onlinemarketing manager Magazine VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1 JAN/FEB 2014
Future Trends In Mobile Marketing
by Pam Ivey
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
5 Strategies For Taking
Your Brand Into Digital Media & Monetizing It by Kim Castle
INTERVIEW WITH
America’s Leading Small Business Optimizer
MELANIE BENSON STRICK INSIDE THIS ISSUE Seed And Grow Rich! A Proven Approach To Selling That’s Not Sales-y By Lisa Sasevich
onlinemarketing manager Magazine VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1 ISBN: 978-0-9812585-1-5
4 Future Trends in Mobile Marketing
Written by Pam Ivey
5 Shiny Objects
So Many I Wants, Too Few Fingers! Gadgets To Make You Drool
6 5 Strategies for Taking Your Brand into Digital Media and Monetizing It
PUBLISHING EDITOR Pam Ivey pamivey@ommmagazine.com
Volume 2, Issue 1 January/February 2014
CONTENTS
Written by Kim Castle
8 How To Become A Social Leader
Written by Pam Ivey
9 Affiliate Marketing vs. Joint Venture Partnerships
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Kate Smith kate@ommmagazine.com
Written by Pam Ivey
10 Going Viral – What’s the Story?
Written by Tim Wade & Max Miller
12 Are Vanity Metrics Killing Your Marketing? ART DIRECTOR Mary Greenlees
Written by Anastasia Valentine
14 To Make Online Lead Generation Work You Need More Doors
art@coloursomethingcreative.com
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Written by Erik Luhrs
16 Seed and Grow Rich! A Proven Approach to Selling that’s Not Sales-y
Kim Castle, Ian Clarke, Tracey D’Aviero, Donna Gunter, Pam Ivey, Erik Luhrs, Lisa Manyon, Max Miller, Lisa Sasevich, Kate Smith, Anastasia Valentine,
Written by Lisa Sasevich
20 7 Proven Ways to Use Content Curation to Become a Recognized Authority in Your Industry
Tim Wade, Stephanie Watson
ADVERTISING SALES advertising@ommmagazine.com Online Marketing Manager Magazine is published
22 How To Create Excellent Content
HOW TO REACH US Letters to the Online Marketing Manager Magazine can be emailed to editor@ommmagazine.com, or mailed to Online Marketing Manager Magazine, 24 Kelley Crescent, Wasaga Beach, ON L9Z 1J3 Canada
Follow OMM Magazine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/onlinemarketingmanagermagazine
Written by Stephanie Watson
24 How To Create A Useful 404 Error Page In
6 times per year in digital format by the International Association of Online Marketing Managers.
Written by Donna Gunter
WordPress
Written by Pam Ivey
25
INTERVIEW WITH
MELANIE BENSON STRICK
AMERICA’S LEADING SMALL BUSINESS OPTIMIZER WRITTEN BY KATE SMITH
33 Installing WordPress Correctly
Written by Pam Ivey
44
35 Are You Making These Marketing Mistakes?
Written by Tracey D’Aviero
37 Success Isn’t Always About What You Do
IS YOUR
ABOUT PAGE RUINING YOUR IMAGE? WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
Written by Pam Ivey
38 Avoid Dangerous Black Hat SEO Practices
45 Email Marketing: The Money Is Still In Your List
Written by Pam Ivey
40 Optimize Your Website for Google Authorship
Written by Pam Ivey
Written by Pam Ivey
46 A New Take On The 4 Vs Of Customer Data
Written by Ian Clarke
47 5 Tips To Take Your Content Marketing To the Next Level
41 How To Make Your Brand Stand Out
49 The Importance of SEO To Boost Your Status
Written by Pam Ivey
42 7 Steps To A Successful Marketing Audit
Written by Lisa Manyon
Written by Pam Ivey Written by Pam Ivey
52 Upcoming Events
EDITOR’S NOTE
H
appy New Year! 2014 is the Year of the Horse in the Chinese Zodiac. According to astrologer Susan Levitt, the horse is an animal signifying unexpected adventure and surprising romance. Why not make this an analogy in business terms? Being an online business owner certainly means there will always be unexpected adventures of one sort of another. Like landing a super ideal client (that’s when we, as marketers, are in romance mode so to speak!), learning new skills, and even firing clients or taking your business in a whole new direction can be quite exhilarating. There is no end of fun but we still have to stay on top of the game by never letting our marketing take second priority. Chinese astrology tells us 2014 is the Year of the Wood Horse, bringing with it plenty of positive vibes. The horse is regarded as an intelligent and reliable animal that supposedly helps men achieve success and victory most especially in battle. The horse is the seventh sign in the Chinese zodiac, looked upon with favor by many Chinese who equate the animal with elegance, power, energy, stability and perseverance. Stability and perseverance go a long way in the world of entrepreneurship. From the very first inklings of wanting to start, run and grow a business to facing the everyday reality that the business of being in business is never done. You must have inner resolve and an inner faith that you will succeed, despite what comes your way. There is not a business owner out there who hasn’t had their share of ups and downs but when you can stay the course and hold steady, you know you’re in the right place. No one does it alone and that’s what’s so great about the online marketing world. We are always learning from each other.
Be sure to check out our cool Industry Spotlight interview this month with Melanie Benson Strick who is a well known 8-figure online marketing powerhouse. Hope you enjoy all the great things she has to say. As for me, I’m excited that the new Online Marketing Manager Certification Program is just about to start (February 10th). We will have 15 incredibly talented participants who are in the inaugural 12-week program...hang on to your hats because when they graduate, they’re going to blow the roof off the online business support marketplace! So if you’re looking for an expert online marketing manager, better get your name on our list of potential clients. And if you’re an online marketing specialist who truly wants to uplevel your business and venture into a whole new industry, get on the list for details at www.OMMCertification.com. Cheers,
Pam Ivey, Cert SBM,CPREA,CRESS,CMP Founder, International Association of Online Marketing Managers
ON-TREND
FUTURE TRENDS
IN MOBILE MARKETING
W
ith the explosion of mobile technology and the mass purchasing of such technology it’s inevitable that eventually mobile marketing and regular online marketing will consolidate, because online marketing will simply become fully mobile as responsive design pushes out separate mobile and PC compatible online real estate.
01 Important Statistics You Need to Know Mobile devices are outselling personal computers at a high rate with the trend thought to only increase as the technology improves and becomes more powerful. Most people access social media through mobile devices. In fact, more people access their email with their smartphones than ever before. It’s becoming increasingly clear that mobile is not only here to stay, it’s going to completely outpace personal computing in the near future.
02 Mobile Devices Are Many People’s Primary Internet Access Tool Naturally, it depends on your market, but as the population ages, and the young people are coming into adulthood, a higher percentage of the population uses mobile devices like smartphones as their primary way to browse the Internet. While your audience might not be mobile ready today, it’s just a matter of time. It’s important to get ready now.
03 Consolidation is On The Horizon At some point, there will be no difference between online marketing and mobile marketing. It will be one and the same. Everyone will need to have mobile-friendly websites, and there
WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY will be no differentiation between marketing online and on mobile. In fact, we can see it happening now with email, which is becoming a mobile channel as we speak. With more than half of all emails being opened on mobile devices this trend will only increase faster as technology becomes more sensitive.
04 What Does This Mean for Online Marketers? First thing is that you need to optimize all your content for mobile devices. All of it. Period. If people can’t read and use your content via their mobile device they won’t turn around and go back to it later on their PC. In fact, consumers express much frustration about a business not opting to have mobilefriendly design. The fact is, if you don’t become mobile-friendly, you’ll miss out on the new sale, or new customer if you don’t get mobile as soon as possible. People keep their mobile devices close to them. Some even keep them near their bed. They look at their mobile devices while they are waiting at the bank, at the doctor, and for their kids after school. If you know your audience, you’ll know when you need to start developing mobile-friendly online real estate. But, with the great technology available today, why wait? Why not be ahead of the game? Why not be ready for the mobile marketing explosion now? As the industry evolves you’ll see more interactive mobile technology such as Facebook’s in-stream ad format. Each social media will likely roll out their own mobile-friendly advertising formats as the technology is developed that allows innovative ad creation for even the most limited budgets. Marketers need to increase their investment in mobile to really take advantage of the potential mobile offers.
