If content is king, credibility is queen!

I was cooking around some marketing ideas on the weekend. Pinging them back and forth and have coined a new phrase.

"If content is king, credibility is queen!"

What does it mean for your website?

When Bill Gates pitched up content being king everyone jumped on this little blue and white windows wagon and puffed out so much content that no one can manage the sheer volume of it anymore. So Google came along and helped everyone by making it easy to search through the content. Now I do a lot of searching and I am sure you do too. Do you just hate it when you come to a page from Google and the content is just a dog. And the pages with all the popups are dogs with fleas. That is the cyber waste of content being king. The one thing those sites are missing is credibility. I wouldnt touch those popup infested, banner ad flashing websites with a ten foot clown pole.

5 ways to build your website credibility

1. Clear contact us details - Have a easy to navigate clear contact details. Every single detail you have to contact you. Street address, phone, fax, email, Locked bag, dogs kennel address, office former address. If you are a real business I want to know where you are so if I get in trouble I am going to go to it and talk to you.

2. Pictures and believable about us content - You About us page needs to be credible. Have a picture of your office. A picture of your CEO. Some revealing information about your business like where you started and how the idea of the business was originated. Stories are the key.

3. Testimonials with links to real business websites - The key here is the website where the testimonial comes from. If it is possible to verify that person is at that business from the website (e.g. A photo of them is on the website) then it will be even more credible!

4. Third party endorsements and logos - If a third party endorses you with their logo this means that someone else apart from a dodgy self written testimonials likes your business! I like the way Newegg have done their 3rd party endorsements www.newegg.com (Look at the bottom). Note Newegg are the 9th biggest internet retailer in the United States with around $500,000,000 of sales in 2005. Not bad for a couple of third party endorsements.

5. Reviews and comments - Real live people making comments and reviewing content or products makes for a believable website. Amazon and Ebay have built their business from trust networks with these 2 simple mechanisms. Reviews of products on Amazon and comments on sellers and buyers in Ebay.

Google has become concerned with their credibility with some of their adwords. The pages that the ads point to have become quite ridiculous and they are starting to stamp this out and improve their credibility.

What else do you use to build trust and credibility?

Hit the right note with your blog marketing

Let me tell you the story of how I got into blogging…

It all started when one of my mates, Dylan, began http://needstobeglassed.blogspot.com/. Though quite aggressive in its content, this blog has slowly built up a following of over 1,000 visitors per day.

Dylan and his blog contributors have similar types of humor. They have created a huge following by attracting those with the same humor. “Birds of a feather flock together,” as they say.

This concept was also explained to me by guru marketer, Michael Kiely, using his “Theory of Marketing”. Essentially, he says, each person resonates at a particular note, just like a tuning fork. As they resonate, they naturally attract others who also resonate at that note. The same thing happens when you bring a tuning fork which is resonating, really close to another that is not. The fork that isn’t resonating starts to, because they are on the same wavelength.

Customers are similarly attracted to companies; the company just naturally resonates with them. Look at all the Harley Davidson riders. Look how the customers and company resonate together. Some people prefer Google compared to Yahoo! search engine because it resonates with them.

The key here is to understand what your note is and resonate it through different channels that makes your note sound good. E.g. Google’s corporate blogger, Matt Cutts, is the perfect channel for Google, as their customers are online and the anonymity rings their bell. What is your customers note?

After seeing this phenomenon take place I decided that Freestyle Media clients must have a note, I must have a note and Freestyle Media must have a note. So I launched www.onlinemarketingsydney.com.au (Freestyle Media’s official blog). It is designed for corporate online marketers looking for new ideas and a channel to share ideas and build their profile.

Angela Schuster, Online Marketing Manager at www.prognosis.com has been the first contributor to the blog with a superb article about enewsletter frequency.

Send me the latest Online Marketing Sydney blog entries via email

If you don’t want to visit the blog every day you can simply put your email address in the textbox on the blog site and you will automatically receive the last week’s posts every Tuesday.

Signup to the Online marketing Sydney RSS

For the more advanced users with RSS readers there is a feedburner link on the site that will enable you to receive the latest posts.
I look forward to seeing you online. Maybe we can make some music together – your tuning fork and mine.

