Blogging

With the economy now officially in a recession (as if we didn’t know that), marketers are under increasing pressure to do more with less. On the interactive marketing side, few marketers will get budget increases enabling them to drive more clicks. The challenge, then, is to maximize marketing productivity—to get more leads out of the same number of clicks. This is the first of two posts that will look at how to improve conversion rates to get more value from each click.

One answer to this challenge is provided by “post-click marketing,” a.k.a. lead automation management vendors. While the specifics of each service vary, all of them essentially:

• automate the process of extracting visitor IP information from your log files;
• match the IP address to an organization;
• filter out ISPs; and
• map the company name to one or more external databases to provide additional information (company size, industry, key contacts etc.).

The better services also use geo-location filtering to determine which city the visit came from, rather than providing only corporate headquarters information (e.g., someone from IBM visits your site; that’s great, but it would helpful to know whether the visit came from Armonk or from one of IBM’s hundreds of other office locations).

Critics of these services refer to them as “spyware,” though that term isn’t really fair. These services don’t collect any information beyond what Google Analytics, WebTrends or other web analytics packages do. They can’t identify the specific individual who visits a site, only the network location from which the visit originated. The distinction is that they filter out ISPs and supplement network location information with data from third-party sources.

What’s key is how this information is used. If a marketing group uses the information collected to segment their market and provide relevant, targeted follow up messages, then the services ultimately benefit both buyers and sellers. But if used by sales to make an immediate call (”Hi Bob, I noticed that someone from your office just visited our website. Was that you? If so, I’d like to tell you about a special offer we have going…”), that’s where the creepiness factor comes in.

These vendors are quick to point out that you’ve already paid for the traffic to your site through PPC, SEO, interactive PR, banner advertising or other activities; their services simply help you learn more about the 97% of visitors who don’t immediately convert into a lead. They aren’t so much “lead generation” as they are “lead extraction” services.

The bottom line is, with pressure to generate more leads with flat budgets, these services are likely to get increased interest. And again, if the used properly, they can be helpful in engaging site visitors who perhaps aren’t quite ready to become a “lead.”

The Vendors

Here are six services that offer post-click marketing analytics:

VisitorTrack, from netFactor—in the company’s own words, VisitorTrack is”like caller ID for your website…(it) integrates Website Tracking, Business Intelligence and Sales CRM into a powerful on-demand application for capturing detailed information on your website’s Business Visitors.” VisitorTrack service provides robust geo-targeting (so you know exactly where visitors are coming from) and email notification, but it’s biggest strength is detailed and customizable reporting capability. Contact names are available free through LinkedIn or on a pay-or-play basis from Jigsaw. Pricing starts at about $300 per month.

Demandbase—referring to its service as a “lead quality platform…that unlock(s) the potential of online advertising, search, CRM, and social networks,” Demandbase provides both a desktop wideget similar to a stock ticker that displays website vistitor information in real-time, as well as daily summary emails and 90 days worth of visitor data for reporting. Demandbase is a simple, elegant lead enhancement solution with an affordable starting point at under $200 per month. You can use the widget for free, but won’t get any data stored for reporting. The platform only provides data on North American visitors for now, though international tracking capability is in the pipeline.

LEADSExplorer from Engago Technologies is a powerful service that helps marketers discover who’s visiting their site, identify their interests, segment visitors based on company size and industry, track results through reporting, and integrate visitor data with backend CRM systems.
Based in the U.K., the LEADSExplorer staff is sophisticated about website lead capture technologies and practices, and easy to work with for both U.S. and European countries.

LeadLander is one of the most mature providers of what they term “real-time customer intelligence.” LeadLander is a robust, proven platform that shows you who’s been visiting your site, what they’ve been looking at, how much time each visitor has committed to reviewing various pages of your online collateral, the search terms used to find your site and more. It’s also fully integrated with Salesforce.com.

LeadGenesys offers broad functionality for tracking email campaigns and website visits. The service is integrated with Salesforce.com and is used by a blue chip customer base including RR Donnelly, Praxair and AMD.

