SEM, SEO, PPC, CPC..please define

by Jeff Kershner 

I had a nice conversation with someone the other day and we were talking about how it’s so easy to get all these acronyms mixed up. You read an article in one magazine that talks about SEM and the next article you read refers to what seems to be the same thing as SEO. I myself have even been guilty of using different acronyms but not necessarily clarifying with the right terms.

So, I thought I would put together a few of the common acronyms to help clarify. I know these might seem elementary and obvious to many of us but it’s easy to get confused or just forget sometimes.

So lets review;

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

The term used to describe the technique of preparing your dealerships website to enhance its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine once a relevant search is undertaken. A number of factors are important when optimizing a website, including the content and structure of the website’s copy and page layout, the HTML meta-tags and the submission process. This can also be referred to as Search Engine Positioning (SEP). Some companies commonly include SEO under the same umbrella as search engine marketing (SEM).

Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

The act of marketing your dealership website via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings (search engine optimization), purchasing paid listings (PPC management) or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities (i.e. local listings, the new Google local coupon or link development). SEM is not always include SEO, so be sure to clarify this when you are speaking with an SEM vendor.

Cost-per-Click (CPC) or Pay-per-Click (PPC):

This is where an advertiser (or you the dealer) pays an agreed amount for each click a consumer makes on a link leading to your dealers web site. This is also known as “Paid Placement.”

Organic/Natural Listings:

Listings that search engines do not sell (unlike paid listings, CPC and PPC). Instead, your dealer’s website appears solely because the search engine has deemed it editorially important for your web site to be included. There is where your dealers’ website SEO comes into play.

There you have it. If anyone would like to share some thought or comments, please do so.

Source: http://www.dealerrefresh.com/my_weblog/2006/08/sem_seo_ppc_cpc.html

How will Flash alter the SEO landscape?

By Michael Estrin
News of Adobe’s decision to work with Google and Yahoo to make Flash searchable spread like wildfire. But so far, agencies aren’t sure what this change really means.

When John Romano, a senior web developer for marketing firm Capstrat, sits down to build a website for a client, he worries about a lot of things. But one concern foremost in his mind is whether anyone will see the cutting-edge work his team is tasked with creating. While Romano’s work is the kind clients pay handily for and users love, it’s not the sort of content that is search engine friendly. But that will soon change, as the two leading search engines and Adobe, which makes the tools Romano uses, have joined forces to help make his work more accessible by indexing the web for rich media files. 

For Romano, and many like him, the problem can be summed up in a word: Flash. Adobe’s powerful multimedia tool has become the instrument of choice for interactive agencies eager to deliver fully immersive online experiences that do more than simply hurl text at today’s fickle users.

But while 98 percent of internet-connected desktops have Flash Player installed, few users are likely to find a website rich in Flash.

“Getting Google [and other search engines] to connect users with specific Flash content has been a real problem,” Romano confesses, “and it’s been something the industry has been struggling with for years.”

Since the beginning, search engines have been fixated on text, rather than images or other forms of reach media. The result has been that pages heavy in images and rich media don’t rise to the top of the natural search results, even when they are more relevant than their text-based counterparts. To counteract this problem, digital agencies have employed an array of cumbersome solutions to help users find the more dazzling sites employed by major brand clients.

But the solutions — a patchwork of proprietary fixes designed to boost SEO efforts for Flash-heavy sites — have been far from ideal. Often developers find themselves duplicating efforts in both Flash and HTML, which can be both expensive and time consuming. The announcement earlier this month from Adobe, Google and Yahoo could change all that. At least, that’s the plan. But as is often the case, a barrage of questions followed from the agencies charged with leveraging the latest technology development on behalf of their clients. 

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So how much does Flash weigh?
Mention the words “SEO” and “change” and you’re bound to get the attention of a lot people working in interactive. Little wonder. Being found is the name of the game for anyone working on the web. But the decision to begin indexing Flash has raised the web’s constant question: what does this mean for my business?

According to Google and Adobe, developers using Flash won’t need to make any retroactive changes, and they won’t need to do any special work to make their files accessible to the search engine spiders. But finding the Flash content is only the beginning, according to Ivan Todorov, CEO of BLITZ, an interactive agency that has worked with clients ranging from FX Networks to Lincoln.

“In the long-term, we think this will have a huge impact for the future of interactive,” Todorov says. “But right now, the primary concern is how Flash will be weighed by the search engines.”

Unfortunately for Todorov, that question isn’t one Google or Yahoo is likely to answer because it would mean sharing proprietary information related to their algorithms. While Todorov and others say they would like to be part of that conversation — presumably to argue for giving Flash maximum value — agencies are likely to be kept in the dark where SEO is concerned.

But according to Tom Barclay, senior manager, Flash Player at Adobe, all parties fully expect the Flash developer community as well as SEO experts to develop best practices for optimizing rich media content under the umbrella of an Adobe/Google/Yahoo collaboration.