Cheers,
Fred

Latest Work at Freestyle Media

So Good Banner advertisements “A taste for Tuscany!” and “So Good Active free sample” banner advertising campaign! View the banner advertising case study

Online Markeitng Review: Surin Restaurant

Tim from Surin Restaurant in Ramsgate, Kent in the UK has asked me to do a review of his online marketing.

Surin Restaurant website - http://www.surinrestaurant.co.uk/
The Surin Restaurant has A LOT of websites and online activities going on. They have:

• A blog - http://surinrestaurant.blogspot.com/
• An online store - www.surinsuperstore.co.uk
• An Ebay Store - http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Surinista
  
• An Ebid Store - http://uk.ebid.net/stores/Surinista

Now that to me is an impressive amount of online marketing platforms for a restaurant. But Tim unfortunately with all of your properties that are out there I have to cut this praise short and give you some comments.

Your web properties are not updated or are lacking content. The blog especially needs content. The Restaurant store is superb and the club is a great concept although I just dont have an immediate reason as to why I would want to signup. Give me a reason like group booking bonus bottle of champagne since this is the kind of business you want. Large orders looking to spend lots of money on alcohol (high margin).

I also want to see more search engine marketing. I cant seem to find you on Google.co.uk?
Thai Restaurant in Google.

I have signed up to the club and we will see what kinds of offers I get?

0.5 / 5 - Good start to the marketing and ideas but needs some delivery and updates.

Farm out your SEO and SEM dont do it inhouse

A recent article in B2B talks about a key insight. "If the guy who is fixing your computer does your SEO and SEM aswell you need to find yourself a specialist.". I whole hardedly agree because I am a search engine marketer myself. It has take me 3 years to gain the knowledge I now have about search engines and this knowledge is gathered from all over the place. For some reason there is no course or book you can read about search engine optimisation that will tell you all the answers. This is because that information is worth more implemented by that person than sold to someone else.

I am really quite concerned about the interest in search engine marketing right now and how much big mainstream media agencies are struggling with the concept. They just have no idea. Its offending me. Big media agencies game is a volume game. They need to sell as much media as possible to make money.

I would never go to a big media agency to get a good Cost per click let alone a good cost per acquisition.

5 rules for business MSN'ng

These days more and more businesses are adapting to using MSN within the business to communicate internally and also externally. When I started Freestyle we used MSN immediately for internal communications and we still do. Yes, we have colleagues sitting next to each still typing to each other as opposed to speaking. For us this is ok because we are online marketers and are used to this kind of communication. We are always in touch with each other and always know where something is up to and what someone else could need. Its just faster to MSN someone as opposed to emailing them.

Now I have had some experiences in using MSN externally to clients. Now that is intense. Its a different game because you have to be on the ball all the time. There is a new level of account management required. Its almost like 24hour service! Since I am online a lot I am a little wary of speaking to clients over MSN because you need time to do things and it can create a strange expectation of you always working on their business. I can imagine for account managers dedicated to one client this will work but when you manage multiple clients there needs to be some lines in the sand.

Here are my 5 tips for keeping out of trouble:

1. Choose a good profile picture - People when MSN'ng each other, especially in business look at that picture scrupulously. I suggest something personal but also quite business like is best. I tend to have a little message in my profile about something I am advocating in online marketing.

2. Manage your profiles status - You must manage your status if you are talking to clients with MSN. If you appear online all the time when you are actually away from your computer you can create quite a bit of agnst.

3. Use correct language - Just because you speak in shortnd sentnces w yr txt msgs dosnt mean u can when you are business MSN'ng. You can do it to some degree but you mustn't go over board or you will miscommunicate with the client.

4. Less typing and more listening and waiting - Not every client you work with will be a complete speed typer. You must slow down your communication length slightly until you synchronise well with the clients speed of communication. Otherwise you will again fall into the trap of miscommunication.

5. Email or MSN? - Some things are better in an email and some are better as MSN. Sending a proposal to a client would probably best be done through MSN where as confirming a meeting could be done through MSN. Remember that MSN is instant and you dont want to stop someone and get their opinion of your proposal then and there. They need to set some time away, print it out potentially and read through it. They will not make the decision that you want them to pinging it to them and expecting an answer then and there.

