows cross-over ad group, keyword analysis. I don’t need to explain the how of implementing labels; I’ll let Google do that.

At this early stage, you really want to think about how you can use this feature. It speaks to search intent, and how users search for solutions via the purchase cycle. Here’s an example using one of my clients that sells training programs to sales managers to improve the effectiveness of their sales meetings:

Label: Research

Research represents ad groups and keywords that focus on early funnel activity; when prospects are researching needs just identified and looking to further explore potential solutions.

Complementary keywords for the Research label: Ideas, solutions, programs, sales training (broad, phrase, exact matches)
Examples: “sale training programs” “sales training solutions” “sales training”
Ad Groups that represent research terms are also labeled as Research

Label: How-To

These terms get more into the problems of the prospect and terms used to find specific answers to those problems.

Complementary keywords for the How-To label: Tips, techniques, skills, tools
Examples: “improving sales skills” “sales techniques” “sales training tools”
Labels vs. Ad Groups: Skills, Techniques, Tips, Tools are all unique Ad Groups, but same label.

Label: Outcomes

These terms focus on the end results of the solution.

Complementary keywords for the Outcomes label: Performance, Effectiveness, Productivity
Examples: “improving sales performance” “increasing sales productivity”
Labels vs. Ad Groups: Performance, Effectiveness, Productivity are all unique Ad Groups, but same label.

Some other labels you might want to consider depending on your business, with example complementary keywords:

Comparative: “Best” “Top” “Proven” “Reviews” “Opinions”
Vendor List: “Directory” “List” “Guide” “information”
Purchase: “Buy” “Costs” “Prices” “Quotes”
Outsource: “Firms” “Companies” “Agencies” “Consultants” “Vendors”
Industry: “Law firms, “Accounting” “Technology”

Labels are easy to add and adjust, so it’s OK to experiment with label groupings.
Here’s an example of a Label report by Ad Group, showing that the How-To Label performs the best in this scenario.

Here’s an example of a Label report by Keyword; again showing that the How-To Label is more efficient, even though the Research label gets more traffic.

Again, it’s a new feature, but I think I like classifying this stuff, and the feature does allow me to expand terms and research more “how-to” keyword and ad groups to further optimize the campaign.

I look forward to hearing from you and learning how you might classify labels for your own campaigns. If you’d like some guidance, please send me an email or call me.

Stop the Insanity; A View on Social Media ROI for Lead Generation

Paul Mosenson — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 05:54:20 PDT

I’m a former Media Director at an ad agency. For years I planned and implemented media strategies for a multitude of clients. I still do when my clients ask me; radio, television, print, outdoor, etc. I currently manage some digital media buys and paid search campaigns, but I don’t include my rates and fees on a cost-per-conversion report. So let’s remove salaries and time fees from any social media ROI calculation. OK?

If you’re going to count the time and rates to engage, listen, and monitor social media as part of your ROI calculations, then you’d better start applying that same logic to your paid search agency, your digital agency, your ad agency, internal marketing staff, and any marketing consultants. To go further, do you calculate the ROI of networking? Conferences? I don’t believe the cost of doing a job should count into ROI calculations. I say stop the insanity. Let’s keep these measures apples-to-apples.

Where you CAN charge the time, is the cost of social media content; because that’s a deliverable. A blog post, a white paper, a video, a podcast, or another piece of original content all have hard costs; copy and design. Landing pages as well. Any cost of a social media management tool can also be applied to the ROI calculation. But that’s it, gang. At least that’s my approach for my social media clients.

So before we look at calculating ROI of social media let’s understand the following:

Social media marketing IS marketing; and that means the goal is leads and sales; no argument there. All marketing must contribute to revenue.
Social media is conversation, and that conversation leads to more followers and likes, and that means more opportunity to find prospects and alliances. For Twitter you have to utilize follower tools, and Twitter clean-up tools so that you have a high level of mutual followers. If you have a large mutual following list, then you have more opportunity for conversation, for example.
Decide as a team how you’re going to judge conversion success; first touch or last interaction. Google Analytics has a new feature that can credit attribution. Example:

I’m on Facebook and engage in your brand (like a post). 2 weeks later I decide to research a need that the brand sells. I may go to Google and perform a branded search for the firm I liked on Facebook. Then I perform a conversion. Last interaction credit- search engine. Assisted conversion- social media.
I do some research for a product and visit a website from a Google search. I decide to follow the firm by clicking on the Twitter button on the website. 2 weeks later, the firm produces a new white paper and promotes it on Twitter. I click on the URL shortener and redirects to a landing page. I download the paper. Last interaction credit- social media. Assisted conversion- search engine.

