Well Greg Sterling is moderating today and he starts off with a VERY controversial statement. He believes that search is a better medium for branding than it is for direct response (conversion)! Our online media planner, Dan Redman, would love Mr. Sterling! James Lamberti from comScore starts off with, of course, some VERY cool numbers. He notes that most people are still using generic terms for search, as opposed to branded terms. Branded terms are still great and need to be addressed, but if you are missing the generic terms, you are missing out on a large segment. Another point that James makes is that people in the consumer packaged goods industry, and probably others, are looking for information and help. Most CPG marketers use the Internet as a big coupon drop as opposed to a medium where they can provide good information to consumers.

An overlying theme in this session seems to be the idea that search fuels brand awareness, not in a direct response manner, but in a longer term (branding) manner. It has long been known that people use search primarily for research and will typically purchase much further down the funnel. Well, this idea is being proven to be stronger than ever given all of the superb information that is being presented in this session, real hard data!

Connecting your brand to your customer’s passions is the best way to build a relationship with them. Appealing to the passions of your target audience really helps put your brand in the forefront. This really helps in creating the coveted brand advocates. Search is a huge partner throughout the entire relationship with your customer. From a paid search perspective, you need to match your “95 characters” to the consumer’s intent. Bob Tripathi, of Discover Card, notices that brand fixations occurred in the URL and title of their paid ads, not in the description, through eye tracking studies. They still spend a majority of their marketing budget in TV but have been doubling their budget in online and are currently at 16%. They definitely notice the impact TV ads have on both branded and non-branded terms, there are significantly more searches and conversions after running their TV ads.

Cam Balzer, of DoubleClick/Performics, notes that they are on a mission to build value with clients in the keywords that build the brand or purchase long before the actual desired end result. It is very difficult to track and to explain this subject to advertisers. Conversion is typically measured by only the last click, or Direct ROI. Adjusted ROI measures sales credit distributed across all paid search clicks in the stream. Investing in high-performance “assist” keywords will help boost the overall campaign. Eliminating under performing keywords and improving negative terms, are just some of the benefits of detailed clickstream analysis. Of course, you are going to need a very robust analytics to do this clickstream analysis, and from what I have seen, this investment in clickstream analysis is well worth it.
Cam shows us very convincing figures on the benefits of clickstream analysis from a fortune 500 client.

Overall, I do actually believe in the power of search in building the brand, creating awareness, and driving conversion. The only problems I see with the focus on branding over direct conversion comes from the standpoint of the small to medium sized businesses. The business that only has a few thousand dollars per month to spend online cannot afford to dedicate resources to detailed clickstream analysis, they need to drive conversions. Asking a small to medium sized business to spend more on branding is super difficult, even after showing them tremendous gains with conversion focused Internet marketing. On the flip side, the clients that we do work on, who focus on branding, do see great success. And their success is seen across all of the marketing initiatives on an aggregate level. It is these types of large clients that covet even just a minimal overall increase who realize the importance of brand building online.

Press releases, if used correctly, can be very effective for increasing awareness about a company or product on the Internet. One of the press releases that eVisibility distributed for New Foreclosures Online was picked up by an ABC news affiliate in Palm Springs this week, for example. Lately, however, it seems they are often used solely for SEO purposes to build links to a company’s site. While it can be very effective, releasing too many can begin to have negative effects.

Since press releases have the potential to gain a lot of exposure in a short period of time, it is important that they are relevant and well-written. This topic was discussed in a blog post by Red Fly Marketing recently, and I couldn’t agree more. SEO strategies can get people to read press releases and help build links to your site, but they will not help build the brand or catch people’s attention unless they are topical and interesting. Sometimes it’s better just to wait for something really interesting to talk about, and spend a little more money on a distribution site with higher authority.

