SEO

Of course it’s Google so it’s going to be indexed by Google. For marketers, that alone should be enough for you to start moving your stuff – an obvious improvement over Facebook.

Circles = Segments

Segmentation is key in marketing. “Circles” provides that functionality. You can share something with only certain circles. For example, if you have Circle called “Prospects”, you could send them a “New Customer Only” deal without upsetting current customers.

Update: Facebook is now testing Friend filters and Smart lists to compete with Google+. These features should be available shortly. For more, check out this article on HubSpot.

One-Way Relationships

Unlike Facebook, Google+ allows you to broadcast to contacts who have joined your page even if you are not a member of their page. This type of relationship is more like Twitter.

Get Your Stuff Back

Google calls it Data Liberation which means you can download your stuff whenever you like and even delete your account (amazingly, you can’t completely delete your Facebook account).

And there’s much more coming in terms of more marketing functionality and integration with other Google tools.

Facebook had no way of knowing what it would become. Google has the advantage of building a platform from the ground up with hindsight. In short, Google+ is a more serious and useful marketing tool that you should definitely look into.

Although there are many possible definitions for brand,  here’s one that puts the advantages of social commerce into perspective:

Brand in an idea, held in the mind of a consumer, about your product or service.

In this context, you can see how important it is to leverage these interactions and use them for something productive: brand building.

An effective way to build your brand and create advocacy is to open a dialog with customers – current and prospective. One of the ways this can be implemented is to expand the dialog of “one to one” into “one to many”. (See our case study for an example.) In this way, you create a positive impression by being willing to engage directly and publicly with what we like to call your “retail investor” and you can use the voice of the brand to shape the idea people have about you.

Additionally, if you’re building or re-building your brand, establishing a dialog can play an important role. Recent successes of brands like Starbucks and Zappos have validated the approach of personification – using marketing and positioning to ascribe human attributes to brands. A crucial and sometimes overlooked step is making the brand speak. Otherwise, all you have is a good looking mannequin.

For more ideas on how you can transform your brand using social commerce, feel free to contact us.

http://download.openoffice.org/

Since the introduction of targeted ad network technology, there’s no question that web banners are becoming more relevant to viewers. A web page can match your locally stored cookies with an ad in their network so you’re more likely to see something from a website you have visited recently. Does that mean you’re more likely to click?

After a continuous decline, the average click through rate on banners has stabilized at around .09 percent. That means that:

for every 10,000 people that see your banner 9 people are clicking on it.

Let’s go back to our original question about the last time you clicked on a banner. When was the last time you noticed a banner? There may still be value in using banners to foster brand awareness which generates the soft metrics that your CFO might not “get” but can go a long way toward growing your business.

Some banner ads created by Bloom:

]]> http://www.wearebloom.com/are-web-banners-still-relevant/feed/ 0 http://www.wearebloom.com/10-inbound-marketing-ideas/ http://www.wearebloom.com/10-inbound-marketing-ideas/#comments Thu, 12 May 2011 22:25:27 +0000 Jason McKinney http://www.wearebloom.com/?p=1535 Inbound marketing is creating content that brings potential customers to you through search engines and incoming links. Why inbound marketing?

• it’s free (except for the time it takes you to produce : )
• it demonstrates expertise in your field (you’re published!)
• the leads you get through it are “qualified” meaning people already have interest in your services
• generates a reciprocity effect

You can publish your content on a blog, Facebook or both. Now you’re probably asking: “but what can I write about?” Let’s get to the list:

1. Do a Top 10 List – I know, but seriously… on the web, content that is practical and broken down into digestible bits will garner more link popularity (sites that link to your site) as well as generate lots of traffic.
2. Industry News – referred to as curation, this informs your audience about general news happening in your industry. It’s also the easiest content to write and a great place to start.
3. Sneak Peeks – generate a buzz by publishing a profile of something you’re working on that’s “coming soon”. Don’t be too specific and don’t violate any NDA’s.
4. Accomplishments – Obviously, your blog gives you a platform for your big announcements. You can also do a blog post that links to a press release to drive additional traffic or republish the release on your site.
5. Products – Your blog is NOT the place to hawk your wares! You will undermine your own credibility if you go down this road. However, publishing a story about an issue that is solved by your product is a great segue…
6. Straight up editorial – Read something somewhere about your industry that rubbed you the wrong way? Make your stand! Take a position! Conviction takes courage and potential customers love that (at least the ones you want to work with).
7. Interviews – Write up some question and do an interview with one of your industry friends or partners. Publish the transcript or even post it as a podcast.
8. Polls – Raise an issue and then publish a poll. If your blog doesn’t support poll, you can use a third party like Survey Monkey. It’s a great way to get a conversation started and gather valuable feedback.
9. Read Your Comments – Comments from a previous article can provide subject matter for new articles.
10. Company News or Events – This is an opportunity to show what a great company you have. Give readers and inside look at how amazing your organization is.