“Existing Shockwave Flash (SWF) content is now searchable using Google search and, in the future, Yahoo search, dramatically improving the relevance of rich internet applications and rich media experiences that run in Adobe Flash Player,” Barclay explains. “As with HTML content, best practices will emerge over time for creating SWF content that is more optimized for search engine rankings.”

But in the meantime, Andrew Lovasz, director of search marketing at Moxie Interactive, says the change is likely to reorder natural search results where smaller operations were benefiting because their competitors were relying almost exclusively on Flash.

“This is definitely going to raise the barrier to entry,” Lovasz says, pointing out that big brands that are more likely to have Flash-heavy sites can expect to see a rise in their natural search results.

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The devil in the details
While searchable Flash raises the immediate and obvious question of “weighting” rich media as a content category, the truth of the matter is that the search engine ranking debate will always rage, whether the topic relates to text, Flash, video, audio or any other format. But behind the question of how all this newly ranked content will be integrated into natural search results, agencies will still have to grapple with the mechanics of developing for Flash.

“The headline was really nice to hear,” says Cheryl Haas, VP Fleishman-Hillard. “Hearing that Google, Yahoo and Adobe are all working together is a great start, but I think we’re still a long way off.”

What looks like the proverbial flip of the switch — Adobe’s decision to partner with the two leading search engines — in reality raises a slew of technical questions.

According to Lovasz, and many others, Yahoo, Google and Adobe have been long on excitement, but short on actionable details.

As a simple administrative matter, Google has said that it will take several weeks to index the vast amounts of Flash strewn across the web. Yahoo will begin indexing the web for Flash at an undetermined point in the near future. But while the indexing process is underway, Haas says her team has concerns that neither Google nor Yahoo will be able to crawl JavaScript, which is used to execute Flash content. That’s true, according to Google, but the search giant says it’s working on remedying that, and officials at Adobe say they’re attacking that problem as well.

But Haas’ concerns may highlight a larger problem for Adobe and its search engine partners. While agencies have uniformly praised the news, many have expressed concern that the Flash developer community remains largely in the dark regarding the establishment of best practices for building the Flash sites of tomorrow.

For its part, Google admits that there is no established best practices guide that is endorsed by all three companies. However, Google has its own online resource for developers, as does Adobe.

But a lack of communication — perceived or real — could slow the development of a Flash-friendly web, Romano says, and points out that it will be up to the armies of disconnected developers to figure out the mechanics of this latest tool.

“Our technical people have punched a lot of holes in this, and that’s not surprising given the fact that matching Google’s technology with Adobe isn’t easy,” Romano explains. “This is only the beginning of the solution, and it is likely going to take years to solve because it will require developers to ultimately build Flash sites differently.”

But that doesn’t mean that Adobe is operating independently of all developers. Stephen Jackson, CEO of Smashing Ideas, the largest independent developer of Flash in the U.S., says Adobe works hard to communicate changes with a core group of companies that use its products.

“I think a lot of the disconnect here is that there are millions of Flash users out there,” Jackson says. “So working with all of them makes it rather hard to conduct business.”

What will this mean for interactive?
Across the board, agencies do seem to agree that the decision by Yahoo, Google and Adobe to work together will be a good thing for the interactive advertising business. But just how good is hard to say.

What seems unlikely to some is the idea that improved search optimization for Flash will lead to more Flash development. As Haas put it: “You won’t see people building in Flash just for the sake of having Flash; there has to be a reason.”

But improvements in Flash should have an indirectly positive effect on the overall industry, according to Jackson, who says that getting cutting edge content in front of more users — especially from a Google or Yahoo query — should help drive impressions and clickthroughs.

“It all depends on impressions and clickthroughs,” Jackson says. “If this makes that happen, then you’ll see more advertisers increasing their online budgets.”

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20032.asp

No Indexing Guarantee From Google Flash Crawls

By David A. Utter

Crawlers may miss things inside SWF

Just because Google says they pry out the text content from Flash files and make them searchable may mean less than webmasters think.

Flash represented a surefire way to keep content out of search engines. The algorithms that could chew through massive text files without a hiccup hit a brick wall when it came to the rich media content of a Flash file.

Google became the first engine to enable its crawler to peek inside Flash files and pull out indexable content; Yahoo should offer this at some future date. SEOmoz maven Rand Fishkin said it’s too soon to get excited about Google indexing Flash.

“Flash content is fundamentally different from HTML on webpage URLs, and being able to parse links in the Flash code and text snippets does not make Flash search-engine friendly,” said Fishkin. “But I don’t believe web developers should be any less wary than they’ve been in the past about Flash-based websites or Flash-embedded content.”

Out of several reasons Fishkin listed for keeping a wary eye on Flash indexing, one stood out. “There’s no ‘test my site’s Flash file crawlability’ feature that I’m aware of, leaving us very much in the dark about exactly how the engine’s going to parse your material,” he said.