PAM IVEY
is a tireless champion of the online business industry and considered a Thought Leader in Online Marketing and Outsourcing. Known for her warm and engaging manner and wide-ranging, comprehensive skills and experience, she has inspired countless entrepreneurs and other professionals to achieve greater heights in their businesses. Always at the ready to help, she taps into the Think Big Mindset by offering training programs for ‘newbie’ to seasoned VAs, online marketing professionals, freelancers from all industries, as well as online solopreneurs and entrepreneurs. Her flagship program, Online Marketing Manager Certification begins this February, as does the new International Association of Online Marketing Managers. Learn more at www.OMMCertification.com.
4 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
TECH
SHINY OBJECTS
SO MANY I WANTS, TOO FEW FINGERS!
GADGETS TO MAKE YOU DROOL
KOLIBREE ($99)
GOJI SMART LOCK ($278)
Electric toothbrushes are so last century. Kolibree is a Frenchbased company dedicated to creating connected solutions to make you smarter, more aware and better equipped to improve your health and your life. Its first product also under the same name, Kolibree, is the world’s first connected electric toothbrush, which was unveiled at CES 2014 for the first time. Unlike anything else that exists today, the Kolibree smart toothbrush has a unique technology to analyze your brushing habits and display them on mobile dashboard for access on your smartphone. The Kolibree will go on sale later this year. www.kolibree.com
The Goji Smart Lock takes pictures of who is at your door and automatically sends you picture alerts to your mobile phone, providing you with real-time information about who is accessing your home. You can also choose to receive real-time app and text notifications about all the activity around your Goji Smart Lock to your mobile phone. All activity is recorded and logged by the system, and it is available for review at any time via the Goji Mobile App or from your online account. www.gojiaccess.com
TREWGRIP
STICKR TRACKR ($24.95)
TREWGrip is a handheld “rear-type” keyboard and air mouse for your mobile technology, smart TV and desktop.
StickR TrackR enables users to locate any lost item in seconds using their iPhone or Android. Attach the coin-sized StickR TrackR device to any commonly misplaced item such as keys, purses, wallets, and more. The app automatically tracks where your items are so you can stop stressing about staying organized and stop wasting time looking for lost items. www.button-trackr.com
The standard QWERTY key layout is split and rotated so the hands gripping TREWGrip can effectively touch-type in a mobile setting. (Like an accordion.) www.trewgrip.com
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 5
BRANDING AND POSITIONING
5 Strategies
for Taking Your Brand Into Digital Media &
Monetizing It H
ow many times a day do you say to yourself, “oh goodie, I have another email,” or “I’m so excited to read another e-book” or “I can barely contain myself to attend another webinar?” No matter how much you are committed to learning new things and working on your business, watching The Kardashians is so much more enticing. You know it’s true.
Times have certainly changed. We’ve come a long way from being excited by “you’ve got mail.” With the human attention span dipping below 9 seconds, it takes a lot more to get a potential customer to pay attention.
Did you notice video is everywhere? Why? We’ve grown up on movies. Cultures survive and advance through story. Toss in advancement of the telecommunications backbone and smart devices plus real time market data captured through video and social media and you have a fertile ground for unparalleled market reach, penetration, and stick.
Online video is the number #1 thing to do to grow a business as a brand today. In fact according the Nielson (a longstanding TV reporting agency), the number of people who watched TV declined 7%
WRITTEN BY BY KIM CASTLE over the past year, while the number of people who viewed video online increased 84%! That is illuminating!
If a picture is worth a 1,000 words then video is worth a million!! Working in brand development from Fortune 100 to kitchen table startups, as an art director and creative director, as well as an author, speaker, and entrepreneur mentor, I can share that there has never been a more exciting platform to grow a brand. No matter what your business or market segment, video the fastest and most reliable way to reach customers and turn them into raving fans. With video, you can weave a story and hook the audience in seconds. By creating that experience, you can quickly engage not only the mind but also a person’s heart and emotions. If you’re able to command their heart, they are much more likely to share their attention and their wallet with you. And there’s never been a better time to dive in to the rapidly growing, rapidly evolving world of online digital media. The power has changed. It’s no longer about TV networks and advertising agencies controlling content creation, distribution, and market. The tools for high quality creation are available to everyone. Thanks to online portals like YouTube, methods for
6 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
BRANDING AND POSITIONING low-cost mass distribution and measuring reach is available to everyone today. What’s more, the ability to monetize your brand, while you’re building your digital media empire is at your fingertips.
Here are five strategies you can use today: 01 It could take some time to get your products created or show developed. That doesn’t mean you have to postpone revenue. You can start making money immediately by promoting products that fit your brand from another company. For example, if you have an organizing business and you use products that Amazon sells, you can become an Amazon Associate and share a link to products that you recommend.
02
While YouTube, like Google is built on an advertising model, it could take a while to build up your subscriber base to earn enough money from pre-roll commercials before your video or display ads. That said, it’s your show. Why not play Google’s game? Sell spots within your show. Just do it in a way that’s integrated into your show without being too commercial. And make sure the products you promote match the market you are trying to reach or you run the risk of alienating your viewers.
03
Taking the advertising ball a bit further, take a page out of the national TV playbook and sell a show sponsor. That’s when a company pays to be associated with your content. Imagine, brought to you by Target or Bright Star Insurance.
04
Once you develop your market and your voice, you can create unique content wrapped around a brand or featuring a brand and they will pay you for it. Let’s say you are a raw food chef and you use products from Whole Foods, you can create branded tips wrapped around what someone can buy in Whole Foods. It’s what mass media does. Why can’t you?
05
And finally, don’t just give your power over solely to the big online companies, keep some for yourself by selling a subscription for your content. By creating unique content that’s only available via a membership website, you have the ability to generate revenue directly. For example, after a decade of telling entrepreneurs and startups how to develop their brand, I decided to show them by creating a lifestyle brand of my own using digital media. I share the entire making-of experience in a membership reality series called “naked kim”. You can see how I did this at www.nakedkim.com. What makes this series so different is it’s not an information product, it’s not carefully crafted to get you to buy something. It’s a real, unedited look at the highs, the lows and the ut-ohs of launching a mass market brand using digital video with a lot of hard-knock learning tossed in. For this members pay a small monthly or annual fee to learn AND be entertained. After all, that’s what we all want—to learn and be entertained. Funny, insightful, and informative, lifestylist Kim Castle is leading the way for women to live an elevated life—body, food style and soul. If you want more simplicity, joy and vitality in your life visit www.KimCastle.com. And be sure to watch, subscribe, and share kimTV www.YouTube.com/kimcastle.
KIM CASTLE, host of kimTV and star of the reality series nakedkim, is a fresh voice for
today’s new breed of feminine leadership. Featured on CNN Headline News, Fox Business News, Yahoo Small Business, and Inc magazine, is leading the way for women to live an elevated life—body, food, style & soul. For more simplicity, joy and vitality in your life visit www.KimCastle.com. And be sure to watch, subscribe, and share kimTV www.YouTube.com/kimcastle.
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ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 7
SOCIAL MEDIA
HOW TO BECOME A
SOCIAL LEADER S
ocial media is an important component in your online marketing endeavors. In fact, it can be one of the most important channels of marketing that you use to advance your business to the next level if you become a social leader. You can set out to become a social leader by understanding the actions of social leaders.
SOCIAL LEADERS COMMUNICATE The thing some online marketers forget about social media is the social aspect. Everything is automated, and they rarely look at the results of their communication and sharing. Social leaders actually participate in their social community. Since social media feels so personal, it’s really simple to participate, and you can do it from your mobile device, so why not get involved in the conversation on a seriously personal level and truly communicate with others?
SOCIAL LEADERS KNOW HOW TO COLLABORATE
Many social leaders plan online events such as Google Hangouts On Air to collaborate with other movers and shakers. This is a great way to come up with new ideas for products and services. The fact that it’s done in public makes it even better. One small idea posted by a reader can turn into a brand new product overnight with many people contributing to the effort. Since other people contributed, you’re more likely to create a product that your audience wants to buy right now.
