7 Sentence Online Marketing Plan

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

Internet Marketing: How to Measure Success

3 Steps to Measuring the Success of Online Marketing Campaigns
Presented Sept. 18 as part of BookNet Canada and ABPBC’s Defining Success: Accountable Online Marketing for Book Publishing

If you’re not measuring the results of your marketing efforts, then you are wasting money. Here are 3 steps to planning, measuring and improving online campaigns.

Step 1. Establish measurable indicators (or KPIs, key performance indicators) for every marketing effort.

Make sure they are measurable! For example, saying “we want to increase sales” is not something you can measure. Many factors influence a person’s decision to buy. Sales are an indicator of success but the exact marketing effort that led to a sale is not measurable. Sending out a postcard and driving people to a specific URL is something we can measure. How many people came to this page. Further to that, if the page has an online form, how many people completed the form. These 2 things are specific and measurable.

A specific, measurable goal might be:
* visiting a certain webpage
* signing up for a newsletter
* completing an online form

By using free tools like Google Analytics you can precisely track how many people complete your goal and where they came from.

Step 2: Determine your cost per conversion.

A conversion is any time that someone completes a desired action. It doesn’t have to be a sale. A conversion is the completion of a measurable, specific goal.

Your cost per conversion is the amount of money you spend divided by the number of conversions you achieve.

If your campaign involves mailing out postcards that direct people to a specific URL with an online form, your goal is getting people to fill out the form. The campaign costs $500. You track the number of online form submissions and receive 50 submissions.

Cost per conversion = $500 / 50 submissions
$10 per conversion.

If your campaign involves sending out an email newsletter that directs people to a specific URL with an online form, your goal is still getting people to fill out the form. The campaign costs $200. You track the number of online submissions and receive 16 submissions.

Cost per conversion = $200 / 16 submissions
$12.50 per conversion

Now that you have this information you can make some better judgements about how to spend your marketing dollars. With the cost per conversion, you can see that the postcard generated a better (cheaper) cost per conversion than the email newsletter, even though the total cost of the postcard was more.

Cost per conversion helps you determine the actual cost instead of just looking at price. (It is like the cost per pound when buying meat.)

Step 3: Determine the Value

To determine if your marketing effort is worth the money or a waste, you need to determine the value of your activities.

Is it worth it to spend $12.50 to get one person to fill out an online form? Maybe yes, maybe no. It depends on the context. If the form is an order form for a product costing $100, maybe yes.

The value per conversion is $100. The cost per conversion is $12.50.

With both sets of numbers in hand, you can look at all your marketing efforts and decide where to allocate your resources: people, time and money. Don’t stop just at the online marketing activities, look at the offline marketing activities.

It drives me mad when online is asked to justify a spend but offline is not. In these scenarios, you’re wasting money. You are making decisions based on gut instinct and experience. We have experience doing x, y, z and it makes us feel good. It’s safe.

Safe can also be a waste of money.

When a conversion is not related to a sale, how do you set value?

Create a point system. You’ll assign an arbitrary number, but it works as a comparative measurement. You always want specific, measurable goals.

1 person opening and reading your email newsletter = 5 points
1 person viewing a specific video = 5 points
1 person signing up for a newsletter = 10 points
1 person creating an account on your ecommerce site = 100 points

Looks arbitrary, but it works.

If you run Campaign 1 and have 300 people viewing a specific video:
300 people * 5 points = 1,500 points

If you run Campaign 2 and have 200 people sign up for your email newsletter:
200 people * 10 points = 2,000 points

The $ value of each campaign is unknown, but we can see the relative effectiveness. Instead of saying, “we should do more of Campaign 1, it drove the most people”, we can see that Campaign 2, although it drove fewer actions, these actions are of higher value.

Before spending any money, always consider what your specific, measurable goal is worth. As long as you can measure relative effectiveness, you can evaluate whether you are wisely spending money.

Armed with the cost per conversion and the value per conversion, you can make a lot of sense out of the results data. You can easily determine which marketing activities are most effective.

Having trouble figuring out a point system?

Understand the relative value of your online and offline activities. Start with your gut instincts, set the arbitrary numbers, and, as you collect accurate, specific and measurable results, refine those arbitrary numbers into actual dollar values.

For example, if your gut tells you that in-person networking events generate a value of 10 points, but posters only generate 5 points. Then you have the beginnings of a scale.

Posters = 5 points
In-person networking = 10 points

If you and your marketing and sales team can agree that online networking and social media is equal to in-person marketing, then online networking is 10 points. If your team is skeptical, then you can negotiate. If online networking is of greater value than posters but lesser value than in-person networking, agree to give it 8 points.

From chaos to order.

Posters = 5 points
Online networking = 8 points
In-person networking = 10 points

Here is how I’d pair off some common online and offline marketing activities. You have to determine the value order and points based on your business context, but you can use these pairings to help those who operate on gut instinct, or those with little experience online, begin to create a point system.