Make the Most of your Marketing Budget with Internet Marketing

Given today’s media consumption habits, it is essential to allocate a portion of your marketing budget to online. But are you getting the most from your investment?
Working with an online marketing expert ensures you use the right mix of tactics for each campaign. These could include:

• Banner advertising
• Pay-per-click advertising
• Blog marketing
• Article marketing
• Email marketing
• Viral marketing
• promotional websites and
• Search engine marketing/optimisation (SEM/SEO)

Banner advertising

The original online marketing tool and still used widely, these days banner ads can include page takeovers, large format sizes and with new technologies, be updated with real-time content on-the-fly, to maximise an effective message or tie-in with a current event.

Pay per Click advertising

This strategic and highly targeted approach offers best value for money, as you only pay for ads or links that are clicked on. However, using this niche approach you may miss a potentially wider market. There is also the risk of losing your targets if the message doesn’t resonate. Some fine-tuning may be required to get the results you expect.

Article Marketing

As well as paid online advertorials, many businesses create libraries of resource articles which both explain, as well as subtly sell, their wares. These can be published on their own site/s, and also provide content to others. On top of using the information to engage and convert potential buyers, highly ranked articles can also boost a site’s search engine ranking, if many others sites link to it.

Email Marketing

A well established form of communicating with existing or prospective customer, an eNewsletter can inform, sell and entertain, with the most effective doing all three in a succinct format. With today’s spamming laws it is mandatory to maintain an up-to-date database which respects a recipients’ contact preferences.

Viral Marketing

Spawned and supported by email, viral marketing success depends on creating an entertaining or interactive piece that people wish to forward to friends and colleagues. This type of activity is created everyday in the form of puns and jokes, and can be used a guerrilla tactic by brands to engage or inform.

Blog marketing

Evolving the community aspect of online a step further, blog marketing uses a tribal environment to create a culture of inclusion. In this way blogs also become a useful tool for mining opinions and behaviours of key targets. It is imperative than any corporate voices driving the blog are pitched to suit the participants.

Promotional sites

In one form or another all websites provide an aspect of marketing support. Promotional sites however have been built specifically as a campaign element to support a promotion, as an entry mechanic and/or a loyalty builder. They are the perfect avenue to run sampling and can provide additional tie-ins that cost very little to deliver such as screensavers, cursors etc.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) & Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

The ultimate requirement in web marketing success, SEM and SEO drive traffic to your site. Smart copy and build will ensure your site is easy for search spiders to mark. To rate on the most popular engines you will need to submit and sometimes pay for the privilege. Other sites linking to yours will improve rankings. You can also buy search engine listings to ensure a higher placement.

Use an online marketing expert

More than any channel, the web enables marketers to track consumer actions and closely monitor ROI. If you are not getting high value for money from your web marketing dollars, you may need to revisit your strategy. Talk to me about how we can help you.

The business case for blogging

Here is an article I have been reading which is very interesting in regards to the business case for blogging. An online jewelry store tried quite a few things in terms of blogging and writes about the results they experienced.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=29667

I like the concept here of the blog being au naturale. It makes it believable and real as opposed to fake and over corporatised.

What have your experiences been with blogging for your business?

Myspace launches in Australia

No one could say that dot com wasn't back when News Corp purchased Myspace for $580m. Now it has just signed a $900m contract with Google to allow them to provide paid search listings on the website. Myspace says that its going to be used for paying back the purchase. What a deal! Thats good dot com business.

Myspace just launched the Australian version of the website http://au.myspace.com. Myspace successfully launched in the UK in June and now here comes Australia!

I like it, I think Myspace has legs in the music business. It still reaks of dot com to me but time will tell. Revenue is revenue, and with 17million overseas signup per month how can you deny that kind of traffic. I am just waiting for the traffic to plateau out and see what the end residual audience of the website is. I think we are seeing big signups because everyone is working out what is going on and everyone is buying yo-yo's. I think the novelty of the Myspace Yo-Yo will die down soon and we will see it for what it really is. I dont think all the people who are signing up now and are dedicating huge amounts of time managing and maintaining their myspace will continue forever.

