Mad Men Talks Internet Marketing

by

Mad Men Internet Marketing

Mad Men’s next season starts this weekend and a lot of people are very excited about it. To prepare for the premiere, I collected some of my favorite Mad Men internet marketing quotes…

“If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”
Don Draper

Don is such a SEO whiz. Every good company should be monitoring what people are saying about them, their products and services. You can use search engines, Google Alerts or a variety of social media monitoring tools to see what people have to say about you. If you don’t like what people are saying, change their perception or the conversation with your own content.

I have a colleague who’s company was under attack by a no name angry blogger. The claim was against my colleague’s company’s pricing. Instead of a counter attack, calling the blogger out for baseless claims or getting angry my colleague took the time to write a post and update his FAQ section with a more complete pricing breakdown. No matter how awful this person went about the attack, they obviously had a question or concern and maybe if they did other people did too. The angry blogger disappeared right after that. An angry retaliation would have made my colleague look worse. The high road got questions answered, new site content and was a great conversation starter for future customers.

“Have you been drinking?”
“The whole country is drinking!”
Trudy and Pete Campbell

My mother always said ‘If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?’ Just because everyone else is using a social media site, writing about a particular topic or buying the new iPad, doesn’t mean you need to as well. Any time you are making decisions about marketing your business or using new tools, you need to make sure they are in line with your business goals. Sure, everyone is writing about Pinterest, but will that help you sell more software? Stick to your message, your goals and to what you are good at. When everyone else is done with the new thing, they will have wasted time and energy and you will have stayed on course.

“But that’s life. One minute you’re on top of the world,
the next minute some secretary’s running you over with a lawnmower.”
Joan Harris

Especially when you work in technology or the internet, there seems to be no ‘sit back and relax’ phase. The Internet and technology are changing at all times. Whether you finally got that top spot in Google or reached that goal, someone else will be coming up behind you and the game will change. There is not a ‘set it and forget it’ recipe for internet marketing. The results may not be as messy as a secretary running you over with a lawnmower but they can be serious. Content marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing and paid search advertising are continuing efforts. To be successful you need to be in them for the long haul, not just long enough for the shininess to wear off.

“So, Mr. Draper, you haven’t had a physical in quite some time.”
“Yeah. I eat a lot of apples.”
Don Draper and his Doctor

Measure. Measure. Measure. For all of your internet marketing efforts, you should have goals and ways to measure your successes in place. Make sure those goals and your data points are aligned with your business goals. Measuring and reporting on how many Facebook fans you have really has little to no meaning. How many people come to your website from Facebook and become customers would be much more powerful information.

“Am I to entertain your ballad of dissatisfaction, or has something actually happened?
Because I am at work, dear.”
Lane Pryce

I am guilty of having Tweetdeck open all day on one of my screens. Do I NEED that constant flow of information to do my job? Probably not. What I have done is created some power lists in my account of really smart people, local people and a few searches that are important to me. I don’t need to read about every person’s complaint about the latest thing or pictures of what everyone is having for lunch. Turn off the distractions. Find a few sources to aggregate information for you and check those regularly (but not all day).

Is email your distraction? I know a lot of people that have found whole hours in their day by only checking email a few times a day instead of all day, every day.

Make a note of your biggest work distractions and see what you can do to alleviate them. The internet will always have content, tweets and updates – you will never be able to keep up with all of it.

“You want some respect? Go out there and get it for yourself.”
Don Draper

Many people I talk to are obsessed with what their competitors are doing. They want to do a Facebook contest because their competitor did, they want a YouTube music video because their competitors have one, they want to rank for a search term because their competitors do etc. In content marketing of any kind, original content will get you the links, tweets, rankings etc. that you want. Copying usually does little more than clutter the playing field.

Keep your eyes and thoughts on what you can do for you. Knowing what your competitors are up to is good but obsessing and copying won’t get you too far. Want coverage in your local paper or trade publication? Want more website visitors? Facebook fans? Search rankings? Then figure out how you are going to go out and get them. Don’t waste your energy on pouting because someone else got them.

“Listen, Pete, I need you to go get a cardboard box. Put your things in it. Okay?”
Don Draper

If a campaign you are trying, an agency you are using, a tool you are testing et. al, isn’t working – stop using it. In internet marketing, you start with assumptions, then you test if those will work. You can make adjustments for a awhile but then you need to decide if something is not working and stop doing it. The phrase ‘but we have always done it this way’ does not apply online. As I said before, the landscape is always changing.

