Here is the deep end of the pool:

You may want to Zoom in since I couldn’t make the type larger and not have the page take forever to load (an SEO sin). Daily KPI numbers are divided into:

• Building Blocks – Base numbers such as unique visitors and visits that feed other important calculations.
  .
• Stickiness – Measures critical website “heuristic” measures, or how the site is being used and liked (or not).
  .
• Conversion – Is the website doing what you want it to do. Note I assigned a $2,400 value to each conversion based on internal numbers. The value of your conversion may very.
  . 

Daily KPIs: Building Blocks

Date & Day
When comparing Yesterday to the Same Day Last Year including date and day helps. Most B2B websites go to sleep over the weekend. Knowing what day your comparison is comparing against is valuable. In the example above we would expect Monday’s numbers to beat a Saturday.

Uniques
Unique traffic to your website created by planting a “cookie” (little piece of code on a visitors computer). A person can only be “unique” once. There is a “cookie erase” controversy. People who erase cookies can appear as a “unique” visitor twice. Don’t sweat a detail that fine BECAUSE it is true across your model.

Web analytics are NOT a search for absolute mathematical truth. Web analytics are a search for marketing truth. We create models to find Internet marketing truth. In our Internet marketing models consistency trumps absolute accuracy. Don’t trip over million dollar bills to pick up nickels.

% – The % gain or loss vs same day last year.

Visits – How many visits were made to the website. Visits will always exceed uniques because some visitors visit more than once.

Pageviews – Aggregate of pages served for the period (in this case for a single day).

Daily KPIs: Stickiness

Stickiness is how well your website engages visitors. Stickiness metrics are sometimes called “heuristic” measurements. Heuristic measures are beyond important after Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithm changes. Google’s changes place high value on engagement. Website engagement is measured by heuristics.

Visits per Visitor - Calculation: total visits / uniques.
Sometimes called “repeat visits” or “repeat visitors” this metrics tells you how often visitors return to your website. You want this number to go UP and it will do so very slowly over time if your engagement metrics improve. In our example Visits per Visitor is down slightly from 1.14 last year to 1.10. Not down so much that I would panic, but worth watching as we expand out to weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly numbers.

Pages Per Unique Visitor – Calculation: Pageviews / Uniques.
Pages divided by unique traffic provides a sense of if each unique visitor is engaged MORE or LESS. You want this number to go UP. This is a “nice to have” metric that confirms other metrics, so I don’t calculate a % to see a trend here. I can get the trend from other more important metrics such as Visits per Visitor, Pages and Time.

Pages
Comes from Google analytics on the Audience – Overview page. Number is pages viewed per average visitor with repeat pages counted. This means if a visitor travels down a menu and returns to the homepage the homepage is counted twice. There is a ratio between pages and time. Average pages per visit in the 3 to 6 range is good. Anything above 6, remember these are AVERAGES, is astronomical. This metric moves SLOWLY. You want to watch its trend over time and hope that your number is moving UP.

%YoY – Since Pages is a major “trending” heuristic it is a good idea to divide current by past to see how you are doing.

Time (seconds)
I convert Google’s minutes on our website to seconds for ease of math purposes. This is another major trending metric especially after Panda and Penguin, so divide current by past.

Bounce Rate
Google wants your website to be sticky, so you want bounce rate to trend DOWN. Bounce rates in the sixties are not uncommon. A bounce rate below 50% may mean your don’t have enough traffic visiting your website. Bounce rate exposes the two sides of web metrics. You want your metrics to IMPROVE, but improve too much and something is WRONG (lol). Welcome to Internet marketing.

Daily KPIs: Conversion

I can’t know your “conversion” points, but they are always “triggered” events. You want visitors to take some action such as: subscribe to your email list, fill out a form, request a call. These actions are “conversions” and can be tracked in Google Analytics as “Goals”. Goto  the Conversions – Goals – Overview tab. This will show a summary of the goals you’ve created off of triggered events (clicks = a “triggered event”).

Goal 1 – 3 – These are goals we’ve defined.

Total – Summary of the defined goals.

Conversion Rate – Calculation: Total Conversion / Visits. Use visits not unique because every visit can produce a conversion.

Value
Value of a conversion * total conversions (a simple way to create “value” is take gross sales last year and divide by conversions). I realize such a fuzzy metric will make some financial types nervous. Value COULD BE ANYTHING. Since we don’t care as much about accuracy as consistency, the TREND of value is more important to Internet marketing than its “dollars to the bank” accuracy. Yes some websites will have the financial acumen to figure the model to 10 digits of Pi. I could care less and would argue such absurd uses of time end up costing money instead of making it. Slap a value on your conversions and then trend it over time. You can debate the CFO on how accurate you are later.

Daily KPIs Example Conclusions (the green and red boxes)

A single day evaluated by itself doesn’t say much. The discipline of looking at KPIs daily is what creates insight. On balance May 6th looks good. Uniques were up, Visits Per Visitor was down and that deserve a “watch”, more people visiting looked at more pages and spent a lot more TIME so we didn’t sacrifice heuristics to bring in more traffic.

We are comparing a Monday to a Saturday and such a comparison is almost useless in a B2B website.  I would connect to weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly KPIs to know if the “watch” on Visits Per Visitor is an alarm or an anomaly.  Since I brought up connecting to weekly KPIs let’s dive a little deeper into our KPI pool and look at Weekly KPIs:

Week over Week Analysis

Does our “watch” on Visits Per Visitor need a “deep dive” to figure out what is going on? Probably not based on comparing a week in April / May to the same week last year. We see an average of 1.12 for Visits Per Visitor and we know this metric moves SLOWLY and in tiny increments, so our single day 1.10 isn’t so dramatic as to call for a deep dive.

In the weekly data our unique traffic is down by 17%. I know the source of the difference. We had a promotion last year we didn’t repeat this year. I don’t panic about unique traffic UNLESS other numbers are trending down too. Use numbers like Pages Per Unique Visitor to know if your website’s engagement is UP even as its traffic is DOWN.

The other reason I wouldn’t panic is this year we converted at 2.42% vs. 1.40% last year banking $163,000 to $16,800, a 871% improvement. That number is TOO GOOD, but again I know the source. I added a goal that wasn’t in last year, so if I wanted a strict apples to apples comparison I would model OUT the difference.

Keep good Notes

I am the WORST person to tell you to keep good notes (lol). If I get hit by a car there will be no note about our Curation Contest or my addition of goals. Since metrics extend over time keeping good notes about daily anomalies or special circumstances will prove helpful when you look back and forget what you or what happened last year. If your site goes down for more than a burp, NOTE IT or you may spend days trying to discover why your daily KPIs are so messed up.

Spreadsheets & Discipline

Wish there was some way to create a daily KPI log OTHER than Excel. If there is one I don’t know it. If you know of a better, less manual way please share in a comment. When I managed $6M in annual e-commerce revenue I checked daily KPIs first thing in the morning. 99% of the time daily KPIs are IN LINE with your modeled expectations. When your KPIs are in line go about your job.

1% of the time your KPIs will trend way out of line with your modeled expectations.

NEVER ignore those days. In a modeled world like the web any variation beyond a half a point of standard deviation (give or take your metrics) deserves a quick review. When you see a full point or two of standard deviation difference then you should close your door and say, “DIVE, DIVE, DIVE” because something bad is happening.

Your website is ON FIRE and it is your job to put it out.

One scary story to sink the point. One October my team found a full 3 point POSITIVE visitor number. We modeled at X and the number we got was 3 full percentage points higher WITHOUT a corresponding increase in the number of conversions. We had substantially more traffic acting like substantially LESS traffic.

We were under a “spam attack” from a competitor.

Spam attacks are when competitors hire proxies to bomb your website with “bad neighborhood” links. The result of such a “spam bomb” is a momentary increase in traffic and then a Google smackdown as your website is labeled “spammer”. We saw the source and reported the links. Now you can use a “disavow” command if you know what you are doing.