Treat Googlebot just like a normal user

I have found some very interesting videos from Matt Cutts vlog. Ok for the noob:

1. Noob = New person to something
2. Matt Cutts = The Google Blogger that all the SEO guys listen to and read because he actually works at Google and what he has to say most of the time is what everyone knows but he does drop a couple of little snippets of gold in there every now and again.
3. vlog = Video blog. Videos instead of words.




Matt Cuts Vlog

Matt here talks about treating Googlebot just like an ordinary user. Now that stuck with me and I thought. What type of user? There are many users in my mind. The Geek with 1 million windows open and knows how to navigate from page to page finding the content they want and need. Compare this with the 52 year old who understands how to use the mouse and can click some buttons but give them a drop down navigation and they can't find the content you want to give them.

Anyone got any ideas on what Matt was inferring here?

Fred Schebesta

Nasty, Nasty, Nasty, ooohh good advertisement!

Im not sure if everyone has seen the Queensland holidays ads? I like them. Like I just get that feeling and I like it.

http://www.queenslandholidays.com.au/destinations/gold-coast/

Just listen to that music. The imagery makes me feel alive. Its aspirational. Its ... well just perfect for travel and The gold coast.

I think this client has struck upon something !

Congratulations Queensland tourism. I'm not congratulating the agency because that is up to the client to do. The agency is there to make the client famous and the client needs to thank the agency for this. All the marketers should also be congratulated as they have done very well.

eNewsletters - stuff frequency, it’s all about relevance

Reading through recent articles and company eNewsletters, it has become apparent that people still think an eNewsletter is just an opportunity to blab about how great their company/product is.

The problem with this aberration is that while you may get-off on hearing about how wonderful your goods are, how many awards you’ve won and all the neato features your product/service offer - your users don’t.

As part of this mindset people also still seem caught up with the question “How frequently should I send my eNewsletter?”

What they fail to realise is that it’s not really their choice, it’s their users and the answer is: As frequently as your readership will tolerate.

That’s it. No science behind it, because at the end of the day if you over-hit someone’s inbox, they’ll hate you for it. It doesn’t take testing or user studies to tell you that – it’s fact.

Now the issue with this is that your readership will only tolerate an eNewsletter if it’s perceived by THEM to be relevant. That’s right, they rate relevance over frequency.

The main reason for this is that when companies decide to do an eNewsletter they often end up creating content for the sake of getting the eNewsletter out to a schedule and that’s when you get your company back-slapping and ego-inflating content.

So, stop thinking frequency and start thinking RELEVANCE.

Stop asking the question “How frequently should I send my eNewsletter?” and start asking “Is this piece of content really (really really really) relevant and valuable in the readers mind?”.

Now, because this is important I’ll say it again just to make sure it sinks in – it’s not about frequency, it’s about relevance.

Relevance is about ensuring your CONTENT and message in your eNewsletter actually makes a difference to the reader. Corporate propaganda and marketing hype really doesn’t make that much of a difference to a reader. So, what does?

Value-added information is what matters, and the less overtly related to your product/company, the better.

Shock, horror – but what about getting our brand/key messages/value propositions/specials in front of them? What about the fact that eNewletters are a great way to get all of our long winded guff and back slapping praise in front of our prospects and brainwash them into buying our product? - you ask.

Stuff it (well most of it anyway).

Your eNewsletter (and by association you) will be valued more highly if you’re actually helping the reader or giving them information they don’t already know, or may know but need from another source explicitly to help them win a case for buying just such a product/service as you happen to offer (that case could be in their own head may I add).

So, rather than getting wound-up about the frequency and including bland information such as your latest media release about the newly appointed GM of Widgets, or the fact you won the latest “We paid lots of money to win this” award, think about a few common problems your audience may be facing or information needs they may have and write about those.

Even better, find third party information that validates your offering, include an overview and link in your eNewsletter to this information (I don’t mean someone praising your product, either).

Then you’re providing REAL information and not just you-centred information. This will be of greater interest and will be more relevant to the reader. In doing so they’ll feel more loyal to your eNewsletter and your brand or product by association.

Now, I’m not saying get rid of all of the overt propaganda, but try to balance it with stuff that actually adds value to the readers life, otherwise you’re just bugging them and it doesn’t take much to swipe you outta their inbox permanently.