One should hope that Google will work on such a feature, and add it to their Webmaster Central toolset. If Google demonstrates to webmasters what the crawler sees, that would be a boon for Flash’s owner Adobe.

Webmasters who avoid Flash for SEO purposes now may rethink its use with a reliable method of finding out how well Google indexes a Flash file. That would lead to more sales of Adobe’s developer tools, something we think they want to see.

Focus on the customers, not the clicks

By Chris Chariton

Traffic to your website is great, but engaged customers are what you really need. Here’s how to turn anonymous clickers into promising sales leads.

It’s time we re-framed the concept of “driving traffic” to websites.Just what is traffic anyway?Once upon a time, it wasn’t much more than a bunch of anonymous vehicles, people or things moving from one place to another. But since the dawn of the web, it’s what companies receive when visitors click from one place to another. And that’s the dissatisfying result: if your web strategy focuses on driving traffic, you end up with anonymous clicks and page after page of site traffic reports of limited value.

Rather than “driving traffic,” focus on getting motivated prospects and valuable customers to visit your websites and convert them into qualified sales leads. By re-framing your objectives, you may end up reallocating some of your online marketing investments.

Take keyword ads on general search engines. While these are important parts of an online marketing strategy, your ads may not be reaching the audience you are interested in targeting. You can end up paying for a glut of unqualified traffic — even if you have the right keywords.

One way business-to-business advertisers can avoid attracting unqualified traffic from the vast ocean of consumers visiting mass market search engines is by being more focused with your keywords. Instead of using “pumps,” consider using “turbine pumps,” a keyword geared toward a specific audience. Using long tail SEO keyword practices will attract people with the same specific and targeted interests.

Another strategy delivering motivated prospects — not just clicks — is displaying ads only to targeted audiences. You can’t always do this on general search engines, but you can with some B2B oriented destination sites — vertical search engines — where your filtered, targeted audiences are aggregated for you.

Other strategies to drive qualified prospects to your site include having a presence in relevant online directories, advertising in appropriate e-newsletters and showcasing your capabilities with banner ads on targeted web sites.

A robust, visible presence — more than just a link to your website — in online directories provides branding and messaging capabilities to motivate qualified prospects to visit you. Look for directories that are geared exclusively toward your B2B audience. They offer multiple options for showcasing your company and products. 

Purchasing ads in e-newsletters can also change the focus from traffic to qualified leads. When determining an e-newsletter advertising strategy, consider both the size of the audience and the mix of readers. Ask the publisher for both the number of subscribers and a subscriber profile, preferably by industry and job function. Review the subscriber profile and you’ll know if you’re targeting the right audience.

Finally, don’t forget online banner ads that appear on targeted websites. Seek out a partner that offers a banner ad network allowing you to reach targeted audiences across multiple sites with a single buy, helping to save media research, program management and tracking time.

These strategies drive prospects to your website, usually to a specific landing page deep within the site containing relevant content. Now the other half of the equation comes into play: You need to convert these visitors into qualified leads.

The easiest way to accomplish this is by offering valuable content that qualified prospects will register to obtain. In other words, exchange something valuable to you (their contact information) for something of value to them (a white paper or Webinar offer). Your lead-focused landing page should also include a simple form that captures an email address and a phone number.

Converting site visitors from nameless, faceless clicks to identifiable prospects also gives you a way to accurately measure the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives, allowing you to shift dollars to the programs that perform best.
Follow these suggestions and you’ll never again incorrectly focus on “driving traffic” to your website. Your focus will be exactly where it needs to be: on customers, not clicks.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19928.asp

10 SEO Myths Debunked

Confused about SEO? You’re not alone. We reached out to leading SEO gurus, including Google’s search evangelist and Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land, to uncover the truth behind the most common myths.

Attending an ad:tech San Francisco panel on search engine optimization, one fact came apparent almost immediately: There is a ton of misinformation out there when it comes to SEO.

While iMediaConnection covers developments in search faithfully, we often leave it up to our readers to update their understanding of the field. But for this particular story, we elected to take a slightly different approach.

To address some of the more common misperceptions about SEO, we asked several SEO experts to tell us about the most common myths they hear from their clients.

Here’s what we found.

Myth #1: SEO is all about secret tactics

Reality
I talk to a lot of people about SEO, plenty of whom are new to it. I’d say the most common myth is that SEO involves all “secret” tactics requiring you to buy links or trick the search engines, and that no one in the industry can be trusted. In reality, there are a lot of simple but effective techniques that even the search engines will tell you to do that can increase traffic. And there are plenty of people who are not snake oil salespeople who can provide this useful service.

A good place to start the process is to look at your analytics. There are a variety of tools, including some from Google, that spotlight if you have problems being accessed by search engines. I also like a top-down approach. You start from the homepage and ensure that it is search engine friendly, then work your way back through the site going down the paths that are most important to your business.

