Though they are distinctive approaches to Search, Organic and PPC provide a strong value proposition to users when implemented together into a Search campaign. Organic and PPC Search campaigns drive legitimacy for the user and prospective customer. Click-Through Rates see increases in these dual search initiatives. For Organic and PPC, their significance in establishing an effective Search program is their most important similarity.
It is easier to draw distinctions between Organic and PPC Search. The course you decide to take depends on your Search needs and what you are looking to accomplish in your campaign. Going organic enables your search program to generate long-term growth through efficiency. The cost of an organic campaign is far less than PPC. Organic campaigns produce more clicks and give your business, product or service the potential for vast exposure. Organic Search engages the user at the “moment of relevance”. This is when a user is actively seeking information on a product or service of interest. Going organic maximizes highly relevant traffic while building brand equity and consumer trust.
Still, there are contrasting benefits to PPC. PPC provides users with complete control over their campaign, the manner in which it is managed and how the campaign is ranked. Also, PPC offers quick, short-term results and generates ranking based on accuracy, not assumptions or projections.
The success of a search campaign is ultimately defined by ROI. In order to drive the biggest bank for your Search Marketing buck, consider launching a coordinated SEO/PPC campaign. By integrating Paid and Organic, you can position your Search iniative as a short-term and long-term results driver.
To open an email or not to open an email? This is the question email recipients ask themselves when they are on the fence about opening or deleting a message. Email marketers understand the importance of the subject heading. It has to entice the reader with an immediately recognizable benefit without making an over-the-top hard sell. If this weren’t tricky enough, adhering to CAN-SPAM compliance makes creating an engaging, actionable and deliverable subject heading all the more challenging.
In order to increase conversions, improve sales and drive results for clients, email marketing and creative teams should work together to produce highly-targeted, high-performing messaging. To maximize collaborative effectiveness, these departments should keep the following email subject line best practices top of mind:
- Avoid obvious SPAM words like Free, Coupon and Cash
- Keep it Short – Subject length should be up to 50 characters or less
- Refer to best performing competitive offers
- Include company name for credibility and better branding
- Create a recognizable, relevant benefit for the reader
- Continually test and compare open rates
Obviously, the subject heading alone will not convert to sale. Email marketers must ensure that the body messaging offers strong selling points. But if the subject line doesn’t grab the reader, the body of the email might as well be lost in online space.
Many health and beauty businesses are in the unenviable position of competing for the same consumers. Here are five steps these vertical businesses can take to drive beautiful engagement and ROI results:
Enhancing Search Results via Social – Health and beauty vertical brands and publishers can enhance their authority with Facebook Likes, Tweets and YouTube views. Organic rankings benefit from a strong and sound social presence. Since Facebook has grown into a robust, non-traditional search engine, it’s become increasingly aware of like-building methods that seem suspect; therefore, target potential and existing vertical customers for the long haul, not the quick fix. Also, it’s important to make social profiles keyword friendly. For instance, skin care solutions companies should include search terms like “laser treatment”, “chemical peel” and “microdermabrasion” on their profiles.
Rejuvenate Performance with Affiliate Marketing – By placing health and beauty offers with a relevant, reliable and technologically advanced affiliate network, media buys can be more strategic and contextually driven. This is a unique value proposition, which encourages complete market optimization increasing business options and driving better, more profitable results.
Putting Beautiful Results on Display – It is no longer enough for cosmetic surgeons to post before and after photos on their website as proof of their exceptional skill, not in an industry with many facilities competing for the same prospective patient. Precise targeting of banner ads can promote a cosmetic brand by showcasing its beautiful procedural results thus driving clicks and conversions.
Email Marketing Can Garner Beautiful Results – Consumer engagement and reengagement is a major goal of email marketers. To that end, email newsletters can help personalize the experience for an already engaged customer giving the reader a better view of your products and services. And coupled with the right tracking initiatives, the email newsletter can gage lifetime customer value.
Leverage Data via Group Buying and Daily Deals Sites – Group buying and daily deals sites are widely used within the health and beauty industry to maximize demographic reach and target highly relevant, in-market consumers. This is perfect for the business and consumer.
Following these five steps could help health and beauty companies drive better campaign results. In the meantime, take a moment to evaluate your overall campaign goals. This will help you meet your ROI objectives.
When influential people die before their time, the natural reaction is a mixture of sadness over the passing, awe at the person’s accomplishments and envy wishing it was you who made such a lasting impression. In the days and weeks ahead, there will be an onslaught of personal reflections on Steve Jobs. We will no doubt read a blog from someone claiming to be his 5th grade math teacher who could sense his preternatural brilliance build with every square root equation solved. There will be tweets and Facebook posts from neighbors, acquaintances, perhaps even the new owner of the garage from which Jobs built his first computer. These remembrances and tributes will be heartfelt with a sprinkling of self-indulgence, as if six degrees of separation will inspire them to works of staggering genius. And apart from the revolutionary products and services Steve Jobs created – iTunes, Pixar, the iPod, iPhone and iPad – perhaps it is this desire to be part of something truly innovative, to dream bigger than most human minds can grasp, to truly change the world that is at the heart of the Steve Jobs legacy.