Opentracker is a simple yet powerful service that provides real-time visitor monitoring, search term analysis, online reporting and other analytical capabilities. While it doesn’t offer all the features of other services, Opentracker offers smaller companies an extremely affordable entry point into post-click marketing starting at about $20 per month.

Further Reading

Forrester’s Laura Ramos provided an excellent summary of what she broadly termed lead automation management in August of this year, though it seems a bit odd to place Hubspot (inbound marketing / website optimization), Leadlander (site visitor tracking) and Zoominfo (an online directory / database) in the same group.

Other bloggers that have reviewed these services include:

Capture Website Visitors To Know Who Has Been Visiting - They Might Be Qualified Leads from ReadyContacts

Qualify Leads with VisitorTrack from Manoj Jasra at Web Analytics World

Turning Web Site Visitors into Paying Customers from Jim Berkowitz

Demandbase launches lead generation platform with Adobe funding from Enetlive.net

Visitr - No, I am not scared you know my location but dammit I respect you from 640K Ought to be enough for anybody

Demandbase Raises $8 Million For Online Lead Generation Platform from Jason Kincaid at TechCrunch

How Do I Build a List of Target Companies and Contacts? from Aaron Ross at Build a Sales Machine

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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Getting More Out of Each Click with “Post-Click Marketing”

The best research tells you not only what’s happening, but why. Check out these posts, more of the best so far in 2008, on web marketing and Internet research to sate your curiosity, make better marketing decisions, and arm yourself with online trivia knowledge.

Which blogs do reporters read? What are the top uses of the Internet after email and search? What type of online advertising is growing while banners and PPC ads flatline? What’s the next big trend in blogging? Which information sources have the greatest influence on consumer purchasing decisions? Read on to learn all of this and more.

Top Blogs Used by Reporters & Journalists by Mequoda Daily

There are lots of “top” blog lists out there, but which blogs really have influence with traditional media? This article reports on a study of the blogs read by more than 450 reporters in technology, lifestyle, health care, travel, and politics. It would have been nice to see more than a handful of results in each category, but the results are interesting nevertheless.

Pew/Internet Search Engine Use Report by MIT Technology Review

A high-level overview of a recent study of search engine use conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Search engines are now used on daily basis by half of all Internet users. Search is the second-most common use of the Internet after email. More than twice as many people said they checked the weather on the Internet daily as reported visiting a social networking site (weird). There’s lots more here for data junkies.

18 Ways to Power Search Google by The Inquisitr

Blogging evangelist Duncan Riley provides an excellent list of tricks for searching out specific types of information on Google, such as specific types of documents, backlinks, phone listings, movie times and metric conversions. Highly bookmarkable.

Is online advertising losing its luster? by iMedia Connection

Neal Leavitt reports on a recent study by market research firm Borrell Associates which contends that while spending on online display ads and search advertising will soon peak then begin falling, expenditures on online promotions (e.g., contests, giveaways, coupons, sales of half-price gift certificates) will triple over the next five years to become the biggest category in online marketing. Others (such as Rob Enderle) aren’t so sure; promotions may be easy to measure, but without advertising support, they can lose a lot of effectiveness.

Porn passed over as Web users become social: author by Reuters

Reporter Belinda Goldsmith summarizes a few of the key findings revealed by author Bill Tancer in his new book Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters. Among the findings: ceiling fans are on the list of people’s top fears alongside social intimacy and rejection; there’s an annual spike in searches for anti-depression drugs around Thanksgiving time in the United States; and surfing for porn has dropped in teh last decade from 20% of searches to about 10%. The hottest Internet searches now are for social networking sites, and the biggest drop in porn interest is among 18-24 year olds.

What’s Next In Blogging? by Search For Blogging

Über blogger Mert Erkal reports some interesting stats on the continued growth and evolution of the Internet, and predicts that mobile blogging will be one of the hot new trends.

