1) Search
Search is easily the most reliable, trackable and ROI focused channel for online marketing. If you are interested in showing up when people search for your products and services, then a search marketing strategy is a must. For more information on SEO and Paid Search, visit our website.

2) Blog/Digg/Tumblr/Content Marketing
Content marketing refers to the strategy around creating interesting and compelling written resources for a specific target audience.

Typically, this will include blog posts, white papers, tip sheets and many other forms of content. Content marketing can help build subject matter expertise, can increase search engine visibility and serve as a repository for social media marketing channels.

3) Facebook
Facebook pages for businesses can be very effective at improving engagement, assisting in customer relations, and providing a unique experience for customers. Facebook also offers a rich and targeted advertising that is cost-per-click. Facebook also has a nice viral component with both its “share” and “send” functionality. With over 800 million users, and 50% logging in daily, Facebook is a smart place for marketers to be.

4) Twitter
Twitter provides businesses with the opportunity to develop a relationship with their customers. Businesses have the ability to customize their Twitter page and to join lists and add photos to tweets. These features plus many others can help make Twitter a strong channel for creating a following or community around the business or products that you offer.

5) YouTube
Posting videos within a website or a social network can cause slow loading times leading to user frustration. If your business encompasses product demonstrations, customer testimonials or employee / product information sharing, YouTube may be a good fit. YouTube offers free and highly customizable channels for personal and business use.

6) Flickr
Is your company delivering products or services that are creative and visual in nature? If you are an aesthetic or visual company, Flickr is a great way to compile, organize and share your images. You can send people to your Flickr page via your website, Facebook and Twitter.

7) LinkedIn
LinkedIn is an excellent resource for companies who are in high growth mode and have a need for recruiting new talent and employees. Also, LinkedIn offers a group function as well as a Q&A section. Ask yourself and your colleagues if you will be focused on bringing in qualified candidates or if you are looking for a way to create groups or communities around a subject matter. If these strategies are important to your business, LinkedIn may be a powerful resource.

1. Mobile Traffic
With the continual increase of smartphone and tablet adoption, mobile will become an even more important marketing channel in 2012.  Using Google Analytics, you can easily identify traffic coming to your website from a mobile device.  You can also determine which type of device, service provider, and operating system they are using.  As these numbers continue to go up, it’s crucial to optimize the mobile marketing initiatives around this data.

2. Flow Visualization
According to the Google Analytics blog post announcing this new report on October 19, 2011, “Our goal is to help marketers and analysts better optimize their visitor experience by presenting the ways that visitors flow through their sites in an intuitive and useful way”. With Flow Visualization, you can graphically visualize how visitors use the website, including entrance and exit points and goal conversion.  This report is highly interactive, providing additional information when hovering over certain nodes within the Visual Flow.  Click here for more information regarding Visual Flows.

3. Multi-Channel Funnels
With the new version of Google Analytics also comes the addictive reporting referred to as Multi-Channel Funnels.  These reports allow you to identify not only the last click leading to a conversion, but also the preceding clicks – or “assists” – which influenced a desired action.  For example, a customer may ultimately make a purchase through a CPC ad. However, prior to making the purchase, they may have interacted with an email campaign or a display ad.  Now, using Multi-Channel Funnels, you can view this rich data set in an easy to absorb graphical display.  For a video with additional information about this type of reporting click here.

4. Real Time Reporting
Up until now, Google Analytics has done a great job reporting on past performance of the website.  Now, you can actually see what is happening currently with the website traffic. This new report was rolled out toward the end of 2011 and has been a lot of fun for marketers to begin using.  A few key things we can track using real time reporting include new vs. returning visitors, pageviews per minute or per second, top keywords, top active pages, and top locations.  Real time reporting allows you to access analytics before and during your marketing campaigns critical launch phase.  You can also easily identify which channels are sending your traffic into the site, in real time.

1. Create Urgency
   Utilizing tools such as Google Alerts, Social Mention or Radian6 can help monitor the social media “misses” that are most likely already happening. Frequently, we can spot missed opportunities for engagement around the brand through this listening process. Simply set up alerts for the mention of your company’s brand name or products. This will demonstrate that the conversation is already taking place.
2. Competitors
   It is very common for a company to launch a new marketing initiative solely due to the strategy of the top competitor. Sometimes the simplest way to obtain high level buy-in, is a competitive analysis.
3. Create added value with Social Media
   Unfortunately, just having a presence on Facebook and Twitter is not always valuable enough for corporations to build a team and allocate budget dollars toward social media. However, additional important targets within social media can become difference-makers. Consider opportunities such as: lead generation, hiring and recruiting, product launches, viral video opportunities, customer service and more.
4. Integrate Social Media
   C level executives and corporate marketers need to understand new media in order to allocate resources. Often, they feel overwhelmed by buzz words and lingo around social media and online marketing. If social media marketing is integrated into the overall marketing strategy, following similar company goals and processes, it can be more easily adopted. In order to do this, it’s important to create a social media policy as well as a strategic road map including company approved key performance indicators and marketing goals.
5. Track and Analyze
   Smart marketers typically utilize dashboards and data analysis. In order to obtain buy-in for social media marketing, it’s important to get the right people involved. Using tools like Google Analytics, create custom dashboards tracking social media programs in an easy to digest format. Important metrics include referring traffic from social media sources as well as engagement metrics within social sites. These dashboards can help paint the picture for social media as a marketing channel and an important part of the integrated marketing plan for the company as a whole.