Fosters goes 100% online and cuts TV off the team!

In a world first Fosters have announced they have removed ALL and I repeat ALL of their TV from their marketing spend and have moved it to online. Let me just clarify, they are not spending a single cent on TV advertising and are instead spending all those bags of money online. That passing fad online thing just caused you to get fired Mr and Mrs media seller working on the Fosters account. Orrhhh did technology catch up with you.

GOOD, now you can see what it feels like to work for peanuts because no one likes your wears. And us online marketers can feel what it was like in your plush offices and with your tasty coffee machines and personal assistants.

Fosters couldnt reach enough of its 21-25 y.o male market with tv so its changed lanes. To the good guys. It will be using heavy.com as its primary vehicle to reach the audience.

And as Aaron O. Patrick of the Wall Street Journal (Yes "The Wall Street Journal" this is online, that newspaper is online, why not read it?? Or cant you find the website. SFIOG (Search for it on Google)) says more markets will get the guts and go this way.

Census can be viral too!

I like the census. Something about filling out a form with no wrong answers. Everything is valid data and interesting to someone. I am not sure how this viral craze started but have you heard of the Jedi Knight religion in Australia? Well some smart cookie figured out that you need 10,000 people to acknowledge that they belong to a particular religion they decided to take advantage of this. Did you know that one of the religions in Australia is Jedi Knight. That is my religion! I popped it on the form last night. I dont know how that crazy started but for some reason I heard it from someone or there was some sort of email and I just couldnt help myself but do a bit of antidisestablishmentism.

Ambi Pur's are valuable

I heard another story the other day that someone had their car broken into just to steal the Ambi Pur on the dash board. Now when I heard that I felt that stunk of an agency sending a WOM campaign out there. It gives the product a perceived value when really its just like any other dangling piece pine tree you see making your car smell like a mixture of how it did before and when a christmas tree gets too old.

Fred Schebesta is highly addictive

I have been told by a few people that I have quite an addictive personality. That is hard for me to write and say to people but to be honest I really like being around people. Its the stimulation of the ADD perhaps? I dont have ADD in a bad way I think I just get some similar symptoms. I get all gittery and crave stimulation. My mind goes at 3.6 million thoughts a second and I try to explain it to every single person I know.

I have another theory about viral things. I dont think you can manufacture viralness. Its like saying an agency can make a brilliant ad everytime. Agencies have no idea if an ad is going to pull its tits off or just be hated by every single person. They just go through the creative strategy process and most of the time it produces good ads. David Ogilvy said that every Ad man produces between 3 to 5 stunning ads or concepts in their life and the rest is just average black and gold no name never to be talked or seen again advertising. I believe that and I think the same is with Viral. The big huge ad was good but the Tooheys one was in the same mold but just bored me and pissed me off. Especially because they used trebuchets.



I love trebuchets because I am a gamer and Age of Empires 2 trebuchets were superb.

Fred, you're a salesman and you sell online marketing!

I just watched a DVD as I have been recovering from my recent trip to the hospital. No, I'm not going to die but I am having one interesting time recovering.

So there was one part in the movie that really opened my mind and made me realise something. In the movie there was an old guy and a young sales guy and they needed to save their job. So they made a final pitch to a client and they bought it! As they were walking out of their office complex the old salesman said, "Its good and it will help their business."

Now, I am a salesman. Its my best skill. I can understand what a company is doing and communicate how our service will help them achieve that. What does that mean? Every single salesman says that. It means, "I know what we do. I know what you do. I know how to combine what we do and what you do to make it go faster, easier and more er".

Great Fred you know how to sell. Good luck with that!

Well there is one difference about when I sell online marketing compared to anyone else and that is that I actually believe in it. I could sell ferraris, Jet Aeroplanes, Real estate anything really just give me a powerpoint, a product and a telephone. But I actually believe that online marketing can help corporate companies. I believe in it, just like the old guy selling in the movie. Not only do I believe that it will help our clients, I believe it will make the world a better place. Why?