The point to my scary story is know your model.

Any movement beyond your modeled expectations should be investigated. Dramatic movements mean your website is on fire and you must put it out before it burns to the ground. Will your website be attacked as the one I managed was? Attacks are increasing and from strange sources, so watch your Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly KPIs like a hawk on a wire looking for dinner and remember to “stay calm and carry on”.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Join our newsletter list (will get that going here again soon).

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.

Martin W. Smith on 

The Lean Content Movement

I created Anatomy of Great Ecom for one of my content marketing websites a few days ago (image below). I approached the post with the Lean Content Movement in Mind. Scoop.it’s CEO Guillaume Decugis, Founder Marc Rougier and the team at Scoop.it, a curation tool I love, and their team is  pioneering the Lean Content Movement.

Show don’t tell may be a good summary of the Lean Content Movement. Marketing influenced by MOBILE is MORE visual no. If your visuals aren’t cool and arresting no one reads the words or watches the video. Emerging content marketing ideas are forming into best practices for our new Lean Content Movement.

.
Lean Content Movement Ideas
* Show don’t tell.
* Play for shares.
* Create Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that make shares more likely.
* Everything promotes more or less shares, there is no neutral in content marketing.
* Content is money, but not all content is equal.
* Create movements not campaigns.

If you think a list like this would be better presented graphically you are thinking like a lean content marketer.

If I had the graphic skills necessary I would have formed the Lean Content Movement Ideas list into a graphic. My inability to do so brings up another aspect to the Lean Content Movement – it takes TIME and the right team. If you don’t have a great graphic designer on your content team, one who can work FAST, then your content marketing team isn’t ready for the Lean Content Movement.

How Anatomy of Great Ecom content aligns with Lean Content Movement:
* Led with WordPress Gallery.
* Told the story in 3 visuals FIRST.
* Wrote the content after leading by telling the story visually.
* Used “web writing” guidelines for the words (short sentences, small paragraphs, big headers and bullet points for scanners).
* Anatomy of E-commerce fits in New E-Commerce Movement.

Movements Not Campaigns

TIME and COMMITMENT are the differences between campaigns and movements. Create Movements To Sell Campaigns is a ScentTrail Marketing post touching on how to create an umbrella idea, a “movement” that creates cohesion binding all other ideas together in a meaningful core.  If you sell B2B and B2C web and software development as we do at Atlantic BT, you could create movements for:

• The New E-commerce.
• Mobile Revolution.
• Hyper-Local marketing.
• Visual Marketing Movement.
• Content Marketing Movement.

Presence or absence of Blue Oceans may be the tactical reason you choose one “movement” over the other.

Blue Oceans, taken from the book Blue Ocean Strategies by Kim, are pockets of new value you create to swim in an ocean not yet infested with sharks, not turned red from zero-sum competition. Cirque du Soleil is a favorite example of a Blue Ocean strategy. Cirque du Soleil redefined “circus” stripping away COSTS (animals and travel) and leaving storytelling and acrobatics. Genius Blue Ocean strategy.

Lean Content feels like a Blue Ocean.

Karen Dietz, one of my favorite storytelling tutors and founder of JustStoryIt.com, says he who tells the best story wins. I agree and would add the website that creates movements supported by lean content will WIN BIG in our emerging connected, social and mobile economy.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Join our newsletter list (will get that going here again soon).

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.

Martin W. Smith on 

Clutter Marketing

Clutter describes our marketing world these days. What author Seth Godin calls our Connection Economy is creating content so fast most of your customers are overwhelmed, time stressed and short on attention. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt noted we create as much content every two days now as from the dawn of man until 2003. The world is cluttered and becoming more so every moment. When everyone has a website yours better be GREAT or why bother.

What Makes A Website Great?

Think of the Internet as one huge lie detecting amplifier and you won’t be far off. The web doesn’t create greatness it rewards it. The web doesn’t cure marketing problems it broadcasts them. Before creating a website or next quarter’s campaigns it is  important to know yourself, your company and your important points of distinction – your Unique Selling Proposition.

Unique Selling Proposition Video

Here is an Atlantic BT Conversation I had with Andrew Bartlett one of our business consultants about Unique Selling Propositions:

USPs should use words such as “longest”, “world class”, “leader” and “Best” painting a clear line of distinction between your company and its competitive set.

Atlantic BT Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Atlantic BT creates cross functional teams with deep business and technical expertise to design, develop and employ unique technological processes such as Customer Quality Score (CQS), Employee Quality Score (EQS) and GoTime to develop awesome and award winning software and websites that exceed customer financial and aspirational goals helping clients save the world in some quantifiable way while creating a powerful “word-of-mouth” recommendation growth engine.

Quick Tips To Create Your USP

• Be specific (note the reference to CQS, EQS and GoTime our project time audit trail).
• Think BIG.
• Include your customers.
• Think bottom lines, but don’t be limited to money.
• Leave some mystery to explain later (such as the double meaning of the “word-of-mouth” engine).

Unique Customer Aspirations (UCAs)

Knowing yourself, while an important first step to creating great Internet marketing, is not enough. Your marketing must match your customer’s aspirations or you risk being ships who pass each other at night without ever knowing the other sails nearby. Customer aspirations are more than the resolution of pain points partnering with or buying from your company is sure to resolve.

Aspirations speak to your customers dreams, hopes and fears. Your customer are not always fully in touch with their aspirations, but you and your marketing must be in sync. Every partnership or union of buyer and seller must be mutually beneficial or scale can’t be achieved and the interaction isn’t sustainable. You both (your company and your customers) need to WIN or neither of you do.

Start With Jim Stengel’s Brand Ideals

Jim Stengel, author of Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profits at the World’s Greatest Companies and a fellow former P&Ger, believes brands aligned to “ideals” are more successful than those who are not. I agree and have used Stengel’s simple brand ideals definition over and over.
.
Stengel’s Brand Ideals

• Eliciting Joy: Activating experiences of happiness, wonder, and limitless possibility.
• Enabling Connection: Enhancing the ability of people to connect with each other and the world in meaningful ways.
• Inspiring Exploration: Helping people explore new horizons and new experiences.
• Evoking Pride: Giving people increased confidence, strength, security, and vitality.
• Impacting Society: Affecting society broadly, including by challenging the status quo and redefining categories.

Most companies work will touch several of Stengel’s brand ideals. Atlantic BT’s work designing software and websites touches every brand ideal in some way, but our work is concentrated in creating connection. The websites and software we develop helps our customers connect with  supporters, buyers and advocates.

Atlantic BT Unique Customer Aspirations (UCA)
Atlantic BT’s customers want to understand the “inside baseball” secrets of Internet marketing well enough to be able to expand their thinking about how to communicate their Unique Selling Proposition to create the word-of-mouth and social support needed to sustain an ever more profitable company, brand or distribution of products via online marketing.

Quick Tips for Creating Unique Customer Aspirations

• Remember UCAs is about how your customers are changed by your interaction.
• Speak to universal concerns such as scale, profitability and brand health.
• Speak to what is happening now such as social media marketing and always changing Internet marketing.
• Tie in your Stengel brand ideal.
• Be specific to what YOU can impact.

Your customers have many aspirations, but focus your UCA on those aspirations you can impact. Knowing how your company aligns to Stengel’s brand ideas, articulating your USP and UCA creates an outline for great marketing online and off.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Join our newsletter list (will get that going here again soon).

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.

Martin W. Smith on 

* Image at top of this post is a painting from Shepard Fairey named Duality of Humanity and is part of his “Obey” series.

Finding Search Engine Gamification Again

There it was again. Sitting with friends Tonia Zampieri (@Finder411) Mark Traphagen (@MarkTraphagen), Melinda Thielbar (@Mthielbar) and George Stevenson (@NCHomeBuyer) an old idea surfaced during our Saturday Free Internet Marketing Consulting lunch at Saladelia Cafe in Durham.

