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.

‘Tis the season for gatherings – with friends, family, coworkers, etc! This weekend kicked off the first of of many gatherings I will attend in the next 27 days. It got me thinking about events and what role they play in having a presence on your website.

For most of us in the B2B industry our monthly calendar consists of a few work-related events. Events are an important part of the way we conduct business; they allow us to expand our education, meet like minds, get new ideas, and network with others in our industry. Not only are they important offline; they are also an important part of content for your website online.

When you go to industry events and especially if you host events you should have a section on your site to showcase that. The section can promote events your business puts together, events that your business will attend, and even industry-related events that you think may interest your audience (even if no one from your business is able to attend).

Why is event content so great to have on your website? Here are a few reasons:

• New – New content keeps your site updated and fresh which increases the likelihood of return visitors. It also shows people who visit your site that you care about your website and your business by not letting the content get dated.
• Timely – Timely content is great because it offers you a chance to attract people when they are looking. As events happen people are probably searching for them online. If your website promotes upcoming events there is an opportunity for you to reach a new audience of people who are looking to attend those events. You might not offer a way to sign up for an event but you can be helpful and promote the event and then direct the user to the proper page to sign up.
• Trust –  Showing that you’re involved with the happenings in your industry whether you’re sharing event information, attending events, or hosting events delivers and underlying value to your customers. When people are researching a product or service online they look for indicators to help them make choices. Showing your activity with events on your website demonstrates that you are an authority in that space.
• Sharable – Information about events; whether they are upcoming or have already happened, will be talked about both on and offline. People will share photos from events they have attended or pass on a link to someone interested in upcoming events. By having this content on your site you are offering a way for people to share your content.

Event related content is a great addition to your website and content marketing strategy. Not only is it additional content to keep your site fresh but it may help promote you as an authority in your industry. I hope you have a great December and enjoy all your special gatherings.

If you’re already promoting your events on your business website check out the slides below on using social media to market your events. It’s our little gift to you!

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to speak at Social Media FTW here in Portland. Social Media FTW is a nice local conference helping local businesses figure out all this social media stuff. I had the tough task of talk about social media planning, policies and measuring at the end of a long day of great content.

I tried to make it as fun as possible but thought I would take a few minutes to talk about some of the more advanced features we talked about here and give you more resources to get started.

Google’s URL Builder

You may have noticed when you click on a link on a social media site or someplace else, that when it opens in your browser it is much longer. It may contain ?utm and then a bunch of numbers. What that long link is doing is tracking where that link came from, perhaps from what network and campaign. You can do that too!

Using the Google URL Builder you can tag your links with the Source, Medium and Campaign Name of you links and keep track in Analytics how that particular campaign link worked. Take that long link, shorten it with a service like Bit.ly and post it to see how it performs.

Creating Advanced Segments in Google Analytics

By creating Advanced Segments in Google Analytics you can create reports tailored to your specific needs. For social media you can put multiple sources together. The example I gave was to aggregate all of the different traffic you have coming from Twitter (even though now we have t.co).

Once you have that segment set up, you can compare how your Twitter traffic is performing versus all of the other traffic from your site etc. This can tell you more about the Twitter users that come to their site, what they are interested in and how engaged they are.

Google Custom Reports

You can create a Google Custom report and just display the information that is most important to you, just the way you want to see it. To set up a custom Social Media Report you can choose the Metrics that are most important to you, then add a Filter to include all of your social media URLs for the sites you are participating on.

Once you have that set up, you will have a Custom Report that just lets you look at that data you want. You can compare social media site to social media site and even compare date ranges (how one month did to the last).

If you cannot see this video, watch it on YouTube

Multi-channel Funnels

This is so cool (in a nerdy way). Social Media is hard to track the ROI of because often it isn’t the last action someone does before completing a sale or making the deal. It DOES help in the decision making process, in building trust and in getting your content, products and services in front of new eyeballs.

With multi-channel funnels, what you will hopefully be able to do is track each touchpoint that someone had with your website. Maybe they found you on a social network first, then later they Googled you and maybe the final sale was made when they saw your PPC ad, clicked on it and contacted you. With Multi-Channel Funnels, Google Analytics is trying to track that.

With that information you can see all the different places someone came into contact with your website, notice trends in the conversion paths, see where your overlap is and get an idea of how many impressions it is taking for people to convert on your site

For Multi-Channel Funnels to work you need to go to the New Version of Analytics (top right hand corner) and have goals set up on your site to track conversions.