Myth #2: SEO means optimizing only for Google

Reality
True, Google is the dominant search engine in many parts of the world, accounting for 60 to 90 percent of all search traffic; but if you think all search engine optimization is for Google, you have missed the online marketing love boat and should return to work at your mimeograph machine.

Yahoo, MSN and hundreds of special interest sites, along with vertical or category-specific search engines, are crawling and indexing your content. The art and science of SEO includes optimizing for vertical information sites, news and social groups as well.

So, what’s the best SEO strategy? While being aware of technological pitfalls and linking advantages is important, stop optimizing for Google and start optimizing for your intended audience. Building search-friendly sites in a content-friendly environment is the best way to win.

Kevin Ryan is vice president, global content director at Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch

Myth #3: Submitting your site to thousands of directories helps

Reality
I get countless spam emails promising to get me the top listings in Google by submitting my site to thousands of web directories. It’s easy for anyone to start a web directory these days. Just buy some web directory software, and you’re good to go. That’s the danger! There is a proliferation of web directories from all the web entrepreneurs using web directory software, or some kind of PHP directory script.

Many web directories are brand new “out-of-the-box” and they don’t have authority, aged domain, or a strong inbound link profile. So, submitting to these directories will not provide any substantial type of SEO lift you might hope for. The reality of the matter is that some of those submissions may actually put your site in a “bad neighborhood” and hurt your SEO efforts.

Here are some factors to look for in a quality web directory:
1) Quantity of inbound links
2) Quality of inbound links
3) Age of domain
4) Topical relevancy to your site
5) Human-edited is better than automated because editorial control tends to lend itself to quality
6) How frequently the directory gets crawled (check the Google cache)
7) The directory itself ranks in the search engines — this can be a sign of authority and can drive clickthrough traffic
8) Are their links direct, static links or are they redirected to your site?

Bottom line: Web directory submissions do help. However, it’s better to cherry pick a handful of the most reputable/authoritative web directories instead of taking the easy way and shooting yourself in the foot by using an automated process to submit your site to thousands of directories.

Myth #4: SEO is free

Reality
Just because it’s not “paid search” (SEM), doesn’t mean it’s free.

The costs associated with SEO are:
1) SEO consultant
2) Programmer/graphic designer
3) Link development
4) Do-it-yourselfer’s time (based on hourly rates)

Depending on the website and campaign objectives, an SEO campaign could cost a few thousand dollars per month to tens of thousands per month.

Metrics to measure SEO success are:

1) Keyword ranking
2) Website traffic
3) ROI
4) Brand awareness/brand engagement

Sandler’s practice, which can be found at ShimonSandler.com, appears as the top result (behind a directory) on Google for the combined terms: “SEO Consultant.”

Myth #5: Keywords need to appear everywhere

A popular myth (brought on by people reading old SEO information that is not relevant to the current marketplace and optimization software that was programmed many years ago) is that you should put your keywords everywhere to rank as best you can. The truth is that Google’s current relevancy algorithms favor more natural writing that includes a more diverse and realistic set of text with more variation in it. Some common variation strategies include using both the plural and singular versions of a keyword, changing the order of words in a phrase and adding relevant modifiers to page titles and headings.

Four or five years ago if you wanted to rank for “credit cards” you would put that phrase in your page title, in an H1 tag on the page, and in most of your inbound anchor text to that page. If you wanted to rank for the same phrase today, you might put a modifier word or two in the page title, opting for something like “Compare Credit Cards Online.” Within the page copy the heading might be something more like “Apply for a Credit Card Today.” Rather than focusing on the core phrase, this strategy still gets you decent coverage for it, but also helps the page rank for a much wider net of related keywords, and it makes the page much less likely to get filtered. You should also mix up your anchor text as well, if possible. If every link to a site has the exact same anchor text it doesn’t look natural.

In addition to Wall’s SEOBook.com site, he has also launched the SEO Training program to help interactive marketers better understand SEO.

Myth #6: SEO is a one-time event for a website

Reality
It’s logical that a dynamically changing database of information (a search engine) requires recurring and systematic website optimization strategies and tactics.

SEO must be anchored with multi-disciplinary teams of interactive specialists who focus on website development, usability and search engine friendliness. In regard to SEO, we investigate how a search engine works to discover the requirements for acquiring natural search traffic. Our methodologies are described best in Google’s Guidelines. Following the principles of this document and taking advantage of many years of compliance, we have modeled an SEO methodology utilizing both one-time and recurring modules to produce a list of SEO client observations of success over a 12-year period. These are the factors known to contribute to SEO success, and our team is constantly aware of this when serving client needs.

