The Science of Marketing

In a recent post on Bizmark Tech, Deb calls our attention to some pointers by Suzie Gardner on what makes good material for a company blog.  One common thread that runs through most of the content areas she lists is information, and I couldn’t agree more.  If you want your company blog to become a resource for your customers, partners or anyone in your ecosystem, you have to give them something that’s useful, something that’s relevant, something they can’t get anywhere else.  You have to inform them.

What types of information should you provide?  Well…whatta you got?  I’ve seen high tech companies that are sitting on top of mounds of data about performance and security create blogs around this information - becoming authorities in their respective industries and generating massive media coverage because of it.  I’ve seen a building safety equipment vendor centralize publicly available research and legal information on its blog, providing a resource for its audience and creating awareness for its solution.  And I’ve seen an executive at a storage hardware vendor use his blog to discuss trends in data management and backup strategies, using his unique viewpoint to promote his company’s differentiation.

The point is, the people you want to communicate with are just outside your door, and they’re looking for useful information.  Chances are your company has some inventory of information that nobody else can provide to them.  By sharing this information with them, you can open the door to new conversations that position your company as an expert, as a resource, as a partner. 

The only question remaining are - what useful information does your company posess, and how can you leverage it on your blog?

I love looking at Google Analytics.  I do it every day for both this blog and our corporate web site looking for patterns, insights and clues to help increase eyeballs and hopefully business. One of the areas that I focus on is referring sites - how visitors got to our web site.  For each referring site (including direct links), Google Analytics lists visits, pages/visit, average time on site and bounce rate (percentage of visitors that exit on the same page they enter). Here’s some statistics and observations for our corporate web site from the beginning of the year until now.

Visits

• 39% - direct link (someone typed our URL into the browser)
• 35% - search engines
• 26% - other referring sites
• Of the other referring sites, 9% were from this blog and 5% were from LinkedIn.

Pages Per Visit

• 6 - direct link
• 4 - this blog and LinkedIn
• 3 - search engines

Average Time on Site

• 7:45 - direct link
• 3:01 - this blog
• 2:33 - LinkedIn
• 1:47 - search engines

Bounce Rate

• 23% - LinkedIn
• 38% - direct link
• 44% - this blog
• 53% - search engines

The conclusion is that social networking sites:

• Generate additional visitors
• Produce quality visits (more time on the site, more pages per visit, lower bounce rate) as compared to search engines

So, why not beef up your social networking efforts?

Here’s a follow-up to a post I wrote in late August.  You remember - the one about marketing communications activities that happen in sequential stages to be most effective.  Since then, I’ve been talking to peers and keeping an eye on the blogosphere to get a feel for how others feel about a phased approach to marketing communications.  The result: it seems that the days of trying to do too much with a single tool or program are quickly coming to an end. 

Most marketers are no longer swinging for the fences with marketing communications - they are thinking through their marketing goals and mapping out phased communications strategies that get them there over time.  They are walking before they run, dating before they marry, and establishing a dialogue  before they sell.  Here are a few examples of progressive thinking in the area of marketing phases:

Marketing Experiments Blog: Writing Headlines that Don’t Sell — But Get Much Higher Conversions

Startup Hustle: Acquiring, Engaging, Retaining and Monetizing Your Customers

Marketing Interactions: B2B Websites Need to Focus on the Long Term

Drew’s Marketing Minute: Are You Expecting too Much From your Marketing?

I’m a big believer in marketing programs that don’t sell or try to do too much, but instead happen in phases and focus on long-term success.  I’m glad to see that others agree.  What do you think?

The marketing consulting firm I work for sends out an e-newsletter, Foundations, every month or so to a list of prospects, customers, partners - the usual. A couple of months ago we started a lead feature called "The 1-Second Survey". The idea is to gather market information quickly and painlessly - we ask one question and give four or five possible answers, one of which the reader clicks on (see below). That’s it - done in (less than) one second. No more taking ten or twenty minutes of someone’s valuable time.

We’ve gotten great response, but we also got something that we didn’t expect. Several people have asked us: how do we do it? what tools do we use? Well, it’s really pretty simple and I’ll let everyone in on the "secret".

Start With an E-Mail Marketing Service

We use MailChimp for all our e-mail campaigns. (We’ve tried a few different services and like MC’s ease-of-use and campaign reporting.) Like most e-mail marketing services, MC allows you to embed links and track click-throughs.

Create Landing Pages

Each of the links above goes to a different landing page on our web site. These pages say "thanks for participating" and have links to other pages for more information.

Count the Clicks

MC reports on a wide range of statistics for each campaign (in this case a newsletter). One of these statistics is the number of click-throughs for each link embedded in the e-newsletter. Just tally up the clicks for each link and you have your survey results.

So, that’s the secret of the 1-second survey. It’s just that easy.

Have fun.

Every now and then, it’s fun to take a walk down memory lane.  So today, I logged into Google Analytics and punched up the content page to find out what our ten most popular posts are.  I was surprised at how diverse the list is, ranging from the very tactical to the very strategic, and covering just about every topic we’ve ever written about.  I’m glad to see that our readers enjoy variety, so we’ll continue to mix things up.  If there’s anything you’d like us to write about, please comment below or send us an e-mail - we’d love to hear from you.