In time, there will be autocratic recollections of Steve Jobs. This is also human nature, the need to bring people down a peg. These remembrances, too, will stem from sadness, awe and envy for the likelihood of their being another Steve Jobs, a genuine game-changing visionary, is indeterminate.
Whether the coming remembrances of Steve Jobs stem from childhood, adulthood or Apple fanhood, whether they are praiseworthy or steeped in jealousy, there is no doubt that the universal reflection will be on his greatness, his unparalled acumen, and his standing as a true immortal.
The service mediums of Online Performance Marketing – Affiliate Marketing, Search, Social, Display Advertising, Email Marketing and Data Acquisition – can drive results and highly measurable returns for your campaign. But proper implementation is the key and outsourcing to experts has many advantages.
Online Performance Marketing is getting many organizations to reevaluate their established marketing practices. Developing an in-house digital marketing team means first learning new techniques before effectively incorporating them. This means more personnel, more time and more money. Outsourcing to experienced practitioners will jump start the organizational capability needed to deploy these new techniques productively with maximum efficiency.
Online Performance Marketers are in the business of effectively and efficiently driving results through a cycle of continuous improvement. This methodology includes targeting media; designing the user experience; capturing, qualifying and converting the data; continual analyzing and optimizing. Their day-to-day expertise strengthens with each problem fixed or opportunity seized. In the end, outsourcing to a performance marketing team that has been where you want to go and accomplished what you hope to achieve will accelerate the success of your marketing strategy.
The F8 Developer Conference didn’t reveal much about Facebook. Oh wait, my bad. It kind of did. After leaving the San Francisco conference stage last Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg effectively tossed aside the social network you’ve come to know and love, at least most of the time. Unless you’ve been living under one of Mark’s old, worn-out hoodies, you know about the changes that make up the new Facebook. But just in case, here they are in broad strokes:
- The integration of Spotify and Turntable.fm making Facebook a premier entertainment hub. Somewhere, Justin Timberlake is cursing Sean Parker. ‘Why oh why did I play you?’
- A complete profile redesign and increased user control over news feeds
- The introduction of “Timeline” or what Mark continuously referred to as, and I’m paraphrasing, the story of your life. It enables users to add photos and events making your profile look like a really cool Apple commercial
Pretty exciting stuff. Actually for marketers, it’s all a little frightening. Why? Because it ups the ante on the whole notion of compelling content. We’ve all heard the term engagement ad nauseum. Content has to be engaging blah blah blah. Now, it really does. For content to hit a user’s news feed, it has to be amazingly compelling, authoritative and relevant. It has to mean something. And that brings us to the world famous Like.
In one of the unintentionally funnier moments of the Zuckerberg presentation – Andy Samberg wins the funny award hands down – Mark announced verbs are coming to Facebook. Yes, verbs! Though tempting, the follow-up question shouldn’t be ‘What about adverbs and pronouns?’ but rather ‘What does this mean for the Like button?’ Certainly, the Like lost a little luster on Thursday. By adding buttons like Read, Watched, Listened, brand ambassadors will be able to go further with endorsements. Advertisers and marketers obsessed with getting likes will finally have to come to terms with the fact that a like means nothing if it doesn’t convert. With Read, Watched, Listening and down the line perhaps Purchased buttons, advertisers and marketers will have quantifiable and measurable conversion metrics.
So what’s the marketing story? Delivering compelling content and measuring conversions.
If the benchmark for Organic Search success is ROI, the process to achieve this goal begins with a sound link building strategy. When it comes to link building, it pays to be popular. Link popularity measures the quantity and quality of sites that link to your site. With link building, relevancy directly correlates to rankings. The more relevant incoming links your site receives, the greater the chances of your site ranking high on major search engines.
Incoming links are an extremely valuable part of link popularity and link building. Incoming links bring considerable amounts of traffic to your site. Linking to third party sites increase user visit potential. Their effectiveness is contingent on strategy. It is important to develop direct and indirect incoming link sources to establish search integrity and maximize relevance.
Direct Linking
Effective link building is a continuous process. Success does not come overnight. When it does, it’s generated from careful evaluation. Three important factors go into effective direct linking:
- Quantity – Total incoming links directed to a site or webpage
- Relevancy – Degree to which the incoming links relate to your site
- Strength – The amount of authority the site providing the link has
Adhering to these factors will positively impact your organic search position. Proper research is key. You are likely to find sound linking partners within your network. Sites with high ranking relevant search terms, keywords and themes will benefit your link building strategy. Don’t forget your manners. Create personalized direct link requests when seeking incoming link partnerships.