Usually, the first three-modules are one-time events: keyword research, diagnostic audit and diagnostic audit modifications. The remaining three modules are recurring by nature: website and competitive analysis, page editing and optimization and link building strategy implementation. The recurring components work in sync with the way search engines work. They come into play when creating new websites, dealing with competitive pressures, adding new or dynamic pages, changing content and ongoing link profiling.

Myth #7: SEO will take years to return results

Reality
A professional SEO process begins with a “needs assessment,” documenting past, current and future activities related to natural search (SEO). When allowed to provide our process and methodology, complex websites have returned excellent natural search results within 30-90 days.

A critical path to quick wins is having proper measurement metrics in place. Benchmarking natural search status prior to SEO implementation is also important for setting up your SEM scorecard. Measuring lift is easily accomplished by measuring non-brand keyword traffic and/or revenue using web analytics and/or interactive marketing analytics.

The “SEO assessment and measurement process” is distributed to provide stakeholders with critical data about SEO expectations and ROI. Clearly, statements about SEO results and expectations have long been misunderstood or even abused within the search community, primarily due to a lack of professional guidelines and/or industry standards.

Companies seeking SEO services must look for SEM qualifications. SEO best practices are now available to mitigate abuses creating false expectations, and no one has to wait years to see results.

Bruemmer is a regular contributor on search for iMediaConnection.

Myth #8: PageRank is the critical measure of a site’s success

Reality
PageRank was a rather defining aspect of early Google search. Today, however — while PageRank still plays a role — we use more than 200 signals in ranking search results. This means that webmasters who focus primarily on PageRank are missing the bigger picture and overlooking aspects of their website that they have more control over. Of particular note, PageRank is focused on the issue of a page’s importance, whereas a larger component in determining search results is relevance. We aim to deliver results that are relevant to the query typed into the search box, the area where the person is searching from and, in many cases, even each person’s own demonstrated interests, based upon search history.

At the core, though, what generally makes a site successful is original and compelling content and tools. For a given set of pages, PageRank may fluctuate, and rankings do shift as the internet evolves. But in the end, what’s most important is consistently happy users: people who bookmark and share your site, who understand and respect your brand and who can confidently and seamlessly make that purchase.

Myth #9: Accessibility doesn’t really matter

Reality
Too many webmasters have thought of accessibility as an afterthought, as a “nice to add” feature for the blind or for a hypothetically small number of people on dial-up or super old computers. However, folks browsing the web on an iPhone can’t do anything on a site that has all its content and navigation in Flash. Business folks wanting to make purchases on the go using a low-bandwidth connection may find many of today’s multimedia-heavy sites simply unusable. And, especially relevant to your page’s ranking in search results, Googlebot cannot understand the meaning of photos or videos.

Site accessibility — by users on a wide variety of browsers and connections and by search engine bots — should be one of the first things webmasters focus on. If users can’t effectively use your site, you lose business. And if Googlebot can’t access or understand your site, you lose traffic.

Here are a couple of best practices: Make the bulk of your content and navigation text-based, optionally adding multimedia to spice things up. Next, test your site using mobile phone browsers and ideally even a text-based browser such as Lynx. We have more details in our official Webmaster Central blog, here and here.

Myth #10: Google has an adversarial relationship with webmasters and publishers

Reality
We view webmasters as our allies, and that’s not just pie-in-the-sky idealism. Helping webmasters get great content into Google benefits everyone — the webmasters, Google and our millions of users. That’s why we created Webmaster Central, which features a collection of powerful webmaster tools, our official webmaster blog, a forum featuring Googler and non-Googler search experts and help documentation in more than two dozen languages.

We are, of course, a bit constrained in what we can disclose about the subtleties of our ranking algorithms and such, largely to protect against unscrupulous folks who attempt to deceive both Google and our users. I was a webmaster myself for many years, so believe me, I know that can be frustrating. However, we’ve been sharing an increasing amount of information with site owners over the last few years, providing insights into how Googlebot sees a site’s pages, what keywords these pages most commonly show up for in our search results and so on.

Of greater importance, though, we’ve been supporting more two-way communication. We have a message center in our Webmaster Tools where we can, for instance, let webmasters know that their site has been hacked. And we have dozens of experienced Googlers from our Search Quality team who spend a lot of time reading and posting in our Webmaster Help groups and attending conferences around the world, answering questions and building up communities of search experts.

 Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19804.asp

5 tips for successful action-prompted emails

By Scott Roth and Katrina Willis

A triggered email is any message sent to an individual based on the occurrence of an event (or a non-event). Consider one of our favorite examples — the “Birthday Club” email. On your Big Day, you receive an email message from your favorite restaurant offering a 20 percent discount on your dinner tab. You click through the email to the restaurant website, make an online reservation and receive a return email confirming a table for your party of six.

That scenario involved two triggered emails — the initial Birthday Club email automatically triggered by date, and the confirmation email triggered by the action you took on the website. The interaction was seamless for the recipient — and for you as a marketer. That’s quite possibly the best thing about triggered emails: They keep working for you, even when you’re not thinking about them.

