Holistic Technology Enabled Internet Marketing Solutions

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

When you were little, did you ever have to travel for Christmas? Remember how scared you were that Santa wouldn’t know you weren’t home? I remember writing letters and nagging my parents to make SURE he knew we weren’t going to be home for Christmas.

If you could just capture a thread of that nervous energy and use it to start a fire to get your social media icons on your website and other promotional items – that would be swell. I see so many companies that have a decent presence on social media sites, a great newsletter or a great blog but there is little to no mention of it on their site. Your additional internet marketing efforts should be integrated into the other forms of marketing you are doing… not be separated.

Someone may be in the research phase of their buying process and come across your company. Perhaps they aren’t ready to buy but if they started following your Twitter account, Like you on Facebook, sign up for your email newsletter, subscribe to your blog etc., when they are ready to buy you stand a better chance of being on the top of their mind.

Letting people know where else they can find your content is as easy as adding icons to your website or promotional items. You could also add widgets for social media sites and email newsletter signup boxes right on other pages of your site.

Integrate all of your marketing efforts that you can! Just like you didn’t want Santa dropping your loot off at the wrong house, you don’t want your next customers subscribing to your competitors content over yours!

Photo credit: kdonovan_gaddy

Photo credit: Danielle Page

As business owners and marketers we spend a lot of time talking about what we want from our current and future customers:

• Buy Now!
• Download Now!
• Like us on Facebook!
• Follow me on Twitter!
• Scan the QR code!
• Sign up for our email newsletter!

Perhaps if we spent a little more time explaining why we want them to complete these action we will see a better conversion rate on ‘the ask’.

We all have enough email coming into our various inboxes every day, so why would I sign up for your email newsletter? Sell them on the subscription by explaining what they will get by joining your list. Tell them if they will get special deals or promotions, inside news about the company and staff, tips and tricks you won’t share anywhere else, premiere seating and prices for events etc. Without knowing the benefit of signing up, they may just think you will be sending them the same press releases they can get from you anywhere or worse – that you will just send them poorly executed email messages with no value.

Want people to like your Facebook page? What are you going to offer them that they can’t get from checking back when they feel like it? Think about having a fan view and a non fan view so that fans see different messaging than those who haven’t liked your page yet. Create a landing tab asking for the ‘like’ and explaining what unique information they will get here that they won’t get any place else. Explain how you will use the unique aspects of Facebook to give them something more of value.

Now that more businesses are on board with this social media and internet marketing thing, there are more and more Follow Us on Twitter, Like Us on Facebook etc. commands out there. We as consumers are tuning them out like advertisements so add some light to your ask and tell us why we should. I bet you will see a better response from your ‘ask’.

seriousbri

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the ABSTRACT: The Future of Design in Media Conference, right here in Portland, Maine. I have pages and pages of notes to go through but there was one point that reminded me of something Jenika and I talk to clients about all the time – making old content new again.

Gael Towey, from Martha Stewart Magazine, shared with us all kinds of magic behind Martha Stewart’s magazine and office life. She told us about how a traditional magazine re-thinks how they work to keep up with new technology. We got to see some behind the scenes action from making the Martha Stewart iPad version of the magazine to some of their mobile applications.

Making Cookies in cyberspace with old recipes

One of Martha Stewart’s apps is the Martha Stewart Makes Cookies app for iPhones and iPads. The app itself looks beautiful. It has photos of the cookies, recipes, instructional videos, articles and more. So how long did it take to make this cookie app? Not as long as you think. Why not? Because it is all content and information the Martha Stewart team already had. They found a new way to take their ‘old’ content and give it a sharp new look.

Restyling your content

We hear from businesses often that are overwhelmed with this pressure to create content for the web. Blogs, status updates on social media sites, whitepapers, ebooks… where is all of this supposed to come from? One idea is to take older ideas and older content and just rework them for these new advances like blogs and social media. Think about updates you can make, new data you can include, old internal studies and documents that you can publish. That is where a lot of businesses find some of their best online content – offline or in the archives.