The point is, you have to look at assisted AND last-interaction conversion metrics to determine the true value of social media with regard to conversions.

For more information on assisted conversions and analytics, I offer you this link to Google’s explanation.

So how much is an assisted social media conversion worth as compared to a last interaction conversion? Restated, what percentage of your social media efforts contribute to a non-social media last interaction conversion? Same question for a banner ad, email, or a paid search ad that contributed to a conversion. Hard to say. If your social media activity is estimated to be high (or a Klout score of over 50 if you pay attention to such things), then use 25% as a best estimate. If social media activity is moderate (Klout 30-49) then use 15%. Below that use 10%. Based on your individual overall social media activity, feel free to adjust the figures, but above is what I use to measure social media (and other digital media) attribution.

Now back to analytics and getting ready to measure social media ROI for lead generation. Let’s go through an exercise- just an example:

Social media costs

Facebook ads: $1,000
LinkedIn ads: $500
Social Media Platform tools: $2,000
4 blog posts: $2,000
1 video: $1,000
1 webinar: $1,000

Total: $7,500

Lead/Conversion Metrics

2,000 landing page visits due to social media (last interaction)
Last interaction conversions: 600
Social media assisted conversions: 200
Average sale value (include lifetime value): $4,000
Pipeline conversion rates: a. lead conversion to marketing qualified lead – b. marketing qualified lead to sales accepted lead- c. sales accepted lead to sales opportunity (example- 600 conversions x 25% x 75% x 25%)= 28 sales opportunities
Closing rate: 25%
Sales: 7
Last interaction revenue: $28,000
Assisted conversion revenue (assume 25% conversion value per above): 8 additional sales opportunities (using pipeline conversion rates) that social media contributed to, 2 sales, worth $2,000 (or $4,000 per sale x 2 sales x 25% social media estimated value contribution)

Total Estimated Revenue from Social: $30,000

ROI Calculation

Revenue minus social media cost/ social media cost, or, 300% Positive ROI

The value of a conversion

Working backward based on the above, the value of a last interaction conversion is $46. ($28,000 divided by 600 conversions). The value of an assisted conversion is $10 ($2,000 divided by 200).

Caveat: For the above exercise I did not include margins or customer expenses when calculating ASV. Feel free to adjust when doing your own calculatons.

So now we have measures to present to the C-Suite at B2B firms who prefer to analyze their business with metrics such as leads and ROI. But in reality, social media contributes much more: branding, SEO, customer service, lead nurturing, and relationship building. Don’t get hung up on ROI unless you must; but continue to understand the value of the power of social media to your business long-term.

How do you calculate the ROI of your marketing efforts?

Marketing & Sales Alignment; We’ve Aligned to Optimize Your Lead Funnel & Pipeline

Paul Mosenson — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:29:31 PDT

Content drives leads into the funnel; content nurtures leads into sales opportunities. But real revenue growth depends on the quality of your salespeople, and how they convert those opportunities into wins. Marketing and Sales alignment is essential to a well-oiled lead funnel. I understand the importance of a sound media, social media, conversion and content strategy that generates quality leads until they are sales-accepted. My alliance, Frank Donny of Marseli, understands the principles of demand generation, lead management, and pipeline optimization. I’m a marketing guy; he’s a sales guy, and together we follow the prospect from entrance to exit. Below is our joint press release. If you’re a marketing executive, call me, and I’ll bring Frank in. If you’re a sales executive, call Frank, and he’ll bring me in. We’ve aligned; now it’s your turn, but only if you crave more quality leads, more sales opportunities, and shortened sales cycles.