1. Enviro - I hate killing the environment (you will notice that if you hang around with me for a while) and so I prefer electronic communication over paper.
2. Faster - Paper = slow, TV = slow I play fast. I am bored of the old ways because I am young and I want to conqueor the world and all that machiavellian stuff. Speed up and get your marketing online. Dont be like Goodman Fielder. Look at their boring website and feel the slow grinding pace of their marketing.
3. Its the way of the future - I love the Aviator the movie. And all the print and TV marketers out there who will never get to read this blog because your boring, slow and your kill the environment, welcome to 2006.

If I annoyed you when you read this, good. Fight back. And if you have a comment post it.

Finally, if you want to get into online marketing and your a corporate marketer, contact me, or stick with your pieces of paper and the annoying things in between the tv shows and good songs on the radio.

What do you believe in?

Fred Schebesta

Whitepaper marketing strategy

My colleague Angela Schuster (A great online marketer) recently received a follow-up email from a business development manager regarding a whitepaper she downloaded from a website. Now Whitepapers are one of the key ways to sell complex service products or complex products. Many people not in the business to business marketing game don't understand whitepapers so here is the strategy.

Whitepaper marketing strategy

Create a document which outlines a potential problem or business issue, lets take the example of Entreprise VoIP management software. (This is a topic close to Angela!) Now entreprise VoIP management software isn't something you just walk down to Harvey Norman bargain a price then walk over to JB HI Fi and get a better price then walk back to Harvey Norman and get them to drop their price even more and finally choose to buy. It’s not a commodity and it’s something that needs a lot of expert thought in putting together as well as purchasing. The purchaser needs to be educated in the field and needs to be able to determine what a good purchase is and what is right for their business. How can they do that? There exists a major gap in information from what the supplier of the software knows about the area and business requirements and what the buyer knows about their business problem (i.e. what things to look for) and what they know about software solutions for this area.

Whitepaper solution selling

The whitepaper is written by the software vendor to describe the business situation the company is in and show what things are required for a successful software deployment, in this case a deployment of VoIP and the management software that you will need along with this.

What kinds of things does the whitepaper contain?

1. A description of the business problem and what companies are trying to achieve.
2. An overview of the potential solutions.
3. A critique of how these solutions compare and information what kinds of companies should purchase which piece of software.
4. Usually there is a bit of a spin as to how this particular software vendor fits into the piece and how their solution fits the bill. I.e. If you are This kind of company then you should purchase our software because you fit our software perfectly. The software company will describe their perfect target market and lead the reader through to find out if they are right for the software. It’s almost like self service with a bit of user education beforehand.

How effective are whitepapers?

Whitepapers have been the bread and butter of major corporates who have successfully built a business on educating their customers to buy from them. Companies like IBM, Prognosis, Cisco, SAP, SAS and Unisys. These companies’ offerings are so complex that the selling process is more of an education process rather than a Television ad and a good personality to represent the brand.

Now, Angela downloaded this whitepaper from their company and here is the email that followed her up:

"

Greetings,

I would welcome an opportunity to speak with you in more detail about our customized Strategic Optimization Program(r). It is important that you understand the value your website brings to your business. Many companies are reaching out to us about optimization because of the increasingly high cost of bidding on keywords in Google. Once you optimize your site you are gaining FREE traffic and exposed to 85% of searchers, this is on the left hand side of the page.

Websites are no longer just a place to send people for information about you. It's all about meeting the requirements that the search engines have established and this takes place in the coding of the site. We assist many companies in gaining on line presence by guiding them through this process.

For companies who want to comprehensively and economically seize the opportunities that Search Engines offer, we recommend this multi-faceted strategy.

First, a detailed initiative is undertaken to make sure the site is aligned (from a Best Practices standpoint) with Search Engines that rank sites via Natural Search (such as Google and MSN). Next, we combine the cost benefits of Natural Search with a performance-based, Paid Inclusion Program, via a fixed-rate Cost Per Click (CPC) to produce highly targeted traffic and verifiable results in Yahoo. This is further enhanced by targeted Directory Listings designed to generate effective link popularity and a strong linking strategy program.