If you haven’t yet incorporated triggered email into your business plan, it’s time to start. You’ll discover it’s well worth the front-end effort to experience the back-end benefit.

As email has evolved (see “Say goodbye to mass emailing“), subscribers have developed new expectations. They expect to receive a confirmation email after they purchase a product (or book a reservation). They expect to hear from you as soon as their item has shipped. Don’t disappoint them with an untimely delay — or worse yet, no response at all.

The following tips will help you think about triggered emails differently. Consider these the initial steps toward a well-rounded, fully functioning triggered email marketing campaign.

1. Think “response”
Triggered email can refer to a variety of scenarios; from password reminders to shopping cart abandonment to whitepaper downloads. The key to using triggered email effectively is to identify points of interaction with your business and prepare pre-defined responses to different scenarios. Start with simple interactions first, and then begin looking for areas where a little customer service can impact your business — and your bottom line.

2. Take control and free IT
Your IT department has coding to do. Take control of your one-to-one communications and free IT from the email grip. It’s easy with a program that gives you visibility into marketing campaigns and allows you to make changes on the fly to improve subscriber response. You can pause, change and restart your email marketing campaign without missing a beat. No IT intervention necessary.

3. Get them close
Research consistently shows that reducing the number of clicks required to take action on your site increases responsiveness. For example, instead of linking to a general product landing page, link to a page in your triggered email message that highlights the accessories directly related to a recently purchased product. 

4. Seize the opportunity
Emails triggered in response to website activity are highly anticipated by subscribers. Take advantage of getting in front of customers by offering an upsell, advertising a promotion or presenting a marketing call-to-action. Think of the wildly successful Amazon.com approach — “if you enjoyed this, you might like this.” Just make sure your marketing offer doesn’t overshadow your triggered message.

5. Look at the big picture
It’s easy to get caught up in the minutia of your triggered campaign reporting. Start measuring your triggered email effectiveness by looking at aggregate results. Is your overall campaign contributing incremental revenue or leads? Are your customer service calls decreasing?

Effective triggered campaigns keep subscribers engaged and make continued contributions to your bottom line. You can’t beat a program that keeps working while you sleep! You owe it to yourself, your subscribers and your bottom line to automate your digital communications plan with triggered email.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19653.asp

The Newest Sales-Boosting Strategy

By David Wengel

Making the sale hinges on the lead. On-demand lead scoring is a technique that clarifies who your best leads are and allows you to target them accordingly.

How many sales versus marketing conflicts would vanish if marketing could easily vet and prioritize every lead it passed on to sales? And how much airfare could you save if you could grow wings and fly?

If you’re a marketing executive, then you would probably put both questions in the same box because one is just about as likely to happen as the other. Vetting and prioritizing sales leads is labor intensive and expensive. Doing it fast enough to get the hot leads to sales before they cool off has been close to impossible — maybe only slightly less impossible than actually sprouting wings.

It would be in the marketing organization’s best interest to rank the promise of every lead it passes to the sales organization, but the realities of time and cost effectiveness have not allowed the necessary information gathering and analysis. Devoid of solutions, marketing executives have been left to soldier on as best they can: No matter how much they spend on marketing, most companies still treat every inbound lead the same, no matter how valuable the leads are likely to become.

Recently, however, on-demand lead scoring, supported by advances in marketing technology, has developed to improve the quality of leads that marketing sends to sales.

On-demand lead scoring should ideally combine historical customer information with consumer data and predictive analytics. If you’re setting out to automatically prioritize each incoming lead, then you’ll need the level of insight that comes from combining these three types of information. Without all three, you’re throwing away chances to boost sales conversions and customer value.

The most basic on-demand lead scoring solutions reveal exactly who is contacting your company through your marketing programs, whether they’re reachable given the contact information they provided, which leads should be top priorities and which products or services are most relevant to the lead.

This information enables salespeople to target the hottest prospects, whichever criteria you use: those who are most interested in your products or services, most likely to buy a lot of them or most likely to turn into long-term customers. The same knowledge can tell you which of your messages and offers will provide a more customized experience for each prospect.

For example, an auto dealer receives names and phone numbers of active car shoppers within minutes of their filling out forms on auto-related websites. The leads are instantly and automatically scored based on 1) the individual’s verified contact information, 2) household demographics and 3) the dealer’s experience with customers fitting that demographic profile. The sales team knows to immediately pursue leads that score in the top 20 percent with an immediate outbound call or customized email. Others are prioritized for follow up in order of their potential.

On-demand lead scoring applies the same methodology to phone channels. When a credit-card issuer’s advertising drives prospects to its toll-free numbers and websites, the on-demand scoring solution grades them for potential value, matches them to the most suitable credit card and immediately routes likely-to-convert prospects to the best agents. The callers who are least likely to convert are routed to an interactive voice response (IVR) system, allowing the likely-to-convert callers to get more attention from agents.