Who knew Mad Men knew so much about internet marketing! Enjoy the premiere this weekend!

Mad Men photo: AMC
Mad Men quotes from Extra and Mad Men fan forum

How Do I Get More Blog Visitors?

by

Sometimes we feel like we are doing everything right but that it doesn’t seem to be working. Blogging can be one of the best things you do for your online marketing but it can also be the most frustrating when you pour your heart, soul and time into writing and don’t feel like your blog is getting the attention it deserves. In my webinar this week, Social Media for B2Bs, I got an audience question about just this. The attendee is writing multiple posts a week but doesn’t feel like they are getting the traffic they deserve for their efforts.

I followed up on her question with an email that had some things she could try but then I thought of a few more and decided to make a post out of them.

So… here are 11 ideas for getting some more traffic to your blog:

  1. Make sure your blog is functioning properly – These days, most blog traffic comes from search engines so make sure your blog is easy to read to them. Make sure your blog is being indexed on search engines. You could do this as easily as searching for a blog post title you have written.
  2. Get your content out into the world – Give your blog posts a chance to fly by sharing them other places than just on your site. Social media is great for this, so is email marketing.
  3. Talk and link to other people – When writing your blog posts, talk about good work or resources you find other places around the internet. Don’t be afraid to link to someone else as a resource (you can just set that link to open in a new window if you are worried about them leaving your site). Linking is a great compliment to another content producer. You may be surprised what comes from that little link – you could get attention from the person you link to, from someone in their network or from search engines.
  4. Capitalize on other site’s audiences – What your blog needs is an audience. Look around your industry or space for people you can feature and get some of their loyal fans to come check out your blog. Try doing an interview and making it a post. If you recap, link to or give praise to someone else’s content, share it with them or post it to Facebook and @ mention them so that they see it.
  5. Try bookmarking sites – Sites like Stumbleupon can be great for blog traffic, especially if you are in a specific niche. Try adding some of your best posts to sites like that and see if they refer any traffic. Have something visual to share? Try the newest social media craze – Pinterest and see if that shows you any return.
  6. Comment on other blogs – The best blogs don’t live in a bubble. Take some time to comment on good blog posts that you see in your industry. If you have the option to leave a blog comment with your signature, add a link to your blog instead of your home page. If the opportunity presents itself and you find a post related to yours leave a comment to the post you wrote.
  7. Try a contest or something fun – I have a few colleagues that have had great success with running a fun contest on their blog. Giving away a prize like a gift card, a Kindle or more could be definitely worth the investment to get some new eyes and subscribers to your content.
  8. Blog about things that are topical – People love topical. Get creative with your posts. Can you compare software features to Oscar fashion trends? Not sure but I bet you could come up with something and people would be entertained by it.
  9. Try Guest Posting – Lots of blogs with large followings accept guest posts. Trying making a name for yourself and directing people to some of your content by writing smart guest posts for someone else. OR maybe try accepting guests posts on YOUR blog.
  10. Read what smarter people have to say – Read this post from SEOmoz – 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic 2012
  11. Write good posts people want to read and link to – Write good posts. Add value. Boring or lackluster blogs will never become popular – I promise.

Blogging is a lot easier and a lot more fun when it all starts clicking, when you get a steady readership and some good feedback. Stick with it and try some of the ideas above if you feel like you need more readers. Good luck and feel free to share with us other tricks you may have that could help someone else out!

5 Ways to Prepare Your Blog for New Visitors

by

Welcome signAs we drafts our blog posts, many of us envision our captivated and loyal audience who hangs on each word we type like it is their lifeblood. I hate to break it to you but that is usually not the case. Most of your blog traffic, no matter the industry or purpose, is coming from search engines and/or they are first time visitors.

A survey done by Compendium says:

  • Three quarters of B2Cs surveyed said over 80% of their traffic are first time visitors and
  • 64% of B2Bs said that between 61 and 100 percent of visitors were first time visitors

Having this information is empowering and should actually help you put your content together so that you are marketing to these readers effectively.

The first thing I would recommend is seeing exactly what is happening with your site. Go into your website’s Analytics and if you haven’t already, set up a Blog Only filter so you can see your blog stats without the rest of your site. Once you have that filtered out, you can look to see exactly where your blog’s traffic is coming from. Take note of how many visitors are new versus returning. Then look at how many are coming from Search. From there you can see what terms people searched for to get to your blog.

