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Know Your Opponents, Grow Your Fans

Understand what your competitors are doing and how to improve your marketing playbook.

Information Overload

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Meet Jeff

Where Jeff Should Begin

1. Find where his target audience is located online

2. Find out what his competition is doing

3. Put it all together and build an online marketing playbook

4. Use contests to blend online marketing channels

Finding Jeff’s Target Audience Online

35 Years or Older, with a College Education that makes over $100k

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Quantcast.com• US Demographics

Awesome! – Get a break-down of what types of visitors are going to an individual site.

• Audience Also LikesFind out what other sites a visitor will go.

• Site Found By These KeywordsLearn what keywords sites are being found under.

3 Steps to Finding Your Audience Online

1. Use Quantcast.com to find the demographics of your website

2. Compare and match up with the demographics of top online sites or niche networking sites

3. Find additional possibilities through Quantcast’s “Audience Also Likes” section.

For example: Users of tagged.com also visit urbanchat.com –which directly matches their top demographic.

Facebook

Top Five Social Media NetworksTwitter LinkedIn MySpace Google+

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Facebook Twitter• 32% are over 35

years old

• 32% make $100k or over

• 53% has college or grad. School education

• 38% are over 35 years old

• 30% make $100k or over

• 51% has college or grad. School education

Making the Cut

Getting to Know Jeff’s Competition

Stay ahead by figuring out what’s working for your competition

• Who has the most/least traffic?

• Who has the most/least search volume?

• Who has the best success with organic traffic?

• How are people searching for the competitors?

• Are there geographical areas that are week and can be exploited?

• Are his competitors using paid search?

• What size budget is required to compete within paid search?

• Is social media working? What’s effective in this industry?

Jeff Needs to Find Out…

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MOST/LEAST TRAFFICwww.compete.com

Compete.comCompare up to 5 Sites at Once

• Traffic Levels with Monthly and Yearly Change

• Number of search terms associated with site

• Other website that refer traffic

• Top destination sites

• Top tags associated with websites

Using Compete.com

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Jeff finds Competitors with the Most/Least Traffic

Most Traffic

1.Hilton.com

2.Marriott.com

Least Traffic

1. Sheraton.com

2. CrownePlaza.com

SEARCH VOLUME, TERMS AND GEOGRAPHY

Google Insights for Search

Google Insights for Search

Compare up to 5 Keywords at Once

• Search Trends (insights)– Seasonality

– Upward/Downward Trends

– 12 Month Forecast

• Searches by Geography

• Top Search Terms

• Breakout Search Terms

http://www.google.com/insights/search

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Using Google Insights for Search

Refining Search Phrases to Get Accurate Data

The search phrase we used to understand the search volume for the hotel chain Hilton was:

hilton -prez -perez -paris -hannah -hanna -head

Why? What does that all mean?

If we were to just search for “hilton”, we would have search volume numbers from people searching for “paris hilton”, “perez hilton”, “hilton head”, etc…

“-” means “exclude”

Use the minus sign in your keyword searches to exclude that word from the search results. The results below show this in action:

Jeff finds Competitors with the Most/Least Search Volume

Most Search Vol.

1.Hilton.com

2.Marriott.com

Least Search Vol.

1. CrownePlaza.com

2. Sheraton.com

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Jeff Learns How Consumers are Searching For his Competitors

Use these to identify how people are searching for the competition and what search phrases are soon becoming popular.

Jeff Finds Geographical Locations where His Company is Strong and his Competitors are Not

Cro

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Pla

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yatt

She

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ilton

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COMPETITOR SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITY

BizShark.com | Facebook.com | Twitter.com

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Jeff Determines the Effectiveness of Social Media

Jeff Views Competitors in Facebook(2010)

Community Page – Not moderated

by company Company Page –

Maintained by Hilton

Competitors in Facebook (2011)

Getting Better! –Now a managed page and custom

tabs!

Great! – Had a head start and now pushes engagement through

incentives (giveaways)

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Jeff Finds Potential Engagement on Twitter

Tips for Advanced Searches within Twitter

http://search.twitter.com/advanced

COMPETITOR PAID AND ORGANIC PERFORMANCE

Spyfu.com

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SpyFu.com• Paid Search History, Ad Variations

and Details

• Paid Vs. Organic Traffic Rankings

• Top Paid Keywords

• Top Paid Competitors

• Top Organic Keywords

• Top Organic Competitors

• Other Domains Owned

• Sub Domains

• Up to 3 site comparisons for:

– Paid Keyword Overlap / # of Keywords / Paid Search Spend

– Organic Keyword Overlap / # of Organic Results

Jeff Identifies Competitor Paid Search Efforts

8,606 Keywords are used by all

three top competitors

4,253 Keywords overlap between Hilton and Hyatt

20,915 Keywords

overlap between Hilton and

Marriott

6,726 Keywords overlap

between Hyatt and Marriott

By Targeting these

keywords, Jeff could help keep costs

down by only competing with the #3 competitor

instead of all.

Jeff Identifies Competitor Paid Search Efforts (cont.)

This is a good indicator that Paid Search is working for this industry.

