It was refreshing to hear that as a marketer I was able to relate to the individual that controlled the budgets for our campaigns. So it sparked a question, what are marketing departments talking about when they pitch for the budgets? As we all know general marketing spending is down the last couple of years. The economy is partially a factor, but I also think that people are still speculating on the notion of “build it and they will come”. Recent research indicates that Social Networks which were originally conceived to be an inexpensive marketing tool are actually only successful when serious dollars are allocated to it. Those dollars are in the form of personnel, promotion, research, content creation, and strategy.  Using Social Networks for marketing should be treated no differently than any other campaign that you would launch.

Back to the original thought, what are marketing people saying about leads and conversions? With this particular client, a recruiting agency, we had the fortunate opportunity to be able to track and ultimate hiring of every individual to a specific lead source. We were then able to track the total number of leads back to dollars allocated/actual dollars spent. So I was able to discuss marketing successes and failures as it relates to pure numbers, which for the CFO and ultimately the board was refreshing and enlightening.

If you have a conversation with me, you will soon find that I love the numbers of marketing; page views, conversions rates, click thru rates, unique visitors, etc… I just get giddy. Mainly because it is a tangible item, which in marketing can be difficult. So I am challenging the marketing departments and the specialist and anyone that launches a campaign…. Know the numbers, understand the implications, go back and research and find out what happened and how you can do it better next time, and then present that to a CFO and see if he/she gets it. I guarantee that if they get it, the money for your next successful campaign will be much easier to ask for. If you can’t track those numbers, work with your tech and sales team to make sure that you figure out how to track it. Content may be king on the web, but numbers win in the board room.

As always – open to discuss this post or how we can help you with your next successful campaign.

This post comes courtesy of Jackson Hole, Wyoming at the base of the Grand Teton’s National Park. Having lunch over the 4th of July weekend at Bubba’s BBQ (which I totally recommend if you ever visit this area) I overheard a conversation regarding a recent purchase and the desired upcoming purchase of a new horse. While I have no interest in owning a horse the conversation intrigued me as the three cowboys conversed on the pro’s and con’s of a fairly little known breeder in the area. How does this relate to social networking? This is the very root of social networking… just a difference of how it is administered.

To them this was their twitter – this was the blog entry for the day with comments and commentary, this was the status update on Facebook, “Just bought a horse – need to figure out what to call him”. People often ask me to explain what social networking is or how do you twitter, or should our company blog, and I often use the analogy of asking a couple of friends for advice when you travel or are buying a new car. Here I had come across a conversation (Browsing or Searching for content) and was eavesdropping (Reading the post or tweets) on their dialogue and if I had needed advice on where to buy a horse I could have easily jumped in (Commented or Posted) but instead I just listened (Followed) their content.

What the difference was and how this example should be applied to your organization is that it wasn’t about the cowboy or the horse it was an open and honest conversation about an experience, about sharing some piece of knowledge that might be useful to the next person. Cowboy 1 wasn’t trying to sell anything – he was merely sharing his opinion so that the other 2 might benefit from it. This is what more companies need to figure out as they ask themselves – Do I need a social network? First, figure out if you have something to say that anyone really cares about. Secondly, understand that others might be listening even if they don’t jump into the conversation.

So the next time someone ask me to describe Social Networking I might find myself explaining it just a little bit differently.

Photos by: Eric Jones

We recently implemented a new site design for Rose NYC (www.rosenyc.com) that allowed us to start fresh, break down the site architecture, research the appropriate keywords for Search Engine Optimization, and then implement prior to launching the site. What happened? Success – the site went from being buried on page 2 – 4, to showing up on the first page of various keyword searches. The issue was – we had to go back and change a page title or two after Google had already indexed. It came down to proper names and including the word “The” in the building page titles. We fixed the situation with some simple redirects and about a week later Google had all the new pages indexed but the lesson was learned.

If you are doing SEO correctly then you can see immediate impact, but if we had launched this site without being mindful of SEO then we could have missed a great opportunity. Note to self – make sure that the client double checks all the proper names – even if they have it approved on the site map. This was a project were all the right pieces came together for the desired outcome – ranking higher in search engines.

The new site was launched on April 16th and we compared some common statistics from the 1 – 15th and 16 – 30th. The final result:

• 11% increase in search engine traffic from the beginning of the month (1- 15) compared to the end of the month (16 – 30)

• Total visitors increased by 17.35% up from 18,760 to 22,014

• Not to mention that the overall bounce rate dropped from 39% to 28% in that same time frame

To further discuss these results or to better understand the process just email me.
Until next time – Thanks

So let’s take a look at how information should be arranged based on what the consumer wants to know, not what you want to tell them. Try to take a step back, and understand why they might be looking for your product or your service. Not so much of why you think your company is best at doing it.  Your client has a need, and the only question is can your organization fill that need and help them solve their problem. Once they figure out that you can, then they will want to know what type of experience they can expect. Have you worked with others like them, will your product(s) be cost effective, do you have a good reputation, with whom will they be working…

We all want to be the popular kid on the block, but the potential consumer, that first time researcher, might not care about your company as much as you want them too. Not yet at least. When they first hit the website, content needs to be arranged so they immediately know, this organization can help me, and now I need to know more, so I will dig a little deeper.