If you cannot see this video, watch it on YouTube

Social Interaction Analytics

With Social Interaction Analytics you can finally measure the impact of the social sharing buttons on your website. This is also in the new version of Google Analytics. What you are doing is adding some modifications to the javascript Google gives you to put on your site. After this is set up, you can see what social actions are happening on your site and compare that data against itself month on month, quarter on quarter etc.

This one is pretty complicated. Google explains it here, Social Media Examiner explains it a little better here (for us common folks).

There you go! That is enough information to get you into some serious trouble! Thanks so much to everyone who made it to my presentation. The full slides are below. Let me know if you have any questions!

The second day I spent at Inbound Marketing Summit did not disappoint – the day started out with a bang and ended on a high note. The biggest takeaways for me yesterday were based on the themes of relationships, relevancy, and change.

Enchantment to Create and Strengthen Long Lasting Relationships

First off, let me start by saying that Guy Kawasaki is awesome. He’s been in the business for a while, he’s super smart, he publishes great content, and I learned yesterday, he’s also great speaker. Yesterday he introduced the audience to “The Art of Enchantment;” also a book he has just recently written. Guy describes the idea of “enchantment” as “creating a relationship that is long lasting, mutually beneficial, and voluntary.” This sounds like the kind of relationship we desire; whether it be with a friend, a family member, your co workers, and even your vendors and clients. He explains that you can apply this idea of enchantment to starting a business, making decisions,  and creating long-lasting relationships. The three pillars of enchantment, as Guy defines are: to achieve likability, trustworthiness, and quality. This talk was great because it reminds us to shift our thinking from getting what we want and take the extra time to create a change that is mutually beneficial.

Takeaway: By becoming more enchanting, you will deepen your relationships.

Relevancy in the Context of Mobile

I had been looking forward to the panel discussing mobile marketing all day. I had seen Tim Hayden speak before and knew that this was a “must-see” session. Along with Tim, of 44Doors, were Rich Miner, a Partner with Google Ventures, and John Puterbaugh of Nellymoser, Inc. This panel did a great job touching on different aspects of mobile and insights into how it effects how we market to our customers.

The theme that I noticed right away was the idea of relevancy. During this session it was suggested that the mobile handheld device is the most intimate device that humans have ever had. I agree; I wake up and the first thing I look at is my cell phone, during quiet times or waiting in lines I look at my cell phone, I use my phone to connect with people, I use my phone to keep my calendar and my notes, and my alarm clock, my cell phone is the last thing I look at before I go to bed. So what does this mean for us marketers?

Mobile marketing offers us a huge opportunity; however, the gentlemen of this panel remind us, we will still market the way that we have been, but we can use the mobile medium to reach our customer base in an easier, faster, and more simpler manner. Our message, however, needs to be relevant to the mobile medium.

Best Buy was used as an example to describe this rule. Best Buy has QR codes on the little signs with the product details in their store. After scanning the QR code the mobile user is taken to a page that shows them the same exact information that can read on the product detail sign. What’s the point, right? However, below the product detail information is buyer feedback – now, this what we want when we’re shopping! Best Buy could do this better if they move the buyer feedback to be one of the first things a mobile user sees when the scan the code.

Takeaway: Keep relevancy top of mind when offering a mobile user experience.

Driving Change

Dan Heath, of BrightSight Group and author of “Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard” ended our time at Inbound Marketing Summit. I was skeptical at first, wondering how this session would apply to my job and the services we offer our clients. But the more Dan spoke, the more I started understanding that this idea of change could effect the roots of, not only business, but life choices in general, the more intrigued I was.  Dan acknowledged that as marketers our jobs are changing so fast and we need to keep up. But sometimes change is hard and we are resistant.

One of the things that stuck out to me was that many times when things aren’t working we pick it apart and dissect it and anaylze it without really changing what we’re doing. Dan suggests that instead of focusing on what is wrong, focus on what’s working and then try to clone that. I really like that idea; it shifts the way we solve problems. His session left me with a breath of fresh air and I look forward to digging into his book to learn more.

Takeaway: Switch the way you think about problem solving or making a change; approach it from a positive angle.

Thanks for letting me share and digest what I have learned the past few days. I am sure more inisghts will come up as I go through notes and if you have any questions about anything else that was presented at Inbound Marketing Summit 2011 please tweet me!