NuSpark Marketing and Marseli form alliance to help b2b firms manage lead funnel, demand generation, and sales pipeline process

Paul Mosenson, Founder of NuSpark Marketing, a Philadelphia-based digital content marketing and lead generation firm has formed an alliance with Marseli, also Philadelphia based, a marketing and sales insight and integration software and services firm and run by Founder and former SAP marketing leader Frank Donny.

Why the alignment? Best-in-class B2B companies have aligned their sales and marketing teams which in turn has proven to drive increase revenue and ROI. Most companies have not aligned properly, which means message, process, and lead management disconnects, and that means less qualified prospects, leads, and sales opportunities. The alliance means that companies can now improve the management of their entire revenue generation process, from entrance to sales resolution without causing a major disruptance on their existing investments in sales and marketing. The combined service and software offerings are meant to help a company capitalize on what they are now doing.

“It begins with the message,” explains Mosenson. “Proper content marketing is the fuel that drives prospects into the funnel. Buyer persona development, content mapping, content creation, and a strategic lead nurturing process are all mission-critical components that accompany a prospect’s successful journey within the funnel on the way to sales close”

NuSpark Marketing’s focus, then, is the strategic deployment of content marketing via a targeted lead generation process that includes such tactics as paid search, SEO, social media, and paid media. Once the lead is into the nurture process, NuSpark implements and manages marketing automation, so that inbound marketing and demand generation campaigns can continually be optimized. Mosenson himself is a national thought leader on lead management and writer of several ebooks on lead generation and content strategy.

From there, the Marseli services take over. Besides consulting on the integration of marketing automation, and CRM applications, Marseli’s services and software include optimizing the sales process and uncovering leading and lagging process indicators that help improve pipeline performance. “I’ll review and implement systems that will improve sales forecasting and conversion rates throughout the pipeline,” explains Donny. “Salesforce and similar CRMs hold the data, but the strategy on how to extract and analyze the right sales and marketing data locked inside of a sales process is a task sorely needed by sales and marketing executives.” Marseli is also offering a compelling app for Salesforce that will slice and dice the Salesforce data into actionable insight and manage pipeline metrics automatically. Donny’s experience in demand generation at SAP and over 20 years of sales operations and demand generation experience qualifies him as an expert at pipeline management, and thus is an ideal partner for NuSpark Marketing.

For more information on how the alliance can work for you, contact:

Paul Mosenson

pmosenson@nusparkmarketing.com

(610) 604-0639

Frank Donny

frankdonny@marseli.com

610-716-2951

P.S. We’ll give you a free consultation on your lead generation/conversion strategy if you call us! Not getting enough leads or conversions? Let’s chat.

Free Keyword Research and Landing Page Tools for Paid Search; Google Adwords Campaigns

Paul Mosenson — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:44:49 PDT

Google Adwords has some great tools for keyword research, but missing are many tools that can help build strategic keyword lists and ad groups. For my clients I use many tools; some of my own; and some from others, to ensure I begin paid search campaigns as strategic and relevant as possible. The video below goes through many of these tools; most free, that demonstrate how to plan a paid search campaign, build and implement targeted keywords, and convert clicks into conversions using landing page A/B testing tools. I think you’ll find this interesting… what tools do you use?

The Lead Generation-Inbound Marketing- Funnel Optimization Toolkit

Paul Mosenson — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 06:52:04 PDT

In the old days, we had a phone. And a fax machine. If you were in marketing, you had media kits and circulations statements. Rate cards were actual cards. Flow charts were designed on paper with markers and rulers. Budgets determined using Texas Instruments’ calculators. Then computers came. Wordperfect and Lotus123. Then Compuserve and Prodigy… You also had Thomas Register and mailing lists to find leads…

I could go on, but I won’t. Nowadays there are hundreds and hundreds of online tools and platforms that assist us in generating, converting, and nurturing leads into sales. Leads are now email addresses, conversation is written dialog and content, and the phone is saved until later in the sales process. So let’s review the tools needed to manage an inbound marketing and conversion optimization campaign.

