Archive for the 'Marketing' Category

Writing a PPC ad that contains a “Unique Selling Proposition” can significantly increase conversions. The USP concept offers consumers something desirable & different than the competition. The challenge is getting your USP stated in so few characters. You’re limited to 95 characters on Google.

There are 3 general principles behind a USP - Unique, Selling, and Proposition.

A classic example of a USP message is the M&M’s slogan: “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand” [56 characters].

Uniqueness:
It’s best if your product or service is unique. But, if it’s not unique, then think of something unique about the package, message, or benefits.

Benefits can be classified into “checkable” and “uncheckable” benefits.

- An example of a checkable benefit is FedEx. Their USP is: “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”. The consumer can easily check that.

- An example of an uncheckable benefit is Wonder Bread’s USP, “Wonder Bread Helps Build Strong Bodies 12 Ways”. It’d be pretty tough for somebody to check that benefit.

Selling:
The PPC ad copy needs to be so persuasive that it helps the consumer decide to purchase. The ad copy should be targeting the basic needs of the consumer. Base it on deep motivations or threats to either learned and unlearned needs.

- Learned needs are things like appearance weight, social prestige.
- Unlearned needs are physiological needs such as health, shelter, hunger, and thirst.

Just remember to target a specific need rather than a solution to everything. Specific targeting has been shown to increase conversion rates.

Proposition:
Ideally, the proposition should indicate that the promised benefit will be obtained upon purchase. In order to accomplish this, the USP needs to be believable & credible. Credibility is the most important aspect of the USP.

Methods to aid credibility:
1) Illustration and demonstration.
2) Prestige through association with a person, or organization.
3) Testimonials by ordinary people, (not celebrity endorsements).

Writing compelling PPC ads that contain a USP can be very challenging. If you are running large search campaigns, you might want to consider using an experienced PPC ad copywriter.

I’m psyched I finally got a good favicon. It was two years ago that I tried my hand at creating a favicon. I wasn’t happy with my crude graphics skills. So, I abandoned it for the standard bluehost favicon. That funky blue square.

I know I needed a new one. But it was always on the bottom of the priority list. And when it was in que, it always got bumped for other, more important stuff.

The task bubbled up on my to-do list again, but this time I asked my neighbor who is a graphic artist if she could whip something up for me. Her website Nice Logo, isn’t live yet.

That’s all it took. One quick request. Out of her goodness, within minutes she emailed me back a 3 favicons to choose from.

So now I’m the proud owner of a professionally created favicon.

Note: If you can’t see it, try clearing your cache.

1) Interview of popular person. Post Pictures & a short video from the interview. Although, publishing the text of the interview will provide more searchable terms, and a more “authoritative” webpage…according to the search algorithms. Using both video and the full-text is a win-win situation for users and the ability to drive search traffic.

2) Linking to another high-profile blogger to get a trackback, and clickthrough traffic. If they censor their trackbacks, just hope they approve yours.

3) Giveaway something for free ( widget, template, tool, ringtone, etc).

4) Create a funny/fun flash game. Perhaps, it’ll go viral. Or, go all out, and create something similar to the Subservient Chicken.

5) Get a celebrity to announce your URL on TV. Perhaps, if one of the Grammy-nominated bands for “Best New Artist” like Paramore win, and announce their new site. I’m sure their fans would love to see all the Paramore pictures and Paramore Videos. Imagine how much traffic that could send! Or, perhaps they plug YOUR site.

6) Contests (If it’s cash, get it underwritten. Or, be creative in your prize). Perhaps, offer your services as the prize?

7) Press Releases. Use best practices to optimize press releases.

Social Media. Using sites like Youtube, Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious can mean driving thousands of visitors to your site.

9) Writing blog posts that use an Attack hook, Shock hook, or a breaking News hook to drive traffic.

10) Get a link on a popular unrelated website. Perhaps offer a free or discounted service in exchange for the link.

11) Create a facebook app.

12) Speak at a trade show, organization meeting, or local event.

If you own a website, and want to serve ads using a 3rd party ad server, then here is a method to calculate the Ad Revenue Potential.

Either use your own Web Analytics or use Compete to discover the Visitor and Page View metrics.