Remember that you’re using this content to start a conversation that will result in a lead so be sure to monitor and address any comments you get. Also, watch for comment spam like:

I love great article. I be back often” – http://www.supereuromax.ru

Harmless enough, but these don’t really add to the conversation so feel free to delete them to make room for those who are serious about your content.

“Interactive” used to just mean:

• click and read
• click and read

Now more that ever, it means:

• click and think
• click and laugh
• click and reach out to others
• click and buy something
• click and create

You get the idea. These sites are memorable. These sites get results because users are engaged.

Engagement is the start of a beautiful relationship.

If you’d like your site to actually do something, give us a call today.

Plugging into the numerous opportunities available through third party service providers is one way to get the party started. These services can make your site engaging and media-rich while distributing your content across the web at the same time.

Some platforms you can use to get the word out are:

• WordPress.com, Blogspot or other blogging sites
• Flickr – Promotions and event images
• You Tube – Event, instructional or commercial videos

Other marketing tools you can use to post content or just create a business listing include:

• Facebook – Pick up your blog feed or use as a user forum
• Twitter – Make new product announcements or promote a sale
• Digg and Delicious bookmarks – feature a link to new articles on your site
• Yelp Business Pages – List your business

You can also take advantage of free directory services like YP Mobile to further spread your URL across the web.

For more ideas, contact Bloom.

Back when I made the switch from Entourage to Mail, there were a few things I missed. One was the way Entourage could list your work areas in columns so you could take advantage of the full width of the screen. Welcome to Wide Mail. Wide Mail moves the viewing pane from the bottom to the side and creates a column to the right for your inbox.

The other nice thing about Entourage was the little mail preview window that pops up when you have incoming mail. This keeps your curiosity from getting the best of you when you hear the incoming mail sound and you break your work flow to discover that someone has updated their Linked In profile. Welcome to Growl. Growl is a notification system for the Mac that allows applications to sent notifications to the finder. Growl Mail sends a preview that pops up briefly, letting you know the sender and subject of the email that just came in. Is it something you care about or something you couldn’t care less about? Now you know.

Create a Smart Mailbox. Go to the File Menu under Mailbox and choose Create New Smart Mailbox… You will see a dialog similar to this. Enter what I am showing here. Very simple.

This makes it easy to flag an email and then go back and take care of those items that need to be replied to or need action at another time.

Consider this scenario of ROI as applied to a typical interactive project:

New Sounds, a manufacturer of fashion audio headphones, wants to re-develop their “homegrown” website. They’re looking to increase brand awareness and start a dialog with their target demographic. They have budgeted $25K for their new site and after getting recommendations and viewing the portfolios of a few agencies in their price range, they choose Acme Creative to develop their website.

ROI Refresher

The three elements of ROI are:

1. the revenue generated by the project (the return) over a set period of time
2. minus operating expenses
3. divided by the projects budget

This is then expressed as a percent by multiplying by 100. Let’s break this down further:

1. Online, the revenue generated by a project can be easily trackable through the use of digital product or offer codes or through site tracking if the site is eCommerce enabled.
2. The operating expenses of a website or web application should be negligible aside from hosting and any adjustments that become necessary.
3. ROI will be expressed as a percentage gain over a period of time. This can be a little abstract. One way to clarify this is to convert this number to the following statement: “For every $1000 we spend on this project, we get back $X (where X is our ROI number divided by 100)”.

Now let’s get back to New Sounds.

Their site came in on budget and launched with support from a solid marketing plan. Their site hosting is $240/year and they spend $10k on outbound marketing efforts. They estimate direct sales by tracking click-throughs from their store locator to their on-line distributors, pick up two new distributors from leads generated through inquiries from the website and generate “soft metrics” by assuming that 2% of all visitors that spend five minutes or more on the site will eventually make a purchase. They calculate the total sales from direct referral, new sales channels and increased brand awareness to be $250k for the year.

(250,000 – 10,240) / 25,000 =  ~ 960%

A more meaningful expression of this is that for every $1,000 New Sounds spent on their website, they got back about $9,600.

For ideas on maximizing your marketing dollars, email or call us.