Thursday, November 06, 2008
I understand that I live in a world, and in a business space, that demands I “play on the internet all day”. But what confounds me is when I’m asked to consult with companies on their online marketing strategy, and those companies are blocking their staff’s access to social media sites like YouTube and Facebook.
Left hand. Meet the right hand. Social media marketing, online marketing, interactive marketing, whatever you want to call it, happens on the internet. In order to create an online marketing strategy, in order to listen to what your customers are saying, in order to react and interact, your staff need to access these sites on company time.
Mitch Joel has a great business column in the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun on Digital Natives and blocking access. I really like this article for its commentary on the changing face of new employees and how businesses need to adapt: http://tinyurl.com/68hzpp
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Based on Guerrilla Consulting’s 7 Sentence Marketing Plan, I have been thinking about how the 7 Sentences can be modified for online marketing plans.
Free download Sample Marketing Plan & Roadmap from includes the 7-Sentence Marketing Plan.
At the BookNet Canada session “Defining Success: Accountable Online Marketing for Book Publishing”, I was asked about how I start creating an online marketing plan and if I think about the tools first.
I always have the tools in mind (Twitter, Facebook, Delicious), but I start with the 7 Sentence Plan, which really is about the business goals.
1. The purpose of the marketing plan is [specific, measurable goal here].
2. The target audience is [Who does this campaign need to reach? Where are they online?].
3. The niche in the marketplace is [What’s special about this book, how is it different, what are its benefits, competitive advantages?].
4. My identity is [Who and how are we representing ourselves online? Is the author blogging and commenting and the publicist doing the research? Is the publicist representing the author and the house? Are we using our Facebook profile, website, blog?].
5. Our tactics and strategies are [list here the tools, based on what’s going to work best for the target audience].
6. We will devote [percentage or amount of time, people, money] to this project.
7. We are measuring [specific, measurable goals here] and we understand the value of our goal conversions to be [enter values here].
Couple of competitive tools I mentioned:
* MarketLeap.com
* Compete.com
* Google Insights Search
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
September has been a month of conferences. First the Internet Marketing Conference, then Defining Success: Accountable Online Marketing for Book Publishing hosted by BookNet Canada and the Association of Book Publishers of BC, and this Friday ExpressionEngine Roadshow
.
As a speaker (and chatty soul) at each of these conferences, I have talked to a number of people struggling with the same question. How do you define a successful internet marketing campaign? Most understand why they want to be online but are having trouble showing success and getting budget dollars.
The first step is to dispel myths held by those gripping the pursue strings.
- Just because it is online, does not mean it is free.
If you want successful internet marketing campaigns, you have to put money, people and time into them.
Even using free tools, you still need to invest the time in using that tool properly.
- People, process and technology.
You do not have a successful campaign without all 3. The tools and technology are available to do really great things, but the tools are only as good as the people using them.
- Plan. Measure. Improve.
You cannot express success without agreed upon metrics.
- As a company, you have to understand the cost of the campaign and the value generated. The cost is easy to measure.
It is the assignment of value that we often overlook.
How much do we value the new email subscriber, the new Facebook member. What do they mean to our business? How do we measure these indirect benefits across
all campaigns so we know if the email newsletter is actually of greater value to the business than the blog or the twitter feed?
- Sit down with your team and define the value of each marketing action (online and offline). Even set arbitrary numbers to use as a baseline until you have historical data.
Internet Marketing Is Hard and Only for Kids.
Internet marketing is not hard. Doing things you have never done before is hard.
Solutions Research Group produced a report last June (2007) to
show the age groups of Canadians visiting social networking sites: places like Facebook and MySpace.
- 70 percent of 12-19 year olds visited a social networking site within the last month.
- 72 percent of 20-29 year olds
- 44 percent of 30-49
- 29 percent of 50+
That means 23 million Canadians are online. 8 million are in Facebook. The numbers are huge!
Corey Rollins and I live blogged the Internet Marketing Conference (September 11 and 12) for TechVibes. Links to our posts are below:
General Interest
IMC: Keynote Address by Eric T. Peterson.
Author Eric T. Peterson says that if it is worth doing, it is worth doing analytically. Why web analytics is important and what it means to your business.
IMC: Social Media Marketing Success Stories.
Capulet Communications on 5 social media tools.
IMC: Best Tips and Conference Summary.
A quick review of key points from the conference.
IMC: Shannon Ryan on Engagement Marketing.
A really short post with 5 tips for engagement marketing.