Tonia is co-founder of Finder411.com, a cool hyper-local startup, Mark is one of the preeminent experts on Google Plus, Melinda is my favorite quant and George knows how to help “sell” your home by renting to buy. We were discussing TRUST. I see why now (lol). Not long after our meeting Mark published Trust: The Currency of the New Economy on NewMediaLeaders.com. A must read for anyone wanting to understand Internet marketing.

In Google We Trust

Google is one of the most important TRUST creators in our digital age. Google is a massive legitimacy filter. If you aren’t in Google and don’t rank #1 for your name you don’t have as much legitimacy as if you did. Despite all of our Social + Mobile changes Google still rocks valuable branding support, the kind of support any startup or idea needs to scale and thrive.

This post is about a slip in time I saw working for Bill Bing and Mitesh Patel at Loyalese (now RIP unfortunately). This “slip in time” idea will be worth millions to the team who reads this Search Engine Gamification post, understands the marketing implications and pulls off this big idea – that Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) can become valuable partners in SEO.

Search Engine Gamification Defined

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) may be the biggest game ever. Search Engine Gamification (SEG) is understanding the game’s rules well enough to enlist the services and support of the KING (Google). It is good to be the king because Kings set and change rules at their whim and based on their needs. Certainly kings don’t RULE with the iron hand they used too, but rule they do as Google proves with each Panda and Penguin algorithm adjustment. Another Panda update hit last week, btw coolest tool to see impact on your website’s traffic of Google’s algorithm changes is the free Panguintool.com tool.

Inside “Search Engine Gamification” there is an implied idea few know and fewer still use. Search engine gamification makes Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) an active partner in your branding and Internet marketing. Once Google created their “float”, that you and I see different results even if we type the same query at the same time, the ability to view SERPs as another feature in YOUR Internet marketing sits like a big, green frog waiting for someone to kiss it and produce the Prince inside.

How Loyalese Kissed The Search Engine Gamification Frog

My friends Bill and Mitesh kissed the frog and produced an amazing prince with Loyalese. I consulted on Loyalese before joining Atlantic BT. I failed a little too. I tried to pivot Loyalese inside of the box presented instead of seeing what I see now – the engine Loyalese built was more valuable than the thing itself. Loyalese “kissed the frog” by connecting browsers, SERPs and website in an infrastructure-like platform, a platform capable of spinning SERPs in a website’s favor based on social signals and THAT realization is the “moneyball”.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is how Loyalese created Search Engine Gamification to alert members to websites whose affiliate money could be paid as tax free “cash back” to members (or their charities):

l

,

Loyalese tied their app to “schema” provided by Google (and available to anyone) to identify member stores (the little Loyalese Logo the green things highlighted above). Stores with the logo were willing to pay Loaylese and their members to BUY from them. Loyalese members earned post purchase “cash back”. Loyalese’s idea was somewhat similar to my friend Tim Storm’s FatWallet.com website (without the Google touch). This post isn’t about affiliate money or chasing cash back, but almost any online purchase, unless you type the URL DIRECTLY into your browser, earns a middleman website a “commission” for sharing your click and subsequent purchase with websites such as Amazon, REI, and Walmart.

Loyalese faced a “login” challenge. Nothing happened UNTIL a Loyalese member logged into Loyalese.com. Since many people login to Facebook or Google in the morning and stay logged in all day now, tapping into the Facebook and Google APIs would reduce much of the “login friction” Loyalese faced three years ago. Add the “always on” ubiquitous nature of Social + Mobile (SMobile) and Loyalese might work today. Other similar plays such as FatWallet.com and QuidCo.com have scaled (and without the powerful Google touch).

.

Million Dollar Search Engine Gamification Idea and The Trust Mark Game

We know websites are being replaced by platforms capable of generating increasing amounts of User Generated Content (UGC). We also know that “login via Facebook” et al. is ubiquitous and an easy and FAST way to sign up new users taking full advantage of OPP (Other People’s scaled Platforms). Add these two facts together with the ability to TAG and FLAG the SERPs with a trust mark and you have a million dollar B2B and/or B2C idea.

Trust is the game all Internet marketing depend on. If a website achieves TRUST it can get PAID. Atlantic BT creates websites for B2B and B2C customers. If we create Search Engine Gamification and enlist the SERPs by tying browser, to member profiles to search results we gamify Google.

Imagine I own a 3 store gift chain called MartysGifts.com. I hire Atlantic BT to build my website. Once we create MartysGifts.com it is part of our “ecosystem”. When other members use Google they see a distinct Atlantic BT trust mark next to MartysGifts.com (see Loyalese example above).

“Yeah but the only people who will see the Trust mark are other Atlantic BT customers,” you might be thinking and you might be right, but do the Search Engine Gamification math.

Search Engine Gamification Six Degrees Math

1,000 Stores (in Atlantic BT’s ecosystem)
50 People (directly associate with each store)
50,000 people (in the “direct touch” zone of those websites)
300,000 people (in “indirect touch” zone of those websites)

We live in a “triangle” of three cities: Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. The combined population of those three cities is 700,000, so the Atlantic BT’s ecosystem (our “network”) can touch almost half of the residents in our area. What is that level of reach worth to MartysGifts? If you were considering two Raleigh website design companies and one supported your site after the sale with an ability to touch half the people in your area and the other didn’t who would you buy the design from? Now multiply that realization times a million and you see the impact of Search Engine Gamification.

Search Engine Gamification Works For Every Website

Think my example doesn’t apply to your Small to Medium Sized business? You don’t have enough people who will want to “join” your website to make the idea worth anything.

WRONG!

First understand “joining” your website is a simple click of “allow” when the Facebook “create an account with Facebook” app fires. You may be a doctor, lawyer, insurance salesperson or Realtor.  I would NEVER presume to tell any of those professions how to do their jobs, but anyone with a mouse tells me how to create winning Internet marketing (lol).I don’t mind, but I’ve NEVER met an amateur who understands how the Internet marketing game is played.

There are GIFTED amateurs, but the Internet marketing game is a “pros only” zone now. Even pros can fall behind, be too arrogant for their own good or make MISTAKES. The difference between PRO Internet marketers and gifted amateurs is about 5 degrees, but those five degrees are worth MILLIONS and MILLIONS of X where x is traffic, awareness, User Generated Content (UGC), attention, money or any other “currency”.

“But I don’t need something so elaborate, so complicated,” some will be thinking and they may be right. Over the 13 years I’ve been an Internet marketer I watched the bar rise, rise and rise. My Internet marketing friends LOOK FOR keywords and business verticals that are winnable with the “inside baseball” tactics they know. Listen to Gregory Ng explain why he crated FreezerBurns.com.

Gregory created a successful website now generating six figures in income yearly NOT because he loved frozen entrees. Gregory is a PRO and he entered the frozen food content marketing play because IT WAS TAKE-ABLE  He could do a little work, the kind of content marketing and SEO he knows better than most, to generate a big return.

Who will be the Gregory NG of your space? Death, taxes and your space will be rolled up by a PRO are life’s new immutable truths. The question is not IF your business segment will be rolled up but WHEN. Why don’t YOU do the rolling?

“Roll Up” means a particular thing to a PRO IMer. Rolling up a space is when your website’s content and links own the search engine high ground. Google is shifting more and more traffic to your website because it is  the HUB associated with a group of keywords or a business vertical. HUB or Authority status is Internet marketing nirvana.

Badging the SERPs makes any website with a badge  OR any site creating the badges look BIGGER and MORE LEGITIMATE than competitors. Short distance from looking more legitimate to being more valuable in a highly viral and inter-linked content network. The Search Engine Gamification “Sell the Idea” benefit PALES in comparison to those who use Search Engine Gamification (SEG) to create TRUST and LEGITIMACY.