21 Ideas for reworking older content

1. Take a presentation you have done in the past and turn the major points into a blog post.
2. Use your company’s  frequently asked questions, post them to your blog and tease on your social media profiles.
3. Still have photos from company parties, reopenings or events? Post them to social media profiles with info about the events.
4. Revisit old blog posts from before you had as much traffic as you do now. Update them with new data and republish.
5. Go through your analytics data and publish a “best of” list with your most popular content.
6. Combine a series of blog posts around a certain theme to make a whitepaper or ebook.
7. Take something you have written about and make a screen cap video or an audio file.
8. Reverse of the last one. Take a video demo and highlight the key points in a blog post. Embed the video in your new post.
9. Take a point you made in a previous post and highlight a case study or example of that point.
10. Go through old files or handouts you have and write about how things have changed since they were published.
11. Write about a conversation or exchange you had with a valued client.
12. Take your data and display it differently. Try a chart or infographic to tell the story instead of words.
13. If you come across an article that builds on a point you have made or contradicts – share it, link to your post and add your opinion.
14. Take a comment left by a reader on a previous blog post, add your reaction and write it as a blog post.
15. Recently received an award or recognition? Write about it and what it means to your business.
16. Revisit content from email newsletters or direct mail pieces. Add some fresh ideas or examples and reuse.
17. Give content a fresh voice by asking a different staff member to write about it.
18. Have a new employee or intern tell you what business principles they have learned. Share that in a newsletter or blog post.
19. Turn your favorite or most popular blog entries into an article in your next email newsletter.
20. Use a scheduling tool to automatically tweet out some of your favorite posts every week
21. Have to read a new report, industry publication or a business book? Give a short recap or react to one thing you read in there.

That is hopefully enough to get you started! Not all content has to be brand spanking new. Take advantage of content you already have and spruce it up. If Martha Stewart can do it… so can you!

Photo credit: Frank Kehren

What exactly is a landing page?
A landing page is essentially any page a user lands on when they are surfing the internet (sometimes called an entrance page). However, in most cases, a single page on website that is tied to a specific campaign is usually referred to as a landing page. Website users will be directed to a landing page after clicking on an advertisement. Sometimes print ads or direct mail offers will promote special landing pages for different campaigns.

Why can’t I just send them to my homepage?
Your homepage has multiple options and calls to action for a user to take. If you’re using pay-per-click ads that have a specific offer then sending users to your homepage; having too many options may distract them from the offer they originally came to the site for. Landing pages are created to promote the advertisement in more detail. They are custom designed for a target audience so that the user feels compelled to engage in the intended action.

Why are landing pages important?
When using landing pages in accordance with pay-per-click campaigns and other similar internet marketing efforts, they produce better conversions than a regular web page. They are custom designed for a targeted audience with the intention of driving qualified leads to a particular offer.

How do they work?
Online marketing ads use copy (and sometimes design elements) to motivate the user to click the ad. Once a user has clicked the ad, they are directed to a landing page. When a user arrives to the landing page there is a general framework to assist user conversion.

This framework consists of:

• The goal or the offer – Whatever you want the user to do from this page. For example; buying a product or signing up for a free trial.
• Relevance to the campaign – The landing page must reflect back on the source it came from. For example; if you are using Facebook ads to promote an offer, the page  should use the same offer as the original ad.
• Keywords – If you’re using Google Adwords or Microsoft adCenter, your landing page should target 2 to 3 keywords that are  used in the original ad copy.
• Captivating title or header – Website users consume content very quickly by scanning. An attention grabbing header will help keep the user from navigating away from the landing page.
• Supporting copy – Use additional copy (but not too much) to explain the offer in more detail. Explain why the user should take the action.
• Image – Graphic elements can be extremely persuasive and have the ability to make a statement. When used effectively, they  can evoke emotion and compel the user to stay on the page longer to explore the offer.
• Conversion piece – Make the user do something. Whether it’s filling out a form, watching a video or sharing the content with their friends, get them to take action.

Do I need to use landing pages?
Take this “super official quiz” that will determine if you should be using landing pages.

• Do you use paid advertisements (Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, banner ads, etc.) to drive traffic to your website?
• Do you use email marketing to offer specials to your customers or drive traffic back to your site?
• Does your business have multiple locations?
• Do you have different kinds of users or customers?
• Do you promote your website using direct mail?
• Do you have customers coming to your website from social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.?

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, then you should think about using landing pages. Any time you can offer a specific product or service, or if you are directing users to your site for a specific offer, using landing page will come in handy.

To learn more about landing pages watch this archived webinar or leave your questions in the comments section below.