Being involved in a business that deals in what I call 'intensely local' websites (many of our customers pull from a radius of less than 20 miles, some have business jurisdictions that are fractions of that). When you look at the accuracy of your average Google Local or Superpages search, it's not bad, but I'm amazed on a daily basis how many businesses simply haven't taken advantage of putting their URL, or even correcting their business information in Google or any of the other online directories.

Imagine my surprise when I was doing some research for an upcoming seminar, trying to highlight our local Internet prowess, only to find out that our own Chamber of Commerce has one major flaw with it's Google Local listing... It's LINKED TO ANOTHER WEBSITE! Now, it's not all bad, at least the link goes to the local newspaper, and the chamber listing does show up in the organic search as the first listing (one would hope that it should), but nonetheless, the URL is wrong in the listing.

Don't bother contacting them, I already have. However, it will be interesting to see how long it takes them to correct it. This reminds me of a presentation I saw recently over at MarketingProfs where Stephan Spencer and Brian Klais of NetConcepts mentioned a local hospital which has some material that was commented out which said something like "Jack designed this website with a swiss-army knife and a pack of gum" or something like that... The point is, you can't put your 'stuff' out on the Internet and then go on vacation.

ACTION ITEM: Go Google yourself. Then, check the local directories. If anything about your information is incorrect or incomplete, get it corrected. If your URL is not listed, but it could be, get it in there...
> Google Local
> Superpages.com
> Yellowpages.com
> Yahoo Local
> Your listing on websites in your local area...

It's been a few months since the last Pheedo Pheed Read report! For those of you who've been watching, the RSS marketplace has grown and matured in just a few short months.

As usual, there's lots of data to share in this Pheed Read. We'll cover a few highlights here, but if you're interested in the full details, please download the Pheed Read Spring 2006 Report here.

Full-Text Feeds and Summary Feeds Garner Similar Click-Through Rates (CTR)

Summary feeds (full content not shown in the feed item) average at 12% CTR while full-text feeds average 10% CTR. The report states that the median CTR for full-text feeds remains at 10% while summary feeds drop to 8% CTR due to extremely high CTR rates in certain categories and individual feeds.

DIY Network recently launched a two-month internet-only marketing campaign designed to drive DIY Network tune-in via targeted impressions, and drive DIYNetwork.com clickthrough for relevant content.

They did everything online. Site-specific banners, ad networks, blog advertising, RSS advertising (no podcasting, though), contextual ads and paid search.

Not only did they do online marketing proud, they got results from their two-month effort to boot!

- 67.9 million impressions
- 580,000 clickthroughs
- 80 percent of site visitors were new to DIYnetwork.com
- Visitors viewed an average of seven pages
- Rich-media banners average interaction rate was around 10 percent
- CTR for paid search increased 183 percent during the campaign, reaching 4.25 percent

They were even so kind as to share a diagram of their success with iMediaConnection.

Source: DIY Networks via iMediaConnection

Technorati Tags: Advertising, DIY Network, Pheedo, RSS

Email marketing service provider has recently announced it's alignment with analytics provider HBX (aka WebSide Story, HitBox). As a former customer of both systems, I'm geeked to hear of this arrangement. It's a merger of the best & the brightest in the business. But it's not enough.

Web analytics vendors need to get in bed with everyone. CRM, SFA, KM, everyone. So much of the 'further learn' in the customer decision cycle takes place on the web that it's simply no longer prudent to ignore the metrics and analytic capabilty that your own website affords.

After brooding a bit more on Scoble's post, I thought back to our presentations in Chicago and think that we missed the mark on something. We still talked about website stickiness, which, in many ways, is now little more than an overused and misunderstood term like "hits". Sure, we still measure the most trafficked sites and want to know how long people stayed at said sites, but site stickiness and visitor length of visit are no longer the ways that we should be looking at the effectiveness of our sites for a number of reasons:

- They're Not Customer-centric
- Not a measurment that you can take to the bank
- Does not illustrate the level of relationship, or lack thereof that a customer has with your site (your company...)
- Tends to focus our web dev energy and money on the wrong things
- May reward the wrong behavior (someone stays on your site too long because it sucks and they can't figure out how to convert)

More later...

So, I had yet another email tonight from someone I've never heard of from a site that I've never been to telling me how our Google rankings are a match and due to some cosmic alignment, we should link to each other. Nice try, but stop, stop, STOP! My reply went something like this:

Sorry, but I'm no longer accepting link exhanges (not that I ever was) because they are too much of a pain in the ass to manage. I will, however, be linking to blogs that I actually read and that have an RSS feed (prefer full text...). These are the only sites that I'll be linking to because they can be administered through BlogLines and I don't have to screw around with adding HTML code to some obscure links page on my site.

If you start a blog with a feed, send me an email and I'll check it out.

Thanks!

Speaking of which, has anyone actually written a web marketing book that refreshes all of the worn out crap that we did back in '99 and addresses blogs, consumer generated media, and the lke?

Peter had some great insights on e-marketing that he picked up at his local gas station. Well worth a quick read. Deals with your market positioning too.

Joe Connonly in today's StartupJournal discusses how to get more traffic for little money. Oddly enough, he doesn't cover blogs as a possiblility.

He says:

If you use a very precise phrase in your e-marketing, you may do better, says Rob Levin, founder of New York Enterprise Report, a New York-based publication about small and midsize business. For example, instead of listing "footwear," write "track shoes." You may get only half as many hits, but they'll be from people looking specifically for track shoes. You can direct them to the precise page within your Web site, he says.

I say:

If you write often in your weblog, post reviews of footwear, track shoes, and invite comments from your customers, you will increase your visitor ship by providing real, value add content, engaging in a conversation with your customer, and from the increased visibility that blogs get you in the search space.

I've had several conversations over the past week about how the web is still the great equalizer for many small businesses, and doubly so for entrepreneurs and businesses competing in the face of very large conglomerates.

Weblogs are a futher equalizer in that they can turn a meager internet marketing budget into a rock star search performance & findability model, if they 're done right. There are few businesses on the planet that DON'T need a comprehensive web strategy. days, most small businesses hoping to land a lot of new customers must have a strong Internet marketing strategy.

How do you argue with results like this:

"We've had thousands of potential customers calling us out of the blue because they saw us on Internet searches," he says. "It was like we got billboarded overnight.