Tonia and Finder411 could offer an awesome value to every triangle “hyper-local” business (restaurants, dry cleaners, childcare) who joins their network. Finder411 could paint the local SERPs with “Finder411 Trust Marks” making those websites and businesses inside their ecosystem stand out ON GOOGLE. When Finder411 businesses stand out the path to TRUST and LEGITIMACY is shorter than for non_Finder411.com businesses.

Q: What is this search engine gamification idea worth? A: Millions and Millions.

PS. I didn’t give this idea to the world. Bill and Mitesh at Loyalese deserve credit for teaching me (and I am sure they had mentors). I got back in touch with the idea thanks to my Free Internet Marketing Consulting Saturday conversation with Tonia, Mark, Melinda, George and joined by Young Fenton. What do I ask if you create Search Engine Gamification and make millions? Share some of your windfall with cancer research and we will call it more than even.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Join our newsletter list (will get that going here again soon).

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.

Martin W. Smith on 

A great session of “Technical SEO” tonight at Phil’s SEO Meetup was mind bending and fun. Fun if you like twisting your mind into a pretzel which I do, but many were lost between Content Delivery Networks, Mod Rewrites and Canonical URLs. This post starts at the beginning focusing on 5 SEO BASICS every marketer MUST know since to NOT KNOW endangers everything including your ability to hire help.

Must Know SEO #1 = Page Titles

Your page titles are always the highest words on your rendered web pages. You can also see page titles in code. In FireFox, go to Tools > Web Developer > Page Source. Here is how your page title will look:

<title>SEO, LinkedIn and The Real You ScentTrail Marketing</title>

Page titles should be keyword rich and unique.

WordPress and other blog software provides a place for YOU to create a title. Your WordPress blog may have the ability to vary your titles. Sometimes you want to feed the search engine spider one title and customers another, but be careful to be sure this passive rewrite of your title is consistent with the page’s content. Titles that don’t speak the same language as the page get you in trouble with Google.

I’m writing this post after eating a great Cheeseburger at the Zaxy’s Restaurant on Glenwood. Here is the ZaxyRestaurant.com title:

<title>ZakyRestaurant.com: Homepage</title>

Anything in a tittle is a word you want the page to rank for, so keywords are your friends.
There are 5 MAJOR mistakes in the current ZakyRestaurant.com title including:

• No keywords such as “Raleigh”, “Mediterranean restaurant”, “Glenwood Ave”, “Gyro”, “Lebanese” or “Hummus”.
• Zaky is concatenated into “restaurant” (no space) signalling the two are one word to Google except they aren’t. People will search Zaxy Raleigh or Zaxy Restaurant not ZaxyRestaurant.
• Never put a period inside of a tag since periods can looks like code.
• Never use a : inside of a tag, use a | so the punctuation doesn’t look like code.
• Never put “homepage” or a keyword so general it is meaningless in a title.

Here are Zaky’s description and keyword tags:
<meta name=”description” content=”Zaky is a downtown Raleigh Mediterranean restaurant in a convenient Glenwood location.“>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”Mediterranean, Raleigh, Restaurant, Glenwood, Food, Lebanese, Pita, Gyro, Hummous“>

These are not as terrible as the tittle. Too bad Google doesn’t even glance at these tags anymore. These tags tell me the person who created the page knows a little SEO, but not nearly enough.

TEST your title simply by making sure ANY word inside the tag (showing on the very top of the page) is an important KEYWORD you want your website to be found for (to rank for).

PS. Another quick page title note. Google assumes position = value. Your most important and defining keywords should be far left and count down toward things you should win anyway (like your name). Use of | doesn’t interfere with the spider’s “read” and creates better usability. Titles are “spider food” mostly, but the most important spider food on the page so create titles carefully, with research and don’t exceed Google’s 69 character (spaces count as characters) limit.

SEO Must Know #2 – Consistency

Your titles, page content, image alt text (the keywords attached to images to explain what they are) and navigation should tell a consistent story. This is why it is so damaging to use a keyword like “homepage” in a title.

Zaky won’t have homepage anywhere in the page’s content so the keyword will stand out like a sore thumb and look spammy to Google. You and I know the designer who created the page didn’t know better, but ignorance of SEO guidelines is NO EXCUSE. Google is clear. Knowing SEO’s “laws” stated and unstated is you and your designer’s /programmer’s job not Google’s. Doing a few hours of reading on SEO is a good idea.

SEO Must Know #3 – Unique & Accurate

The good news for ZakyRestaurant.com is at least their designer created unique page titles. Many templated sites simply copy the same title on every page. Make sure your have unique titles and that each page’s titles is accurate to the content on the page.

SEO Must Know #4 – Junk In The HEAD

Google’s bot starts counting the moment it enters. It works its way down through the head content, the content that controls important tags like your <title>. Many designers like fancy roll overs. They jam the controlling code in your website’s Head. Don’t let that happen. Keep your Head CLEAN.

If you want fancy rollovers there are ways to code them with less spammy code in the head. If you see lines and lines of code in your <head> you have a problem.

SEO Must Know #5 – First Rule = Do No Harm

If your website exists then Google knows it. This means Google has expectations for how your website will ACT (your update frequency, your link add frequency, your inbound link gain frequency, etc. to infinity).

Here is a good question to ask any SEO. Ask any potential SEO how they would change your page title to rank for a keyword you want. This is a trick question since I don’t operate unless I know WHAT is WHERE. The right answer is NOTHING until research is created.

Here are other danger signals. If you here hear or see any of these RUN:

* I can get your website ranked #1 on X keyword in Y time (no they can’t).
* I guarantee your will rank (VERY dangerous for many reasons, RUN).
* If you ask about the Google float and they stammer or make something unreal up RUN.

The “Google float” is Google’s increasingly individual search results. Social signals, your past browsing history and even your friends LIKES ans SHARES mean you and I see different results even if we do the same search at the same time. The only way to benchmark and understand SEO progress is via analytics. Any SEO who can’t explain the float is dangerous and you should RUN.

Hope these 5 tips help you avoid the Zaky problem where a little knowledge proved to be a real problem. If you are a Zaky make sure you ask for a simple WordPress blog YOU can maintain. That way if some goofystupid person make mistakes you can easily fix them AND you have the added benefit of being able to easily add content. Adding content is KEY for any website these days. Static 4 page websites don’t rank, so get a blog YOU can maintain.

Don’t worry. You can and will make mistakes, but there is only one Internet marketing mistake that is unrecoverable – doing nothing and you are already out there trying so keep it up and avoid these simple mistakes even if your designer makes them.

My regular readers here or on ScentTrail Marketing will know my answer to Can Your Internet Marketing Be Too Good, but let’s show rather than tell. Go to EarnestPackaging.com. In the hero click on the Discover the Earnest Edge video link (far right under a packaging partner with real vision).

That is some GREAT video marketing and serious budget. Here is what I love about the video:

• Mixing outtakes with pitch makes both resonate more (who knew lol).
• The sentiment is amazing, very up and fun.
• Positive, fun things get attention (humans are naturally curious).
• Fun gets attention and then we listen to facts (no other way around).
• High grades for authenticity and honest feel.
• Brilliant to use employee and customer tenure since they are linked.
• Like the slight self-depreciating tone (only packaging, right clearly millions and Big Bucks in packaging lol).
• Video consistent with the website’s look and feel.

The website has the same smooth, butter-like feel as the video. Well organized, content is above the fold, clear calls to action and tells a good story. Except there is a problem.

Internet Marketing Isn’t What You Think Redux

Sometimes it feels like I have the same conversations over and over. I wrote Why Internet Marketing Isn’t What You Think It Is to share the hard won lessons of a million fights, hundreds of thousands of transactions (with an Average Order Value or AOV of $65) and millions made $65 and 3 products at a time (average order had 3 products).