Here's what you get:

Ongoing Support with a Dedicated Team including a Strategist (pro-active), Tactian (Google Certified), and Optimization Engineer

Web site Review and Guidance

Paid Inclusion (XML) Traffic via a Fixed-rate, Cost Per Click (CPC) through Yahoo Search Technology

Flat rate program for Google, Yahoo, MSN, Business.com, Shopping Feeds, Bizrate, Verizon Superpages

Organic Search Optimization Strategy and Implementation (for Natural Search results)

Directory Submissions

On Going Linking Strategy

Online Reporting

If you would like to set up a convenient day for us to chat via the telephone about this program in more detail, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

I encourage you to visit our website"

One of my specialities lies in search engine marketing but online marketing strategy is my passion. I like the strategy but the execution has stabbed the whole plan in the back. I can understand what she is meaning to say but it is not making a single grain of sense to any customer trying to purchase from her. Why the hell do I need a strategist, a tactician and an optimization engineer?? I thought I was trying to get my website to the top of the search engines.

I suggest the following rewrite:

"Dear Angela,

Thank you for downloading the whitepaper on "Search engine optimization" I hope your enjoyed it. We would welcome the opportunity to work with you to get your website to the top of the search engines using are expert services. Our specialised team ensures your search engine listings reach the highest rankings and helps keep the cost to acquire a customer from the search engine down.

I was wondering if you had 25 minutes to have a chat around getting your website to the top of the search engines. How are you placed for 10:30am on Tuesday?

Best Regards,

Fred Schebesta"

I might use that email. :)

Blog on!

Fred Schebesta

P.S. If you do want to discuss whitepaper marketing strategies further just email me (fred at freestylemedia dot com dot au) and we can devise a strategy for you.

An online marketer triumphs over print

I want to tell you a story of one of our clients recent experience with sponsoring a magazine that also had a website. So the new fandangle thing about magazines is that if you book or sponsor something with them you will also get a spot on their website. Now some magazines have a good following on their online versions because they have a decent online editor working for them. the content is short, punchy, has good imagery and keeps the visitor interested on their website. Girlfriend is a good example, The bulletin isnt bad nor is B&T. The only thing about B&T is that they haven't gotten myself to write an article for them. Lets see if they monitor technorati and pick up this post. (I will keep you posted).

So our client books to sponsorship and gets their spot in the magazine. They have a tight niche they are working in and this magazine works well for them. Now our client is a savvy online marketer and when she is presented with the online version of the website she nearly flips.The homepage of the website is a registration page!!! Now our savvy clients pipes up and delivers the exact message that was required. Here are some snippets:

"... I cannot believe the really interesting information has been put behind compulsory login facilities! This is going to seriously affect your usability, your users impression of the site, and your online "pass on readership".

I can understand if you're wanting to capture peoples information and add them to a database but there are far, far better ways - more user friendly ways and more effective ways to go about this than slapping a login screen in front of the goodies.

I'm very disappointed in this as it breaks most online conventions known and does not encourage me to promote the site.

It'd be far better to showcase the information on the site. THEN when people want to access a certain piece of information they can be asked to log in or create an account. This way you're giving them a taste of what they'll get and then enticing them into subscribing. At the moment you're not giving them enough information to make an informed decision as to wether they'll get something of value if they subscribe. You might also want to check Australia's spam legislation on this one as it might not be seen to be giving consent as people don't know what they're consenting to until after they've registered and parted with their email address.

Have a look at some publishing sites that do it well:

www.searchvoip.com (one of the best)
www.webtorials.com
www.marketingprofs.com

Even on our site we just ask them to register for white papers etc after they've read a synopsis and decided it's for them. Our primary objective is to go our database and the 2,000 odd leads we get a month would indicate that this balance works.

In regards to SEO, you may not realise this but having a splash page like this will severely affect your organic search ability - google the term splash pages and see what comments come up (because this in affect harks back to the days of splash pages). You can spend a lot on search engine marketing but you also need to optimise the site for organic search because people pay more attention to organic results. Further, if you're encouraging people via search marketing to come to the site, they're going to get there, take one look at it and decide "too hard" - so you're going to be spending money and getting fairly low conversions. I'd be interested to see your bail out rates once someone hits this page - I imagine it's going to be high.

My suggestion would be to remove the first splash page, have register or login as an option at the top right and whenever someone tries to download something valuable - if they haven't logged in - serve them a login screen. Also, cookies are really really useful so someone doesn't have to keep logging in all the time - you might want to include these.