Pre-Funnel: Attracting audiences before they have determined need

SRDS. Standard Rate and Data. SRDS probably fits in the first paragraph as well, but still is the best source for researching consumer and b2b media information, covering print, digital, and direct marketing/list research. SRDS

Digital Audience Research. A number of tools exist to measure traffic and demographics of websites, in order to determine options for a targeted display advertising plan. Google’s Doubleclick Ad Planner, Compete, and Quantcast are three of the most popular tools for site research. Here’s the link to the digital media research tools.

Funnel Entrance: Targeting audiences who are exploring solutions

Search engines are called that for a reason- your prospects are searching for information or resources that may help them with a business need. Search engine marketing is the strategy of being visible on these engines by offering answers to the questions raised in the search queries.

SEO. The best SEO tools encompass a number of modules that cover the entire process, from keyword research, and identifying site code issues, to blog and directory research for backlink management. Raven Tools and SEOMOZ are our favorites. Here’s a link to the SEO tools we like.

Paid Search. Where SEO connects prospects to websites for further research, paid search connects prospects to specific landing pages and microsites, designed specifically for lead generation. Managing paid search campaigns can be done easily through Google’s Adwords platform or Microsoft’s Adcenter. For more comprehensive management, we showcase some tools that help us, including favorites Marin Software and Clickable. Here’s the link to some paid search management tools.

Social Media. Well, as you know, everywhere you look there’s a new social media tool to help post, monitor and track social media efforts. From a NuSpark Marketing standpoint, we like tools that combine tasks within a handy easy-to-use dashboard. Here’s a link to our favorite social media management dashboards.

Funnel Conversion: Convert that website/landing page visitor to submit their email address because they want your content or demos

This area is one of the most crucial, but often misunderstood elements of lead generation. Large firms spend over 5 figures in website development; with pages and pages of solutions and resources and other propaganda. Much of it is poor storytelling toward prospect pain points. We love web designers, but a web designer doesn’t mean he/she is a web marketer. That’s where the disconnect usually occurs. A great site plan and look/feel is useless unless the message is clear, and the navigation to action is compelling.

Landing page usability testing is critical. Here are some tools that can help optimize your current pages for conversion.

Likewise, proper conversion architecture, A/B testing, and website form management is a must. Besides Google’s website optimizer, we work with firms such as Ion Interactive and Wider Funnel, but also utilize Demandbase and ReachForce to further improve conversion optimization efforts. Here are links to some of these conversion firms and optimization tools.

Funnel Management: Qualify and nurture leads until they become real sales opportunities.

To separate good leads from less-engaged leads, and to guide those good leads closer to a business decision, good content needs to be the driving force, then once those leads become clear opportunities, pipeline sales management occurs.

Marketing Automation is the conduit between funnel entrance and funnel exits. Similarly, marketing automation is the link between inbound campaigns and CRM platforms. By strategically managing the lead scoring and nurturing process, sales people engage with better quality prospects, and that means shorter sales cycles, and increased win rates. Our favorite marketing automation tools that we recommend are linked here.

Content marketing is the fuel that runs the entire lead management funnel; and without a proper message strategy, prospects will leave your funnel and buy from competitors. It’s that simple. Feel free to download our content marketing template book; templates we use to prepare and optimize our clients’ content and demand generation efforts.

Now, back to the typewriter.

LinkedIn and Twitter Advertising and Marketing Options; A Primer

Paul Mosenson — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 11:07:20 PDT

LinkedIn and Twitter provide unique advertising opportunities for those who wish to target messages towards those audiences within these networks. If you’re buying online display for lead generation, you should consider social media advertising opportunities. Below is a basic primer on the options for larger businesses who wish to take advantage and test these channels.

LinkedIn

I’m not going to discuss self-serve pay-per-click ads, as they are self-explanatory. Rather, I will review the larger-scale options, purchased on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) level.

Targeting

Ads can be targeted towards very specific audiences. You can target LinkedIn ads by

Job function
Seniority
Location
Company Size
Education
Interests
Groups

Units

Three display units are available.