Here is the bad news for the Earnest Edge Internet Team:

PageRank: 3 (homepage)
Links In: 39
Page Spread: 400 pages in Google
Facebook Likes: 324
Twitter: Almost 2,000 followers

Spending $20 and a single hour on a video when a website is this vulnerable isn’t a good idea. I estimate those beautiful videos cost between $25,000 and $50,000. Fully load their video marketing P&L with people costs and opportunity costs and we are talking $100K easy.

Almost any Internet marketing team I know needs about half that much money to block the Internet marketing sun from EarnestPackaging.com for a very long time providing a great example of why you don’t put all of your Internet marketing eggs in any single basket.

Every Business Is an Internet Business Now

I agree with the video’s statement about customer relationships are beyond important, they are everything. Problem is their marketing talk doesn’t match EarnestPackaging.com’s Internet marketing walk because:

• No Social Shares.
• No Comments, Reviews or Testimonials.
• No Contests or Games.
• Ratio of TALKING to LISTENING  is off (too much talking, too little listening). 

These things MAY exist, but they don’t jump off the page. The relationship building signals such as an email subscription form, social shares and testimonials don’t jump off the page as much as the, “Look how great we are and funny too,” videos. Continue to talk to yourself about yourself and, no matter how much fun your rap is, any Internet marketing team steals every customer in 5 years.

Actually, a competitor won’t have to steal anything. Customers will leave in droves heading toward CONNECTION, SHARING, STORIES and HUMANITY (empathy) because those are the websites Internet marketers build. 

There is a reason doctors watch a procedure, then do the procedure and end up with teaching what they’ve learned. Teaching is the generous give and take our Thank You / Connection Economy are built upon.

Packaging Is Strategic and PROFITABLE Not Stupid or Boring

Consumers of your marketing are SMART. At first I enjoyed the self-depreciating humor and dancing clowns. It was fun, and then I looked more closely. I looked at that million dollar shipping bay, the velvet smooth no warts production value and the “just eccentric enough” founder and saw dissonance. Once you see for feel dissonance, the friction between what is being pitched and the HOW of its pitch, you never trust again.

Dissonance in marketing communications happens when:

• Everything is too good.
• Message is too pat, too “spontaneous” with a single stutter or blank stare.
• Corresponding signals are missing (no social confirmation).
• No independent authority (where are the prized lifelong customers?).

When they or YOU make a claim about customers not leaving the statement goes in the “suspension of belief” compartment of most viewers’ brains. If, after making such a claim, there is no customer to substantiate then the claim moves into the “don’t believe” compartment.

Once such a CORE claim moves into the “don’t believe” compartment the disruption in the force provides enough dissonance to make all other claims feel false too. As the Outlaw Josey Wales so famously said, “Don’t piss down my back and tell me it is raining”. These videos and the equally one sided website are pissing away money and opportunity on all the wrong things.

Sell In the Bazaar, Don’t Paint the Sistine Chapel

Let’s put INTERNET on hold for a second and ask a question. What is the purpose, the ultimate goal, of your marketing? “Make money,” doesn’t scale and it isn’t what your company is really about. There is a passion that drives your desire to create connection at an ever faster rate. You want to HELP people. You want your marketing to share your passion and enlist others. You know connection is always a two way street, so you try to do the hardest thing type A people ever do, slow down and LISTEN.

Your humanity, expressed in real and flawed ways, is what matters now. Greatness is required and only available to those willing to risk, fail and risk
more to earn the AWESOME badge.

Internet marketing will beat the perfectionism out of you.

From Time to Join the Humanity Revolt Is Now, Curation Revolution on Scoop.it

Time may be the MOST important part of Internet marketing’s algorithm. Here is another part of the same article:

No one can afford perfection’s tyranny in their Internet marketing. Sistine Chapel an Internet marketing effort and you lose. To “Sistine Chapel” means you take too much time and become obsessed with every detail. Create a Sistine Chapels and you end up with beautiful chapels no one ever sees. While you were busy creating perfection, competitors scaled and are now beating your website senseless. The time to do something online is always NOW. 

The other day I explained the conundrum as, “As perfect as we can be NOW,” as a way of defining an Internet marketer’s philosophy. You must create great stuff FAST. Internet marketing is about trading in the bazaar not being up on the scaffold painting the chapel. When I see base Internet marketing values so weak and those beautiful videos I think, “Sistine Chapel”.

But Packaging is BORING Content

I may have to snap a rubber band at the next person who says this. I hear this “objection” all the time. This objection is a major denial of….well everything. The real objection is, “I LACK BELIEF in what you are selling and will continue to do things my way thank you very much.”

No worries, I’ve pitched content marketing and SEO since 2003. Teams I’ve managed helped reluctant catalog-based Direct Marketers make millions online and it was like pulling teeth. I don’t pull teeth anymore (lol). Life is too short and I have other fish to fry, so you are right Mr. Stick in the Mud. Your business is boring and the principles of Internet marketing I’ve spent long hours learning, testing and refining DON’T Apply to you and your boring content. What business where you in again? I will be sure to let my Internet marketing friends know and they will come a calling soon.  NOTHING my wolf pack content marketing / SEO / social media marketing friends love more than rolling up a defenseless website to arbitrage the traffic back to you at $1.00 per click (why most of my IM friends have way more money than me, they are in this for the kill I do it for the art LOL). 

Yes, your Internet marketing can be too good.

The Outlaw Josey Wales Internet Marketing Advice Contest

What about you? What Internt marketing lessons do you think Internet marketers can learn from the outlaw Josey Wales? Answer by leaving comments here or on Atlantic BT’s Facebook Page or on Atlantic BT Google Plus and please be sure to LIKE +1 and follow.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Join our newsletter list (will get that going here again soon).

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.

Martin W. Smith on 

Understanding Internet Marketing for Lawyers

Your law office probably has a website. Merely having a website is not Internet marketing. Internet marketing is understanding the web well enough that your legal practice generates revenue and positive Return On Investment (ROI) via the web. There are several ways the web generates new sources of revenue for lawyers, which include:

• Finding new clients.
• Answering questions, and so finding new clients.
• Acting as a reference supporting word-of-mouth.
• Showing up in search results on important keywords.
• Reminding existing clients of other services of the firm’s practice.
• Providing a place a reference can link to.
• Creating an interactive environment where existing clients can share experiences.

Today’s “Internet Marketing for Lawyers” post will be followed by a white paper (follow @Atlanticbt to know when). Lawyers who want to win online should understand three Internet marketing concepts: content marketing and keywords, social media marketing and User Generated Content (UGC), and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Branding for Lawyers

People searching for lawyers have problems. Potential legal customers are searching for answers and looking for stress relief. Author Jim Stengel believes the most successful brands align with “brand ideals”. His Brand Ideals, as defined in his book Grow, are:

• Eliciting Joy:
  Activating experiences of happiness, wonder, and limitless possibility.
• Enabling Connection:
  Enhancing the ability of people to connect with each other and the world in meaningful ways.
• Inspiring Exploration:
  Helping people explore new horizons and new experiences.
• Evoking Pride:
  Giving people increased confidence, strength, security, and vitality.
• Impacting Society:
  Affecting society broadly, including by challenging the status quo and redefining categories.

Which “brand ideal” should a law office focus on?

Evoking Pride is where banks and lawyers need to market. Customers want strength, confidence and security. Other brand ideals such as Inspiring Exploration and Impacting Society are important too, but pride is where lawyers need to make sure their Internet marketing hits home.

Tell Stories with Keywords

If you’ve never used Google Adwords‘s free keyword tool, you may want to go there now. We are about to enter the art and science of Internet marketing. Today’s post is NOT an Adwords primer, but any law office manager who wants to mine the web for new sources of clients and revenue will need to understand keyword basics.

Keyword Basics
Google’s infinite archive of keyword searches is categorized into Global Monthly and Local Monthly demand. Keywords are further categorized by match. Exact match is the most constraining. When you type “ScentTrail Marketing” into Google, the use of the quotes creates an exact match.

