Online MarketingA Tactical Guide for non-Ninjas

by: Josh Breinlinger

Table of Stuff

• High Level Stuff• PAID Stuff• FREE Stuff• Other Important Stuff

Who is this for?

You: • Great marketer, but:– Confused by Twitter– Still think meta tags are important– Want to invest more in online marketing– Just don’t know the best way

This presentation covers the major tactics in online marketing and the tools and you’ll need to succeed.

Note: It does not cover email marketing, lead nurturing, messaging, corporate marketing, etc. That stuff is important too.

- Test, Measure, Optimize- Always, always, always. Never be afraid to test – just find a

way to test quickly and cheaply. If it works, invest more – if it doesn’t work, scrap it.

- Content is King. - Create it, syndicate it, repeat. Make it exceptional. Some

educational, some controversial, some funny.

- Play Nice- You want other people to link to you – link to them first.

Comment on their blogs, retweet their stuff.

Recurring Themes

Team

• How should you build your marketing team to optimize for online marketing?

Director / VP(sets strategy, priorities,

and blogs)

“Free” Marketing Manager (blogs,

manages, analyzes, optimizes)

Writer / Link-Builder (lots of articles)

Writer / Social Media Manager (handles

Twitter, FB, LinkedIn)

Designer (works w writers / blog / etc)

“Paid” Marketing Manager (affiliate, ads,

SEM)

SEM Consultant (~8% of spend)

SEO Advisor (~5 hrs/mo – provides

ideas / strategy)

Agile PR Firm(gets SEO, gets press)

Employee

Contractor

Goals

• Customer Acquisition– Your goal is customer acquisition. (if it’s not, it

should be) – It takes 4+ interactions with your business before

someone buys. – Interactions happen everywhere: search, ads,

friends, etc. – Therefore, you need to be everywhere.

• Be maniacal in your pursuit of this goal.• Create incentive, reward performance.

Stuff

SEM

• SEM is crack – don’t get addicted. The Basic Approach• Each Campaign, Many Ad Groups• 10-200 keywords per Ad Group• 2 ads per Ad Group (always testing)• Keyword (and neg keyword) discovery once a week• Ongoing bid and ad optimization on CPA

Test, Measure, Optimize

Day 0 90 180 3650

20406080

100 SEMSEOW-o-M

Stuff that I Recommend Duh Bing can deliver.

And at lower CPC.Competitors adspend and keywords.

Customer Acquisition Should Look something like this.

Crowdsourced ad creation.

Display Advertising

• Site Targeted Ads. This stuff won’t produce a positive ROI. Useful for branding, otherwise useless.

• Behavioral and Retargeting. It gets high ROI for many businesses. Test it.

• Your Creative – Is critical. Test, Measure, Optimize.

Stuff that I Recommend Self-serve retargeting

platformSelf-serve Flash templates

Easy Ad builder, testcreative

Affiliate Marketing• Depends on your business. B2C / eCommerce

works, B2B might. • Make sure to design something that’s: – Measurable– Fraud-proof– Pays immediate rewards– Focused on getting affiliates a high eCPM

• Or build your own partnerships w rev share

Stuff that I Recommend

High fees, but dominates market

Stuff

Content is King

You MUST be creating great content on an ongoing basis. It should be core to all of your activities. Your blog is central to this.

Stuff that works: • Top xx Lists• Infographics• Benchmark Data Reports• Video Tips• Interview Blog Posts• Guest Blogging

Syndicate• Seed w/ your “circle of trust.”

• 50 employees 250 friends each 12.5k impressions.

• Then go to all the other available sources. • Update status messages, tweet, share on

facebook, digg it, etc.

Stuff that I Recommend Yep, email it out $25 seeds with

500 visitors

PR *85% of people are unhappy with their PR

firm, because they don’t get SEO / Social. • Train your PR firm about SEO. They need to

know your keywords. • Build relationships with bloggers / tweeters –

not just press. Make a “friends” list.• Focus on getting long-term value from PR, not

short-term hits.

Stuff that I Recommend $200 per release –

Do 1 per monthFind influential bloggers Find influential tweeps

*Source: My ass

Look for relevant requests from reporters

SEO• Invest heavily• Keep site optimization in-house • URLs and Page Titles matter most• Use Webmaster tools, sitemaps• Focus most efforts on content / link-bait• Think everyday: “How can I get people to link

to me?” (but understand nofollows)

Stuff that I Recommend Cool browser

toolbarMake sure you have the right plug-ins

Great SEO tools and advice.

For sitemaps, speed,and errors

Spend your Time Like This

Keyword ResearchOnsite Optimiza-tionContent CreationLink Building

Long-Tail keywordmgmt

Twitter

• Yes, it works. • What you need to do? – Export all users to csv – upload to Google contacts –

login to Twitter and invite contacts. – Monitor, Follow, Tweet, Retweet, Engage.– Full-time contractor should manage – someone who

already has 1k+ followers. – You can’t do this as your 18th priority. – Have fun with it – run a contest, giveaway, funny

links. Stuff that I Recommend Monitor, Engage. Good contractors for

$10-$20 per hour.

Facebook

• Create a page, let fans own it• Put hooks, like button, facebook connect on

your site and in your emails• Give people news to talk about• Post pics of office, team, events, users, etc.• Ask users to post reviews / comments on page

Stuff that I Recommend

Contest app. Ecommerce stores

LinkedIn

• Create a company page and a group• Invite your users• Use it for discussion, feature discovery• Answer relevant questions• Get all your employees involved

Stuff that I Recommend Doesn’t integrate well

All the OthersSyndicate articles here Answer questions here Syndicate videos here

Syndicate pics here

Syndicate ppts here

Create profiles here

Get bookmarks here

Playing Nice

• You’re reading relevant content all the time == opportunities.

• Force yourself to engage all the time. Favorite, Like, Comment, Retweet, Post to FB, etc. The seconds it takes to do will pay back big time. You need to make a habit of this.

Other

Customer Service

• It’s the new marketing. Stop measuring % of people that submit a ticket. Start measuring happiness.

Stuff that I Recommend Good feedback Good service Good insights

AT&T - BAD Zappo’s - GOOD

Good method –Implement NPS

Good supportinfrastructure

ConversionDon’t forget to look at conversion ratio. • Signup form – minimize fields, give value first• Landing pages – make a lot, customize, test• Social proof – show your customers – faces,

videos, quotes• Seals: BBB, TrustE, McAfee, etc – I don’t think

these really work

Stuff that I Recommend All-around tool –

landing page creatorSimple A/B tests

The End

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback.

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