SOCIAL LEADERS FREELY EDUCATE OTHERS On social media everything doesn’t need to be for sale. You can freely give your ideas away and you will actually end up with more customers. It’s a great opportunity to show what you know, to educate others about what you know, and then to prove that you know what you know. Others will be impressed and want to hire you because of your leadership in your niche. Sure, some people will just take the education and run with it on their own, but most won’t.
WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
SOCIAL LEADERS ENGAGE ON A PERSONAL LEVEL When you consider that most people are engaging in social media with a smartphone or mobile device and can be literally anywhere, it becomes a very personal medium. When you send out a message, the recipient often feels it’s just for them, and it can at times be just for them. If you can make people feel connected to you on a deep, personal level, your social clout will go through the roof.
SOCIAL LEADERS MONITOR THEIR BUZZ It’s important, if you want to be a social leader to monitor what others are saying about you and if possible, even answer the comments. Always answer everything in a positive way, no matter what type of comments are being made about you. People are watching to see how you handle yourself as a social leader and an expert in your niche.
SOCIAL LEADERS UNDERSTAND THE TECHNOLOGY
There are so many different social media platforms today, but it’s important to understand how to properly use each and every platform. If you can’t do it all yourself, then you can hire experts. Probably no one person is an expert on all platforms so if you want to be seriously active on several platforms you may need to hire a different expert for each and develop some guidelines for responses for your expert to speak with your voice. Then, you want to still participate as yourself for personal conversations.
Finally, social leaders like what they do and it shows in their actions. You can see how thrilled a social leader is to be in a Google Hangout, or to participate in a guest blogging blitz or a Twitter party. They love it, and they are good at it, and they know it.
8 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
AFFILIATE & PARTNER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
AFFILIATE MARKETING
VS
JOINT VENTURE PARTNERSHIPS WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
A
ffiliate marketing and joint venture partnerships (JV) are two ways in which you can make more money promoting and selling your products and services on the net than going it alone. While both are a way to leverage other people, sort of duplicating yourself, they are very different. Both, however, should be part of your overall marketing strategy if you want to be super successful with your business.
LET’S DEFINE THE TERMS: Affiliate Marketing – Paying a commission to another person who makes sales of your products or services on your behalf. Joint Venture Partnerships – Complementary businesses work together, pooling their assets, to promote each other to their own audiences. It’s important to truly understand how each form of marketing works before entering into it. It’s also important to note that there are big differences in JV partnerships and Affiliates. While some would want to draw the line closer, it seems clear by the definitions above that they are very different. Both forms of marketing offer benefits as well as problems.
AFFILIATE MARKETING BENEFITS AND ISSUES When running an affiliate program you must manage the affiliates or hire a manager to ensure only upstanding sales people are promoting your products or services in an above board way. If a spammer signs up for your affiliate program and does things in your name that are illegal it could make your company look bad and can be difficult if not impossible
to overcome. Finding affiliates can take some time, but try your customers first. Typically affiliates don’t often meet directly with the person they’re promoting products for and the relationship isn’t always on a first name basis. This makes it even more imperative to pay attention to how affiliates are promoting you.
JV PARTNERSHIP BENEFITS AND ISSUES A JV partnership can be harder to come by, but are easier to control. It can take time to meet people that you want to work closely with on a particular project, and it’s a good idea to take it slow and work on a small project together first to see how it goes before signing up for a long-term relationship. You can find potential JV partners by looking at your current networking groups for potential partners. If you’ve had discussions with a potential partner at some point, and can come up with a project idea, and approach them with the idea, it’s good to give it a shot. Most of the time someone you form a JV partnership with will be someone you feel comfortable enough to be on a first name basis with. In both cases it’s important to develop a good contract to ensure that you both understand your roles and responsibilities. Both parties to the contract should receive benefits as well as responsibilities. Both types of marketing will help you reach past your current audience to reach even more people. In many ways it’s like duplicating yourself. If you have several affiliates promoting your products and / or services, and a couple good JV partners you’ll create momentum in your business that truly separates you from the pack.
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 9
BRANDING AND POSITIONING
GOING VIRAL
WHAT’S THE STORY?
E
veryone these days is talking about making your business “buzzworthy” and “going viral.” Entrepreneurs and business owners far and wide have visions of 10,000 fans and 1 million YouTube views dancing in their heads. But the Story Boys are here to say that so-called viral marketing is NOT the brass ring that will skyrocket your profits through the roof! In fact, if you’re marketing financial strategies, a video of a dancing kitty (though insanely popular) will only confuse your audience and dilute your brand. Effective online marketing offers one true prize: reaching your ideal customers by getting people to talk about you and your products or services.
WRITTEN BY TIM WADE & MAX MILLER
The real magic of social media occurs in what we call “the last three feet.” That’s the distance between the person who sees your post or video and the friend or colleague they tell about it who needs and wants what you offer. Often that last, critical transaction happens offline and can’t even be measured or tracked! Triggering this results-oriented “viral” response requires two essential components: Your post must evoke high-arousal emotions such as surprise, anger, lust, awe, compassion, joy, or fear. Only emotions trigger a viral response. Your post must reference the problem that your product or service solves. If your post doesn’t connect in some meaningful
THE STORY BOYS -- How did an ex-ventriloquist and a
former fire-eating juggler end up empowering the new breed of entrepreneurs to rise above the sea of sameness and step into their unique brilliance? Spinning stories into gold as Walt Disney Imagineers was only a stepping-stone to teaching experts, coaches, and consultants to boldly embrace their own Hero’s Journey and learn to infuse its wisdom and values into every aspect of their branding. Learn more of Tim and Max’s story branding insights at www.TheStoryBoys.com
10 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
BRANDING AND POSITIONING way with the core value proposition of your business it doesn’t contribute to your brand (no matter how entertaining it may be). So here’s a big lesson we learned from our years in Hollywood: nothing creates buzz like a truly great story. Most people don’t recite facts to each other, but they DO eagerly retell stories – stories that move them in some way. So the real brass ring in online marketing involves getting other people to retell your story again and again. Did you see this amazing post last year by our friend Gerald Rogers? The night before his divorce was finalized, he very thoughtfully wrote about the advice he would give himself if he could go back five years. It was very emotional, humble and vulnerable. The original post grabbed over 25,000 likes and over 135,000 shares on Facebook alone and it was featured on the Huffington Post and several other sites. But more important, that post launched Gerald’s coaching career into orbit. Now he has been asked to turn that post into a book. By the way, it’s easy to find the post online – just Google “Gerald divorce.” Now that’s the power of a personal brand story!
WHAT MADE GERALD’S MESSAGE WORK? LET’S BREAK IT DOWN: KEEP IT PERSONAL – A big part of the impact of this post was the personal significance of the moment: Gerald’s divorce was to be finalized. Here’s a real person facing a dramatic moment in life. So called “reality shows” thrive on these dramatic, personal moments.
BE AUTHENTIC – Gerald was vulnerable and genuine in that moment. He opened up in a moment when most of us would want to hide. He let his humanity shine through. If what you’re selling derives in any way from your life experience, you ARE the message. Coaches, authors, experts and thought leaders of all kinds must reveal
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something of themselves to stand out and to connect with their audience.
TAP INTO EMOTIONS – The power of story lies in the human capacity for empathy. Gerald never mentioned how he was feeling specifically. All who read the post could feel it vicariously because of the context. He calls the post “marriage advice I wish I would have had” and proceeds to outline 20 straightforward nuggets of relationship wisdom. The context of Gerald’s impending divorce transforms the meaning of his post from a litany of advice to a potent mea culpa.
KEEP IT RELEVANT – There are two critical messages that are best conveyed through authentic story:
01 First, your listeners must understand, “Here’s what I can do for you. Here’s how I can help you feel better, solve that problem, overcome that hurdle, reach that goal.”