Today we are NOT using Google’s PPC (pay per click) engine to buy ads. We are using Google’s PPC engine to understand how customers search for legal services. We need to know how potential customers search in order to write content to match legal services to the search intent of potential customers.

Here is a quick export from Google Adwords’ Keyword Tool:

LEGEND:
Ad Group = Google defined ad group, Keyword = phrase being searched, Content Type = my definition of content type, Comp = Competition with higher = more competition, G Monthly = Global Monthly Searchers, L Monthly = Local Monthly Searches, CPC = Cost Per Click

.
I put the phrase “divorce lawyers raleigh” at the top because it is a highly competitive, exact match term with 16 local searches a month. Don’t spend your time and money competing for terms that are already gone and that have limited value such as “divorce lawyers Raleigh”.

Note the high search demand and “Q&A Evergreen” definition of searches at the top of the list. Evergreen content is great content to have on your site for a long time, thus the use of the phrase “evergreen”. All divorce is local, but many questions pertaining to divorce are universal. Creating “evergreen” content answers universal questions, builds local credibility and develops search engine authority (an important concept that needs more explanation at another time).

When you see values the same for “nc divorce” and “divorce in nc”, it means the phrases are interchangeable to Google. When you write content, you can use both or either phrase and Google will treat it the same. Since you don’t want to “stuff” your copy with keywords, I like to pick one of interchangeable terms and stick with it. Stuffing keywords is when your web copy doesn’t sound natural.

If you wrote, “Divorcing in North Carolina requires divorce lawyers such as divorce firms like Our Firm from North Carolina because only divorce lawyers who’ve passed the divorce law piece of the North Carolina bar can assist in court,” Google might penalize your page as “spam” or an attempt to game listings for divorce lawyers in North Carolina. Plus, it is unreadable, so you lose customer engagement: a double hit.

There are differences between writing on a web page and writing briefs or even fiction. This post can’t go into all the details of “SEO writing”, but keep in mind your online writing is read by people AND search engine spiders. Spiders can’t understand inexact phrases such as “they”, “us”, or “we”. Search engine spiders need specifics. Instead of “us” use your firm’s name if you haven’t already used it too many times on the page.

What is keyword “spam”? There is no single answer to this question. Google sets their expectation by page, so if you want to see who is NOT considered spam (for the moment) look at who is winning the search phrase you want. Even looking for who is winning is tricky thanks to Google’s float.

You can’t see the absolute winners of terms without using a tool such as Mike’s Keyword Ranking Tool. What you see in Google, especially if you are logged into your Google account, is influenced by your search history and even similar websites your friends like. Google’s float means we can type the same keyword at the same time and see different results.

Google’s float also means the only way to understand how your website is performing is via analytics. Analytics is also beyond the scope of today’s post. The key take away for lawyers is there is art and science in creating content strategy. If you can’t dedicate 1,000 hours or so of billable time to learn the basics of content marketing, keyword and SEO hire someone as a guide.

Telling Legal Stories

Any law office needs to tell three kinds of stories online:

• Foundation or Creation Story (About Us).
• Values and Defining Philosophy.
• Services & Expert Knowledge Transfer (Q&A).

Every law office also needs other stories such as:

• Testimonials (we were stressed, we found X firm and now we confident).
• Reviews (better if these are on YOUR site).
• Press

Tell the stories you can (foundation, values, services). Curate the stories you need to illustrate your brand’s ideas. Let’s return to Stengel’s brand ideals. If you are a Raleigh law firm specializing in divorce law your About Us page should tell the story of why your firm decided to focus on divorce law.

Your about page needs to convey passion, the passion that created your office and impresses your clients. Your About Page needs to have an emotional impact. Many websites create boring About Us pages. They think this page is a chore and don’t give it the attention and strategic focus it deserves.

Don’t make the mistake of making your About Us page anything other than GREAT. Find 3 to 5 themes and repeat those themes over and over in some way on almost every page. If your About Us story is you decided on divorce law to help people then make sure some of your testimonials and reviews discuss how you helped.

This is why I like to write or film testimonials for customers, with their permission, and then ask for edits. People are intimidated by articulating their feelings and you need specific reference points that support your brand alignment to the Stengel ideal of evoking pride and creating security. You don’t want the same testimonial over and over.

The difference between a review and a testimonial is scope. Testimonials are related to and support your foundation and About Us page. Reviews speak to specific services and business processes. Work with your most important clients to create testimonials. Reviews and/or comments should come in via a Do-It-Yourself tool.

Comments can function as “reviews”. Use Facebook comments or something similar where visitors can’t leave comments or reviews without being signed in and identified. Don’t fear reviews. Most reviews are positive and an occasional bad review helps make all reviews believable.

“Other law offices don’t have reviews or comments on their services pages,” you might be thinking. Reviews HAPPEN whether you want them to or not. You WANT reviews on your website. When a bad reviews happens on your site you know about them and can respond or, and this is better, your advocates respond.

Including reviews or comments on key pages lifts your website’s credibility and tunes your website better for search engines. Google likes fresh content. Since you are running your law practice, let comments and reviews generate the User Generated Content (UGC) needed to keep your pages fresh for search engine spiders. Be sure someone in your office is in charge of curating reviews since you will be spammed (when someone uses your comments to post a link to their services).

Social Media Marketing For Lawyers

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are critical to your content and website success. If you write the greatest page about divorce in North Carolina ever written and no one LIKES, SHARES or links into the page then your content is a tree falling in the forest and no one hears or cares.

Social signals are how search engines know your content and website matters. Not all social signals are the same. If your law school links to you or some of your content it is worth a lot. If your mom’s blog links in and your mother is a Supreme Court justice then that link means a lot too. Create content Supreme Court justices want to link to and all will be good.

Include social share widgets on critical pages such as:

• About Us.
• Services.
• Testimonials and Reviews.

Someone in your office will need to be active on social media. Let me amend that. Everyone in your office should be active on social media. The more people generating content the better Google will love your website. I’m talking to lawyers and know you will be worried about being sued over a tweet. Create guidelines that define appropriate use of social media in support of your online efforts. Define clear lines of escalation and try not to worry so much that you crush spontaneity out of your social media efforts. Remember the Stengel brand ideal. Your goal is to inspire confidence. One way you do that in this Thank You Economy world is share and listen more than you talk.

Crazy talk for lawyers I realize, but don’t get wound up about the wrong things. Social media doesn’t define a brand it supports brands and branding. Practice and create social media marketing with a creative, patient and kind hand and it will create support for your website, content and practice.

Summary: How Lawyers Can Really Win Online

I’m an Internet marketer and you are a lawyer. I didn’t attempt to learn enough law to process my divorce. The “law school” I attend is never ending because Internet marketing changes all the time (much like the law I bet).

There are two Internet marketing plays for law offices:

• Simple support other marketing efforts.
• Winning business online.

Don’t hire an Internet marketer to create a 10 page “closed loop” website (closed loop because it is not social, not dominating keywords and not creating new content at an ever increasing pace). You hire Internet marketers who’ve made millions online because you want to WIN online.

It is not that my friends and I can’t draw out a simple closed loop strategy because we can. The difference in investment between support and winning is around $10,000, so Internet marketers create strategies to win and we get bored fast with mere support.

This is not to say you shouldn’t hire Atlantic BT or other Raleigh web designers for a simple brochure-like 20 page closed loop website. Atlantic BT keeps me away from a project like that because they know I will want to trim this and tweak that to WIN. I’ve been an Internet marketer more than 12 years, and I know an important truth – mere support doesn’t scale.

If you limit your website to support of your other marketing efforts someone you compete with will not and then, and this shift may take years, your core business will be in trouble. I’ve seen the “pay me now or pay me later” dynamic so many times it is truth.

The truth is change is relentless and every business vertical is being transformed by mobile ubiquitous connection. I’ve heard, “But we are different,” so many times and lived long enough to see the web’s disruptive marketing truth haunt such statements.