The beauty of email, PPC and more integrated marketing tactics like email + mail + outbound calling is that you have no choice but to get closer to your customers as you market to them. I know, spray & pray has been dead for a long time, but that doesn't mean that everyone knows it.

This article about the Le Meridien hotel properties using e-marketing is especially refreshing because it underscores the value of businesses using e-marketing 'because they can' (current, relevant, and complete data about everyone who's stayed in your hotel, right down to the contact level should be enough of a reason for anyone to jump onboard.

Determining the effectiveness of your company's Web site is based on real data: number of unique visitors, the keywords and phrases people used to find your site, the pages that are downloaded most frequently, and that all-important metric -- conversion.

Once you have your Web logs in hand, you want to pay particular attention to the following data:

1. Number of Unique Visitors and Page Views
2. Conversion Rate(s)
3. Top Pages / Top Entrances
4. Top Keywords
5. Top Referrals
6. Top Domains or Robots/Spiders

[via High Rankings.com]

From a recent whitepaper by Bunnyfoot Universality:

Banner adverts are still the most popular advertising format, comprising over 40% of all online ad spend. This equates to £120m spent on banners alone in 2003. Banners have a broad definition as a graphical web advertising unit. Its typical measurements
are 468x60 however recently the IAB believed there to be over 10,000 different formats and have introduced a Universal Ad Package in 2004, consisting of six standard shapes and sizes. We included in our study all embedded graphical units, from standard banners to skyscrapers to buttons.

As the Internet has become a more important channel for interacting with customers and satisfying their requirements, Web-site availability and performance for online business processes have become key performance indicators (KPIs). Most CEOs are really beginning to understand the importance and impact of online systems to their business performance and corporate reputation. Furthermore, many are beginning to take a personal interest in these KPIs.

The drivers behind this growing importance are:

1. Consumers now have a higher expectation of online levels of service.
2. Displacement of back-office systems (B2C).
3. Globalization of the supply chain (B2B).

[via destinationCRM]

Larry Chase and his editorial staff and I selected the very best of his Top Ten Internet Marketing Tips and just posted them on his site.

Here are just a few of the Top Ten Tips just posted:

• Top 10 Tactics for Writing Effective Direct Marketing Copy
  
• Top 10 Google Tips for Marketers
  
• Top 10 Tactics for Keeping B2B Clients
  
• Top 10 Tactics for Viral Marketing
  
• Top 10 Tips for Writing Top Ten Tips
  
• Top 10 Tips for Talking to the Press
  
• Top 10 Tactics for Customer Acquisition
  
• Top 10 Tactics for Sales Letter Copywriting
  
• Top 10 Tips for Buying Media Online

Why is it that some persons are attracting success and money like magnets while others are struggling to get e.g. an affiliate check for $40 a month? What are the factors that make the difference between success and failure? Hint: It's not just luck. It has to do with your personality and some common factors...

Common factors of Internet marketing "Gurus":

1.) Most of them have their own quality product(s). The majority of them will have a whole lot of products so they can create "multiple streams" of income. But it is also possible to succeed by marketing just affiliate products. A good example would be Frank Garon who made $130,000 without a product he owned (but in the meantime this has changed - he now has his own products). But then points 2 and 3 do apply to them as well:

2.) They are giving quality information away for free. It's not that they are just "bombarding" their subscribers with one offer after the other and dozens of classified ads and solos in their ezines. On the contrary, you will rarely get an endorsement or ad from them. That makes it more special if they really have got something important to share... They have established themselves as experts and are well known and trusted.

3.) Because they are giving quality information, they are getting lots and lots of new subscribers. So their mailing list is huge in most cases. Why? They need to be able to contact people who are interested in what they have to say and who will also buy what they have to offer. So they need to be able to contact people who trust them already.

4.) What are those "gurus" doing who have just a small list? They are finding other marketers who have big lists and start joint venturing with them. They offer them the lion's share of the profits and because the "gurus" know their subscribers can trust their recommendations, they can sell a lot of those products (of course, the products have to be good enough).

5.) They are continually educating themselves about Internet marketing. They read the latest ebooks, research what their competitors are doing and are always searching for ways to get more knowledge than anyone else AND they are putting it into practice. Moreover, they are purchasing the latest software products which will make their business easier to handle or which save them time.

So when will you become the next "guru"?

[via EARTHtimes.org]

Ralph Wilson writes a few great tactics for improving link popularity. These are great tactics for bloggers.

We all know the value of link popularity to increase search engine rankings. Here are Ralph's recommendations for getting links to your site:

1. Personally contact webmasters of complementary sites by e-mail or phone to ask for a reciprocal link. Make sure these sites have some relation to your type of site--or you might just get dumped into what amounts to a private link farm which Google will scorn. Reciprocal links are labor intensive, but still helpful. Unless the site linking to you has a high PageRank itself, however, it won't help your own PageRank as much as a more prominent site (www.google.com/technology).


2. Get links from major directories with a high PageRank, such as Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.com) and perhaps paid directories such as Yahoo! Express (https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/express/intro/) and Business.com


3. Place news releases containing links to your site. I've recently partnered with PRWeb Direct (wilsonweb.prwebdirect.com) to offer affordable press release placement services to help in this regard. News releases may show up temporarily on Yahoo and Google News and (hopefully) will be archived long term on some news sites with a relatively high PageRank.


4. Write free articles that supply content for other websites and include a link back to your website. Look at the syndication section of my site to see how I do this (www.wilsonweb.com/syndicate/).


5. Contribute to online forums that allow a "signature" that includes a hyperlink to your website.


6. Offer a "major award" logo to complementary websites that include a link back to your site (with appropriate keywords in the ALT element of the IMG tag). What webmaster struggling for recognition of his efforts can resist your "Best Silver Jewelry Site of the Week" award?


7. Pay an SEO firm to find you links. The price range for obtaining legitimate reciprocal links is about $30-$50 per link. The best firms don't use tricks but spend the time to do it right.

I've tried both types of campaign-specific URLs, and I've never really noticed a difference in response using www.danavan.net/campaign or a subdomain such as campaign.danavan.net. However, ClickZ has an article today about the world of campaign-only URLs. It's certainly worth a read.

Can You Remember the Address?