02 Second, a great brand story conveys “Here’s why I care. This is why your problem matters to me.” This second message transcends the benefits/features distinction. It expresses empathy, compassion and solidarity for your audience. It answers the emotional component of the prospective customer’s essential question: “Why should I listen to you?” When it comes to inspiring people to take action, stories have always been more powerful than sermons or user manuals. Stories move the world. If you want to get people to trust you, follow you, and tell their friends about you, give them something to talk about. Dig down deep and tell them your story.
For more ideas on developing your personal brand story visit us at www.TheStoryBoys.com
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in
onlinemarketing manager Magazine
Reach Your Target Audience wademiller@thestoryboys.com www.TheStoryBoys.com 970.226.0150
Affordably
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ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 11
LIST BUILDING & LEAD MANAGEMENT
ARE VANITY METRICS
KILLING YOUR BUSINESS?
T
WRITTEN BY ANASTASIA VALENTINE
he song You’re So Vain by Carly Simon comes to mind when I think of all the times clients have asked me for:
More followers High click throughs More likes, shares
Increased traffic A viral video And so on …
While these numbers are important it is only the first step in the journey that marketers need to create to guide prospects to becoming paying customers. In fact, it is the responsibility of EVERY marketer to look beyond the vanity metrics that make you feel and look good for a period of time and keep their eye on the prize of their efforts and that is increased revenue! Vanity metrics are a good indicator that your marketing campaign is being received well, your messaging is resonating and people are starting to pay attention. The cold hard truth is that resonating, attention getting and being well received on it’s own doesn’t pay the company bills or contribute to the
ANASTASIA
bottom line. Not to beat upon marketers, I am one, but feel good metrics are just an indicator, nothing more. In fact they are the entry point to metrics that matter. Basing your marketing success solely on vanity metrics is a business mistake and could indicate a false positive for your marketing efforts. Let’s remember, the reason we are marketers is to generate awareness, introduce prospects to offerings, develop a relationship all in hopes of generating revenue. We know in a traditional marketing funnel a drop in numbers at each stage is expected and if we are doing a great job the numbers are somewhat predictable. Marketers need to change tactics and improve their efforts when they are generating high vanity metrics with nothing more than a trickle through to the end of the funnel. Here are some common marketing scenarios and reasons your organization might score very high on the vanity metrics but very low on conversions.
ABOUT ANASTASIA VALENTINE
has been bringing ideas to market for global companies, startups and helping small businesses make their ideas reality for over 20 years. She is a passionate ideator, positive instigator, a results and facts driven business strategist and compassionate leader and visionary. Anastasia works with all sizes of organizations through her companies Sandbox and Sandbox PR to tap into their talent, invest in their culture and even look within themselves for the “next big thing.” As a sought after speaker, Anastasia delivers talks and workshops to organizations and at industry conferences worldwide designed to inspire, motivate and educate. She is also the host of the weekly @AVV Biz Talk Radio show debunking business myths with facts and sass. Learn more at www.sandboxpm.com and www.sandbox-pr.com 12 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
LIST BUILDING & LEAD MANAGEMENT LOTS OF TRAFFIC BUT THE MAJORITY BOUNCES
Whatever marketing outreach mechanism you are using to get the traffic whether it be online ads, email marketing, fabulous SEO etc. is working. Where the marketing is falling short is visitors aren’t finding what they expected or wanted as a result of the marketing efforts. Picture this! Prospect does a search for specific keywords, your brand pops up with some compelling copy or visuals, prospect clicks and lands somewhere that is not as compelling as the ad and leaves. Find out where your traffic is coming from and ensure the content they land on provides value and is 100% in alignment with the referring source and you have a well-defined easy way for the visitor to progress to the next step in your marketing funnel.
LOTS OF NEW TRAFFIC – FEW REPEAT VISITS
People are visiting, reading and staying. Great job! But they aren’t coming back. This means that you had good initial value but no compelling reason or prompt for your visitors to return. While we’d like to think our brand is top of mind every day all the time with prospects, it’s not. It is our responsibility to remind people about what organizations, give visitors a reason to come back and regularly and reliably provide the type of value that attracted them in the first place. This is also an opportunity to up your game when it comes to creating value-based content. Implementing a value at every touch point strategy with increased incremental value through the entire marketing funnel is the perfect way to attract, engage and convert!
HIGH NUMBER OF OPT INS – HIGH UNSUBSCRIBES OR THEY NEVER BUY
People are subscribing to your email list but not staying or buying? Do you have an opt-in incentive? A value ad such as a white paper, email or video series, top 10 tips or checklist that would attract a qualified, perfect fit customer? If not, create one post haste and start promoting it to your community! Do you have an opt-in but people aren’t sticking around? Work on your content and email communications. Ensure there is a healthy balance of value, news and selling. Sales and promotion heavy communications are usually the first to trigger an unsubscribe.
Experiencing the opt in, grab incentive and unsubscribe? This happens. But if it happens in large volumes look at your opt in. Is it too good? Not to good to be true but maybe your opt in is too valuable so people feel they need to grab it before it evaporates? Perhaps the incentive is attracting the wrong crowd because it is not in 100% alignment with your desired customer profile.
HIGH CLICK THROUGH RATES FEW CONVERSIONS This is a similar issue to high traffic, lots of bounces. It says that your content attracted the potential customer but either the copy on the page where they landed was not compelling enough to make them buy or there was a usability issue and they couldn’t find what they were looking for or get through the buying process. Analyse your page flow and see where visitors are dropping off. Is there a trend? Optimize and update the content where you see a drop off.
MOST CARTS ARE BEING ABANDONED DURING CHECK OUT This means visitors have made the buying decision - which means you are almost there! While there are always going to be abandoned carts, having them in high volumes somewhere along the way people change their mind and don’t go through with the purchase. Is your shopping cart working properly? Are you requesting too much information? Are there any surprises such as large shipping charges or unexpected handling fees during checkout? Is the process too onerous to secure the online sale? Are there errors in the pricing or currency issues? Is your organization not offering their desired form of payment? Look at your purchase process end to end and test it first hand. Don’t forget to go back to your customer base and ask how you can improve your buying process.
At the end of the marketing day high volumes of opt ins, followers, shares, like’s and traffic are only the beginning. You can have millions of followers or visits but unless they are converting, the marketer’s job is not done. But is it ever? CLICK AD TO VIEW WEBSITE
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 13
LIST BUILDING & LEAD MANAGEMENT
TO MAKE ONLINE LEAD GENERATION WORK
YOU NEED
MORE DOORS
WRITTEN BY ERIK LUHRS | IMAGE COURTESY OF DDPAVUMBA / FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET
H
button has a different place it will take you. Of course, a visitor would have to know where they need to go before they’d know which button to push! At this point most visitors will leave and find a front door that is more inviting.
ow many doors do you have in your home? A front door and a back door? Maybe you have a door that leads to the driveway or out through the garage? So you have about 2 or 3 ways to get into your home. And for a physical home that is logical and functional.
an online home – your website – for your business. How many doorways do you have into that house? If you’re like most companies I encounter, you have one: The home page.
But it gets worse.
Does this sound like what happens at your website?
Now, let’s talk about your business and something virtual. Imagine that you have
Your virtual front door doesn’t have a doorbell. It has 35 of them! And each
Now, there a TON of things that create this problem. Obviously, I don’t have
Only one way in. That’s it. That’s all.
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14 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
LIST BUILDING & LEAD MANAGEMENT space to go into them all here, but I’d like to offer up 3 big issues that I know will help you greatly enhance the amount of people who make it into your virtual house and stay a while…and maybe even buy something!
CONSISTENCY – If you use a blog or article online to capture attention, and then direct readers to your website at the end, you have to maintain consistency. For example: Let’s say you wrote a great article about why a specific type of IT server is best for use in industrial manufacturing automation systems. And then you have your link at the bottom of the article and it takes folks to your website’s homepage (you know the one with 35 doorbells). You have now blown the consistency piece, because the reader was expecting more material like the article.
So long as the call to action aligns wit h the subject you’ve been discussing they will be far more likely to respond. So, set up a consistent theme by taking the reader from the article INTO YOUR HOUSE to a particular page, perhaps about the server or to another article about the server’s usefulness in the industrial automation setting.