Indirect Linking
Indirect linking is a more natural approach to incoming link acquisition. It relies on content to draw sites to your site. But as is the case with direct linking, indirect linking best practices should be implemented for link building and Organic Search success.
- Make Your Site Linkworthy – Add educational and instructional content; include case studies, blogs, press releases and white papers
- Submit to Directories – DMOZ, specialized directories. It’s about relevancy.
- Market Your Memberships – Promote industry affiliations, contacts and connections
- Freshen Your Content – Increase your site’s visibility and attractiveness
Formulating a strategic link building plan requires expertise. A novice approach can raise warning flags across search space adversely affecting your rankings and reputation. Remember – link popularity measures quantity and quality. Therefore, it makes sense to avoid link popularity farms, linking to your own site, linking to sites that house hundreds of links on a single page, unknown link solicitations and bulk list submissions. And as always, think before you link.
Everyone talks about Facebook, Twitter and to some extent Foursquare when addressing the power of social media. Sometimes – IPO news notwithstanding – it seems like LinkedIn is the forgotten stepchild. People know it’s there but they don’t know what to do with it. Companies may have a hard time viewing LinkedIn as anything more than an online resume repository. But like any other social network, LinkedIn offers opportunities to increase brand awareness and user reach in search space. When properly leveraged, LinkedIn can help you tap into your career-minded audience and build your professional network – connections that could drive client relationships.
Many companies place LinkedIn solely in the hands of human resources. LinkedIn is a great recruiting tool but it is also a great way to improve your page one rankings on Google, Bing and Yahoo; therefore, it should be part of any Search and Social optimization campaign. Incorporating relevant keywords into your LinkedIn profile and joining or creating LinkedIn Groups can build up your search authority on the major search engines. Also, utilizing the LinkedIn RSS feed is a great way to drive traffic to your corporate blog. According to HubSpot, small businesses that actively blog get, on average, 97% more inbound links, 434% more indexed pages and 55% more site visits. That is some serious SEO mojo you could be giving your LinkedIn page.
Unfortunately for LinkedIn, it is lacking the cool factor inherent in Facebook and Twitter. People don’t like – Facebook pun not intended – updating is as often. But content additions and revisions help improve search rankings, which makes incorporating them into LinkedIn important to your overall search strategy.
In its Interactive Marketing Forecast Report, Forrester Research portends that search, display advertising, mobile, email marketing and social media will drive a 35% increase in ad spending by 2016. That’s certainly good news worth believing in, especially coming from such a respected source. The report is full of interesting statistics and industry forecasts but one prediction is particularly eye-catching; the growth of interactive marketing will essentially sign the death warrant of the daily deal. Again, it’s tough to argue with Forrester but this may be a tad rash.
Daily deals have become an important results-driver within the affiliate marketing channel, which is conspicuously absent in the Forrester growth model. This is strange considering Forrester predicted US affiliate marketing spend would hit the $4 billion mark by 2014. Also, other performance channels like email marketing and social media have spearheaded the success of daily deals through advanced geo-targeting and effective consumer engagement. Perhaps Forrester is equating the recent trials and tribulations of Groupon with the whole of daily deals. Groupon is the big fish but it isn’t the only fish. Nowhere was that more evident than at last week’s DailyDealMedia Conference where some of the heaviest brand hitters sung the praises of the daily deal.
Daily deals detractors often point to the savvy consumer as the eventual downfall of the industry. Can a company really grow with a fly by night customer only interested in a 90% coupon? No, not if the sole ROI metric is profitability. Many companies leverage daily deals for engagement or branding similar to the non-revenue ROI goals of many social media campaigns. And yet it’s doubtful any research firm will be signaling the end of social anytime soon. Given their positive impact on the affiliate marketplace, daily deals deserve a place at the interactive marketing table. Maybe the industry needs to offer Forrester a kick arse coupon.
Advertisers and marketers need to keep singing it. Why? Because online users continue to view display advertising campaigns as intrusive and essentially tone deaf to relevancy. According to research conducted by AdKeeper and 24/7 Real Media, 58% of users don’t click on display ads because they’re deemed irrelevant to their needs. Performance channels, display advertising included, are meant to drive efficient growth. But such compiled data makes that a tough sell. So what’s the solution? How about some common sense targeting!
Folks aren’t interesting in anything that makes life harder. Life is hard enough. When users are online searching for products and services, they want to get in and out fast. They don’t want ads of dance-challenged men sporting beer guts promoting muscle building products to impede their search for an apartment. When checking on travel delays, they don’t want to have to squint to find the X to close out an ad for a breakthrough diet supplement. These are just a few examples of banner ads gone terribly awry. They leave a bad taste in the mouths of users and do great harm to the industry as a whole.
The good news that can be inferred from that AdKeeper and 24/7 Real Media statistic is that 42% of users are clicking on display ads or can be persuaded to click. Proper targeting and user-friendly advertising are giving them a reason.