IMC: Enterprise 2.0 by Jon Husband Wirearchy Network.
Why hierarchy does not work in a wired world.
How-To
IMC: Usability Testing Without the Lab Coats by Andre Charland from Nitobi.
3 tips for usability testing.
IMC: Engage Community With Your Brand by William Azaroff of Vancity.
Excellent case study on how Vancity Credit Union used social media to create an online community.
IMC: Expert Panel Tips on Writing for the Web.
Monique and an expert panel talk about writing copy for landing pages, email newsletters, multilingual sites and more.
Search Marketing
IMC: HubSpot Website Grader.
A quick measurement of how well your website performs from a search and social media perspective. Test your own site.
IMC: Search Optimization Panel.
An expert panel on search optimization. What makes them tick and ticked about SEO practices.
IMC: Tool Demo on SEO Browser.
Really short post on SEO-Browser.com. Know what a search engine sees when it comes to your site.
Measuring Success
IMC: Website Monetization.
Why defining goals, assigning value and measuring is worthwhile.
IMC: Monitoring Website Performance by Anil Batra of Zero Dash 1.
A great presentation by Anil on why people waste their time tracking statistics that are interesting and what they should be measuring.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Boxcar Marketing is live-blogging the Internet Marketing Conference for TechVibes and Monique is presenting tomorrow on a panel “Writing for the Web”.
Check the TechVibes Blog for posts from IMC.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Are you coming out to this year’s Vancouver Internet Marketing Conference (IMC)? Internet marketers, advertisers and business analysts from all ares of business will be in attendance at IMC this September 11-12 at the Coast Plaza Hotel. Sessions will cover the tools of the trade for doing business online: web analytics, strategy, content, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, social media, on-site behavioral targeting, multivariate testing, and much more.
I and Corey Rollins of AdHack will be live blogging the conference for those who can’t make it or those who are in alternative sessions but want the full conference scoop.
In particular, we are looking forward to hearing from Eric T. Petersen, Web Analytics Demystified; Xavier Casanova, Liveclicker; Christine Mykota, SAP; Tom Leung, Google; Stefan Eyram, ExactTarget; Jonghee Jo, Victoria’s Secret and Bob Page, Yahoo.
Some local favourites are also on tap: Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo, Capulet Communications presenting case studies of successful social media marketing; Alex Brabant of eMarketing101.ca; and Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver-based software engineer and consultant helping businesses serve culturally diverse markets through multilingual websites, who is speaking on a “Writing for the Web” panel with me on Sept 12. You can see full details on Jim’s blog.
There are lots more local favourites and excellent speakers. The full agenda, with links to each speaker, is available at InternetMarketingConference.com.
Hope to see you there, and if not, check out TechVibes where I’ll be live-blogging the conference.
Monday, September 01, 2008
In April 2008 I gave a presentation to the Vancouver League of Drupalers (the Vancouver Drupal users group). My presentation, Email Newsletters: WTF?, is a general overview of the issues involved with managing an email newsletter and 6 mistakes to avoid.
These Show Notes were kindly pulled together by Dale McGladdery.
Introduction
00:00 Email Newsletters: WTF? Opening Credits
00:05 Monique Trottier introduces her talk
Monique’s List of Mistakes to avoid
01:50 Mistake 1: Don’t treat Email HTML like Web HTML, they’re different
04:50 Mistake 2: Forgetting to design for Preview Panes
09:53 Mistake 3: Assuming your images are going to work
13:10 Mistake 4: Too many images, not enough text
16:12 Mistake 5: Not testing in different email programs
19:45 Mistake 6: Do not neglect your footer
Questions
23:35 Campaign Monitor
25:36 Email vs RSS
28:00 Newsletter Focus
30:30 Email Delivery Systems
33:50 What kinds of stats do you want to see from a delivery system
Discussion of handling bounces/unsubscribes
37:10 ISP Blacklisting
37:35 More points on newsletter forwarding
38:47 Getting content into Campaign Monitor
41:00 Outlook 2007 especially problematic
41:40 Recommendations of time/frequency/length
44:54 Jacob Neilson eye tracking study
46:48 What kind of stuff gets forwarded?
47:18 Embedding images, objects, and landing pages
You may also find this blog post interesting (Monique on Lab with Leo talking about Email Marketing): More Email Marketing Tips
References
Boxcar Marketing Website: http://www.boxcarmarketing.com
Constant Contact: http://www.constantcontact.com
Campaign Monitor: http://www.campaignmonitor.com
MailChimp: http://www.mailchimp.com
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