One thing I'd love to see is fewer onerous domain extensions in marketing materials. Nothing pains me more than seeing an industrial-size URL in an ad or brochure. The company expects users to type something like www.brand.com/goheretoenterthisreallycoolcontestnowtowinsomethingnow.

Yet one could argue using the brand domain consistently, across all media and over a period of time, helps build awareness. It reminds customers your preferred method of customer interaction is online through the brand site.

Who's Got the Answer?

I know there are some really sharp marketers out there who've already thought this through, conducted some research, or actually implemented a control and exposed research methodology to solve the question. So I'll appeal to your altruistic nature and ask you to share your knowledge with the marketing world. Save us from future bad addresses!

Have you seen or heard any information that indicates campaign URLs generate better results than extensions of corporate URLs? Any case studies or second-hand facts that document better business results or customer interactions?

Online marketing conferences provide an outstanding venue for skill enhancement and industry networking. The Online Advertising Discussion List attends several industry events each year and delivers reports on key sessions to our list readers. For example, archives of their coverage of the 2002 eMetrics Summit in Santa Barbara, California provide insight into the many outstanding sessions from that event.

Check out the OAC's calendar of online marketing-related conferences. If you have an addition or correction to suggest, please use the contact form.

Internet Marketing Conferences - Calendar:

http://o-a.com/conferences.html

Olivier Travers underscores some comments from Andrew Goodman on the value of contextual ads that I've agreed with for some time. I too find myself looking for the ads that are relevant to what I'm searching for. Especially when I'm now 'looking for services' to purchase or benchmark, the commercial listings (vs. organic) have proved to be increasingly more pertinent to my needs. Critical mass is key here. Without enough relevant advertisers, this concept holds no merit.

However, the onus is now on the advertisers to provide ever-relevant landing pages to ensure that they're giving us exactly what we're seeking, or they've defeated the entire purpose of their efforts, and angered us in the process.

Hear, hear! I find myself actively looking for the ads when I'm doing product/shopping-related queries, as sometimes all I want is to know where to buy the freaking stuff and how much it costs. Someone explaining why they offered the thing for their grandma for Christmas, or an obscure academic paper which happens to include my query's keywords, is sometimes just noise. It's all about context.

In a ClickZ column today, Nate Elliott airs his thoughts on why he feels Viral Marketing is little more than a myth. I agree, in part.

I think what Nate is getting at is a well thought out idea, since so many viral marketing 'campaigns' go bust, but I think that the column is a bit parochial and doesn't tell the whole story. Perhaps the 'promise' of viral marketing has been so hyped that we have unrealistic expectations of what this marketing tool can do for us. In reality, there are many instances where marketing and advertising fail us miserably and leave us scratching our heads. Viral marketing happens to be inherently 'trackable' which makes it stand out when it takes a dive, where as other mediums can be bolstered with some 'soft measurements' like brand awareness increases and other fluff, viral marketing has nothing to show but numbers - as in the number of people to whom the viral piece has touched.

My point here is that I feel that viral marketing is still a viable component of any comprehensive marketing strategy and that our experimentation should continue. Perhaps in the not too distant future, we will at least be able to triangulate in on some more effective tactics that can improve our chances of VM success.

Terry Lund, editor of MarketingSherpa's guide to web analytics vendors, has a super online listing of over 100 web analytics tool vendors, and a more concise list of some of the top vendors. I'm currently using a page-tagging tool called Opentracker on this site, and have been extremely satisfied. It's not nearly as powerful as Hitbox (or HBX, as it's now called) but is certainly more powerful than your average log file analysis tool.

WebProWorld has a long thread running on the top 100 mistakes people make in Internet marketing, and web design. (It's an open forum, so there's lot's of slack in what people construe as "Internet Marketing"...)

Some of my favorites so far:

1. Expecting to take over Google or Yahoo in three easy weeks... - Any company that guarentees this is full of shit. There is a method to this madness.
   
2. Content that is focused on the product instead of the customer. "Aint we great" is not nearly as powerful as "you can be even better".
   
3. Considering testing user experience and user interface design a waste of money. "Hell, I just gotta get it up. Then we'll fix 'er up fine."
   
4. Thinking that your idea is unique without finding out how unique (or not) it may be. - Spend some time trolling the web - I bet you'll find a site just like yours somewhere!
   

Thanks again to Jay Berkowitz of Ten Golden Rules for his contributions to the AMA Internet SIG during his trip to AD:TECH!

These are the top 10 things that Jay has taken away from AD:TECH:

1. Prime Time Television's days are numbered as the most powerful in a marketer's arsenal. TIVO's and other forms of recording, zipping and zapping are drastically reducing commercial viewership. The effectiveness and measurability of online will make the internet our most powerful tool one day soon.

2. Shopping sites are significantly altering online retail performance. Customers are visiting brand sites for information and then going to Shopping.com, nextag.com or froogle.com to look for the best deal.

3. Selling online has been critical to the overall financial success of HP, Samsung and Sony. Online sales return cash up to 60 days faster than traditional channels.

4. Viral Marketing is Back with a Blast: HP has had tremendous success with a website called HP+You that allows consumers to share photos: http://h10030.www1.hp.com/you/us/en/flash/flashyou.html , Burger King has a huge hit with the Subservient Chicken that reached a top 1000 ranking on Alexa: http://www.subservientchicken.com and the AMEX commercial featuring Superman and Jerry Seinfeld got millions of website visitors to voluntarily watch a four minute ad: http://www.jerry.digisle.tv/room.html

Robin Good points to a few of the more popular Internet marketing tactics which are all but useless at this point in time.

1) Affiliate Programs -
2) MLM Progams -
3) E-commerce Sites - Internet stores are too abundant and they sell the same goods as Amazon or Best Buy. Why should anyone search the internet to find you when they can go to the 'big guys'? Your e-commerce site is a waste of time and money unless you have unique products that can't be easily found somewhere else.
4) Re-selling E-books -
5) Safelist Advertising -
6) Posting To FFA's - FFA or 'Free For All' pages will post your ad in one of seven categories on their page.
7) Free Classifieds - ** As a general rule, on the web, as in any other advertising, you truly do get what you pay for!!! **
8) Pop-up Ads -

Frankly, I thought I was pretty good w/ web analytics, but I've only ever seen this stat as something like "single page visitors" or "single access pages" or something odd like that...whatever WebTrends called it. Shows you what I know...