300 x 250 rectangle
160 x 600 skyscraper
728 x 90 leaderboard

Plus, a text link is available as well. Here’s an example of one; note the premium placement on top of the page, rather than the bottom right for self-serve ads.

Partner Messages

Another option is a custom email, called a LinkedIn Partner Message that can be sent to a specific target audience via email. LinkedIn members receive a partner message once every 60 days. Typical open rates are 15-25%. Pricing is based on cost-per-recipient. Below is an example.

Twitter

Twitter has a number of unique marketing opportunities. Depending on your goals is best to experiment and see which options perform best, whether your goal is to build followers, engagements, or clicks to your landing pages for lead generation. Here’s the basic Twitter advertising primer:

Promoted Accounts

Promoted Accounts are listed first under the “Who to Follow” recommendation sections on Twitter. The goal for these ads is quite simply, build followers quickly. “Who to Follow” offers users suggestions on who to follow. Your promoted account ad appears here as well targeting users most likely to be interested in your product. Targeting occurs 3 ways:

Interests determined by accounts currently following you
Interest-based keywords
Geo-targeted- country and metro area options.

Pricing is based on a cost-per-follow; so in essence, competitive bidding occurs. Here are a couple of examples of promoted accounts, including one for Romney.

Promoted Tweets

Promoted Tweets are amplified tweets that show occasionally either in your timelime or search results. Promoted Tweets in search reach users who are looking for specific interests. Tweets in timelines can target your followers who may miss your regular tweets, and can also target non-followers who are similar to your followers. Promoted Tweets can also be targeted geographically. Promoted Tweets are ideal for sharing content, building awareness, or lead generation by offering a promotion.

Pricing is based on CPE, or cost-per-engagement, so you only pay when someone retweets, replies, or favorites the tweet. Impressions are free. Below are two examples of promoted tweets.

Promoted Trends

Promoted Trends appear on the trend section of Twitter. Ideal for building mass awareness of a message or launching a product or event, Promoted Trends get fixed position on a first-come basis once a day within the trend section. Users can tweet about the Promoted Trend by including the terms in their Tweets. Here’s an example of a Promoted Trend:

Analytics

Twitter advertisers get their own analytics to monitor their promoted accounts and promoted tweets so performance can be measured.

There you have it; a quick summary of marketing opportunities on LinkedIn and Twitter. General best practices:

Have a compelling message; ideally with a call-to-action for lead generation
Have clear goals in mind- conversion rates- cost-per-conversion, cost-per-click.
Bring audiences to specific landing pages to optimize conversion and lead capture
Utilize Google’s URL builder to tag URLs within analytics for more granular measurement.
Test and optimize.

If you’d like to learn more about these opportunities and how social media marketing can work for your business, please contact me to discuss strategy.

New Infographic: B2B Lead Generation & Content Marketing Trends

Paul Mosenson — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 05:09:44 PDT

Presenting my first infographic. The infographic summarizes key data from a variety of research reports covering B2B and technology lead generation, media strategy, and content marketing trends, from initial solution research to lead nurturing.

The research was comprehensive; and all had varying respondent demographics. My goal was to seek out the best of the best, repurpose each research chart into a custom chart using the tool located at www.icharts.net, and present the trends in an orderly fashion. Certainly the infographic isn’t as fancy as some, but I wanted to showcase the information as a lead generation “story” covering buyer research, website content, downloadable content, and influential media choices.

Here are links to the specific research studies noted on the Infographic:

Here’s the Infographic. Hope you find it useful! Zoom in for better readability.

Is Your Website Working for Lead Generation and Inbound Marketing?

Paul Mosenson — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:07:45 PST

How’s your website doing?

How do you think it’s doing? Is it performing to expectations? Do you even have expectations? How much did you spend on it? Measuring ROI? Was it written by internal staff, an outsourced tech writer, or a marketer? The answer starts off with what your goals are for the website, and then determine if those goals are being met.

Are you generating leads from your website?

If you have goals set-up with your analytics tool, and you have a proper lead capture mechanism by offering content, webinars, demos, or trials, or even an easy way to engage with a prospect, then you can measure the conversions, which ideally should be qualified email submissions, so that prospects enter your funnel.