Your online guys might also like to review some usability information - I suggest reading some articles from:

www.useit.com (Jakob Nielson - Usability Guru)
www.gerrymcgovern.com (Gerry McGovern - author of Content Critical and many other online related publications).

In fact even Seth Godin's "Permission Marketing" would be useful. Yahoo's Godin coined the term Permission Marketing years and years ago, it basically means get peoples permission to market to them - at the moment technically you're not getting people's permission to add them to your database you're tricking them into giving you their details because they can't decide if the information is of value or not.

Show them the information, make them WANT to join your database - then you'll have a very very dedicated, loyal readership."

So you can see someone needs to sort something out in that print world. Get yourself some Seth Godin and give yourself an upper cut for accepting that website setup.

So what happens? BIG CHANGES. Here is the website now.

http://www.strategicpath.com.au/

Congratulations to our client and welcome to online marketing Strategic Path.

Your website is so BORING!

I can appreciate that marketers are starting to understand that people are going online and visiting their companies website. So what the marketer does is build a website or redesigns it. Then they feel like they are marketing online because they have built a website.

Here is the story. Happy marketer gets fed up with everyone talking about online marketing and realising that they are behind the eight ball. So they talk to their advertising agencies account manager and says that she wants some website recommendations. The advertising agency account manager has absolutely no idea although she makes out that she does and assures the client that all will be well. So the account manager goes to her production team and asks if they can get some website concepts together. The advertising agency production team want to expand their portfolio and give it their best print go. What is presented back to the client is a website from 1996. You can find them all over the place. Here is one:



http://www.medtronicneuro.com.au/index.asp

Hey the imagery looks great and the copy is perfect but only in a Powerpoint presentation and is a dogs breakfast when translated to the web. (I personally know that website was designed by an advertising agency and if you ask me I will tell you which one.) Ok so the website is live and at least its all happening.

Now I come to my point. This website has been like this for over 1 year. It hasn’t changed. Is someone who is interested in this content going to return to the website or are they going to keep Googling more information and finding other websites with more up to date info.

Everyone who knows a little about websites hurls this phrase of "getting a visitor to come back" around. I am sick and tired of hearing it from people who have no idea of how to make it happen. If you are a marketer reading this I want you to honestly ask yourself. If you were a customer of your company or a potential customer would you return back to your website?

Do you feel that you have come to the end of your marketing requirement if you have built a website? Are you online marketing if you have built a website?

Sadly, if you answered yes to any of those questions then yes you have come to the end of your online marketing and I would start looking for another job. Press Control + d right now because you need to bookmark this website and religiously read it.

If your not sure if you are boring your website visitors here is the 7 point check:

1. You haven’t changed your homepage content in over 1 year


2. Your webpages are all static and do not provide any tools, forums or ability to comment.


3. You haven’t added a new section to your navigation ever.


4. Your news content is from when you opened up the website.


5. Your services/ products pages contents has not changed since you put the website up. Your services/products must have had some sort of addition, modification or change that your customers or potential clients would be interested in. Anything. It comes in a new box, there is a special running in Harvey Norman this week.


6. Zero freebies – you got to offer something for free online. A whitepaper, an ebook or a free enewsletter.


7. You haven’t looked at your website statistics since you opened up the website.
   

Online is a unique and liquid medium and it needs continous improvement, adjustment and adding to. Would you send a new client a brochure you produced 5 years ago? You have got to update your website. Change it. Add content that is relevant to the target market any time you come across it. If you just ran a seminar put the notes on your website, if you just sold your 1,000,000th box add it to your website.

If you are a General Manager / Marketing Director I would be ware of the following 2 marketer types:
Marketers who build a website and don’t commit to updating, evolving and improving it. They let their website go stale and instead of fostering all the people they have just got to the website they would prefer going out and recruiting 2000 more with a T.V. ad. I’m sorry but I am a relationship man, I don’t want 2000 one night stands.
Marketers who think that building a website is online marketing. Is designing a brochure marketing? You need to send that brochure out, get a customer to read it, send them a new one when its updated and ask them for feedback on how you can improve it. Does David Jones produce beautiful catalogues and just leave them sitting outside the stores waiting for people to pick them up?