How to Maximize Your Online Brand Effectiveness

Jon SamselOctober 7, 2009

The opinions expressed during this presentation are the opinions solely of Jon Samsel, the individual presenter, and may not reflect the opinions of his employer.

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There is only one metric that means anything in business: how you're doing against your competition. 

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How well you're doing seems to be fairly straightforward. 

Just look at the revenue, right?

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How does the CEO know that marketing dollars are being well spent?

Does the CMO understand which channels generate the highest ROI?

Who is holding our vendors accountable?

Have we monetized the web to deliver maximum shareholder value?

Where are the growth opportunities?

Revenue + What Other Factors?

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Sociable

Searchable

Measurable

Actionable

PortableShareable

ABLE'sTHE

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Sociable

Searchable

Measurable

Actionable

PortableShareable

A unique blend of onsiteand offsite variables that brands should master to

have a holistic, integrated, and successful

online marketing strategy.

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Sociable

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PortableShareable

The more portable devices your website is optimized for,

the better positioned your brand will be to capitalize on the emerging mobile market.

Poor GUI 's, code, etc., could have negative brand consequences.

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Source: Jon Samsel's Survey of 83 marketers, 9/23/09

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Don't Just Think Mobile Marketing, Think Portable Search & Micro User Experiences

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Searchable

Measurable

Actionable

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Social engagement can be good for brands. Firms that monitor, engage, and respond to what consumers, constituents, and competitors are saying about them are better positioned to

influence sales & brand attributes.

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Marketers Say They Are Focused On Social

Source: Jon Samsel's Survey of 83 marketers, 9/23/09-12-

Only 2 out of 100Fortune 100 CEO's has a Twitter account.

And neither has posted anything.

Source: didierlahely.com-13-

Search Is Becoming More Conversational

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Search Engines Love Social Content

#1 natural search result on Google is social content on Mahalo, not BAC.com

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It's An Exact Phrase Match: Big Deal

Social phrase resulted in #1 position on page 1 of Bing and Yahoo

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Social Is Hijacking Branded SEO Results Too

Remove non-branded terms

Social result still appears in 5th position on page 1 of Google!

Brands have a strategic marketing opportunity to partner with social networks, participate in consumer conversations, and benefit from it.

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What Is Your Social Search Strategy?

• H&R Block on Google: 6 of 10 page one natural search results is social – Wikipedia, AOL Finance*, Yahoo Finance*, BloggingStocks, Topix,

Facebook • Whole Foods Market on Google: 4 of 10 page one natural

search results is social – Wikipedia, Twitter, Yahoo Finance*, WFM blog

• Victoria’s Secret on Yahoo: 5 of 10 page one natural search results is social – Facebook, Answers.com, Spike.com video feed,

victoriasecretbags.blogspot.com, Wikipedia

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I Now Pronounce You: MonetizedJK Wedding Entrance Dance Video: Reactive Social Media Strategy

[ UGC + YouTube + 24 million views + copyright infringement + zero development costs + zero video streaming bandwidth fees + Sony monetization via click to buy text ads = bumper payday for YouTube, Sony, and Chris Brown ]

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Measurable

Actionable

ShareablePortable

Searchable

Websites optimized for natural search, especially by local geo-locations, business listings, or

product SKUs ,can be more easily found by crawlers & bots [more long tail site traffic over time]

Sociable

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All code and few keywords.

How Search Engines See Nike

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How Search Engines See BigMouthMedia

Plentiful keywords! -22-

# Links Pages Brand SEO

2,070,339 55,800 Bankrate.com Excellent

6,094 2,210 UnionBank.com Below average

Inbound Links + Pages Count = SEO Amplifiers

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Local & SKU Content Improves Long Tail SEO

Google Indexed Pages: 2,670,000

Page 1 Google Result

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Actionable

ShareablePortable

Sociable

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Measurable

The ability to monitor, track,analyze, report, & optimize a

website is a critical digital marketing function--yet many firms aren't mining this knowledge to make

online experiences more relevant, usable, efficient, or profitable.

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Measurement Is Contextual

• Marketers believe they are doing a good job at analytics• Typical web analytics focus on website performance• But is that the complete picture? What about...

Mobile usability stats

Mobile search engine stats

Social search stats

Usability test results

Interactivity

Sales funnel anaysis

Multivariate testingLong tail search stats

Publishing & syndication statsOnline brand reach & influence

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Do SEO Vendors Practice What They Preach?

99.9 - www.bigmouthmedia.com99.7 - www.6smarketing.com99.7 - www.primevisibility.com99.6 - www.bruceclay.com99.6 - www.webadvantage.net99.5 - www.vizioninteractive.com99.4 - www.submitawebsite.com99.3 - www.seo.com98.9 - www.oneupweb.com98.2 - www.webmetro.com97.9 - www.netconcepts.com97.6 - www.iCrossing.com97.3 - www.thinkseer.com96.5 - www.purevisibility.com96.3 - www.seojunkies.com95.9 - www.increasevisibility.com95.5 - www.reprisemedia.com95.5 - www.rustybrick.com95.0 - www.seop.com94.0 - www.nowspeed.com93.0 - www.ilikesem.com92.0 - www.usawebsolutions.com91.0 - www.tmpdm.com90.0 - www.iprospect.com85.0 - www.360i.com85.0 - www.razorfish.com71.0 - www.ip-seo.com67.0 - the-ccg-group.com43.0 - www.asenyo.com

Web measurement tools can save you time and money.