GUIDANCE – Once someone is in your house, he is expecting you to give him the tour. He doesn’t want to see your son’s messy bedroom but, if he is a
wine fanatic, then he would love to see the wine cellar.
ERIK LUHRS
is
The same applies to your virtual house. You must guide your visitors to the rooms (pages) they will most likely want to visit based on what brought them into the house.
known as “The Bruce Lee of
Put yourself in the shoes of your visitors and create links and lead-ins that will allow them to go around your site in a way that builds the fun and value of their experience so they want to stay longer and learn more.
Erik is the ONLY expert in the
Building on our IT server example: You can take the reader from one article to another article or to server specs or to testimonials or to a case study. Just make sure each piece builds on the last one.
INVITATION – Now that your guest is familiar with the important parts of the house, you want to sit down and really get to know him. You want to see if he might be interested in eventually moving in and joining the family.
Sales & Lead Generation.” He is the creator of The GURUS Selling System and author of the book ‘BE DO SALE.’
world
on
Front-Loaded
Lead
Generation, Persona-Positioning, Lead
Generation
Message
Linguistics, and Subconscious Lead Generation Triggers! Erik is also a Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and he is certified in The Silva Method and Accelerated Learning. And he has been featured by Forbes, Selling Power, Entrepreneur,
Fox
Business
News, Sales Gravy, Salesforce, Chief Executive and BNET.
In your virtual house this means a call to action. After you have used consistency to invite the visitor in, and then used guidance to show the visitor the parts of your home (site) that will matter to him, you now want to actively engage him. Create a call to action that fits with their experience so far. Again, using our IT Server example: You can offer an analysis of their current servers or a scalability assessment for their planned production growth and requisite server needs, etc. So long as the call to action aligns with the subject you’ve been discussing they will be far more likely to respond.
After all, there’s no place like home. ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 15
SPEAKING YOUR WAY TO SELLING SUCCESS
SEED AND GROW RICH! A PROVEN APPROACH TO SELLING THAT’S NOT SALES-Y
WRITTEN BY LISA SASEVICH | THE QUEEN OF SALES CONVERSION | WWW.THEINVISIBLECLOSE.COM
THE DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF ‘SEED’ IS: • Seed \’s d\: A fertilized plant ovule containing an embryo capable of developing a new plant; a source; offspring; to plant seeds in.
There is a particular place that I come from with seeding that has been very, very effective for me over the last 19 years. It has certainly been one of the keys to my success as a speaker, trainer and salesperson.
eeding while giving a live presentation is the technique of planting valuable little tidbits of useful information (seeds) that come from the products or services you will be offering for sale sometime during your presentation. It works wonderfully in both group and one-on-one situations and works in any medium, whether on the phone, live or on a recorded product.
I’ve used this approach everywhere from leading personal growth seminars all the way through selling and presenting for big companies like Pfizer and Hewlett-Packard.
S
If done well, seeding should create a hunger in the person listening so that they want more. You give them something very valuable and also let them know that more of that good stuff can be found in your book, CD, weekend workshop, etc…
This is part of what makes up “my style” as a trainer, and it happens to be a skill that is also transferable. In other words, it’s teachable. You don’t have to be me to pull it off. It’s something you can learn as a skill and it will do magical things for your presentation style and sales results.
SEEDING MISTAKES YOU SEE ALL THE TIME Have you ever been at a presentation where you loved the speaker, they’re providing so much value…and then they switch into their “sales mode?”
16 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
SPEAKING YOUR WAY TO SELLING SUCCESS They start “doing sales” on you? Sometimes their voice changes or they start speaking like an auctioneer or the Ginsu Knife guy?
but they are the best kept secret in their industry because of their fear of being too pushy or salesy. They are afraid they will turn people off. This approach works really well for them.
Sometimes they’re so passionate about their subject that when they’re teaching, their voice is really enthusiastic and they are very self expressed, but when they switch into “doing sales” they go down a few octaves. Their enthusiasm, which was there the whole time, shifts into a mode of, “Okay, bear with me, I’m going to do the sales part now.”
My approach to seeding is called “Partnership from the Start.”
Another common mistake that a lot of speakers make is they passionately provide value throughout their whole talk and then they throw in the “sales part” at the very end. They get their sales sheet out or their special offers for the day and they run through it really quickly. Sometimes they do it so quickly that you’re not exactly sure what they’re talking about. They’re trying to hurry as if they are doing this bad thing to you and they better hurry up and get it over with. There’s this whole mode that you see trainers shift gears into and it’s not very engaging. It doesn’t drive you toward them and what they’re offering. In fact, it gives me the heebie-jeebies!
A NEW PLACE TO COME FROM Many of my consulting and coaching clients are really wonderful creative people who are offering a fabulous product or service,
From the very beginning of my presentation, I establish a partnership with my audience. It allows me to unabashedly promote my offerings, without seeming sales-y or pushy. In fact, it’s fun! Whether I’m speaking for 45 minutes or for two days, where I come from to establish this partnership is this:
• I have a limited amount of time with my audience. • The information I am providing is super-valuable and will transform their lives, their business, etc...
• And even though I have a specified amount of time with them, I have more to give them than I can possibly fit into the time we have.
• Thus, I’m going to give them as much value as I can possibly squeeze into our allotted time.
• And as a service to them, as I touch on subjects that I have more to say about, but not enough time to include it all, I will point out where they can get more on that subject.
• This is what a true partner would do.
ABOUT LISA SASEVICH Honored as the 2013 Extraordinary Entrepreneur of the Year by Women Online Magazine, recipient of the coveted eWomen Network Foundation Champion award for her generous fundraising, and proud owner of the No. 169 rank on the prestigious Inc. 500 list of America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies of 2012, Lisa Sasevich “The Queen of Sales Conversion” teaches experts who are making a difference how to get their message out and enjoy massive results, without being salesy. Recognized sales expert by Success Magazine and named one of America’s Top Women Mentoring Leaders by WoW Magazine, Lisa delivers high-impact sales-closing strategies for turbo-charging entrepreneurs and small business owners to great profits. According to best-selling author Brian Tracy, “Lisa Sasevich is one of the greatest discoveries in America today!” Kym and Sandra Yancey of e-Women Network say that “without question she is brilliant at teaching others how to leverage their unique gifts and qualities and convert them into a financial windfall. She is one authentic, heart-centered expert that delivers in spades!” Robert Allen, author of multiple New York Times Best Sellers says, “She added a zero to my income today just by watching her. Lisa Sasevich. Watch that name and whatever you do, be part of what she’s doing. You’re going to love it.” After 25 years of winning Top Sales Awards and training senior executives at companies like Pfizer and Hewlett-Packard, she left corporate America and put her skills to the test as an entrepreneur. And in just a few short years, Lisa created a multi-million dollar home-based business with two toddlers in tow. Lisa really is the undisputed expert on how to make BIG money doing what you love! To receive monthly Sales Nuggets and Lisa’s FREE 6-part series, “Simple, Quick and Easy Ways to Boost Sales Without Spending a Dime,” subscribe today at www.FreeSalesTrainingFromLisa.com ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 17
SPEAKING YOUR WAY TO SELLING SUCCESS I tell them right from the beginning, “Since we have a limited amount of time together, I’m going to give you everything I can in the time we have. From experience I can tell you that there will be some topics that you will likely want to dive deeper into and we just won’t have time. So, along the way I’ll show you how you can get more on that subject through one of the resources I offer. And then later today, I’ll show you how you can get some amazing deals on my products and services if you feel inspired and want more.”
WHAT THIS APPROACH DOES FOR YOU AS A SPEAKER, TRAINER OR SALESPERSON: Using this approach right from the beginning has more benefits than I can begin to describe.