A lead scoring solution’s predictive power is limited only by how much a company tailors it to specific business, goals and customer knowledge. For example, is the objective to grow revenue by increasing conversions or by focusing on cross-selling opportunities? Has the company found more upside in identifying prospects who look like its most loyal customers or in those who look like those customers most likely to respond to a particular offer?

In each case, the key is a rich mix of data that includes demographics, lifestyle and behavioral information, sales histories and product and channel usage. With currently available services, a company’s customer database and sales histories can be combined with descriptive and behavioral information to create predictive profiles. Companies that have embraced on-demand lead scoring have found three best practices that determine how successful their solutions are.

The first is that the lead-scoring information must be actionable at the moment you need it. Most existing customer insight platforms can offer microscopically precise insight on existing customers, but none of this rich information is actionable in the instant new prospects submit an online form or call in. In the past, you could segment your customers but you couldn’t predict which prospects would behave like your best customers unless you stopped to ask each prospect, say, the five attitudinal survey questions you’d found to be predictive. A lead-scoring solution must be able to link your customer knowledge to brand new prospects in the instant you begin to interact with those prospects.

The second best practice is a basic tenant of good solution development, but it merits mention nonetheless: data quality. Your lead scoring is only as good as the information that drives it. If your scoring doesn’t include verification of contact information, then you won’t even know which leads can be reached, making the effort worthless. And if your scoring solution doesn’t include up-to-date consumer contact information, then you’re slashing your ability to assign scores to your leads.

Finally, if your lead scores aren’t customized to your business, then their predictive power will lack punch. Off-the-shelf lead scoring systems typically rely on consumer profiles that aren’t even tailored to your industry, much less your company, so they provide uneven results when used to drive your real-time decisions. An online shoe store will miss some sales if it relies on the same customer profiles that an insurance company uses for its automated processes. A lead scoring solution that includes information from a company’s customer databases and sales history will be more predictive than one that doesn’t.

There is no single instant cure-all to the problem of dead leads, but on-demand lead scoring solutions are a huge step forward from what passes for lead qualification at many companies today. Lead scoring can improve the relationship between sales and marketing, which creates a stronger company that closes more sales and spends less on qualifying leads — without growing wings and flying.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19811.asp

The Internet Never Forgets

One of the oft overlooked aspects of our digital world is that is has a near-flawless memory. Unlike the paper, ink and magnetic tape of the old analog world, the ones and zeros of digital information never deteriorate. That, of course, means that the digital information you push out into the world (i.e. your website, email, digitized television and radio spots, banner ads, blog posts, press releases, etc.) never go away.

If you’ve changed the design and content of your website 3 times in the past 10 years, don’t think that those old designs aren’t still floating around out there in cyberspace. They may not be as easy to access, but they’re there. When Google crawls the web, a snapshot of your site is taken at that moment in time and archived. Even if you deleted that email from your inbox, there are still copies in the recipient’s inbox as well as on the servers in between. And those servers are often backed up daily and the copies sent off site.

The lesson, in short, is be careful. There’s no way to burn the evidence of your old website or sweep away that email you fired off in a moment of anger. Customers and the media will find these things, eventually. And if they have good reason, they’ll use them against you.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Stroke of Genius

by: Joe Webb

I often write of the importance for Internet sales managers to separate themselves from the common salespeople on the dealer floor. To focus on professionalism, profit, and process opposed to the bad habits and behavior of the old school veterans hanging around the showroom griping. If you want your Internet department to flourish, you must become what your sales staff hates most. You must become a shopper.

Mystery shopping yourself and other dealers keeps you abreast of market trends and local pricing strategies. It helps evaluate personnel and better your own department. It shouldn’t be considered a dirty tactic or carry with it a negative connotation. Notice that management embraces mystery shopping yet the sales staff abhors it. Realize who’s under the microscope, for good reason. Far too often, sales managers hear lame excuses from their staff on why their customers didn’t buy or generalizations and shameful stereotypes of a customer’s buying motives.

They label their customers with words like “tire kicker, “ “mooch,” “Larry Doyle (lay down),” and the most overused moniker, “stroke.” If you haven’t worked in a dealer, these quick judgments must seem reprehensible and you would be right. However, I believe an occasional mystery shopper (read: stroke) can be a benefit to a dealer and its staff. Essentially, it’s practice. It keeps them on their toes and stresses accountability.

There is a reason companies hold trainings offering the best practices in our industry. What works for some others might work for you as well. The only way to know what works is to shop your competitors. See what they are doing different from you and what practices of theirs you can adopt. Now shop yourself. Who is better? What can be improved? Mystery shopping can be extremely informative and profitable if done consistently.