With that, Our Ten Most Popular Posts: 

1. Internal Communications: Own It
2. The Blogosphere: You Don’t Have to Blog to Belong
3. Mission Statement: Make it Possible
4. Slogans: Say What You Do
5. Market Segmentation: How to Prioritize Targets
6. High Tech Blogging: Why?
7. Lead Generation: The Bell Curve
8. Communications Part II: To the Right People
9. Age of Conversation 2: The Deadline
10. The SEO Triple Play: Message, Mechanics, Maintenance

An interesting post caught my eye today, where Chris Garrett of the invesp Blog discusses the predatory sales mistake of cold calling. In his post, Chris uses an intimidating, fear mongering door-to-door salesman as a vivid example of what not to do when engaging prospects with whom we don’t yet have a relationship. His observations and advice are spot on, particularly his main premise that interrupting and annoying people with whom we’re trying to connect is the first ingredient in a recipe for failure.

When I think about cold calling, I immediately get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach - something akin to my reaction to the words "root canal". Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy meeting new people and talking to them…but when I think about how I react to a total stranger calling me to sell something, I know I don’t want to be on either end of such a conversation. I’d rather get to know someone before I try to sell them something, and even then, I want to be sure that what I have to offer is something they actually need.

Assuming I’m not the only one who would rather warm call than cold call, where do we begin? Below are some highlights from Chris’ post and some thoughts of my own on scrapping the interruption and starting an interaction. I’m interested to hear your opinion as well, so please let me know what you think.

Chris Garrett says:

• Ask questions and try to understand the needs and concerns of your prospects
• Give something in return for permission to call back
• Provide incentives for referrals

I say:

• Leverage existing relationships to forge new ones (Think LinkedIn)
• Send useful information with no strings attached (See Communications: The Art of the RFU)
• Articulate your area of expertise, and offer free advice (Without giving away the farm, of course)

What do you say?

A recent study by web usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, shows that people are becoming much less patient when they go on line.

Shocker!

Everyone knows that people are getting more and more impatient in all aspects of life - IRL and well as URL. (Just drive around Boston for five minutes and you will see impatience in action.) So, as you’re picking yourself off the floor after hearing this revelation, let me say that the study does have some interesting data that could impact how you architect your web site.

First a bit of good news. The study says that in the last ten years, web success rates (which measure whether someone achieves what they set out to achieve) have climbed from 60% to 75%. Nielsen cites people’s comfort level with interactivity and better web designs - so we’re on the right path.

Now, here’s where you may need to take action.

• In 2004, 40% of web users went to a home page and then drilled down (the other 60% went right to where they wanted to go).
• In 2008, those numbers are 25% and 75%.

"Basically, search engines rule the web," says Nielsen.

I think there is one big web design/marketing implication of this study.

Every page on your web site has to be designed as a landing page - either informational or transactional. Don’t expect users to follow a logical chain of links to get to where you want them to go.

Anyone else have any opinions of the implications of Nielsen’s study?

You can read a BBC article about the Nielsen study here.

Last week, I happened upon a LinkedIn Question that offered a glimpse into the challenges that have been keeping companies out of the blogosphere.  So I did what any self respecting blogger would do, I wrote about it and promised an update when more data became available.  As the answers trickled in, I found myself craving more responses to try and arrive at a meaningful conclusion, so I posed the question to our newsletter recipients via a "1-Second Survey" - and many of our readers accepted the challenge. 

With a little more to go on, I think it’s safe to say that most respondents agree: time is the biggest impediment to corporate blogging.  But behind the reason given lies an implication - that blogging just isn’t a priority for many businesses…yet.  For months, we’ve been talking to companies that are using their blogs to communicate more efficiently and effectively with their key audiences and company ecosystems, and their stories are inspiring and compelling. 

One company is blogging to put a personal face on its operations, and learning tons about its customers in the process.  Another is using a blog to share real-time data with industry watchers, positioning itself as a leading authority in the process.  Yet another has moved its blog from the edge to the epicenter of its corporate communications program, amassing mounds of message-driven media coverage with each new post.  None of these companies cite time as a barrier to blogging.  In fact, one now cites time as a barrier to writing press releases.  My, how times are changing…

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In any given industry, especially high tech, there are a handful of trade shows that are considered "must-go’s". But deciding on whether or not to commit the budget, create the demonstration and exhaust the feet of your staff can often be a shot in the dark. Sure, media companies offer plenty of statistics on how many "qualified attendees" will be buzzing by your booth, but it all depends on how you define qualified. And while last year’s event brought 500 "leads" into your pipeline, how many just dropped by to trade their e-mail address for a free T-shirt? When it comes down to it, the decision on whether to take your company’s act on the road to Vegas, Phoenix or Orlando is often based on feel. Here are some considerations that may help you feel out the decision.

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When I look at a bell curve it reminds me of the process necessary to successfully contact leads. Calling or e-mailing a prospect once yields a small chance of a return call (bottom left of the bell curve). As you continue to work the lead with more e-mails, calls and information your chances of connecting increase. I have found that three to five outreaches in a period of one month maximizes the chances of a successful connection (the top of the bell curve). More than five touches and your success rate drops off significantly (the right side of the bell curve). So how do you make the most out of your five chances?

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