Greetings from Inbound Marketing Summit 2011!

My brain is already crammed with lots of great takeaways from this conference and I still have one more day to go! I thought the best place to start digesting some of what I am learning and hearing is right here on this blog – to share with you!

The biggest takeaways from yesterday are things that we talk about on this blog and in our webinars; what I believe is the future of online marketing. The first is the idea of differentiating yourself from your competition by embracing the uniqueness of your company and the second is offering a personalized online experience with your audience in all the stages of the buying and customer cycles.

Being Different is Hard

Yesterday morning, Youngme Moon started the conference off with one of the most thought provoking sessions of the day. Youngme is the Senior Associate Dean at Harvard Business School and author of “Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd“. She presented the importance of differentiating yourself from your competition. She explains that as we try to keep up with the competition, we end up conforming and becoming more like them. The way to do this, she told us, is to embrace what is different about your brand and don’t be afraid to say “no” when everyone else is saying “yes”.

Youngme talked about Ikea; a huge brand that people LOVE. We all know that Ikea is different, it has a unique shopping experience, the store offers a restaurant, and childcare; what other furniture store does that? People LOVE this store and they tell Ikea how much they LOVE the store but they also offer feedback telling them if they could be a little bit more like XYZ Furniture Store they would love it even more. Youngme explains that by offering something less, Ikea is giving customers more. Ikea is really creating a loyal fan base where they see Ikea as irreplaceable; there is no substitute.

Similar case studies were shared that described different companies’ visions to really stand apart from the competition, be proud and profitable while being different. Although it’s hard and sometimes uncomfortable, Youngme reminded us that in order to get some traction, it requires some friction. Differentiation comes from lopsidedness and from resisting the temptation to “over-listen” to customers. The hardest part of being different, however, is having an idea on how to be different.

Presenting Your Unique Qualities

The idea of presenting uniqueness also came up during a breakout session presented by Bret Peters, a Partner at Fig Leaf Software. He spoke of some case studies where the brand had a unique offer but chose a creative way to present that content to reach their individual marketing goals. One case study that really stuck out to me is how the American Association of Museums changed the way they presented their premium-only content. Previously, the user had no access to see what the premium content was unless they logged in first. To try an increase memberships, American Association of Museums created an internal Google Search and allowed all of their content to be searchable. However, if one of the results was distinguished as premium content, the user would navigate to a log in page. By making this change they saw an 8% increase in membership in the first month!

What makes your brand unique? Are you taking advantage of it and presenting it to your audience in a creative and captivating way? How are you differentiating yourself from your competition without conforming?

Personalization is the Future of Web

One of the sessions yesterday was “Inbound Marketing 2.0″ presented by Brian Halligan, CEO & Founder of Hubspot. He explained the idea behind Inbound Marketing 2.0 is really about creating a “Segment of 1″ as a web experience for each individual user.

At Hall, we talk a lot about developing unique content for all your different audience types. Once you are able to identify who you are talking to, you can speak more intimately to their needs and specific challenges, which, in result, can lead to improved conversion rates. Think about your website and what you know about the audience that visits it. Some people are researching, some are buying, some are even your current customers.

Brian used examples like Netflix and Pandora; where, once you’re logged in, you are given suggested music to listen to or movies to watch based on what you already like. These websites adapt to your own personal preferences. The experience offered makes the user more likely to continue to use these services because they make it easy to consume information that you like.

The idea of “personal experience” also reminds me of when I worked at Walt Disney and helped kicked off the “Year of a Million Dreams.” Throughout the year, cast members sought out a guest and gave them a “dream” or something special. Though it might have been something small like a free cast member pin, the experience was something unique to a single person or family, but made a memorable impact. This is what encourages word of mouth marketing and customer loyalty.

In all your marketing mediums; website, social networks, email, mobile, direct mail, don’t send one broad message. Segment your audience – get as granular as your data allows – be direct and speak to the individual needs of each segment. Think of your website as your “personalization engine” is how Brian Halligan put it. Not only will this likely improve conversions, this will also strengthen relationships between your brand and the customer. From brochureware to interactive experiences, personalization on the web is what we’re moving towards in the future.

What are some ways you can personalize the experience you are offering your audience? Are your sending targeted messages to the right audience?

Lots of good food for thought and I’m sure I’ll be thinking and blogging about these topics more in the future!