Anyway, a *new* piece of terminology, and goal for web marketers is to "reduce the bounce rate" of the site. Which means, reduce the number of people who leave after only one page, and inrease the number of people who delve deeper into the site and ultimately convert.

Now, here's where I think this is a crock of sh_t. If yours is a "news" site, similar to my blog, then there might not *be* a conversion that you're seeking, so to speak (conversion for me is if someone takes me up on my RSS feed and continues reading...I notice this by my exponentially increasing bandwidth stats) and the high bounce page happens to be your blog home page where all of the content really exists, then a high bounce rate isn't *bad*, per se. What you'd really want to do (neither package below has this) is track the time spent on the page, and factor that into a formula or create an "index" of sorts that marries the viewing time with the bounce rate to see how "sticky" the pages are, and thus the "attraction & retention index" on a per page level.

Bounce Rate:
Bounce rate is the percentage of web site visitors who arrive at an entry page, then leave without getting any deeper into the site.

BTW: This term is evident in the stats on both Opentracker, which is a super user friendly JavaScript based web analytics & tracking system, and In-Stats, which is also super easy, only costs $25EURO/month, and is a bit more comprehensive than Opentracker. I'm testing both on this site and it's simply amazing how much detail these tools can tell you! In-Stats also supports Flash Tracking (no shit!) so look for more on this in the future - we're test implementing it in a few sites right now!

Jay Berkowitz, CEO of Ten Golden Rules will be reporting back from AD:TECH 2004 to the American Marketing Association Internet/SIG list - here's his first report...

Also, check out the AD:TECHblog, sponsored by MarketingVOX.

As discussed, I am at Ad-Tech in San Francisco, I will produce a series of
short updates to share the latest in online marketing from the hottest
industry segment! The show is packed! Over 5,000 have registered, way above
previous highs. People are sitting and standing in the aisles in all of the
sessions and the trade show floor is mobbed.

One trend that was on the lips of a number of presenters today was WOM or
Word-of-Mouth Marketing. This is exemplified by Blogging, Social Networking
and The Subservient Chicken.

Blogs are web logs, daily entries made by "bloggers" low tech webmasters who
post their thoughts, pictures and links to other websites or blogs.

Social Networking is really hot, sites like www.friendster.com ,
www.linkedin.com, www.ezboard.com and www.tickle.com . People are trading
leads, chatting, and talking about companies, products and services. Upset a
customer and look out - delight someone and he/she will let the world know.

Lastly, everyone is buzzing about The Subservient Chicken. This character
does whatever you ask him (well almost everything) on command, ask him to
build a fort, he does it, ask him to do the splits and he does his best
attempt. Click on the BK link and you find out that Burger King, who have
re-launched the "Have it Your Way" campaign created this little web
marketing gem. The amazing part, this website has rocketed into the top
20,000 most trafficked sites on the internet through WOM or Word-of-Mouth
marketing.

I'm off to the Overture reception, more from San Fran later tonight.

More companies increased Internet marketing budgets than any other medium over the past quarter, leading one to believe that the sector has consistently outperformed all other media.

John Owen, IPA Digital Marketing Group chairman and planning director of Dare Digital, said of the findings: "The trend towards online marketing continues unabated. There is no surer sign of the effectiveness of the medium than the fact that clients are investing more and more of their marketing budget in it."

[via Brand Republic]

Someone needed to write this article! Scottie Claiborne wrote this great, quick overview of what basic web analytics terms mean, and why you all should stop saying HITS to refer to anything that happens on your website. Here are some of the terms that the article airs out.

The Adrian Dominican Sisters proudly oversee a revamped Web site, which allows the public to learn about the congregation, find out about upcoming events, and even ''ask a sister'' questions about religious life, is the centerpiece of the Adrian Sisters' marketing campaign, now in its third year.

The Internet is especially key to reaching the sisters' target group of women in their mid-20s, though people of all ages have been accessing the site, Sister Carleen Maly said. And three years after the first billboards went up, the effort has begun to produce results in the forms of thousands of phone calls and Web site hits, a surge in attendance at religious retreats and a few women who have started their journey toward joining the Adrian Sisters.

''I asked myself, 'If Saint Dominic were alive, how would he reach people?' " she said. ''I think he would be doing all of this. I think he would have a Web site.''

A couple of resources surfaced today on the value of linking (reciprocal linking is a cost efficient method of driving traffic to websites). So many of us get down the road in our e-marketing endeavors and forget about the basics when working with our clients, or even our own sites. Linking is one of those things that you can't skimp on, and regardless of Google & PageRank, you need a linking strategy for a whole host of reasons. Here's a couple good resources to refresh your memory.

I haven't had a chance to read it yet. In fact, it's still downloading, but anything Jim produces is usually golden.

FREE White Paper: 'Web Channel Performance Management: Aligning Web Site Vision and Strategy with Goals and Tactics', by web analytics expert Jim Sterne. Target Marketing's Jim Sterne looks at how web analytics should be used as an integral part of a company's business strategy.

An extract from Jim's summary in the report is below:
'We have long desired to have the ultimate spreadsheet that can take daily or hourly sales, production costs, promotional expenditures, etc. and scroll down to the bottom line to see how things are going. Web analytics has provided the tactical and goal-oriented tools necessary to understand the interactions and behaviour of Web site visitors. But we quickly discovered that the health of the Web channel depends on more than historical data such as financial metrics, number of visitors or performance of the site. These fail to allow an organization to manage future performance. While critical, Web analytics is just one piece of the puzzle, and without a connection to strategy and vision, it is impossible to manage future performance.

A performance management system provides the link between strategy and vision, and goals and tactics. It can help organizations lay out their Web site strategy and then break it down into objectives related to specific departments, business units or functional areas. Metrics and targets can be associated with these objectives to manage and monitor progress. This allows managers to track performance against organizational goals and objectives. Drilling down into detailed performance information can provide a window on local operations for every manager throughout the organization. With Web channel performance management, organizations can now move past simply measuring and monitoring Web site traffic to motivating their employees and managing the Web site toward a common vision.'


[via netimperative]

Entrepreneur Magazine: CHEAP Ways to Drive Site Traffic

Entrepreneur waxes on about the low-cost high return strategies of per-click (PPC) search engine marketing and affiliate programs. ...

That's all good and well, just don't drop the ball on conversion when you get 'em there...

I thought that this was just too cool! We don't have much in Green Bay for free wireless yet, save for Kavarna, but Milwaukee has a bit of a base already. Check out the Milwaukee Wi-Fi Hotspot map that Stanley Miller has put together on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website.

This is a response that I drafted to a request from an American Marketing Association member on how to setup an Internet Marketing division within his company. Some potentially valuable stuff here that I thought I'd share.

1. Develop rock solid goals and objectives for your team and ensure that everything you do under the guise of your Internet Marketing banner is done to explicitly serve one or more of the objectives. Examples of some of the goals of companies I have worked with:
- Develop leads for field sales
- Make our company "easier to do business with"
- Retain customers through e-mail marketing and loyalty programs
- Drive incremental revenue through web channels
- Close sales of a certain $$ through web channels to minimize transaction cost

2. You and your senior management need to discuss, in detail, your expectations of what Internet Marketing is to bring to the organization.

3. Additionally, a vision for success needs to be established. How will you know when you've 'arrived' or that you're even on the right track. I know, this is basic, but I can't tell you how many quandaries I've seen due to a simple lack of a shared or at least mutually agreed upon vision of success for an e-marketing initiative.

4. A common language of what constitutes a lead, inquiry, conversion, ROMI, and other web metrics needs to be established, and benchmarks need to be setup for each metric.
(here's a link to a great e-marketing tracking spreadsheet http://www.danavan.net/weblog/archives/emarketing_tracking_spreadsheets.html)

5. Selling the initiative *laterally* is sometimes one of the hardest things to do in an organization. Not knowing the specific structure of your organization, I can only speak generally on this topic, but at one of my former companies, we conducted full-scale presentations to every single department in the company, explaining the mission of our e-marketing program, the benefits to the company and the employees, and related to each department how they fit into the e-business puzzle.

6. Develop a quarterly action plan for your division. The e-marketing space still moves pretty quickly and you need to have an action plan which you can throw new ideas against to see if they meet your mission. There are things like loyalty programs and never fit in certain organizations I've worked with, that were blockbusters in others. You need to be able to evaluate every element of the e-marketing mix for feasibility in your own environment.

7. Rely on your analytics. If you do nothing else, track the effects of your e-marketing initiative. It's appalling how many companies still charge headlong into this space without a proper "Plan-Do-See" model for evaluating successes and failures and adjusting accordingly. Depending on how important this initiative is going to be to your company, it pays to develop the proper models to be able to forecast what will and won't work within your environment. Moreover, if you are diligent about your analytics, you will have an upper hand on marketing vendors who come calling making outrageous claims of improving ROI. In a former role, we saved over $100,000 in online media just by using the numbers we collected from our garden variety analytics to refute vendors' inflated traffic claims and negotiate more agreeable terms.

8. Know when to outsource. Things like Pay-Per-Click campaigns can be a sinkhole of time and e-mail marketing can consume small e-marketing departments. With each turn, it pays to evaluate outside assistance to augment your internal efforts. Always know what your time is worth.

9. How will the Internet effect other channels? Channel conflict has brought many a budding e-commerce program to its knees. Know how your channels will benefit from your e-marketing and e-commerce efforts and be able to articulate those benefits to channel partners, your internal sales force, VARS, and anyone else who interfaces in the distribution and sales of your products/services.

10. Do your homework. Subscribe to the right e-newsletters, get involved in the AMA Internet SIG, and keep your eyes open for new ideas. While much has been done, there is still much innovation left in this space. Be at the forefront and keep ahead of your competitors by devoting a certain percentage of your time to online R&D. Experiment with different models and tactics. For example - we tried an "RFI (request for information)" model of acquisition vs. our standard "RFQ (request for quotation)" model for a period of 2 weeks once, and found that 25% less people converted on the RFI model. Keep experimenting for decimal points. They all add up at the end of the year.

I had thought that "subdomain marketing" was out of style until I saw an ad from Honda tonight where they show various profile shots of cars along with their seemingly happy owners (they should be, I've owned a Honda, I loved it too). Anway, the ad closes with a subdomain "love.honda.com", which is a departure from the typical "honda.com/love" that you would normally see in advertisements.

Nevertheless, this is an awsome integrated campaign with a well-designed microsite! You can send to a friend, see the original commercial, sign up for a newsletter, and check out the full range of Honda lovers who've submitted pictures.

I'd love to see a case history on how well subdomains vs. redirects work in TV-to-web drive-to marketing.

DM News: Web Is Major Awareness Builder for Consumers

Internet marketing is stealing share from television as a medium that creates awareness leading to consumer purchases, according to DoubleClick Inc.'s second annual Touchpoints survey. The influence of TV dropped in the past year in categories like automotive, movies and electronics. Broadcast dominates only five out of 10 categories DoubleClick measured as the medium with the most influence on the first-learn, or awareness, phase of the purchase process.

I got an email from someone at MarketingFind.com today alerting me of some new articles that they had on the site and asking for a link exchange. I'm not usually one to do link exchanges, but they do have some pretty good basic info up there. They also have a section called the "expert's corner" which features the likes of    Al Ries and Andy Beal. There's a lot of me too stuff, but they have some great newbie articles that people new to web marketing will find useful. They have forums on the site too, but I could not find one with more than 2 posts. Not the strongest area of the site yet.

All in all, MarketingFind.com is not a daily read just yet, but keep an eye on it, they may come up with something unique!

Simple ideas, but when you see how few companies actually do this well, it bears repeating over and over.

Man the Site.
Offer live chat on your site so a visitor's questions can be answered on the spot, which may draw them in further. Not enough staff for that? Companies, such as LivePerson.com, offer online operators for about $99 a month per operator.

Analyze the Site.
Not enough sales teams take the time to analyze site traffic. Make sure to evaluate who is visiting your site, how long visitors stay, and what pages they hit most often. Funny, David Ogilvy wrote about this same issue in the 80's when he wrote Ogilvy on Advertising. It's really a shame that not much has changed.

E-Mail Is Not Enough.
Don't turn visitors off with just e-mail contacts. Include phone and fax numbers, and make sure those numbers appear on every page of the Web site, so visitors don't have to hunt for a company's information.

Seems there's now more than enough evidence to support the fact that popups have always sucked. Peronsally, I sitll think they're a valid tactic under certain, very acute and defendable circumstances.

Bunnyfoot Universality: The efficacy of pop-ups and the resulting effect on brands (pdf, 600K)
netimperative: Pop-ups take new battering
MarketingWonk: Web Publishers Weep at Imminent Pop-up Extinction

Technology Executives Club: Micro-Sites: They're not the only mini with a lot of power

In "Micro-Sites: They're not the only mini with a lot of power," Ian Turvill & Bill Hanekamp illustrate a very effective approach for companies that are finding their corporate portals growing out of control. Be sure to check out their article on Micro-Sites, which could be considered a Best Practice approach.

The micro-site is certainly not a profound new concept. It's pretty simple. But it does require a shift in thinking - and responsibilities. The key is to remember that a company's Web site is communications tool, so it should be targeted, relevant, and built to sell.

If you've been following this thread, AMA Internet/eCom SIG Leader TobyBloomberg asked Jay Berkowitz to post from the WebMasterWorld.com Pub Conference VI in Orlando. It has been my pleasure to share the latest news from one of the leading groups of internet marketers in the world.

I met the dynamic team from http://www.monstercommerce.com/. They have created a self-serve eCommerce store builder that is easy to use and fully featured. The product line includes: a newsletter tool, Search Engine
Optimization service and web design.

Stephanie Leffler, CEO of Monster Commerce shared a classic dot.com start-up story, of seeing an opportunity, starting out of Partner Ryan Noble's parents garage in St. Louis in 1998, and building a successful business with over 4,000 customers. "Our niche is medium size Commerce businesses, our clients include the US Open, John Deere, Road and Track and Woman's Day." Stephanie's favorite stories include a 20 year old woman profitably selling Nike Air runners at http://www.krazykickz.com and a woman in the Midwest who's puppet business has been such a winner she has had to add a canopy onto her garage just to protect outgoing orders.

Monster Commerce President Ryan Noble added "The product costs $194 for set-up and $79 a month and we offer a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee. We have 24/7 customer service and our tech. and sales teams handle over 500 calls per day."

Competitors include Yahoo! Stores, http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/merchant http://www.freemerchant.com/, Nexternal and Microsoft's Commerce Server which ranges between $7,000 and $19,000 http://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver .

My wife and I hired an agency to build our first eCommerce store for $15,000 in 1997. Where was MonsterCommerce when I needed them?

Jay Berkowitz
CEO
http://www.tengoldenrules.com

A user on the American Marketing Association E-commerce/Internet Marketing Shared Interest Group asked the following question today - I thought the list of resources generated as a result of the question might of benefit to all...

I'm interested in websites which provide basic demographic info on internet usage. For example, % of U.S. citizens 55+ by state who use the internet for information and email communication.

Related Resources:

CyberAtlas is always my first stop for stats
http://cyberatlas.internet.com/

WebReference has a list of more sites that offer free or paid stats services
http://webreference.com/internet/statistics.html

Check out their press section at Mediamark for more info on their reports
http://www.mediamark.com/

Pew Internet Project reports are based on thier research, surveys, and analysis
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/

Also, you may find that 'googling' a series of the keywords in your question below yield additional helpful results such as the following:

http://www.seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Features/05-25-1InetUseby55-64.htm

http://www.virtualgiving.com/papers/Seniors.pdf

http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=FS&cat_id=31

If anyone knows of more, please put them in the comments. Thanks!

AdAge: MORE MARKETING BUDGETS SHIFTED TO ONLINE STRATEGIES
A growing number of large marketers are finding Internet direct-marketing and relationship-building strategies more effective than TV advertising, attendees at the iMedia Brand Summit heard.

DaimlerChrysler boosted its online media spending 30% last year, largely because of the importance of the Internet as an information medium for car buyers, said Bonita Stewart, director of interactive communications for the automaker. She said that 70% of car shoppers use the Internet as their primary means of getting automotive information.

Chrysler now gets 80% of its online handraisers for quotes and product information online, Ms. Stewart said, adding that “800 numbers are just falling off a cliff and [voluntary response cards] are not as effective.”

Thanks to Adam Cohen of Winning Writers for this tidbit:

If you've made the investment to build a quality website, go the last mile and enter it into competitions. Entry fees typically run $100-$200. If you win, you can expect more site traffic, more inbound links and higher search engine rankings. Awards help establish the credibility of obscure sites, and you'll enjoy publicity from the award sponsor. Some contests to consider:
http://www.webaward.org/
http://www.webaward.org/iac/
http://www.webbyawards.com/main/
http://www.webpageawards.com/

Google provides a list of additional awards:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Best_of_the_Web/Site_Awards/?tc=1/

"Sweet Reward," Entrepreneur, January 2004
http://www.entrepreneur.com/Your_Business/YB_SegArticle/0,4621,312392-1----,00.html

Just launched by marketing guru Larry Chase, this is a free directory of handpicked resources for marketers, advertisers and publicists. Topics covered include Affiliate Marketing, Contests, Copywriting, Customer Retention, Marketing Calculators, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Marketing and Spam, among many others. "Not zillions of search results, just the ones you need."
http://searchengineformarketers.com/

Part of the exictement about being with a small company is that they are willing to experiment with marketing tactics and techniques with the intent of making sales and penetrating the market. It's doubly entertaining considering that we're in the tech/media/entertainment market, which makes all of tech-centric things we want to do like weblogs and webcasts perfectly logical ideas.

On the subject of webcasts, the BlinnPR Report published a great viewpoint in their January 2004 newsletter on how the webcast has evolved from a tool to communicate quarterly earnings conference calls to a true strategic communications tool for marketing, sales, and the rest of the organization.

As the most effective form of branding-oriented advertising on the Internet, rich media spending will rise at a strong and steady pace. Rich media's effectiveness is supported by the continued strong uptake of broadband access, both in the home and at work. Those factors are behind eMarketer's spending projections, which show U.S. rich media ad spending passing the $1 billion mark in 2003 and approaching the $2 billion range by the end of 2005. The New York-based research company expects spending will grow by 31.9% this year, and by next year rich media ad spending will make up more than one in five of the total online ad dollars spent in the U.S. If you don't believe eMarketer about rich media's effectiveness, consider that rich media ads get a click-through rate more than five times higher than for nonrich media, as DoubleClick reported in October 2003.

I recently attended a presentation where one of the speakers talked about how their weather-dependent products were being marketed very well on weather sites where the demographic targeting is almost done by default (for starteers, you have to enter your zip code or city to get your weather, not something advertisers get with most web properties). The results were almost unreal, and so was the ability to target.

For example, if you live in the Northeast, and your zipcode is one that just had a weather report of snow, a company could have demographic triggers set on their advertisements for shovels, snowblowers, fireplaces, snowmobiles or whatever winter gadget you're selling, and present the snow-struck weather seekers with precisely targetted ads. Brilliant.

Weatherbug, one of the leaders in getting online advertisers into this targeted space, just published four (4) of their targeting lessons in an interview with iMedia Connection.

Lesson #1: Online demographic targeting really does work.
Lesson #2: Use Internet applications to target large, loyal audiences.
Lesson #3: Target people in their world.
Lesson #4: Target outside the box.

Adverblog: Registration: the key to successful targeting

Below is a reply to the InternetSIG group of the AMA. It's quick, concise summary of what works when starting a Pay-Per-Click campaign.

A few quick things & how we started our keyword strategy (yes, there's a LOT more to it than this, and I would recommend getting some "professional help", but here's a reader's digest version)

Digital Bulletin: Move Online Ads Around For Effectiveness, Says Study

The folks at Eyetracking and The Usability Company have done some "original research" which states, in essence:

Eyetracking offers information that cannot possibly be obtained by traditional usability testing and market research methodologies. The human brain processes visual information very quickly. When looking at a web page we make subconscious decisions as to the importance of the information viewed within microseconds. If an advert is perceived to be sufficiently interesting then fixations are considerably longer.

While the research may be primary, and somewhat original, the conclusions drawn are neither.

StatMarket: CNET Nets Higher Conversions

WebSideStory's StatMarket division recently conducted a study, which showed that CNET's conversion ratio was 28% percent higher than the conversion rate from the next most efficient search engine (AOL).

What I read into this is that conversion on ELECTRONICS items, which is what was measured here, it significantly higher from a website that is *known* for, and branded as a site for those into tech and electronics. Hence, people are more likely to convert simply by their being a more focused audience. The Google conversion does not suprise me, as it's simply the least *targeted* or focused of the search vehicles.

Order Conversion Rates: Searches To Gift/Electronics Sites

           Conversion Ratio 
CNET            1.64% 
AOL             1.28% 
Overture        1.25% 
iWon            1.15% 
LookSmart       1.14% 
MSN             1.04% 
Yahoo           1.01% 
Netscape        0.93% 
Lycos           0.92% 
Google          0.85% 

Source: WebSideStory's StatMarket data, May-October 2003.

Target Marketing: Save Abandons: A New Use for the Pop-up

I know, pop-ups are going out of style, and fast! However, these ideas are could be transferred to eyeblaster or point-roll type ads as well. No, they aren't "new", but Target Marketing seems to think so.

Enter Time magazine's Web site, and a window pops open under the current window, with an offer that says, "Please try four issues of TIME…FREE!" and touts a hand-held organizer premium. The visitor doesn't see the offer until he closes the window he's in; this way, when the prospect exits Time.com or leaves the Web entirely, Time gets another opportunity to capture him.

iMarketingStrategy.com recently released its Web Traffic ROI Calculator for free public use. With the growing popularity of Internet Marketing as an alternative or parallel path to Direct Marketing, executives are demanding a measure for the Return on Investment (ROI). In response to these demands, iMarketingStrategy.com developed a simple to use Web Traffic ROI Calculator.

The Web Traffic ROI Calculator uses 5 marketing variables:

Chris McMahon of BrainBrew pointed out this article on Internet search engine paid placement from a Cincinnati newspaper.

As consumers become more accustomed to serving themselves, businesses will need to offer a growing array of self-service options. That means Internet marketing will become more important, said Scott Litman, president of Minneapolis-based Digital@jwt.

Research on automobile company Web sites, for example, shows that they now are the leading influencer of consumer buying decisions right up until the test drive, said Litman, whose firm built Ford Motor Company's Web site. In other words, the consumer is in the driver's seat, in more ways than one. And for a growing number of Americans, that's just how they want it.

I'm not sure if this is such a *great* way to check how many pages of your site Google has indexed, but it is *one* way to do it. (another is by using the Google search string method: allinurl:www.danavan.net site:danavan.net)

Also, will Google index your site more extensively is you sign up for the co-branded free search tool that they offer? That, my friends, is worth an experiment.

Check it out:

I have but few gripes about Seybold, but the fact that this is supposed to be a publishing and Internet conference, there was a pathetic showing on the connectivity end of things!

1. Where the hell was the Wi-Fi? Someone said that it was there, but it was not advertised. Not that we can have it on our laptops anyway (security Nazis in there you know) but hell, there are a lot of other more liberal orgs. that let their employees on. Felt sorry for those wired souls.

2. Dropping Internet access in the speakers room. On top of an already pathetic connection, (my DSL in Dyckesville, WI is faster), it was unreliable. Come on people, this is not hard stuff.

3. Usability of the Seybold Program Guide. With all of the brains at Seybold, you'd have thought they'd have consulted with one of their usability friends on the design of the 150 page program guide. Yes, it was hard to navigate, but my biggest pet peeve was that there were no room numbers listed next to the session descriptions. I had to use the other "conference at a glance" palm sized guide to find my way around. Just annoying...

4. Lunch being held in the Pavillion from Tuesday on. Not only did I have to wade through a crapload of vendors, the system was not anywhere near as efficient as Monday's system. I was not about to wait in line for 30 minutes for my free lunch. I went across the street & had a muffin. Why didn't they hold it on the 2nd floor??? It was vacant!!!

OK. Enough bitching.

The Seybold SF2003 conference rolls on until Friday, but I'm out of here today. Having made it through my 2 sessions, and having listened to a few others, I'm convinced that this is one of the most influential conferences in the pubishing and new media space today. I was inspired and humbled by the cadre of experts here, this truly is the conference of the best and the brightest. Chief Scientists, Worldwide Evangelists, CEOs, Senior Analysts...they were all here.

Here's a wrapup on some of the sessions attended and their substance.

Mike Wokosin, a friend of mine at Warner Bros, just gave an interview for IMedia Connection. Mike talks about some of the recent online b2b and b2c efforts that Warner engaged in to promot Harry Potter and The Matrix.

The amazing thing about Mike, and Warner Bros. (having worked there...) is the globalisation/localisation strategy that they have employed to leverage online in over 15 territories that speaks to the needs of its retail, distributor and business partners worldwide. This strategy was also common thread in cross-media publishing discussions at Seybold this week. By using things like OpenType, XML, XMP, and adopting intelligent workflow tools like the Adobe InDesign sweet (a plug for Peder Engrob of Adobe), web shops can roll out multi language print, web, and multi-channel communications in significantly less time.

Looks like WB is already on the way! Check out Mike's article here.

The first 2 sessions of the day have been enlightening. Everything from the presentation by Richard Ballard, the Chief Scientist at Knowledge Foundations, on semantic networks and innovations in network publishing. Pretty heavy stuff! Dr. Ballard discussed the differences between information held in the 'genes' of an environment (on the same level as the Windows OS) programmed, logical, unlearning and non-changing, vs. the information/knowledge held in the brain. The brain can learn, change, adapt, as should our knowledge networks of the future.

The following presentation titled "Speaking in Tongues: A Modern Guide to Understanding Today's Web Languages", was a supreme overview of the migration from HTML to XHTML to XML with a primer on how CSS drives the whole bus. The takeaway for me was that I am still leading in the HTML 4.0 mindset, and we need to be developing (and I need to be leading) in a XHTML 1.1 w/ CSS and XML mindset. I found it interesting that the XHTML standard allows for NO presentation elements - only structure - in the document code. ALL presentational elements are handled by the Style Sheets (CSS). This is a significant departure from when I learned to code (and taught) HTML back in 1996/97/98.

All in all, this is a supreme conference so far. The level at which the speakers and other professionals are operating is mind-blowing. These are people that are truly obsessed with the craft! I can't wait to take this stuff back to the office.

Last year when we were selecting a new email marketing campaign tool(ASP), I created this spreadsheet to help me evaluate all of the criteria that were important to me when selecting a vendor.

We ultimately went with EmailLabs, which we have been totally satisfied with for some time now! I've had many questions about EmailLabs and how we made the decision that I thought it was time to post the spreadsheet.

Eric Sink has a superb piece on marketing and positioning in his weblog. This is a great take on marketing from a techie!

This is one of the reasons that blogging is so powerful. Where else would I get a full dissertation on marketing from a supreme techie, and be able to find it! That's key really - being able to find it. I mention this because someone wrote into the AMA listserv this week asking how blogging is different from the threaded discussion message boards of old. I say that blogging is different and evolutionary in that it is more permanant (archive links), community based (the blogroll and blogosphere), and accessible (Google LOVES blogs - find anything you want in seconds, even if posted yesterday!).

The Internet Marketing Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association is discussing the marketing implications of weblogs this week on the InternetSIG mailing list.

The InternetSIG is a pretty well respected list sponsored by the AMA, so I would encourage you to join the discussion! It's bound to be lively and interesting!

Bonus: Biz Stone will be hosting/moderating the discussion this week! Biz is a long time blogger, former creative director of the weblog community Xanga.com, and author of Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content (New Riders, 2002). Currently, Biz is experimenting with the application of blogging in academia at Wellesley College and has recently been spotted speaking at the ClickZ Weblog Business Strategies, conference in Boston, MA. http://www.bizstone.com

It's nice to finally see the parent organization of the marketing practice discuss the topic of blogs. For the record, the AMA has only ONE article that even mentions blogging, on its website. Not bad, but not much if I'm a marketer looking for info from the association!

It's not like there isn't enough info out there about blogging, but it makes it seem as though the AMA is behind the times. Maybe Biz or someone like him can write an authoritative article on the subject for the AMA?

...I posted this to the AMA InternetSIG today... Please post answers in the comments section.

Dear SIG Members,

There is an upcoming panel at the Seybold Conference that I'm doing some informal research for, and would like your thoughts.

The jist of the conference is:
"Repurposing" used to be the term that described moving content from a print magazine to a Web site. Today content must be created with the knowledge that it can be reproduced in any media, anywhere, at any time. What are the best strategies for managing your content stream so that it can easily be deployed to print or the Web or a cell phone? Hear about processes that work from people who "multipurpose" content from the start.

My questions are:

1. Does your marketing department (or whole company) have a multipurpose content strategy or standard? Who initiated this strategy, IT or Marketing?

2. Have you had significant demand from customers to port your content into other medium (cell phone, PDA, print on demand from database, etc)

3. Are you considering the data needs of internal and field resources such as sales reps when devising multipurpose content strategies.

4. How did various stakeholders handle the shift to content multipurposing? (graphic designers, web developers, database developers, marketing VPs) Who had the toughest time swallowing this strategy.

Thanks!

Speaking at Seybold. Twice! I have been asked by Michael Maziarka to speak on another panel, Innovations in Cross-Media Publishing. The good thing is, the message will likely be similar, but the audience and directive of the presentation will be slightly different, and slightly more technical.

Check out everything that's going on at the Seybold San Francisco Conference here.

The dealers' new 'Net work'

An acquintance, Doug Gregory, wrote an article in the Monday Morning Quarterback, a furniture industry publication, about how the contract furniture industry should embrace the web and get their aligned dealers involved more in the lead generation process, similar to how GM and Ford have done.

The article was based on this piece from the Grand Rapids Press. I find it fascinating that "West Michigan dealers say three in four customers already have researched cars online before they enter a showroom". That blows my mind.

More to the point, how many buyers have researched your products (our furniture, in my case) before ordering or interfacing with a sales rep. I'm staking money on 75%. It could be higher!

It fascinates me that this industry is so far behind in the 'web game' I can't count how many times I've been told that KI is doing so much more, so much better, on the Internet than every competitor out there. I fail to understand why this is??? We are the 6th in the industry, and spend next to nothing on the site. How is it that we've ended up in the 'leadership position?' I am making the prediction now, in case anyone in the contract furniture industry is listening, that KI will continue to lead in *intelligent* web based tools and lead generation for at least the next 2-3 years.

Further, we were finally recognized by BtoB Magazine as one of the top 100 NetMarketing B2B websites, along with the likes of Microsoft and IBM. Granted, we snuck in with a score of 88 (the minimum you could have to be on the board this year), it's no small feat to produce a site that is ranked in top 100 Business-to-Business sites in the US! I guess we are doing something right after all.