With the Holiday season upon us, there is pressure to anticipate what your loved ones will want by way of Holiday gifts. If you have a spouse, you know that when you get married you are expected to become a mind reader. If you have children, do not worry, they will let you know what they want, at least ten times before the Holidays hit. But what if you are an online retailer, or a service provider, is it safe to “guess” at what your customers want from you this Holiday season?

There are an estimated 4 billion online searches performed on a daily basis.  The sheer volume of searches alone makes it impossible to anticipate online behavior with any degree of certainty.  Yes, Google Trends helps with projections when putting together an online marketing campaign, but the only sure fired solution is website analytics.  What does your website tell you? The best antidote to doubt is letting the data drive your business decisions. Using tools and reports like traffic sources, content and goals in Google Analytics, will help highlight top performing content, referral websites, and which pages are converting website visitors into customers.

The first key to embracing Let Analytics Drive is to start asking “so what” instead of “what”.  Answering “what” will provide information such as:  “social media is an important and growing way that people engage online”.  Answering “so what” provides information such as “98% of your visitors last month originated on your FB group page”.

Second, disallow any internal discussions around how people who work at your company behave online or engage your website.  It is easy to be tempted to use this thought process as a means of starting a conversation.  But it is a slippery slope that too often ends with firm decisions made based on the compromised and biased behavior of a hand full of people instead of the thousands and millions of visitors to your website.

Finally, establish goals around performance (traffic, conversions, conversion rates, sales) instead of usability.  Website visitor behavior should drive usability decisions.

In this line of thinking, website development projects do not need to be 100% vetted through with the expectations that after launch, our website work is complete for the next 3-5 years.  An online marketing plan should be launched with the expectations of immediate adjustments to that plan rather than attempting to roll out a perfect online marketing plan.

If you disagree, try anticipating even one action of everyone living in China and India today.  What would you guess they are going to have for breakfast today? Happy Holidays!

Several small tweaks to your website could increase conversions by up to 20%. The following 6 tips are proven, easy to conversion tactics that will help you generate more quality leads from your website.

1. Implement Landing Page Optimization:
The design of your website, microsite or landing page is critical to B2B search marketing success. A best practice for Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is to incorporate a well designed, streamlined landing page to serve as any marketing campaigns visitor destination. A well designed landing page guides the visitor to a conversion point (i.e. an online sale or sign up form) and eliminates confusions and distractions.

The effective use of landing pages in a campaign can create better customer engagement and, ultimately, increased conversions.

2. Know How to Speak to Your Buyer
B2B landing page content is different than consumer “messaging.” Write at an 8^th grade level and highlight features, benefit statements, points of differentiation, and calls-to-action as quickly and efficiently, and at the top of your page. While consumers may need to be “wowed” your B2B buyers don’t have any interest in “the fluff” and will appreciate a simple, clean, clear landing page.

3. Bring the Benefits to the Forefront
As a whole, marketers tend to focus on how great their brand is, stop doing this. Instead, highlight the “what’s in it for me” value proposition.  Focus your webpage content, calls-to-action and downloadable assets on what will benefit the prospect. Provide visitors with something of value (whitepaper or digital tool kit) give them access to resources that help them do their job better. By providing them with unique information they feel like it’s less about brand promotion and more about providing top tier customer service.

4. Provide Options
Each customer and prospect has different needs, even when it comes to business. Empower visitors by providing them with options and allowing them to decide for themselves what package, product or service suits them. Test various types of offers and assets.

• Prospects who are early on in the sales cycle often prefer general market information.
• Prospects who are further along in their research appreciate comparison charts and independent user reviews.
• Prospect who are ready to buy want information on pricing, terms and conditions.

5. Be Accurate
Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Make sure your online buying process is straightforward and simple. Be accurate and consistent with your offerings and fulfillment of those offerings.

Example:  Do not promote a link sending visitors to a registration form by having the anchor text read “download  a whitepaper now” instead say “Sign up now for instant access“.