Law isn’t different. Look at mass torts. They took to the web like fish to water understanding immediately that online scale and arbitrage would rule their future. You may be thinking, “We don’t practice that kind of law,” and you are right, but you do practice Internet marketing and the bedrock principles of Internet marketing, despite violent gyrations, don’t change:

1. Create awesome products or services others advocate.
2. Advocacy happens in ever increasing numbers.
3. Create and curate content.
4. Support that content with social media marketing and a growing tribe of “followers”, fans and advocates.
5. Become an “authority” and win big.

Eventually every law office (and business) will b ons thisfive step path. Those who leave on the journey today are ahead of lawyers and law offices who leave tomorrow. Find and hire a great guide and begin your website’s journey today.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Join our newsletter list (will get that going here again soon).

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.

Martin W. Smith on 

How Small Businesses Create Sticky Content Marketing

During Free Internet Marketing Consulting Saturday this week, a clearly exasperated small business person asked a great question. “You say we have to create great content, but there is already a sea of great content. How can my content stand out?” A chiropractor named Todd asked this excellent question and, after some further discussion, we decided that VIDEO Q&A would be very sticky. As he shared, “I get asked the same questions over and over.”

Sticky Is as Sticky Does – VIDEO Marketing

Video content isn’t as deeply rooted as written content. Video, thanks to embed codes, skims along the surface of the web and is easily shared and promoted on social networks. In fact, Facebook is already the 2nd largest video player behind YouTube, because pictures and videos are the best kind of Facebook content. If Todd the Chiropractor decided to create five videos answering questions about back health, those questions his customers ask over and over, there’s no telling where his Q&A videos could show up.

Couple of things to remember when creating video marketing:

• Don’t JUST host on YouTube.
• Include transcripts to help SEO.
• Short is better than long (1 minute = great).
• Create an umbrella brand, such as Atlantic BT’s “conversations”.
• Q&A is a great format.
• Mix in “B-Roll” and graphics so it’s more than just talking heads.

Use Cliche, Convention and Common Understanding

Made to Stick, the Heath brothers’ book, is my favorite source for HOW TO make Internet marketing ideas sticky.  Their biggest lesson? Sell NEW from OLD. The Heath brothers created one of the best examples of how to build awareness of the NEW from an old archetype, analogy or metaphor by pasting a piece of duct tape on the cover of Made To Stick. You don’t have to teach anyone that duct tape is sticky, so their book concept is instantly understood.

Create Personas and Segments

When I describe Cure Cancer Starter, my Story of Cancer nonprofit foundation’s first project, I say, “It is like Kickstarter for cancer research,” to a technical audience. For a non-technical audience, an audience that may not know the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, I change my pitch to, “Cure Cancer Starter is like Facebook for cancer researchers and patients.”  Always use Made to Stick’s main lesson, build the new from the old, but modify your message to your audience.

Persona Examples

Dan the Overworked Man

• Age: 40′s
• Profession: White collar, IT 
• Sports: Runs, was a long distance runner in college
• Average Work Week: 60 hours plus some off hour tech support
• Commute: Drives an hour to and from work each day with some traffic
• Family: Married to Sally Stressed and has two teenagers, son Chip and daughter Mary. 
• History: Long history of back trouble since college, wears prescription orthopedics when runs.  
• Lifetime Value: Customer for more than a year with weekly adjustments.
• Social: Active on social media. 
• Technology: Desktop at work, laptop at home and phone when “on call” for tech support. 
• Gladwell: Connector / Maven. 

Sally Stressed

• Age: 40′s
• Profession: White collar, IT.
• Sports: Plays tennis with a group on Sundays after church.
• Average Work Week: 80 hours (job + managing home front).
• Commute: Drives half an hour to work dropping off junior high school age son Chip and daughter Macy before work.
• Family: Married to Dan the Overworked Man with two teenagers.
• History: Back trouble started after 2nd pregnancy and Macy’s birth.
• Lifetime Value: New customer, only comes once a month when she “can find the time”.
• Social: Active on Facebook and uses Facebook to organize tennis and book club. Also active in PTA.
• Technology: Lives on her phone and iPad.
• Gladwell: Salesperson (Sally is the organizer of her group selling tennis, book club and impromptu meetings).

How to Use Personas & Segments

Dan the Overworked Man and Sally Stressed are the same age and share many of the same environmental stresses. Despite their similarities, Todd the Chiropractor wouldn’t want to make the same offers or use the same language when communicating with Sally and Dan. Sally Stressed is more time compressed and less devoted to adjustments than is Dan the Overworked Man. Chances are good that Dan the Overworked Man sent Sally Stressed to see Todd the chiropractor for her first adjustment.  Sally would be defined by Gladwell, in his highly recommended marketing book The Tipping Point, as a “Salesperson”.

Gladwell would define Dan a Maven, a technical expert who shares with his peers. Mavens crave details and may embed and share Todd the Chiropractor’s videos. It is a great idea to ASK A MAVEN what subjects would appeal. Mavens love sharing their advice. Mavens may take Todd the Chiropractor’s videos and embed them on Facebook or include Todd’s videos on their personal blog, especially if they’ve been consulted.

Sally Stressed is unlikely to embed videos, but she might share a video with her friends at tennis or during a book club session. Sally responds to GROUP incentive, so her video should feature more people than Dan’s. Connection is more important than technical details for the Sally Stressed archetype. Todd the Chiropractor might have 15 seconds where 3 to 5 women discuss their adjustments in the round for the Sally Stressed group. Sally Stressed likes to sell her friends, so asking Sally how to appeal to her friends would increase her engagement and help shape Todd the Chiropractor’s message for women in the Sally Stressed group.

How Segments are Different From Personas

It can be tough, when creating personas, to remember you need enough specific information to enable marketing TO the persona and not so much that you’ve created a group of one. An archetype is a macro grouping. Sally Stressed represents a larger group of similar women who balance life, work and family. Dan the Overworked Man represents a group of men who were active in sports in college and have had to make compromises as life’s demands changed their journey. The Dan the Overworked Man group works too much and exercises too little (familiar right?, lol).

Personas and segments are different. You might only have two segments: new and returning customers, with a handful of personas within those two segments. If personas are organized by customer characteristics, then segments are more about how a business operates. Todd the Chiropractor might have a segment each for Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh (location), a segment for insurance and non (way customers pay) and a segment for customers who respond to deals (offers). Segments come from a small business’s data and operations. Personas come from customer characteristics (demographics and psychographics).

Data may show the Sally Stressed archetype responds to Groupon promotions, shares Groupon deals with friends and uses those offers in 30 days. The same data may show Dan the Overworked Man hates Groupon offers (low redemption). Some in the Dan the Overworked Man group may go beyond low redemption to complain about how crowded the office becomes with “new people”. Great marketers take feedback like Dan the Overworked Man’s and find ways to create marketing that feeds Sally Stressed’s need for group savings and Dan the Overworked Man’s need for a more intimate relationship with his Chiropractor.

All businesses must grow to prosper. A satisfied customer is the best advertising no business can “buy”. Risking a loyal customer like Dan for more sporadic customers like Sally would be a mistake, as Todd the Chiropractor’s data would show. Use personas to understand your customer’s needs and desires. Use segments to craft offers that don’t rob Peter to pay Paul.  Yes, “rob Peter to pay Paul” is an example of a Made to Stick-ism. Also highly recommend: Managing Content Marketing by Rose and Pulizzi for more “How To” help creating personas and segments.

What about you? Did you find this Tip of the Week helpful? What is your tip? Share your experience creating personas and segments, and we will curate your thoughts in.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Join our newsletter list (will get that going here again soon).

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.

Martin W. Smithon

The Four Tenors of Internet Marketing Hangout Here

Video coming soon.

. 

Free Internet Marketing Saturdays hashtag: #IMFreeSat

Event Invitation on Google Plus

.

Who Should Attend?