Remember the audience

Assume that the same people will be exposed to your press releases on a regular basis; they may be involved with or interested in your product or industry, or subscribe to a wire service. Seeing press releases from the same company on a regular basis will raise awareness about your brand, but if they are not newsworthy, that sends a negative message about your company. You will find that when you actually do have real news, no one will be listening. Your brand name will no longer be taken seriously if you saturate the market with irrelevant press releases.

Sometimes Regular Press Releases Do Work

Usually, you will have to wait for something to happen before you can write a press release, such as when you win an award or something happens in your industry that you can comment on. That being said, there are a few exceptions where press releases can and should be released on a regular basis, such as once or twice every month:

• Charitable Contributions
• Company Programs
• New Staff Members
• Ongoing Research
• Product Launches
• Promotions and Contests

Regular events that promote your brand, such as contests or company sports teams, deserve regular releases. Galas or company outings might also make good press release topics. It will get old really fast if you publish a press release about your company luncheon or a cheap giveaway every week, though. The same can be said about charitable efforts and product launches. It might be newsworthy to publish regularly scheduled press releases about these, but only if significant progress is made.

Informative reports that are relevant to your industry will also be newsworthy and can build the credibility of your brand. The team at eVisibility did a report on the Fortune 500 companies that don’t rank high in search engines for their industry keywords, for example. If your team does research frequently, there’s no reason you can’t publish press releases about it. Product launches can also make for very relevant press releases, even if they come out once a week. The key is to make sure that every press release has something new and newsworthy, even if you have to wait.

If You Don’t Have Anything New to Say, Don’t Say Anything At All

If you find it difficult to come up with press release topics, maybe it’s time you start getting involved in charitable efforts, doing relevant research, or getting involved in other things that will get your name out there. You still might not have relevant news to report every month, though. Therefore, it might be better to save the money you would spend on monthly press releases through a site like PR Newswire and wait to release a higher end piece of content on a distribution company like Business Wire. The cost difference can be considerable; $1000-$2000 compared to $100-$200. The credibility you gain from a really good press release can be much more effective for building your brand. January 31, 2008 Media 2 Comments

For any smart internet marketing company using PRWeb to get visibility for your web sites, I have some great tips for you. I have figured out a simple yet clever strategy to make sure that your press releases are seen by cities and regions that are looking for your specific keywords.

The next time you get to the MSA field when submitting your press release and it says “Your release is currently targeting All Regions/International and the following Cities / MSAs:” take your top keyword or keyword term and use Google trends to see where in the US or worldwide you can add to your targeted region.

Say you own a web site dedicated to selling after market Jeep car parts, for example, and you are about to send out a press release about a new product line your will be carrying. Before you send out the press release go to Google Trends and search “Jeep“.

Now it is essential to refine your search. Make sure to select your region and time scale. I always try to select “Last 30 days” so I get the most relevant results.

After narrowing down the search it will shoot out the top searched cities for your keyword of “Jeep”. If your keyword or terms comes back with no results, try to simplify them until you get results.

As you can see Denver, CO and Phoenix, AZ are the top results. To find out more about how Google calculates the top results, read this excerpt from Google Trends FAQ:

For counting and ranking cities, Google Trends first looks at a sample of all Google searches to determine the cities from which we received the most searches for your first term. Then, for those top cities, Google Trends calculates the ratio of searches for your term coming from each city divided by total Google searches coming from the same city. The city ranking you see on the page and the bar charts alongside each city name both represent this ratio. When cities’ ratios are fairly close together, the corresponding bar graphs will be roughly the same length, and the exact ranking between these cities is less meaningful.

So, I should include them in the MSA field when submitting the press release.

After you have filled out everything else correctly, submit the press release and watch the targeting work its magic.

Hopefully, this will help you target your press releases to cities and regions that are looking for your specific keywords or phrase.

This post was written by Mike Cheslar and edited by Stephen Peron.

Check out this post, if you are looking for other ideas on how to write a Press Release?

Social Media provides the means to attract the strongest brand ambassadors who have the greatest opportunity to influence the buying decisions of others. Today’s Web 2.0 branding campaigns typically fall short of their potential without substantial social media distribution.