HERE ARE THE TOP 4:
01
02
03
If you seed as a partner from the beginning, then you don’t have to switch into “Sales Mode” when it comes time to talk about your product offerings. You’ve already given valuable tidbits from each of your products and pointed them out along the way. When it comes time to present your special offers, you just have to remind them that this is the product that contains the great information you gave them about X, and it has 17 more secrets beyond what you were able to share with them in the limited amount of time you had together. You don’t end up having to describe each and every product you are offering when you get to presenting your special offers. You already did it briefly while you were seeding. Thus, you don’t end up with a long “sales part” at the end. The whole time you were pointing out where they could get more on the topics you covered, and then you show them how to get it on special.
04
It relaxes your audience because they’re not wondering when “the big close” is coming. You told them how it was going to go and what you were going to do and you are doing it.
This is the best approach I’ve found for wonderful trainers who have a hard time being salespeople. With your mind coming from a place of partnership and service, you will truly want your audience to have the benefit of your offering. Thus, you are just focused on completely serving them … rather than selling them.
A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION You really do have to come from and believe that you have great information and you truly do have a limited amount of time with these people. You need to believe that it truly is a service to show them how it all fits together and where to get more. If you don’t believe that, then maybe you are really not connected to the benefits of what you are offering. You can’t try to “do” this technique. It’s a place to come from. This is not about trying to squeeze a little product plug in everywhere you can. This is about giving value and then pointing out where more can be found. You want to teach for a while, give some value and then, when there’s a truly appropriate time to show someone where more value can be found, you show them from a consultative place. Imagine checking out a new restaurant and the owner comes out and reads you the menu. Informative at best. Now imagine that he comes out with a sample tray of the top five dishes they offer. You get to taste and smell the food and if it’s good…you want more! It’s the same when you’re seeding. You can’t just read them the menu of what you offer. Give them a taste of your best, something they can sink their teeth into and can immediately apply in their life and/or business. Make it so good that they leave feeling served and like they got tremendous value whether they bought or not.
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18 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
SPEAKING YOUR WAY TO SELLING SUCCESS When you seed well you leave your audience thinking, “That appetizer was so good…I can’t wait to have the whole meal!”
INFOGRAPHIC - CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW
ARE YOU READY FOR THE WHOLE MEAL? As I write this my mind is exploding with all of the other critical elements that dramatically increase sales at your live presentations. You are probably wondering things like… Once you’ve seeded well, what are the key elements to presenting your Irresistible Offers? Is there a certain format I should use? And, what are the secrets to Designing Irresistible Offers? What makes someone act now and buy “the whole meal?” I have an idea! Visit www.FreeSalesTrainingFromLisa.com to download my FREE 6-Part series, “Simple, Quick and Easy Ways to Boost Sales Without Spending a Dime!” It’s loaded with information you can immediately apply to skyrocket sales without being “sales-y.” And I promise you, if there are subjects you want even more on, I’ll point out where you can get more and most likely offer you a great deal! (See how I did that?!)
CLICK AD TO VIEW WEBSITE
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 19
CONTENT MARKETING
7
PROVEN WAYS TO USE CONTENT CURATION
TO BECOME A RECOGNIZED AUTHORITY IN YOUR INDUSTRY
WRITTEN BY DONNA GUNTER
T
here’s a new marketing sheriff in town, and her name is content curation. I’ve been reading about this process for the last year or so, and since it seems to be gaining in popularity, I thought the process was worth a deeper look for online marketing managers in both helping their clients and promoting their own businesses. Content curation is the process of finding, assembling and presenting interesting and up-to-date information on a certain subject. It is rapidly gaining popularity with bloggers and companies that rely on Internet marketing and content marketing, in particular. However, content curation is very different from content marketing. While content marketing revolves around the creation of new content, the content curation process involves
looking for relevant information about a certain subject, enhancing the curated content with additional ideas, feedback, and your own take about the matter, and then passing the curated information on to your readers. Most often this happens on a blog. Although the term is relatively new to many, it is highly likely that you have used a form of curation in the past. Content curation can take the form of blog links, online news mashup, social media feeds, RSS feeds, pictures, videos and songs among other digital content. The act of curation is practiced on a number of well-known blogs, like Mashable.com and HuffingtonPost.com.
DONNA GUNTER, Digital Startup and Marketing Strategist, has been helping people
all over the world create, launch, market and grow online businesses. After launching her first business from her rural, East Texas hometown in 1999 using only connections made online and Internet marketing strategies that she tweaked to fit her INFP personality, she has grown it into a multi-business enterprise. If you’d like more traffic to your web site, grab her free report, 100 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Web Site, www.ibizlauncher.com/100ways
20 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
CONTENT MARKETING The benefit to you as the blogger is that you get to serve as the information filter to your followers by finding the best content for your niche and making sense of what you find in a manner that helps your readers become aware of the most important activities going on in and around any niche. You, then, become known as a go-to expert in your industry without really creating any new content yourself.
04
INFOGRAPHICS:
HERE ARE 7 PROVEN WAYS TO USE CONTENT CURATION TO BE SEEN AS THE GO-TO PERSON IN YOUR INDUSTRY:
05
BOOK LIST: How about creating a list of relevant
06
RESOURCE PAGE: Content curation makes it easy to offer large collections of information, like a resource page or section. To make it user-friendly, create an easy-to-navigate resource page that contains links to relevant content on the topic of the resource. Enhance that page by including your own information on the topic.
07
CASE STUDIES: I love to learn by example, and I
01
02
03
VIDEOS:
You can gather a diverse collection of relevant videos on a particular topic for your readers. This is even made simpler by the fact that most video web sites allow permit embedding of their videos. As you curate these videos, you need to write a short introduction detailing reasons why readers should watch the video and what they will get out of them.
EXPERT TIPS: As an expert in your industry, you can create a valuable list of the tips on a particular topic in your industry just by pulling the various tips from other experts into a comprehensive guide. Then, aggregate these tips into a list for a valuable piece of curated content.
SOCIAL MEDIA: Social media is a great place to find quality and informative content, which you can save in a document and then push the content out to your social networks. How often do you retweet or repost something you like out to your list? When you do so, you’re practicing basic content curation. However, you should ensure that the content is useful to your followers. And, be sure that all of your social networks accounts have a common profile name and are interlinked so that your fans and followers will recognize you regardless of the platform that you use.
Infographics are images that display information like data, copy, or both, presented in an easy-to-digest visual manner. If you’ve noticed some cool infographics in your industry, include them in a blog post and share your thoughts about them. See a great infographic on the topic of content curation here. www.curationsoft.com/tag/infographic/ books for your readers? You can add a short review to each of these books, and then update the list regularly to ensure that return visitors would always find new information. You can easily include ebooks in this list, as well. If you’re an Amazon affiliate, you can increase your revenue by using affiliate links in your list.
bet you do, too. And, real-life examples provide great social proof. So, if you want to emphasize or possibly disprove an idea, pull together some case study examples from others that support or refute your point.
Content curation is not simply the act of posting the information that you find online. Rather, content curation helps you plan and execute a strategy that distinguishes your activities from those of your competitors, addresses the needs of your target market, and helps you become the go-to expert in your industry. CLICK AD TO VIEW WEBSITE
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 21
CONTENT MARKETING
HOW TO
CREATE EXCELLENT CONTENT I
t doesn’t matter what kind of business you have, whether it’s a bricks and mortar business, or a strictly online business, you need content, lots of it, and in all the forms you can manage that fits your audience. In order to create authoritative content you need to have the right information based on your research.
Understand Your Audience Before you even start thinking about what kind of content to write you need to know who your audience is. You should know them well enough that you can create audience personas. Profiles that describe one of your average audience members
WRITTEN BY STEPHANIE WATSON down to the type of hobbies they have and how much money they make.
Know Your Product’s Benefits People care more about what’s in it for them than they care about all the features of your product. If you take it upon yourself to teach your audience about the benefits of your product and why they need your product you’ll do better than if you made a huge list of all the features of your product.