What causes webinar attendees to bail? by B2B Lead Generation Blog

In this concise but helpful post, b2b lead gen guru Brian Carroll summarizes the findings of a MarketingSherpa report on the top reasons that attendees bail out of webinars, including such common presentation faux pas as reading directly from the slides and starting the webinar with a sales pitch.

State of the Blogosphere 2008 by Technorati

Fascinating details about blogging, advertising and income. Driving home the point that blogging is a great hobby but a tough way to make a living, the median annual advertising income for all bloggers is about $200. The average annual revenue for the top 10% of bloggers is just $19,000.

Why do some companies choose to ignore social media? by Britopian

85% of Americans using social media think companies should have an active presence in the social media universe, yet only 74 of the Fortune 500 companies maintain active blogs. Michael Brito examines why this yawning disconnect persists between corporations and their customers.

Word of Mouth, Online Reviews Most Influential in Purchase Decisions by Marketing Pilgrim

Jordan McCollum summarizes a recent study by Rubicon Consulting which explores the biggest influences on purchasing decisions and consumer perceptions of various websites. Reading this post, you’ll discover that Yahoo is the second-most valued website by consumers, Second Life and Twitter still reach only a few percent of Internet users, and lots of other interesting web trivia.

Search Engine Marketing Trumps Yellow Pages by NewSunSEO Blog

A study conducted in July of this year by TMP Directional Marketing revealed that in 2008, for the first time ever, consumers reported that they were more likely to use the Internet than the yellow pages to find information on local businesses. As someone who hasn’t touched a yellow pages directory in years, other than to start a campfire or toss the old one into the recycling bin, the biggest surprise in this study is that it took until 2008 to reach this point.

Previous posts in this series:

Best of 2008 (So Far) - SEO Guidance, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - SEO Guidance, Part 2
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Search Engine Marketing, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Cool Web Tools, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Social Media Optimization, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Blogging for Business, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Web Marketing Research, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Website Design, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - SEO Link Building
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Search Engine Marketing, Part 2
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Social Media Optimization, Part 2
Best of 2008 (So Far) - SEO Guidance, Part 3
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Cool Web Tools, Part 2
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Blogging for Business, Part 2

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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Best of 2008 (So Far) - Web Marketing Research, Part 2

“SEO is dead.” Making a statement like that is a great way to generate lots of traffic, and comments, as Micah Baldwin and Mike McDonald have recently demonstrated. But it’s still nonsense. As I noted in my comment to comment Michah’s post on Learn to Duck, articles like this have been appearing since at least 2003, so if SEO is dying, it’s an awfully slow death.

It is changing, however, as Google’s plans for search personalization are rolled out. Using factors such as geographic location, “preferences” as indicated by your search history, and even integration of tools like SearchWiki and Google Friend Connect (nicely explained by TechCrunch), Google will customize search results for each user.

This means that, very soon, your site may show up at #1, #5, #12 or some other spot for any given search term depending on who is doing the searching. Already, automated position-checking tools like Rank Checker and SEO Chat produce erroneous results with Google; that soon won’t matter as there will no “right” answer as to where your site appears on Google for a specific search phrase anyway, other than “it depends.”

But again, none of this means that SEO is dead, only that it is changing (as it constantly does). Considering Google’s move to make more of universal search and personalized search, here are some important points to keep in mind:

• The basic principles of good SEO (proper use of on-page factors like title, meta tags, headlines and quality content with sufficient keyword density, along with building high-quality external links) principles still apply. Although your precise search position will vary depend on the searcher’s location, demographics and other factors, it won’t rank highly for anyone if it isn’t well-optimized.
• The changes may help local businesses. With more of an emphasis on location, even small company sites may appear more prominently in searches on broad, highly competitive phrases such as CRM consulting services in their local area. In the b2b realm, this could raise the profile of value-added resellers, systems integrators and managed service providers relative to software developers and hardware manufacturers, making strong channel relations more important than ever.
• If Google’s changes actually succeed in making search results more relevant, it could help both searchers and site owners. If you’re the owner of Ace Dry Cleaners, for example, you really don’t want traffic from people who are searching for Ace Insurance or Ace Hardware any more than those searchers want to find you. So, the end result could be less traffic, but more relevant traffic.
• Google’s moves are likely to have the greatest impact on broad, highly competitive, ambiguous words and phrases. There will be much less variation in search results between users for long tail and specific niche phrases—which is, again, why SEO is far from dead.
• Since there will no longer be a reliable measure of search engine position for any individual site and search phrase, other metrics will become more important: overall search traffic, quality measures such as bounce rate, and SEO page grade as measured by tools such as HubSpot’s Website Grader, the search engine optimization analysis tool from SEO Workers, or Traffic Travis. There will also likely be more emphasis on search-driven conversions, though this is, strictly speaking, more of a website optimization than an SEO issue.
• SEO requires a mix of skills—coding, design, copywriting, link building, PR, social media optimization—that most organizations don’t have in-house. Larger companies may be able to form internal SEO teams, but SMBs will still need to rely on outside agencies that can provide this mix of skills on an affordable, as-needed basis.
• Search algorithms are constantly changing. One day the meta keywords tag is critical, the next it doesn’t matter. First you should get linked in as many online directories as possible, then you needn’t bother. A tactic that is white hat one day becomes gray hat, or even black hat, the next. Only specialists can keep on top of the constant change and assure that current best practices are being utilized.

Finally, SEO will gradually morph into web presence optimization (WPO)—a term so important I’m giving it its own category. There will be more to come on this soon. For now, rest assured that reports of the death of SEO have been greatly exaggerated.

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Read more here:
SEO Is Not Dead, Just Changing: What This Means

On the occasion of the 300th post on the WebMarketCentral blog, and to see how things have changed since the first 100 posts, here are the 10 most popular posts of all time so far.

#10: The 8 Layers of a B2B Web Marketing Plan, October 8, 2008

The most recent post to make this list presents B2B marketing as a series of concentric layers, with SEO at the core then moving outward from highly measurable online direct response tactics to broader brand advertising.

#9: Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEO (Part 1), January 28, 2008

Summaries of and links to a dozen outstanding articles on SEO from some of the top pros like Lee Odden, Jon Rognerud and Danny Sullivan. Also, I think, the first time on this blog I made the case that SEO is far from dead.

#8: Web 2.0 Social Tagging Sites, Part 7: The Best, June 26, 2007

“Based on two months of testing across a half-dozen B2B websites and blogs, these Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites produced the best results, in terms of driving direct traffic and having active, engaged discussion communities.” Of mostly historical interest now, from the early days of social bookmarking, before Mixx, Sphinn, Propeller and Twitter took off.

#7: Web 2.0 Social Tagging Sites, Part 4: B2B Traffic Building, May 15, 2007

The first post where I showed, quantitatively, how social media can accelerate traffic growth for both blogs and commercial websites.

#6: Selecting an Advertising Agency, June 7, 2005

The second post ever written on this blog and the only post common to both this list and the top 10 after first 100 posts.

#5: Best of 2007: Website Design, February 4, 2008

Eleven outstanding articles on blog posts on website design tips, tactics and tools from experts like Stoney deGeyter, Ralph Wilson, Mark Jackson, Jay Lipe and Kalena Jordan.

#4: How to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan, December 6, 2007

My recommended outline for crafting a strategic marketing plan, from high-level business objectives and strategies through marketing and PR tactics and tools.

#3: The Social Media Email Signature, September 18, 2008

A look at how traditional email signatures have evolved into their Web 2.0 version, now incorporating elements such as LinkedIn profiles, blog links, Twitter pages, Facebook, StumbleUpon, even Second Life IDs. Includes notable examples from social media pros like Jon Rognerud, Viewzi evangelist Giovanni Gallucci, and Guy Kawasaki.

#2: Google AdWords Average CTR and Best Practices, September 20, 2007

Various estimates for average click-through rates (CT) from Google AdWords along with 14 best practices to make search engine marketing programs more successful.