6. Create Urgency
Your average website visitor losses interest in 30 seconds or less.  Because of this, business marketers must present compelling, actionable information and offers should instill a sense of urgency. Utilize limited time or limited availability offers for that little extra push to compel website interaction.

1) Referral Traffic to the Website
This is a simple metric that can help understand how many new and returning visitors are getting to your website via your social media campaigns. Some marketers are focused on driving users over to the corporate website from social media sites, in order to convert those users into new customers or a leads. Google Analytics is the idea tool for this type of tracking. Simply click on Traffic Sources, then click on Sources, then Referrals. You will be able to see how much traffic comes to your site from your social networks and other top referring domains.

2) Brand Sentiment
Using tools that are readily available (and free!) can be a quick and easy way to keep track of brand sentiment. Our favorite tools for this are Google Alerts and SocialMention. Both of these tools are designed to help marketers track their brand’s mentions across the web. It’s also important to track the brand sentiment of competitors and partners. We recommend setting up benchmarks and keeping an eye on trends. Things like PR, seasonality and advertising can all be indicators in changes to brand sentiment.

3) Volume of Fans and Followers
This metric is the leading success indicator for many marketers, as they evaluate the performance of their social media marketing campaigns. In order to track this effectively, make sure to monitor the total number of Like’s (Facebook), Followers (Twitter), Subscribers (YouTube) and any other quantifiable metrics within your social programs. It’s important to look at these numbers on a consistent basis (we recommend monthly) and to look at percentage increases as well as total counts.

4) Engagement of Fans and Followers
Both Facebook and Twitter provide deep levels of engagement tracking. There are also a host of additional tools available, some free and some paid, to deepen the level of tracking within social media. Facebook Insights is a smart tool offering free detailed information regarding comments, sharing, segmenting and more. Twitter allows you to see who has re-tweeted your tweets. Third party tools offer the ability to track click thru’s to your links. A few interesting tools are Twitrratr, Hashtags.org and Klout.

5) Social Content Performance
Smart marketers recognize that there are costs and resources associated with content marketing (also referred to as earned marketing). Although these are not fixed costs, as with advertising, they can add up. It’s a good idea to keep track of how well your content is performing. This can be done using some of the tools outlined above and related to articles, tip sheets, white papers and blog posts. Keeping track of the sharing and commenting will help determine how many resources to put toward future content marketing efforts.

6) Conversion Attribution
Social Media is often used during the “browsing” phase of the buying cycle. Frequently people will need to be exposed to a product or service multiple times before purchasing. Because of this, we find that social media typically converts at a lower level than a direct response channel like search. However, we commonly see social media attributing to a final purchase which is made via another channel. This can be tracked through Google Analytics, using the Multi-Channel Funnels tab, under Conversions.

Also, there’s no denying the fact that sharing a name with the richest search engine in the world, has inherent benefits. Here are some things to consider with Google +.

1) Google + currently has four key business opportunities, including Sparks, Circles, Hangouts, and Snippets.  These allow for easy access to what is trending, segmenting content, live group chat, and sharing content/images/video.

2) Integration between Google + and search will have a large impact in online marketing.  The backbone of search marketing is content and integration.  With Google + offering increased ease of sharing content and hyper-customization for users, search results will be impacted.  Sparks, in Google + allows users to subscribe to topics by keywords.  This is expected to become a social signal for search in the future.

3) The social signal is key.  The new +1 feature from Google appears to be their social signal, similar to the Like signal used by Facebook.  The +1 feature lives in Google +, also in Google, and is now available around the web, on owned media, for maximum sharing.  In order to drive +1′s and engagement, content editors need to deliver the highest quality content.

4) Google + is crazy for mobile.  Earlier this month, Google + announced that they were rolling out improvements to their mobile strategy.  Google + has web- app- and SMS- based versions.  On their basic mobile site, they offer streamlined design, easy to use comment posting and clean people and circle view, including people search functionality.  Also, Google + has recently made Hangouts available via mobile and included Messenger for mobile, where you can post photos, share content and receive notifications.

5) Connect with You Tube.  Marketers will be able to quickly and easily integrate You Tube with Google + by going to the You Tube settings page and connecting with Google +.  Allow a bit of time for videos to transfer, but soon enough the sites will be linked.

Source: ChromatixSEO

Building Links

Like any website, getting links to your Facebook page is extremely beneficial. Every time your site receives a link, your site becomes more authoritative.  The more links that your Facebook tabs and pages receive through different sources, the more important Google will think your page is.  If possible, be sure the links are coming from popular, recognized sources, as Google will also take this into consideration.

It is also important to understand that “Likes” count as “Links!” The more people that Like and share your posts, the better the SEO value will be.  Posting things that engage users will increase the share and like using.