Other than branding, the question remains for marketers, How can Social Media clicks be turned into conversions?
The gap between branding and long-tailed direct response media can be bridged with these 4 keys:

1. In order to drive traffic, a viral interaction must be implemented. This sounds easier said than done, but not everyone has the ability to attract the interest of 250,000 candid social-surfers. Viral-ability is achieved when you can engage your target enough to make them an ambassador of your brand.
2. Tracking, tracking, and more tracking. If you can’t decipher your analytics well enough to figure out where, how, and when you are driving traffic, then you might as well flush your budget down the toilet.
3. Cross-promotion will plant the seeds of sales intent when the consumer moves from the researching or novel interest stage to purchasing intent.
4. Continue to serve ads to your clients and prospects even after they buy or die. Several things will happen if you keep your message handy once you have created a click from social media. First, you will continue to generate leads months after your campaign has ended; and secondly, you will receive referrals from those who do buy from you (leave them with a good taste in their mouth).

Very few companies can offer you potential sales projections on a social media campaign. Ask your Internet marketing agency those tough questions. They will probably scramble for an answer. I wouldn’t blame them; social media advertising is still emerging. Other than my own, most agencies may even be dumbfounded if asked what their solution is for reaching blog happy demographics.

Contact eVisibility today to find out more about how social media advertising can become and effective means to drive traffic and increase branding for your business.

In a marketing climate that sees emerging or a re-popularizing of old school methodology, behavioral targeting is ALL the current rage.

Ad buzz appears to emanate from new research at Google, taking yet another step towards interstellar domination. Take notes if you are launching an advertising company with an emerging technology.

Relatively quietly, Google announced that they were increasing their ad targeting functionality to include some slightly more behavioral elements. It won’t be long before they add tsotchke’s and direct mailing to their slew of marketing products (just kidding…for now). Susan Wojcicki, Google vice president of product management for advertising, states “Google has been testing for several weeks a new advertising feature that delivers ads based not simply based on a specific search term, but also on the immediately previous search.” Google claims its ad targeting remains rooted in search activity rather than trying to deduce relationships from other sorts of sensitive, and personal, user information. Call them what you want, Google has a knack for sensing heat on marketing execs.

Very interesting statistics are being revisited by online marketing agencies that are reaching to capture greater portions of marketing budget. In 2005, an automotive category test was launched on behavioral that ran from July 21 through August 25. The click-through was 64% lower for targeted impressions, though the campaign achieved a 323 percent increase in conversion rate per 1,000 impressions. Those are startling figures for any big ticket e-Comm or service company looking to enhance the bottom line; and there are plenty of case studies to support an average conversion increase of well over 100%.

Click cost can entirely double or even triple, as you might expect, for the additional impressions served.

How behavioral targeting works, on a more traditional online ad serving basis, is that cookies are placed once a click is received on the accompanying landing page. Whether bounce or conversion, the visitor will be impressed upon the ads of the host as they additionally search within relative categories. Not every site is participatory, but many are. Companies with longer or more seasonal sales cycles will find this product extremely helpful to keep the bug in consumers’ ears until they are prepared to make a purchase.

There is a wonderful new player in the realm of banner advertising, “Flanners.” Flanners stands for fully transactional banners. The term comes from Fhlame, a digital ad agency out of London, and their product is aptly called Tailgate. Flanners allow advertisers to encase the entire purchase or lead generation process within a banner ad.

The idea is to further capitalize on the coveted impulse buy by allowing transactions within the banner ad and without leaving the page at all. The entire checkout process is held within the banner ad!

The checkout process seems very smooth and easy. This is very important in order to retain conversions, and I feel that keeping the purchase and checkout process clean and easy will be the biggest contributing factor of success.

This new product will breath new life into banner advertising; there is no other product like it out there. And currently Fhalme is currently working at securing a round of venture capital funding that would allow it further develop Tailgate. This could very well be THE banner advertising technology of tomorrow!