#1: Email Campaign, Newsletter and Banner Ad Click-Through Rates (CTR), August 14, 2007

And the most popular post thus far on the WebMarketCentral blog covers…industry data to help set goals and benchmark the performance of email marketing, newslettor sponsorship and banner advertising programs.

That will do it for me this (short) week. Happy Thanksgiving!

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

The rest is here:
Looking Back at 300: Top 10 Posts

Most Web 2.0 sites fall into one of a few increasingly well-defined categories, such as social bookmarking (Digg, del.icio.us, Searchles), social networking (LinkedIn, Facebook) or file sharing (YouTube, Flickr, podOmatic). Twitter, however, stands alone. (Okay, there’s also Pownce, but Twitter is better.)

Self-described as simply a real-time short messaging service and often referred to a microblogging platform, to those new to it, Twitter resembles nothing so much as a giant cocktail party where everyone talks at once and hopes others listen. You can tell who’s important by how many “followers” that person has, though that’s no guarantee anyone is really paying attention. People (or rather, Tweeple in the Twitter lexicon) can come and go without really being noticed, just like at a real (very, very large) gathering.

Twitter can be difficult to explain to those unfamiliar with it. Jennifer Laycock writes that Twitter is like Post-It notes; lots of them and in multiple colors. Johnny Makkar provides some helpful guidance on how to get your co-workers to start Twittering, in which he links to this long but informative video from HubSpot on how to use Twitter for marketing and PR.

Types of “Tweets”

I’m sure there’s a better list somewhere, but from my observation thus far there are five primary types of messages posted to Twitter:

Evangelizing: One of the most common and valuable uses of Twitter—linking to and promoting great stuff, like articles, blog posts, videos, etc. Example from Bill Hartzer: “Ask.com Adds One-Click Election Poll Information to Search http://ff.im/5×8.” It’s okay to evangelize your own stuff occasionally, as long as 1) it’s great stuff, and 2) you don’t evangelize only your own content. That would be…Twitterbation?

Social: Arranging live meetings is another practical, common and perfectly acceptable use of Twitter. Got a long layover at the Detroit airport? Use Twitter to see who among your “followers” might also happen to be there and grab a cup of coffee together. Example from Chris Brogan: “Chicago area meetup 11/10: http://tinyurl.com/54rs7m Pass it on!”

Thoughtful: Inspiration, observation and philosophy in 140 characters or less. For example, from Jeremiah Owyang: “Be inspired this week my friends: Try something new, learn something you always wanted to –be uncomfortable.”

Conversational: Using the @ symbol before someone’s Twitter name lets you target a public message to them. A fine practice, though it should be used in moderation. If you never use the @ symbol, you may be perceived as anti-social, arrogant or purely self-promotional. If you use it too much, you should probably take some of these conversations offline.

Annoying: Tweets which add absolutely no value to anyone, but are written just for the sake of writing something. Among the worst are the “Off to the gym,” “Going for a run,” “Just got back from a workout and gosh I’m stiff!” variety. Argh. The rest of the world would care about this…why?

What’s Cool About Twitter

Fans of Twitter believe it is a key social media tool for business. According to the MindValley Labs blog, Twitter is an incredibly powerful marketing tool, and they offer up three forbidden Twitter mind control tricks for marketing, stating “Twitter is currently the closest app on Earth that replicates the actual thought patterns of the human mind. You see, the human mind does not really think in blog and article form. Instead, it thinks in a stream of consciousness way, random disjointed thought layered upon random disjointed thought…After all, what’s more intimate than the whispering voices in your head?”

Ellie Mirman of HubSpot contends that tapping into the conversations happening on Twitter related to your brand, product or industry is crucial even for niche businesses. And Miguel Cancino explains why Twitter is a key tool for reputation management.

This was the first post in a two-part series. Part 2 will cover best practices for using Twitter, Twitter tools, and the future outlook for this platform.

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Original post:
Twitter Twaddle, Part 1: What Twitter Is and Why It’s Cool