Method #1 to Calculate Ad Revenue Potential:

Let’s say there are 5 ads/page. Add up the total of ads on page.
Ad1=$7.00 CPM (728 x 90 Leaderboard)
Ad2=$5.00 CPM (120 x 600 Skyscraper)
Ad3=$3.50 CPM (125 x 125 Square Button)
Ad4=$3.50 CPM (125 x 125 Square Button)
Ad5=$3.50 CPM (125 x 125 Square Button)

The Total Ad Revenue on each page is: $22.50 CPM

Let’s say there are 20,000 Visits/Month, and each visitor has 7 Page Views per Visit. Thats 20,000 x 7 = 140,000 Page Views. 140,000 x 5 Ads = 700,000 Impressions.

The formula is: CPM x Impressions / 1000 = Ad Revenue
$22.50 CPM x 700,000 Impressions = 15,750,000. So, 15,750,000 / 1000 = $15,750.

Method #2 (Simple Method) to Calculate Ad Revenue potential:
Total PageViews (1,000,000) x Ads on page (5)= Total Impressions (5,000,000)
Avg CPM = $4
So, in our scenerio…..
5,000,000/1000 = 5,000 x $4 Avg CPM = $20,000 Ad Revenue Potential.

Remember to abide by the IAB Rules - Terms & Conditions.

Bonus:
Here’s a formula to calculate what CPM to charge to generate a Desired Ad Revenue:
Desired Ad Revenue / Impressions = CPM to charge
Eg: $20,000/5,000,000 = $4.00 CPM.

Naturally, the smart marketer will look for ways to increase Engagement (Page Views), and Traffic (Visitors).

The objective of Reputation Repair is, simply stated, to generate positive press, get it ranked, and bury the old/bad press.

If you discover some inflammatory press, what you’ll need is a full-blown reputation management campaign.

Some things ( A Bakers Dozen) you’ll need to do:
1) Create Forum posts with “your name” in the Title. Post to ALOT of forums.
Use powerful forums like daniweb, webmasterworld, www.flashmobileforum.org, etc.
2) Create a Wikipedia page. “Your name” is worthy. If done right, it shouldn’t get rejected. The link has a nofollow, but the Title tag is golden.
3) Create a Rollyo profile. (use your full name).
4) Create a Technorati profile. (use your full name).
5) Create a MySpace profile. (use your full name in the URL).
6) Create a Digg profile. (use your full name).
7) Optimize your bio page.
Link to “Your name” from every web property you own. Create a new “Your name” webpage from a different domain.
9) Hire a copywriter to write a longpage webpage. Optimize it.
10) Run a PPC Campaign. Bid on your name, and every combination of your name. Because, others may be bidding on your name if you’re not.
11) Don’t just limit your efforts to Web Search. Search is many things today. Perhaps you need to repair your Image Search reputation or Video Search reputation?
12) Write a Viral piece, and submit it to a ton of Social Media sites.
13) Write a Press Release using hyperlinks that contain “your name”.

- After each forum post/link/webpage, submit it to Google manually.

Depending on the severity of the damage, conduct a Media Buy for Links for your name.

Reputation Management Tools:
BlogPulse
Technorati
Cymphony
Moreover
Google Web Search

Disruption Marketing is inventing new methods to disrupt the normal way your industry conducts business. It’s about creating compelling customer engagement, and stronger customer relationships.

Think of the last time you visited a doctor. How long did you have to wait in the waiting room after your appointment time? What subconcious message does the doctor send you? Do you feel he is being considerate of your time? Aren’t you his client. Shouldn’t he be more respectful of your time? So, now…imagine if a doctor advertised that he actually keeps ALL his appointments on time. That would be a form of Disruption Marketing!

How’s this relate to Paid Search? In my opinion, most Search firms need to learn how to integrate Paid Search campaigns with offline marketing. That would be a change in the traditional way Search firms just hand over keyword data, and the corresponding analysis & optimization recommendations to their clients.

How’s this relate to SEO Consultants? Many SEO Consultants charge by the hour. But, what if an SEO Consultant put some “skin into the game” by drastically lowering the hourly rate in return for a specific percentage of the incremental profit he generates. Let’s say reducing the hourly rate by 50%, in return for a percentage of the incremental revenue generated directly from his efforts. This would be a Disruptive change in the SEO industry business model.

The way to monitor and track such an arraingement would be to first establish a baseline of the success metric (eg: conversions). Then, use Web Analytics to track every conversion by keyword by engine. This quantitative data can be used to measure incremental profit.

Disruptive marketing can be used in areas such as: Market Positioning, Service Segmentation, Target Markets, Pricing Structure, etc.

Here are some cool Disruption Tools, including this Disruption Scorecard.