First call into both your store and neighboring dealers. Who is handling the calls? Is it a salesperson or maybe a manager? Does a cashier answer first or a BDC call center? If you reach a strong BDC rep, you probably cannot tell the difference. (That is good.) Check to see:

• Did you get all of your questions answered?
• Did they set the appointment?
• Did they gather all of your contact info?

There is a reason dealerships mystery shop themselves in the 20 group meetings. It is their report card.

Next, e-mail. Go to Yahoo or Hotmail and set up a fake account. Use a different name. (This part is fun.) How creative can you be when making up the name? It should sound real, but not perfect. John Smith or Jim Johnson is not interesting or creative or any fun to invent. Hold yourself to a higher standard. I have a few favorites over the years, but I love creating a new one each time I mystery shop.

Don’t go to a dealer’s web site. Some dealers, unfortunately, only answer those leads coming in organically through their own web site. Instead, use a source that allows you to pick a few dealers to request quotes from. Please don’t choose a site like Edmunds or KBB where a dealer will get dinged $20 for the worthless lead. Use the sites that already charge their dealers a monthly fee. This way it only has the most minimal effect on one’s closing ratio, but no effect on their ROI. After all, no one likes being “stroked,” but it is necessary to see where you stand in your market and how you can improve your processes for the good of the store.

Find out:
• Who responds the quickest?
• Are they simply auto responders or a personalized message?
• Did they offer pricing immediately and where does it stand in relation to your price points?
• Did you receive a call? Even if you asked for “e-mail only”?
• What type of information did they provide?
• What word tracks are more likely to elicit a favorable response from you?

Once you have done this, you will learn:
• How you feel inbound calls should be answered and by whom.
• What follow up efforts are being made?
• Whether the dealers were accommodating to your desired method of vehicle shopping, or if you were simply added onto a process.
• Most importantly, who you would buy from.

If you do not have the time to do this yourself or do not feel you can be unbiased, there are even companies that provide this service for dealers such as Evaluation Inc. and Shoppers Critique. Lisa Keller, managing partner for Evaluation Inc., says through mystery shopping, her company “…provides actionable information that gives dealers a competitive advantage by continuously monitoring and holding accountable the processes, people, and, more importantly, technology each dealer uses.”

Now take this newfound knowledge and implement it. Put the right people in charge. If someone shouldn’t be handling the phones, don’t let them. If they make an uproar or a mutiny on the floor develops, provide/demand training before they have the privilege of handling inbound phone calls. The same should hold true for Internet personnel. Detail what changes must be made, demand improvement, and hold them accountable.

Last week, I interviewed a candidate for sales who stated, while filling out the application, that he didn’t want to deal with Internet customers. He didn’t like the way they came in with information and, in some cases, pricing. Our sales manager, Art Blaese, found it only fitting that I, the business development/Internet sales manager, interview him first. Sadly, the candidate was not the right fit at our dealership. However, he had just come from a competitor who put him through a 30-day training course that included the mystery e-shopping of other local dealers (including myself). Apparently, all trainees were told to gather pricing information and present their findings to the general sales manager. They would then take the lowest price received on each model, turn around, and begin offering pricing $200 better than their lowest competitor. While I don’t agree with their pricing strategy, I do see the value of a sales staff that understands the Internet shoppers’ process.

You see, I have been mystery shopped 100 times over and have shopped my competition even more. It is a necessity to stay ahead of your competitors; not by way of price, but by way of practice. It will keep you sharp and help you set internal goals for your staff. Continuous study of you, your practices, and processes can be a successful way to capture a larger share of the market.

Don’t take it too personally. It is a game. And every game has winners and losers. Winners see profit. Losers see personnel change. Or, to quote Dale Pollak, founder of vAuto, during his speech at NADA, “Winners don’t win at the expense of their customers. They win at the expense of other dealers.” I understand no one likes seeing his or her time wasted. Not sales staff and certainly not management. Sometimes, though, being a stroke is genius.

Joe Webb is the Internet sales manager of Arlington Toyota Scion in Buffalo Grove, IL, as well as a charter member of AAISP.

Source: http://www.dealer-magazine.com/index.asp?article=1879

Hybrid Marketing?

With $4.00 gas putting a slow down on the automotive business, and the economy in general, auto manufacturers are clamoring to develop and build hybrids and other energy efficient vehicles.

Amid all this, you’re still trying to run a dealership. Chances are, you’ve had to make cutbacks across the board. And even if you’ve had to cutback marketing, that doesn’t mean you want to cutback the number of customers walking through the door.

So that raises the question: What are the most energy- and cost-efficient marketing strategies you can employ? Mass marketing is certainly out. You’ll have to go direct… very targeted. And get creative… chase after a new audience or trying a medium no one else is using. What would you do if you had to reach the same number of customers on one-fifth the budget? What can you do that costs nothing at all? The dealerships that use a downturn to get stronger and wrestle away market share are the ones that will dominate the next age of automotive retailing.

What are you doing to make the most of your marketing dollars?

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC