Optimizing a website is something that marketers learn after going through the motions time and time again. It is not about sticking keywords throughout your website with the hope that the search engines will simply just reward your paltry efforts with a top 100 ranking. Put all that nonsense aside bring some marketing to the table and watch your efforts work.
User Experience.
Put yourself in the users shoes. If you stick keywords all over each page where the flow of reading is disrupted, then how is your audience going to respond to that?
In order for them to pick up the phone and call you, they need to be able to read your copy with no interruptions. If every three words of your copy is a keyword they will most likely just leave your website entirely. There is a thin line between too many keywords and not enough so make sure you walk that line safely.
Targeted.
Make sure you are picking keywords that fit the content of that specific page.
For example, if you sell tennis racquets on a specific page, target tennis related keywords for that page. Don’t target golf related keywords as well because you want to rank for that keyword.
Always keep things relevant when it comes to optimization because the search engines will respond much better to it.
Conversions
Optimizing a website is not just about search rankings and keywords. It is also about how people interact with your website. Content is most definitely key, but what good is all that content if your traffic does not understand what they should be doing once they arrive at your website.
You need to have a plan for guiding the user around your site to convert into an action on their behalf.
So remember that you should approach optimising your website with a marketing hat on and your decisions will be more focussed on building your brand and converting your traffic rather than gaining high page rankings.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
AdNews: Rebel Sports hires Quantium to evaluate media spend.
Haka Beer: Case Study
The beer that never was a legend in its own lifetime - Haka Bitter
GOA Billboards, Brisbane, wanted to prove a point; the power of Outdoor. So they invented a fictitious product for the highly competitive beer market- there were around 25 brands of beer brewed and sold in Brisbane at the time. The rest is now history.
The media/marketing exercise that follows became the subject of school and university assignments and even made media news in Germany.
THE BRIEF
As the product category was already part and parcel of the Australian way of life, the decision was taken that the creative approach should be 'bold and humorous'. Many concepts were developed but it was eventually a copyline that gave birth to the fictitious product's name and its equally fictitious New Zealand origin - Haka.
OUTDOOR MEDIA PLAN
Market: Brisbane
Site format/Size: 24 Sheet Posters
Quantity of Sites: 50 - 25 illuminated, 25 non-illuminated
Campaign Weight: Medium
Period: 8 weeks, June - August 1993
Cost: $50,000 (Media)
Coverage: Broadcast (i.e. evenly spread around Brisbane locations) 45% of the Brisbane population was exposed to this campaign each day.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Two waves of research were conducted at four-week intervals by Yann Campbell Hoare Wheeler. Each wave consisted of 300 face-to-face interviews, 50% male/50% female, 18+ year olds.
KEY RESULTS
When shown a photograph of the Haka billboard with the name concealed:
In wave 1, (after 4 weeks) 45% of the respondents recalled seeing the billboard, and of those 76% correctly identified the brand name that was missing as Haka. In wave 2, (after 8 weeks) 49% recalled seeing the billboard and of these 67% correctly identified the brand.
THE HAKA CAMPAIGN ACHIEVED:
GOA Billboards, Brisbane, wanted to prove a point; the power of Outdoor. So they invented a fictitious product for the highly competitive beer market- there were around 25 brands of beer brewed and sold in Brisbane at the time. The rest is now history.
The media/marketing exercise that follows became the subject of school and university assignments and even made media news in Germany.
THE BRIEF
As the product category was already part and parcel of the Australian way of life, the decision was taken that the creative approach should be 'bold and humorous'. Many concepts were developed but it was eventually a copyline that gave birth to the fictitious product's name and its equally fictitious New Zealand origin - Haka.
OUTDOOR MEDIA PLAN
Market: Brisbane
Site format/Size: 24 Sheet Posters
Quantity of Sites: 50 - 25 illuminated, 25 non-illuminated
Campaign Weight: Medium
Period: 8 weeks, June - August 1993
Cost: $50,000 (Media)
Coverage: Broadcast (i.e. evenly spread around Brisbane locations) 45% of the Brisbane population was exposed to this campaign each day.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Two waves of research were conducted at four-week intervals by Yann Campbell Hoare Wheeler. Each wave consisted of 300 face-to-face interviews, 50% male/50% female, 18+ year olds.
KEY RESULTS
When shown a photograph of the Haka billboard with the name concealed:
In wave 1, (after 4 weeks) 45% of the respondents recalled seeing the billboard, and of those 76% correctly identified the brand name that was missing as Haka. In wave 2, (after 8 weeks) 49% recalled seeing the billboard and of these 67% correctly identified the brand.
THE HAKA CAMPAIGN ACHIEVED:
- an overall awareness that grew from nothing to 45% in one month.
- 76% (representing 34% of Brisbane population) correctly identified Haka as the brand when shown the statement "Naturally booed in Australia".
- Higher recall achieved for Under 40's and professionals.
- When asked: "Where did you see the copy?" 86% (representing 29% of the Brisbane population) correctly named one or more actual site locations.
For spontaneous recall, Haka achieved 7% after one month on Outdoor with only a $25,000 investment. Some weeks prior another beer brand, Powers Extra, was launched in Brisbane using TV only. Powers Extra only achieved a 3% spontaneous recall after one month despite a TV spend of $183,000.
(Reference: www.oma.org.au)
Email Marketing for Small Business
Understand one thing, with email marketing, every second counts. You only have a short time to Capturing your customer’s attention and keeping it is vital to email marketing success.
It takes someone a third of a second to decide whether they are going to open an email, three seconds to see if there is something of interest, and 30 seconds to respond to your ‘call to action’ message. The difference between losing and keeping a customer can come down to an understanding and appreciation of who your customers are and what they want.
The important thing to remember with email marketing is that you are creating a relationship with your customer through targeted and relevant information. It’s not about selling, it’s about educating the consumer about your product or service.
In today’s digital world, relevant communication is vital. Customers are bombarded with thousands of email messages every day, so you need to ensure that your message is the one that’s heard and that your customers trust you.
Place yourself in your customers shoes... You are an avid golfer, very into the PGA tour and have just subscribed to Golfing Monthly. You want to be caught up on the latest news from the PGA, but instead you are fed newsletter after newsletter about professional bowls (it happens) . You get fed up and either unsubscribe or report it as SPAM. Then ask yourself why you took this action? Short answer is because the content wasn’t relevant. It didnt take too long to make that decision did it?
So before you send out that next newsletter, Ask yourself: is it relevant? Is it educational? Informative? Engaging? Will my customer want to read this? It all comes back to the ‘what’s in it for me?’ value proposition. If you are not giving your customer what they want, they will leave you; it’s as simple as that.
The biggest mistake small businesses make when it comes to email marketing, is not sending targeted messages.
In order to avoid this, businesses need to do three things: segment the database, analyse the statistics and take the time to build an attractive message. Don't rush to get your message out, there will be more harm then good come out of it.
It takes someone a third of a second to decide whether they are going to open an email, three seconds to see if there is something of interest, and 30 seconds to respond to your ‘call to action’ message. The difference between losing and keeping a customer can come down to an understanding and appreciation of who your customers are and what they want.
The important thing to remember with email marketing is that you are creating a relationship with your customer through targeted and relevant information. It’s not about selling, it’s about educating the consumer about your product or service.
In today’s digital world, relevant communication is vital. Customers are bombarded with thousands of email messages every day, so you need to ensure that your message is the one that’s heard and that your customers trust you.
Place yourself in your customers shoes... You are an avid golfer, very into the PGA tour and have just subscribed to Golfing Monthly. You want to be caught up on the latest news from the PGA, but instead you are fed newsletter after newsletter about professional bowls (it happens) . You get fed up and either unsubscribe or report it as SPAM. Then ask yourself why you took this action? Short answer is because the content wasn’t relevant. It didnt take too long to make that decision did it?
So before you send out that next newsletter, Ask yourself: is it relevant? Is it educational? Informative? Engaging? Will my customer want to read this? It all comes back to the ‘what’s in it for me?’ value proposition. If you are not giving your customer what they want, they will leave you; it’s as simple as that.
The biggest mistake small businesses make when it comes to email marketing, is not sending targeted messages.
In order to avoid this, businesses need to do three things: segment the database, analyse the statistics and take the time to build an attractive message. Don't rush to get your message out, there will be more harm then good come out of it.
Improving your Facebook Marketing
In social networking, Facebook is presently where it's at. The site is twice as popular as any other social networking site out there at the moment. Facebook continues to take over Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn by large margins.
How do you stand out from everyone else out there with all this growth?
Here are a couple of quick and easy tips to help your Facebook marketing:
1. Do a daily post but its essential to Post Content on the Weekend
According to DanZarrella.com, content posted on the weekend is shared more often than content posted during the week. By saving a portion of your content for Saturday and Sunday, you’ll increase the number of likes, comments, and views. People have more time to read on facebook and participate on the weekend.
2. Develop Facebook-specific Offers
In a recent Performics survey, Facebook users polled said they are most interested in receiving printable coupons (32%) and sale or deal notifications (28%) from companies. Instead of posting recipes or games, try an exclusive coupon or discount. Your fans will love you for it.
3. Think Mobile
Mobile usage continues to soar, and according to Facebook, people who access the site via their mobile device are almost 50% more active than non-mobile users. So keep mobile users in mind when updating your page and mobile-optimize content when you can. They’ll appreciate the good user experience. You’ll improve your response rate. It’s a win-win.
How do you stand out from everyone else out there with all this growth?
Here are a couple of quick and easy tips to help your Facebook marketing:
1. Do a daily post but its essential to Post Content on the Weekend
According to DanZarrella.com, content posted on the weekend is shared more often than content posted during the week. By saving a portion of your content for Saturday and Sunday, you’ll increase the number of likes, comments, and views. People have more time to read on facebook and participate on the weekend.
2. Develop Facebook-specific Offers
In a recent Performics survey, Facebook users polled said they are most interested in receiving printable coupons (32%) and sale or deal notifications (28%) from companies. Instead of posting recipes or games, try an exclusive coupon or discount. Your fans will love you for it.
3. Think Mobile
Mobile usage continues to soar, and according to Facebook, people who access the site via their mobile device are almost 50% more active than non-mobile users. So keep mobile users in mind when updating your page and mobile-optimize content when you can. They’ll appreciate the good user experience. You’ll improve your response rate. It’s a win-win.
Never ask a question in marketing messages that can be answered by no..
Never ask a question in marketing messages that can be answered by “no.” To be safe, stop asking questions and listen. http://ow.ly/2oqSC
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