Optimize Your Multimedia

Optimize videos to their fullest potential by giving them good titles, both on Facebook and on sites like YouTube and Vimeo.  Videos are the easiest form of multimedia to optimize because the titles are heavily weighted in the eyes of the search engines. So make sure you’re giving your videos good titles, both on Facebook and on sites like YouTube and Vimeo.

Use your brand name in your post
Search engines crawl the content of your page. Using your brand name will help boost the SEO for name recognition. For starters, tag the text in your posts with your brand name or company to give your page an even larger SEO boost.

Use Fan Boxes

Facebook allows users to add “Fan Boxes” on your site that will feature recent posts to that your fans can see them all. This will ultimately drive traffic to your site and is a great way to engage your audience.  If you are just starting out and don’t have many fans yet, fan box has an option that allows you to show recent posts until you get over 25 fans.

Vanity URLs

Now that Facebook allows its users to have “vanity URLs,” everyone should be jumping on board.  These URLs make it easier for fans and people who like your brand to find you and your page.  When selecting your vanity URL, remember to keep your company or brand name in mind.  You want to select a name that will be easy for people to remember.

Measurement is fundamental to ROI-focused, lead driven marketing i.e. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Paid Search (Pay-Per-Click), and now Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).  Yes, Google Analytics can track referral sources, keyword conversions, goals and other actions that drove ROI. However, the launch of their new tool Multi Channel Funnels, takes tracking and reporting to a new level.

Until now, when a website visitor completes a conversion on your site (signs up or buys) the tracking tools credit the most recent link or ad clicked. In reality though, customers research, compare and make purchase decisions via multiple touch points across multiple channels. All those actions taken between the first click and the last click are not being tracked. Marketers were forced to measure return solely on the last channel that a customer touches before converting, potentially missing out on important opportunities or channels to reach their customers.

By looking at interactions across multiple digital media channels, including clicks from paid and organic searches, affiliates, social networks, and display ads, marketers can understand how different channels work together to create sales and conversions.

Queue Google’s Multi Channel Funnel Reports.

Below are some high level features and benefits of Multi Channel Funnels:

• Only available in the new analytics dashboard and can be found under the “My Conversions” tab in the top left navigation
  
• Consists of 5 new reports generated from conversion paths
  
• Conversion Paths Measured: Email, Paid Advertising, Direct, Organic Search, Social Network, Affiliates, Referral Sites, and Custom Campaigns
  
• Measures the full path to conversion over a 30 day period
  
• Multi-Channel Funnels reports show how previous referrals, searches, and exposure to other channels contributed to your sales.

If you are interested in learning more about Multi Channel Funnels contact your Marcel Media representative today, send us an email at info@marcelmedia.com, or tweet us.

Source: Marketyourhospital.com

Below are 5 actions to avoid like the plague when engaging in social media marketing.

1. Shhh…quiet please.  If your company plans to launch a social media marketing strategy, be sure to plan ahead and allocate resources effectively.  It is crucial to set up filters and triggers for notification and moderation of user feedback.  Ignorance is not bliss, and it is detrimental to the health of your digital brand. Respond to all feedback; negative or positive.  Users have the expectation that social media is a two way street, and that their voice will be heard. They expect a timely and truthful response.  If you are wondering, “How do I keep up? There is just one of me?” Take heed that once the proper moderation tools are in place, social media should not take more than 15 minutes to an hour each day to manage properly.




2. Sell, sell sell.   No, no, no. Remember that the goal of social media should be to create a peer-to-peer, conversational community around your products and services, not to SELL your products and services.  Peddling your “stuff” is a surefire way to offend and annoy your customer base, and can have a rapid and negative impact on your brand. This is not to say you can NEVER promote your brand, but do it tastefully and tactfully.




3. No time for make believe.  Frequently appointed social media personnel will tout themselves as product experts hiding behind the curtain of a Twitter handle or Facebook page.  Your audience will see right through this tactic.  Many companies, big and small, have been burned.  I recommend that marketers involve product experts and encourage them to identify themselves. For instance, create a Twitter handle or Fan Page chat that specifically addresses questions about your product or services. Assign a time and a place for these chats to take place, on a regular basis, and have a product manager handling the designated Twitter feed.




4. Debbie Downer.  Unavoidably, users will post negative comments at times.  However, if your social space becomes a repository for complaints, people will feel more compelled to air their grievances.  If you find that the majority of user feedback is negative, try sparking new and positive conversations by asking simple questions.  People enjoy responding and joining a conversation around a topic that is of interest to them.




5. Same ol’ Same ol’.  Create a unique and engaging experience within your social sites.  If you have a Facebook presence, post different photos, videos, surveys, polls and quizzes than what will be on the website.  Users on Facebook are in a less formal mindset.  Give them an appealing reason to come back to Facebook, for updates, real-time info, live events etc.  When users visit your social presence they are expecting something distinctive from the website experience.  Don’t let them down!