If you have a soft-sell “contact us” page, then driving immediate leads is harder. It now becomes the job of the website itself to create a compelling story so that the prospect bookmarks the website for when he’s ready to research further, or is ready to contact sales immediately because of the relevant message that solves his business needs.

Does your website tell a compelling story?

Landing pages and microsites are designed to generate leads. Websites themselves tell a more complete story, with the goal to reassure a prospect that your solution is right for them. Without a lead capture mechanism as described above, you have no way to contact a specific prospect and thus that prospect doesn’t enter the funnel. You can certainly utilize tools that provide code on your site that identifies website visitors, but you’ll have to do some digging to find the specific prospect; and even if you do, that prospect may not be ready to engage with you.

Do your prospects agree with your story? If so, they are engaged; if not, they leave. Your story has to relate to your audience’s problems, and explain simply and easily how your solution solves their needs. Language has to be written in their language; not yours. Avoid the marketing-speak, and explain why your prospects need your solution, and why they should buy from me. Give them useful content so your prospects can consider your solutions when they enter the consideration phase. Below is a matrix of what makes up good content, and a good website story:

Are you key pages being seen?

Take a look at your analytics’ engagement measures. How many pages per visit is your site receiving? If your story is told best with 4-5 pages, and your pages per visit is 2-3, then there’s a problem. Prospects are busy, and they scan. They have to be sold on your solutions early-on or else they leave and visit a competitor.

Clues to the missing pages of the story can be found when looking at the content section of your analytics tool. Look at the visitors of your Case Study page, your About Us page, and your Key Solutions pages, for example. With analytics, you can study the page navigation- tracking what page prospects visit before the key page, and what page was viewed after. By studying the page navigation as well as page exit rates, you can make note of which pages aren’t working, and make strategic changes to the page look, content, and navigation, so that the key page becomes a better, more engaged, contribution to your solution story. Below is what the navigation report looks like on Google Analytics.

Here’s an example of a good story; and a not-so-good story.

I did a search for Document Management Software. Here are a couple of ads:

EMC is giving away something on ECM (Enterprise Content Management) for lead generation. It must be some kind if ebook- it’s not clear. But it will take me 15 minutes to read it. However, my search is for software; so at first impression, I don’t know what this company does. It’s time to read the story.

EMC’s SEO Snippet. I don’t sense they are a software firm for Document Management

EMC’s home page doesn’t give me much of a clue on my business need. The first thing people see is an ad for their show. I don’t care at this point; I have a business need I need help with. This is a bad introduction to a story.

Here’s a page on their content management services. There’s not much content I can browse or scan on this page. The story is still limited. A prospect may be confused on what to do next. The case studies help a bit, but I have to download them as PDFs.

There is indeed much content on this site, but there’s no guide for a call-to-action. Yes I can call them or email them, but not ready yet. There’s too much to read; and as a prospect I could get lost. The site is not doing an optimal job of storytelling and getting me to offer my email address. The white paper offered earlier should be included here on a side bar, where there can be opportunity for lead capture in order to receive the quality content.

Now Filebound has a poor paid search ad, as it doesn’t offer any benefits or reasons to click.

Here’s the SEO snippet. Although a little long- it’s focused, and clearly explains what they do.

Here’s where the ad clicks to:

This is a great simple story. Benefit content is immense. Videos are compelling. Case studies are easy to digest. Every page has a one-field web form; an email addresses to request a demo. They need help with their paid search efforts, but I am more likely to engage with this firm for my document management software needs than EMC. Sorry.

B2B Websites have much to learn from above. Firms spend thousands of dollars on fancy websites written by “scientists” and not by marketers who know who to tell compelling and persuasive stories. A website is a sales tool. Its job is to engage prospects with education and persuasion. It needs to attract leads into your funnel. It needs SEO based on buyer’s needs; not yours. Ads, website descriptions, keywords, landing pages, website content, and call-to-action all need to align for the funnel to be optimized, and make your website work.

Study your analytics; review your website goals; review the website content. I ask again; How is Your Website Doing?

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How’s your website doing?

Here’s an example of a good story; and a not-so-good story.

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