Now that you have an idea of how many of your blog visitors are new and how they are getting to your site, you can start to optimize your blog for these new visitors.

  1. Tell them who you are quickly – Since this reader hasn’t been there before, let them know right off the bat who you are and what you do. The most obvious place to do this is in the header but another great place for a little bit more of an explanation is in a sidebar.
  2. Convert them – When a new visitor comes to your blog, know what you want them to do next and make it very clear to them. Whether you want them to subscribe to your blog, contact you, connect with you on a social network or download more information – make that piece very clear on every blog page. New visitors aren’t mind readers. Let them know the next steps they should take if they enjoyed your content.
  3. Show them similar content – If this new visitor got here for this post’s content in particular, maybe they would like other content around the same topic? Think about adding Related Posts to the end of your blog entries. You can do this manually or find a variety of different plugins that could do this automatically for you.
  4. Optimize for mobile browsers – Since we know more and more people are reaching your website from mobile devices, you want to make sure your blog is easy to read when visitors are on the go. Make sure you know how your blog looks on multiple different mobile platforms and if you are receiving a good amount of mobile traffic to your blog, you may want to consider a mobile theme.
  5. Let them know you know who they are – I have some colleagues that have had great success with a greeting box when someone new comes to their site. One example is WP (WordPress) Greet Box plugin. This neat plugin makes a note of how the user got to your blog and has a custom greeting for them depending on how they got there. For example if someone came to your blog after clicking on a link on Twitter, they will see a message encouraging to Tweet your post and to follow you on Twitter.

Now that you know how many of your blog visitors are new, you can really start focusing on making them subscribers, connections and leads! Good luck and let us know any tricks you have for connecting with new visitors too! We love to hear them!

Ten Most Popular Blogs of 2011

by

Another year is ending which means a new one is beginning. I thought it would be fun to take a look back in our Analytics and see what topics that we wrote about that you seemed to find the most interesting. It is always fun looking back at a year with some data behind it.

Below is our list of the 10 most popular blogs of 2011. See if you think it all lines up right with how the year went in the internet marketing world and take a look back on a few you may have missed!

10. How and Why to Create Google Alerts

Google Alerts are a great way to keep an ear to the pavement on your brand, your industry or even your own name. In this post, Jenika tells us why they are important and how to set them up.

9. Find What Facebook Pages Like Your Facebook Business Page

This year Facebook added the functionality to participate on Facebook as your brand or business. In this post I talked about finding what businesses and pages like your company page on Facebook.

8. Referring Sites, Search Engines, Direct Traffic – How Do You Get More?

Using Google Analytics you can see how people are getting to your website (referral, direct or search). All three are important pieces of your web marketing pie. In this post I talked about what each referral is about and how to get more of each.

7. 5 Reasons the New Facebook Pages are a Big Deal for Businesses

As previously mentioned, early this year Facebook made major changes to Facebook Business Pages. This post recaps what those changes were and how the were a blessing for many of us maintaining company pages.

6. Stock Image BINGO

One of my personal favorites of the year. Headed to a conference? Take stock (oooh I had to do it) of our Stock Image BINGO sheet and see how many familiar faces, places and icons you see!

5. Learn Something New – View Site Traffic by Hour

One of the best parts about our job is that we are constantly learning (the internet waits for no one). Jenika learned that in the new Google Analytics interface you can view your site traffic by the hour

4. What’s the deal with Groupon and other sites like it?

This year was definitley the rise of the coupon sites. Whether you buy into it or not, they were tough to miss. In this post Jenika helped learn more about what they are and what they could mean for your business.

3. What is Siri? What Does it Mean for How We Search?

Alas, no iPhone 5 this year. Instead we were teased with the iPhone 4S. Other than a better camera, the biggest addition to the new iPhone was Siri a magical personal assistant that talks to you and can perform simple tasks. In this post we talked about what Siri is and how I think it will effect searches in the future.

2. What is the Best Time of Day to Tweet?

This is a popular questions that I get a lot so I took a few minutes to talk about it.

1. What is a QR Code?

This post was actually from 2010! We are sooooo hip! QR codes popped up all over the place this year. In this post I explained what a QR code is. We also got to talk about them with Mainebiz this Fall too.

Happy New Year 2012

Happy New Year!
Cheers to a fantastic 2012

Photo credit: nigelhowe