Realize What Makes Good Content Your content should be targeted, consistent, engaging, relevant, useful, and always have a call to action (CTA). Your
ABOUT STEPHANIE WATSON With more than 20 years experience working from home in a variety of roles such as HTML Website Designer, Internet Marketer, Template Bender, and Virtual Assistant, today Stephanie is an author and content strategist who organizes, plans, writes and implements content strategies for business owners through her business at Barry Publishing. You can find her at Linkedin.com www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniewatsonbarry and contact her via her website www.barrypublishing.com. 22 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
CONTENT MARKETING CTA is a very important part of every piece of content you develop from a blog post to an eBook. It doesn’t matter if you want your audience to read more, buy something, or sign up for a list, it must be very clear what you want them to do when they’re done reading or viewing the content you offer.
Finally, if you don’t know your goals, and create a plan to reach those goals you could wind up anywhere. You want to wind up making a healthy income so that you can experience the freedom that is inherent in not worrying about money all the time. Brainstorm Regularly Before the start of every year you should brainstorm your theme for the coming year. Then you should brainstorm content surrounding that theme for the entire year. If you have it all set up in advance you’re a lot more likely to be creative when it comes time to actually sit down and create the content, or send it to your ghostwriter to write. Keeping an ongoing list of content ideas then scheduling those ideas will win every time over waiting for inspiration to hit.
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in
onlinemarketing manager Magazine Reach Your Target Audience
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Let Go of Control It might seem hard to develop all this content that you need but it’s not hard if you build a team. Outsource some aspects of your content creation. Aside from hiring a ghostwriter you can also ask your audience, as well as colleagues who serve the same audience as you in a complementary way for guest posts. You can also seek user-generated content by opening up comments on your blog or starting a discussion forum. A well trained content strategist can assist you with organizing, planning and developing content that gets results. Finally, if you don’t know your goals, and create a plan to reach those goals you could wind up anywhere. You want to wind up making a healthy income so that you can experience the freedom that is inherent in not worrying about money all the time. You want to have more time for the things that matter to you. If you want all that, you are going to have to develop a plan, set reachable and specific goals. Then you will need to create, schedule and accomplish actionable steps that get you closer to your goal, every single day. ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 23
WEB PROGRAMMING & DESIGN
HOW TO CREATE A
USEFUL 404 ERROR PAGE IN WORDPRESS N
WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
othing is worse than a customer or potential customer clicking on a link and getting taken to a broken page with a “404 Error Page Not Found” message. Thankfully, even though this is going to happen on occasion, even when you implement preventive measures, you can make it less painful by creating useful 404 error pages.
Some WordPress themes have a 404.php file that you can easily edit, others you’ll have to create your own, and upload it. You can easily create the 404.php file or edit the existing one inside a text editor, then copy and paste it into the 404.php file using the editor in the dashboard, or save it to a file called 404.php, upload it directly to the directory of your WordPress instance.
Make Your 404 Error Page Friendly People love humor when an error occurs. While it may not be that funny to you, if you add in some humor to your 404 Error page the user is more than likely to keep trying to get your site to work for them.
Give Them The Ability to Contact The Site Administrator Not only will this make the user feel better, but it’ll help you if users report 404 error pages so that you can fix them. No matter how friendly and funny your 404 error page is, you still don’t want it to show up.
Add Useful Links to the 404 Error Page To help your reader, it’s a good idea to include some potentially helpful links to other content on your website for the viewer to read instead of the page they were trying to read. While it might not be what they wanted, they are likely to click on something to find out.
Include Google Search on Your 404 Error Page You can get the code from Google to add a search bar to your 404 Error page. Not only can you earn a little money if this is used, you give your viewers a way out of your website and the error by making the page useful.
An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure
When it comes to 404 Errors, you really don’t want them to happen and thankfully there are things you can do to try to prevent them.
01
DID YOU CHANGE THE PERMALINK STRUCTURE?
If you have a WordPress site then this is a very likely way for 404 page errors to start. While the links change inside the site when you change the link structure, if you have any links outside the site on social media, article marketing, blog comments, etc... then when they come to the site from that link they’ll get a 404 error message.
02
ERROR IN CODING OF INDEX.PHP OR SEARCH.PHP
If you’ve spent time, or your webmaster has spent time customizing any of the code in your WordPress site then you may want to check for coding errors. It’s very likely the culprit that there are invalid addresses being used in the code. It only takes one typo to ruin the entire coding.
03
BROKEN LINKS
For whatever reason, sometimes links become broken. It’s a good idea to check regularly for broken links. You can do this with a plugin for Wordpress. Wordpress Broken Link Checker will monitor links and notify you by email when broken links are found. Finally, if you want to you can use a plugin to help you make a customized 404 Error page that really stands out. Whatever you do, don’t leave the boring 404 Error page as is. Use every ounce of real estate to help you improve sales and stickiness of your website.
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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
MELANIE BENSON STRICK
AMERICA’S LEADING SMALL BUSINESS OPTIMIZER WRITTEN BY KATE SMITH
R
eady to increase your profits by optimizing your business? Get Melanie Benson Strick’s free manifesto “The Profit Challenge: 15
Commonly Untapped Strategies for Exponential Growth” at www.beyondoptimumperformance.com so you can outperform your best year ever!
And we do that through different types of training like my MoneyDNA Mastery Program. I also have an Optimize Your Business Coaching program. And I have simple programs like how How to Get Out of Overwhelm, and it’s all focused on how do you make your business and yourself, the business leader, perform better.
do you solve for your customers?
Kate: It seems like even though people may have a team on board, they can still be overwhelmed, and it sounds like you’ve got a way to cut through all that.
Melanie: When
Melanie:
Kate: Can you tell us about your business? What problems I started my business over 14 years ago, one of the things I noticed is that a lot of entrepreneurs have lots of ideas, lots of creativity, lots of passion, lots of things they want to accomplish, and often times, it creates a sense of overwhelm and it results in a lack of real profits and traction in the marketplace.
I immediately became well known for helping people get out of overwhelm by leveraging the their time and resources more effectively and have worked with some of the big super stars in the online world to turn them into high 6 & 7 figure business owners. Over the last few years, I’ve found another level to getting out of overwhelm – optimizing. Optimizing is the ability to make your business perform 10 to 100 times better. And it’s amazing what happens to your life and your profits when you optimize. What I do is I help visionary, fast-paced, highly creative entrepreneurs and small business owners learn a few very simple techniques to make their business work better in the marketplace so you’re spending less time and resources but getting much better profitability and making a huger impact.
There are three different ways that people approach their business. They’re either struggling or they’re in overdrive or they’re thriving. Very few people I know are actually thriving because thriving really means that you’re in an experience of complete bliss, things are kind of an autopilot. You’re able to predict and achieve a certain level of consistent revenue. You have formulas and systems that allow your business to really work without you to some degree. But that’s kind of a fantasy for other people. Very few people can sustain that. But what I find is that most people are either struggling because they can’t figure out how to make what they have work well in the marketplace. They can’t get the level of revenues they want. The things they put out don’t work well. Or they are in overdrive mode because they have figured out something and now they’ve had their foot on the gas at full speed; they’re going 115 million miles an hour and there is no stopping. And so the overwhelm comes from a state of exhaustion and a real deep desire to get more done but they forgot that they are a limited resource in themselves as well as in their team. So overdrive mode really creates a whole other
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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT problem: there is always more to do than there is ever time to get done. So inherent in both of those are really different types of overwhelm and different types of problems. But the key is if you are not thriving, then you’re really not experiencing what you set out to do as an entrepreneur. Thriving is about really enjoying your business, feeling fulfilled, being happy with what you have and knowing that there is always more that you can achieve but not coming from a desperate or needy or ego place. It’s really coming from a place that you know who you are and you know what you want to do and you’re doing it and you’re happy with your life and you’re happy with your life and your business. And there are probably a lot of people who couldn’t’ say that.
Kate:
How long have you been in online world?