Advertising (radio, print, direct mail) • Online advertising (email ads, banner ads, search ads
Articles in print (circulation numbers) • Articles Online (unique visitors to site)
Marketing messages with telephone hold music •  Email signatures
In-person networking   •  Online networking
Posters •  Web badges and widgets
Press releases •  Electronic press releases
Letters to the Editor •  Blog comments, Online reviews
Referral program •  Online affiliate program
TV ads •  YouTube videos
Word of Mouth (real world)  •  Word of Mouth (virtual world: blogs, forums, wikis, email forwards)

4 Myths About Internet Marketing

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.

1. 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.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. 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.
  
  

4. 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!

 

Posted by Monique Trottier. Filed under: • Services • Guest Speaking • Web Strategy • Web Marketing • Underwire Newsletter • Online Marketing Tips
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Internet Marketing Conference Round-Up

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.

Techvibes.com Relaunches with New Design

Congratulations to our friends at Techvibes who launched the new design of their website today!

The new design is more user friendly and the content is easier to pick out from the featured members and advertising. I like the new look. 

As mentioned in their email blast,Techvibes was acquired by entrepreneurs Boris Wertz and Geoff Hampson, “with the goal of realigning it as a hyper-local technology news blog and community.“

What are the other improvements of note:

* A complete redesign, cleaner and standards-compliant
* Ability to choose between per-city local content or all-city global content
* RSS feeds for blog posts, blog comments, jobs, and events
* Improved site search
* Consolidated forums into one area
* Google Maps integration

Check out the new design of Techvibes.com

Buying gasoline futures business launches

On April 3, 2006 I wrote a longish post about a crazy idea I had: buying futures of gasoline.

The game of finding lower-priced gas is just a diversion from the pain of having to buy it in the first place. Maybe we kid ourselves that we make out ahead of the game. Maybe we do make out ahead by playing the game. I don’t think that matters, I haven’t seen a lot of gas companies go out of business.

At the same time all the gas companies are trying to find ways to keep customers loyal. They offer a commodity product and try to differentiate it with fancy tech-sounding additives. They have a schizophrenia. They want customers to pay at the pump for convenience, yet they also want customers to come into the store to stock up on chips and pop. But it’s a gas station. People pull in for gas or to use the bathroom. That’s about it. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of opportunity for building the business based on the site.

Now I have an idea for how gas stations can make their customers loyal: selling gas futures. What are gas futures? They’re essentially price speculation in the present on the future price of gas. It’s what commodity traders do all the time. Buy at one price and exercise at another.

Now someone has gone out and done it, Springwise reports. A company called MyGallons (ouch, I guess they’re doing business only in Imperial-measuring countries?) has launched that lets its members buy gas in bulk today at today’s prices, then decrement their account in the future. Sounds close to what I described, but not as interesting and not strategically with the same benefit for gas stations.

Also, the comments on the Springwise post make MyGallons’ reputation look a little smelly, so buyers beware.

So what do you think? Would you pay today to lock in a price for gas that you could redeem tomorrow?

Social Media Marketing & Non-Profits

Marketing Nonprofit Causes on Chronicle of Philanthropy posted Tuesday, May 20, 2008:

Question from Ken D. Grunke, Pillars:
Hi Seth. Would you share your suggestions for how nonprofits should approach the social networking for the first time? I have heard you should be accessing multiple social networking sites and then I have heard that you should only be concentrating on one.

Seth Godin:
The networks are irrelevant. What’s relevant is the network. Who, not how many. Who, not where.

If your organization can only successfully focus on one thing at a time, then do that. But most urgently, make the relationships you build worthwhile. You don’t need 1000 shallow relationships, you don’t need a long list of friends. What you need is deep relationships, people willing to mortgage their house to support you, willing to host a party to support you, willing to devote a vacation to support you. That’s not about volume, nor is it about the site. It’s about how you build relationships that matter.

Seth goes on to talk about how the terms we use for marketing “miss the mark” (pun mine and intended). He says that “target audience” is not the right way to approach marketing, that it’s more about farming and cultivation.

His advice to all non-profits, and this applies to companies as well, is to do the basics: make big promises, deliver.

“Tell stories people want to hear. Create a service worth talking about. Make it easy for others to spread the word. Get permission from people to follow up and then repeat! The basics are what most organizations are missing. Obsessing about this is far more effective than managing the latest fad.“

See Seth Godin’s post on charity auctions and ways to raise awareness and raise money.

Boostrapper’s Bible is free. It’s written by Seth and available at squidoo.com/seth

Seth gives examples of charities that are successfully using marketing techniques:
1. kiva.org: loans that change lives
2. roomtoread.org
3. the fellows program at acumenfund.org

Seth gives some specifics on why Kiva is remarkable:
1. Kiva grows by connecting people in a way that online folks find remarkable. So they blog about it and talk about it and bring in others.
2. Meanwhile, those benefiting from Kiva’s connection also talk about it. So they bring in new benefactors.
3. Since all Kiva does is connect the two, they scale and scale and scale.

The great question that comes out of this question/answer period with Seth is “if someone talks about you, what do they say?“

Are you remarkable? Are you connecting to people 1-to-1 so that they can go and talk 1-to-many?

Back to my presentation in Kelowna to the Chief Marketing Executives: none of these social media marketing tools work unless you’re doing the basics.

Great conversation. Check out: Marketing Nonprofit Causes on Chronicle of Philanthropy