Would you like to discover how to achieve your personal branding and company’s online marketing goals? If you are interested in learning about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Mobile Marketing, Hyper Local Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing and Google Authorship, you shouldn’t miss a chance to speak with 4 leading Triangle-based Internet marketers.

.

Meeting Details 1.19

Where: Saladelia Cafe on University in Durham (DIRECTIONS)
When: Saturday 1.19, from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm
Lunch: Menu (lunch not provided)
Before the Meeting: Write down your Internet Marketing Questions.

PRIZE: Best Internet Marketing Question, as voted by 4 Tenors, Wins a Prize.

.

Proposed Agenda

11:00 – 11:30 – Introductions & Networking.

11:30 – 12:00 Tim McLain shares how Netsertive is changing online marketing (15 minutes background / 15 minutes questions).

12:00 – 1:00 Breakout Sessions by Tenor (Phil = SEO, Mark = Google Authorship, Marty = Content Marketing, Tim = Netsertive).

1:00 – 2:00 Reform, each Tenor shares summary of great questions asked in their breakout.

.

Who Are the Four Tenors of Internet Marketing?

Marty Smith, Director Marketing Atlantic BT @ScentTrial ScentTrial Marketing Host		Tim Mclain Marketing Manager, Netsertive . @tmclain ,. NetsertiveFind out more from Tim’s post about Netsertive here
Phil Buckley SEO Director, Virante . @1918 . 1918.com		Mark Traphagen Director Social Marketing Virante . @MarkTraphagen .  G+

Perhaps it isn’t strange if you’ve never heard of these Internet marketing leaders. So much of what Internet marketers do is behind a wizard’s curtain. Collectively, this group has created content and campaigns generating more than $50,000,000 in online sales, achieved hundreds of top search listings, started five companies, and one tenor is helping to create a highly disruptive online marketing startup now (Netsertive).

How to Become a Great Internet Marketer

Becoming great at anything is hard. Becoming a great Internet marketer is almost impossible. Great Internet marketers understand the strange and often counterintuitive balance that Internet marketing requires. Internet marketing is jazz as played by Miles, Coltrane and Armstrong. Consistently creating great Internet marketing is the ability to hit the curve, catch the bomb and shoot the game-winning shot at the buzzer, wrapped into an ever expanding NOW, a future that converts better and at speeds approaching the speed of light.

“How can I become a great Internet marketer?” is a frequent question. Best answer is to create as much BAD Internet marketing as you can, while constantly tuning toward BETTER, and hang out with Internet marketers who’ve been there, done that, such as the Four Tenors of Internet Marketing.

Why is Becoming a Great Internet Marketer Important?

Great is the cost of Internet marketing poker now. When everyone has a website, a Foosball table and are always 5 minutes ahead of you on everything, GREATNESS is the only sustainable answer. Want a better job? Want to make more money? Have startup dreams? Understanding and becoming a GREAT Internet marketer is required. The only sin you can’t recover from online? Not being present, so learn to think like an Internet marketer and come “listen” as the Four Tenors of Internet Marketing “sing” this Saturday in Durham.

The Four Tenors of Internet Marketing Is Sponsored by Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Join our newsletter list (will get that going here again soon).

.

What Cancer Teaches About Internet Marketing

In Cancer Sucks Mostly, I shared personal reason why having cancer isn’t all bad. Since I am here writing this thanks to hard working researchers and doctors, we created the Tech Cures Cancer movement and are working on a new crowdfunding platform for cancer researchers, patients, and their friends and families called Cure Cancer Starter. Today’s post is about the 5 lessons cancer teaches about Internet marketing.

.

Internet Marketing Lesson #1: Be Here Now

After being diagnosed seven years ago, I read a lot. Books by Eckhart Tolle and the Buddhist monk Pema Chodron help focus life on what is happening now. “Live in the moment,” seems a tired cliché, but anxiety about the future and hang-ups from the past waste our most valuable non-renewable asset – TIME.

Internet marketing is happening as I write this. Internet marketing always happens NOW. Your competitor is changing his offer or she is emailing her customers. There is no substitute for presence in this moment. We see several strong Internet marketing trends.

One very important trend is hinges on this reality: The closer you and your Internet marketing are to real time, the more powerful your position. Here are things your Internet marketing should do in real time:

• Creating social media, especially Twitter.
• Responding to questions and  comments quickly, no matter how they come in.
• Curating great content from authorities in your industry.
• Sharing your creation and curation.
• Responding to feedback loops created when you share.
• Responding to competitive threats.

Be here NOW to create great Internet marketing.

.

Internet Marketing Lesson #2: Ask For Help

I’m an American male. This means several things, including that I don’t like to ask for directions when I am lost and in a car; I love sports, especially football (I played throughout high school); and I don’t willingly ask for help. We see ourselves as rugged pioneer individualists. Of course, our perceptions and reality rarely line up when it comes to honest self-examination (lol).

The reality is that no one does anything alone anymore. The world is too complicated and FAST. We depend on each other. We form teams and connections to create, learn and move forward. Our reality should mean we are comfortable asking for help. Yeah, not so much, as it turns out. I became comfortable asking for help when there wasn’t a choice. I asked for help or I couldn’t do the most basic things. I asked for help or I couldn’t be here writing this.

Internet marketing is too complex and fast and only getting more complex and faster. Try to learn something each day and ask for help. My learning to ask for help and help being so readily available are reasons why I’ve created Free Internet Marketing Consulting Fridays and Saturdays as a way to give back and pay forward.

.

Internet Marketing Lesson #3: Be GREAT, Worry About Costs Later

You don’t go to the cheapest cancer doctor. Cost never enters the equation. When your life is on the line, you don’t look to shave 10% by showrooming your health care. Those who debate the health care cost equation aren’t sick. The moment they become sick, they will understand the furthest thing from your mind is what your life saving treatment is going to cost.

My life saving treatments has cost a dollar or two, and I don’t care. I do feel like the Six Million Dollar Man. I have a responsibility to do great things to repay being here and being able to speak to you. The perhaps hidden Internet marketing lesson is greatness is important. Only great things survive. Only great ideas are shared.

I’ve NEVER had an Internet marketing idea not create return. Some Internet marketing ideas take longer to return than others, but there is always positive Return On Investment (ROI) in some form. You can’t cost reduce your way to greatness. Greatness requires bold ideas, courageously executed. Life is short, be GREAT or go home; be great or don’t spend a dime on Internet marketing.

.

Internet Marketing Lesson #4: More and Faster, always MORE and FASTER

Internet marketing is a car race. You tune your car and win today and understand your deal with the devil. The deal is you must continue to tune, tweak and change things to stay on top. You know you will lose, but losing is part of winning. Losing teaches you lessons fast. The bottom line is always the same – MORE, FASTER and Better.

.

Internet Marketing Lesson #5: Save The World

Most small businesses are stuck in a routine of tasks. Tasks are good, and great customer service comes from any business’s ability to complete tasks, but we serve a higher idea. We work to make a difference, to matter, to love. Every business person reading this post saves the world in some meaningful and measurable way.

Atlantic BT creates great websites. They are so great, and this team so good that I’ve asked for help (again). This time we are going to reinforce what I know to be true – Technology Cures Cancer. I am here thanks to a bio-technology innovation. I’m dependent on yet another one (there is a new drug working its way through FDA approval to treat my leukemia), so Tech Cures Cancer.

Atlantic BT has a long history of saving the world. Jon’s grandfather was one of the inspirations for Habitat for Humanity. The company gives away time, expertise and trust and has been doing so for years. When I shared my vision for the Story of Cancer Foundation, Jon could have said no. He could have explained all the things he and Atlantic BT have already done.

Such a response never occurred to Jon. “How can we help?” was why Atlantic BT is saving the world. How is your company, brand, product or team saving the world? Share your “Save the World” marketing, and we will curate it.

..

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Join our newsletter list (will get that going here again soon).

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.