Here I utilize WebsiteGrader to rate the SEO vendors.

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Analytics Are Worthless w/o Taking Action

Improve responsiveness by adding more direct response elements to each page and testing impact

Boost interaction by adding Flash tool to home page to measure engagement and lead impact.

Our brand is being mentioned more and more on social communities, but how is this impacting our bottom line? Tie results into our current sales and customer sat reports.

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Most Effective Online Marketing Strategies

Source: Jon Samsel's Survey of 83 marketers, 9/23/09

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Least Effective Online Marketing Strategies

Source: Jon Samsel's Survey of 83 marketers, 9/23/09

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ShareablePortable

Sociable

Searchable

Measurable

Actionable

An actionable website oronline brand experience is one

that fulfils user needs--making it easier to interact, transact, register, or communicate.

[Accessibility = higher sales, satisfaction, and socialization]

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Are 70+ Actionables On A Page Too Much?

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Every Web Page Is A Landing Page

Phone number

Email address

Contact form

Trust seal

Live chat

Direct response call

to action

Visitor-focused copy

Onsite search

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Actionable For All?

Source: Jon Samsel's Survey of 83 marketers, 9/23/09

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Portable

Sociable

Searchable

MeasurableMeasurable

Actionable

Shareable

Being a transparent company plays off of the social concept that

you get what you give. Freeing data & content via RSS, API,

syndication, etc., not only helps build trust, it enables new forms of collaboration & opportunities.

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Social + Data is 500x larger

TRADITIONALWEBSITE CONTENT

SOCIAL + DATA

The Deep Web is Where the Action Is

Brand-generated content is dwarfed by conversations and data feeds about your brand.

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Law Of Reciprocity: You Get What You Give

Sharing increases your odds of being heard!

TEXTFEEDS

AUDIOFEEDS

VIDEOFEEDS

APIFEEDS

MASHUP'S

RDFFEEDS

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Corporate Websites Are Loosing Power

What if consumers could learn from others

who've visited your website?

...by asserting their voices on

your web page...

...leaving comments or commentary,

links to external sites,

ratings, or whatever was on their mind?

Now they can.With Google

Sidewiki

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Google Wave: UGC + Real-Time Collaboration

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Closing

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The Big Takeaway

• Investment in web marketing is going to be measurable (the biggest "able" of all) almost simultaneous with making the investment, instead of weeks or months later.

• Right now, when a CEO spends a million bucks, he may as well be on a trip to Vegas with a croupier on his arm.

• Actionable analytics ensures that your investments will result in measurable outcomes that can then themselves be optimized by further investment.

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Sociable

Searchable

Portable

The ABLE Marketer's Next Steps

• Claim your brand across all major social networks - KnowEm• Get a key executive to start blogging or tweeting• Start monitoring brand conversations - eCairne, Overtone, ScoutLabs

• Look at your site & your competitor's sites on various mobile browsers• Optimize your website for the top 3-5 mobile browsers• Get a key executive to start blogging or tweeting

• Visualize how search bots view your site code (see source, cut & paste into Wordle.net)• Compare # inbound links & indexed pages on your site against competitors• Publish search optimized GEO and SKU content pages - Heardable's GeoPing• Use Google's local business listings - http://www.google.com/local/add• Develop a social-search optimization plan - Mahalo, Yahoo Answers, Twitter

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The ABLE Marketer's Next Steps

Measurable

Actionable

Shareable

• Count the # of actionables on your home page and cut them # in half• Design every page on your site like a landing page (enable transactions)• Try multivariate testing to boost landing page results - Test & Target• Conduct quick usability tests to make achieving goals easier - wcriagtomlin.com

• Recognize that your web analytics is probably inadaquate & not real-time• Read a current analytics report and make 3 actionable decisions today• Track & optimize your telephone leads by online campaign using dynamic 800 #'s• Add mobile and social categories to your current search reporting

• Enable easy distribution of your site content & data - Set up RSS and API Feeds• Embrace user feedback - Allow product ratings, accept Mahalo feeds on your site• Try collaborating with employees & partners in a new way - Google Wave

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Appendix

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Online Marketing Resources

Monitoring Tools http://www.converseon.com http://www.ecairn.com http://www.scoutlabs.com http://www.radian6.com http://www.techrigy.com http://www.nielsen.com http://www.trendrr.com http://www.overtone.com http://www.cymfony.com http://www.websitegrader.com http://www.compete.com http://vitrue.com http://www.quantcast.com http://www.conductor.com http://sysomos.com http://www.comscore.com http://en-us.nielsen.com/home http://builtwith.com http://www.crowdscience.com http://www.seomoz.org http://www.trackur.com http://www.alexa.com http://www.heardable.com

SEO http://www.bigmouthmedia.com http://www.6smarketing.com http://www.primevisibility.com http://www.bruceclay.com http://www.webadvantage.net http://www.vizioninteractive.com http://www.submitawebsite.com http://www.seo.com http://www.webmetro.com http://www.netconcepts.com http://www.iCrossing.com http://www.thinkseer.com http://www.purevisibility.com http://www.seojunkies.com http://www.increasevisibility.com http://www.reprisemedia.com http://www.rustybrick.com http://www.seop.com http://www.nowspeed.com http://www.usawebsolutions.com http://www.tmpdm.com http://www.iprospect.com http://www.360i.com

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