Estimated Spends:

Hilton.com$59,650 - $77,570 / day

Marriott.com$37,350 / day

Hyatt.com$32,350 - $51,000 / day

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Jeff Identifies Competitor Organic Search Efforts

Hilton may be spending

more in paid search, because

Marriott is generating

more results organically

Jeff is able to pick and choose the organic words from the overlap chart that only competes with one of the competitors instead of all three.

DETERMINING PAID SEARCH BUDGET SIZE

Google External Traffic Estimator

Google External Traffic Estimator

• US Search Volume

• Estimated Cost-per-click (CPC)

• Estimated Ad Positions

• Estimated Daily Clicks

• Ad Competition / Keyword

• Daily Summary (CPC, Clicks and Total Cost)

Compare multiple Keywords at Once

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Using Google Traffic Estimator

Leave Blank to estimate for the #1 thru #3

spots

Jeff Determines Budget Requirements for Paid Search on Google

Keyword Comp. Est Avg. CPC Est Ad Pos Est Daily Clicks Est Daily Cost Local Monthly Searches

hilton 100% $1.63  1.56 6,450  $10,525.58  13,600,000 

marriott 100% $1.54  1.26 4,278  $6,678.23  9,140,000 

sheraton 100% $2.72  1.6 2,460  $6,705.90  2,740,000 

hyatt 100% $1.95  1.53 1,877  $3,653.25  4,090,000 

crowne plaza 100% $2.19  1.52 697  $1,524.90  1,000,000 

Estimated Total Search Volume: 30,570,000

UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT ALL MEANS

Summary of Collected Data

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Data Summary

Most/Least Search Traffic

Most Traffic•Hilton.com•Marriott.com

Least Traffic•Sheraton.com•CrownePlaza.com

Most/Least Search Volume

Most Volume•Hilton.com•Marriott.com

Least Volume•CrownePlaza.com•Sheraton.com

Search Terms, Geography

Search Terms•Hotel name•Loyalty programs•Job postings•Locations of Hotel•Types of Hotels

Target Geography•Pacific Northwest•Midwest

Data Summary (cont.)

Social Media

Plenty of engagement possibilities on Twitter

Facebook will require:• Managed business page• Good Content• Direct dialog with users• Cross promotion with other

marketing channels

OrganicSearch

Leverage paid search while organic results

grow

Target keywords that are used by one or

none of the competitors but still have high search

volumes

Paid Search

All competitors are using paid search

Target keywords used by only one or zero

competitors that have high search volumes

Paid Search (cont.)

Competitor Search Budget Range:

$6K - $81K

Estimated Daily Budget to Compete

with all:$23K - $35K

Jeff Builds a Marketing Playbook

There’s more data than ever out there. Knowing how to use it, test concepts and

track performance are now core skills.

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SELF-PROMOTING CONTESTPlaybook Strategy

Combining Contests, Email and Word-of-Mouth

• Jeff chooses Blazon to automate a majority of the contest creation tasks:– Creating a landing page

– Picking a winner

– Managing multiple contests at once

– Contestant management, filtering and email communication.

• Creates widgets for entry forms, contest activity and sponsorship widgets that can be placed in multiple locations online.

• Bridges the gap between email and social media.

Using Blazon

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Jeff Defines His Contest Parameters

• Prize: Two nights in the Presidential Suite

• One entry for each field completed on the entry form

• Two month duration

• Maximum spend of $5,000

PAID SEARCH CAMPAIGNSPlaybook Strategy

Google Paid Search Targeted by Keywords and Geographical Location

• Promoting the hotel group and the contest.

• Run for at least eight weeks to gather the necessary data to allow for educated business decisions on continuation of the campaign.

• Include a budget of $5,000 per day. This will provide enough room to test out various ads and keyword combinations within the eight week pilot.

• Target major metros in the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest.

• Tracked through Google Analytics + AdWords reporting to ensure that the traffic generated is quality.

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Facebook Paid Search Targeted by Demographics

• Run for at least eight weeks to gather the necessary data to allow for educated business decisions on continuation of the campaign.

• Include a budget of $1,000 per day. This will provide enough room to test out various ads within the eight week pilot.

• Target by age and education level

SOCIAL MEDIAPlaybook Strategy

Playbook Strategy: Social Media Content Ideas

1. Sales

2. Promotions

3. Sponsorships

4. Random Occurrences

5. Happy Customers

6. Unique Products

7. Sneak Peeks

8. Fun Things About Your Brand

9. Videos

10. Commercials

11. Events

12. Changes Happening

13. Parties

14. Awards

15. Employee Favorites

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Overall Playbook Process

1. Understand the environment before jumping into campaigns

2. Start small and test the waters (find out what works first)

3. Maximize the effective strategies and minimize the ineffective

4. Track Everything

5. Rinse and Repeat (things change quickly, make sure you stay on top of what is going on out there)

JEFF ROCKSThe Campaign is a Success

Jeff Defeats Info Overload

• Understands what the marketing environment is like out there

• Found out where he could be most effective

• Leveraged contests to build a direct communication database

• Identified how to track and improve

• Started a marketing playbook that will continue to change and increase efficiencies