Melanie:
When I started my business, I wasn’t in the online world. That was back in 2001. I was a coach and I was operating in an online world in the sense that I took my training in a virtual environment but all of that online marketing was very new to me. It was probably about a year later that I started getting exposed to a lot of it, and some of my early partnerships were really big online marketers. And so I got thrown
into the world of online marketing. And again, one of the things I knew early on was this whole online marketplace created this fantasy of hey, if you build this online business, you’re going to have all of this business because you’re not contained by geographic boundaries. But there was also a lot of work that went into that online world. And a lot of people were trying to leave behind a service-based business or a more physical brick and mortar world and pursue the illusion of passive revenue online. And there were a lot of wake-up calls, a lot of people realizing that there was a lot going on which is why I’m so excited about the Online Marketing Manager Certification because so many people have no idea what they’re getting into. There is so much to learn. There are so many things going on. But when I got into the online world, it was still very new. There wasn’t as much competition. There were a lot of emerging technologies. Facebook didn’t even exist yet. I think MySpace emerged early on when I was getting into the online market. Luckily, because I was familiar with the online marketing world, I did learn a lot about it very early on. But the work that I do solved a lot of problems that other online marketing experts were creating. I became very well known very fast about my leverage
and my getting out of overwhelm support systems. Been in the world a while. It’s a fun world to play in but it’s definitely got it’s own set of overwhelming challenges.
Kate: You’re in the thriving space? Melanie: Yeah, I wouldn’t say I’m there 100% of the time, to be totally honest. I don’t know many people who stay there 100%. Being an entrepreneur creates tension for yourself because you’re always seeing more things you want to do. You always see the next path. But I work my own process and I use my tools to channel my creativity and my vision so that I’m focused on a plan of action and I’m working my own process.
Kate:
You came from corporate background, correct?
Melanie:
Yes. I spent 14 years working for a couple of different companies in the Fortune 500 world, ten of which were with Motorola. And my background was an interesting, varied background. I worked a lot with our public sector, the state and local governments and utility companies. But my specialty was I could get projects done in record time because I knew how to motivate, inspire and leverage the genius of other people to get things done. So I got put on all these interesting, crazy projects over the years that had really short time frames.
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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT We had clients who were not getting the level of success they needed out of their projects and so they’d bring me in to help figure out how we could improve our satisfaction ratings. So I was basically indoctrinated into the world of ‘how do you get things done and create excellent experiences for your customers’. And it was a really cool training ground. It was a great company to work for if that’s how you’re wired. But I learned early on that I was actually bored quickly. Those talents never seemed to fit and now I know why. As a coach, I’m in my genius and I love what I do and I get to speak and spend my days helping people re-wire their thinking and create more powerful success habits and design strategies that can get them into the high six and seven figures. That juices me up. This wasn’t the right juice factor in Corporate America.
Kate:
What sort of trends have you seen in online marketing over that span of time?
Melanie: Great question. When I got started, even though online marketing is really powerful, I have to tell you, I didn’t use as much of it as I should have because I was very entrenched in the speaking marketplace. So the big thing that led to big success before 2008 that I saw happening were online were
squeeze pages. You could basically put a very simple manifesto or an e-book or an audio on your squeeze and get good opt-ins. Also sending out e-zines became THE way to stay in touch. Blogging wasn’t as big as it is now, and doing a call once in a while. So that was the big strategy – get leads to opt in. And everything had to do with copy, copy, copy. Making sure that your copy was really good. But I did most of my business at live events sharing offers from the stage. In about 2008, that flipped for me and I saw that market crumbling and not working as well and people not willing to spend money to travel. And it was almost like everybody’s buying behavior changed dramatically, and I realized I was going to have to focus and master some pieces about the online marketplace that I hadn’t up until then. I saw social media really start to emerge as a much bigger component, too. Interestingly enough, I did get some success out of MySpace. I actually got a $15,000.00 client one time. He loves to tell the story that he bought a get out of overwhelm product from me on MySpace. Within three months, he had bought everything I had. And even today, he still uses me as his coach and mentor, five years later. He was at $200,000.00 then and now he’s
well into the millions in his business. MySpace did work for me in the early days. But now, with social media, there are so many things that work well but change frequently. You have to stay on top of the trends. I’m the host of a weekly speaker chat for a women’s speaker association, and that is probably one of my greatest lead sources and a great connector for me and a great visibility positioner for me in the marketplace. I do a lot of webinars that I advertise through partners and Facebook ads. But you can only do so much until you have a great team. A good team needs the right management support to stay on top of all the moving parts. There are a million things you can do with video, with podcasting and blogging and all of that. But you have to pick the things you know will work the best. I’ve seen the trend with more and more technology, with more automation, creating more need to get really talented people to help you manage all of the ins and outs of what you have to manage online.
Kate: The virtual industry is changing along with online businesses. In an industry with so many players, how do you I ensure that you stand out?
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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT call me traditionally a coach, although now I would call myself an expert in optimization. What happens is if you’re not careful about how you position yourself, you’ll sound like everybody else. And I see this happen in a lot of marketplaces that emerge quickly and create a lot of competition for themselves. I always look for the sweet spot: Where are my ideal clients already playing in the space online? And what would help me stand out to them? Sometimes just sharing case studies and testimonials does that. But what I find is really stepping into leadership. I’m always looking for how can I be a leader in that marketplace? Not because of ego but I want to be able to help people. I want to be in a place where people can see and turn to me for support. So one of the things that’s worked for me over and over and over again is that I look for ways that I can be the expert and be in the position to teach and mentor and guide, regardless of what online community it’s in. And it tends to work really well because when people are looking for a solution, they’ll turn to the people who have already been mentoring them, who they’ve had a taste of their work. The other thing that has been valuable has been aligning with other really visible, powerful experts in other industries. It’s almost like a third party endorsement when someone can vouch for you and say this is somebody who has coached me, or this is the person I turn to for this or this is the person that I believe can help you with this problem. A lot of the obstacles melt away. And the person who may be learning about you for the first time knows they can trust you because there has been that third party endorsement. I think that’s also a way that you can stand out more effectively in a very crowded sea of online people.
Kate: I imagine it’s taken you a bit of trial and error over the years to find that sweet spot. But it sounds like you’ve
been there for a long time and it just continues to grow.
Melanie: I would say that my first breakthrough, well, I had to do a lot of inner game work, which is why I always include that with my coaching. I had to really change some of my beliefs and my vision on what was possible for myself in order to really conquer that first hurdle. And once I did, I aligned myself with people who were really powerful and who opened a lot of doors. And I made my first six figures in under nine months. That was pretty powerful. And I’ve never looked back. I’ve never been under six figures. I’ve continued to grow and evolve. I’ve had my ups and downs like everybody else has but there is no looking back once you get past that first hurdle. But for me, I found that you have to find your niche and then you have to continue to find ways to serve that niche. But I eventually had to shift my niche. I had to grow and evolve my niche as I was growing and evolving with what it is I teach and do. So those are some of the things you have to look at sometimes is as you get stronger in your service or your offering, you have to look at am I focused on the right niche and can it really grow with me? Maybe you’re growing what you charge or you want to charge more. Let me say this. One of the biggest problems I see that every service-based person has is when you know it’s time to increase your income, sometimes you have to raise your rates, but that audience that you’ve been focused on can’t grow with you. So one of the big things everybody has to look at is are you marketing to the right pool of people who can sustain the financial level that you want to create for yourself?
Kate: As someone who has been privy to the new Online Marketing Management industry that Pam has been creating (Melanie is Pam’s business coach), how do you feel about
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this new industry and the creation of skilled and education Certified Online Marketing Managers?
Melanie:
For about 10 of the 14 years I’ve been doing this, I have found that the people able to implement what I see as the vision are an invaluable part of my growth and what helps me to stand out in the world and to really serve better. But what happens for a lot of us, and I see this with my clients every day because I am teaching people how to get to six, seven, even eight figures, is that if you don’t have the right people in place to manage the growth of your business, you will become the bottleneck. In my own personal experience and what I’ve seen as the problem for so many of business owners is that marketing is the hardest place to find really good talent in the virtual world. Some people know the more traditional model of hiring employees, there is a different set of challenges and needs there. But in the online marketplace, this is a very unique market. There are so many things that are changing at the speed of light. There are so many nuances. And if you’re working in a virtual environment and you don’t have an employee that comes to work every day in your office, this adds a whole other dimension. For me, the fact that this new online marketing management industry is evolving is really exciting. I’ve been talking to Pam since she first had the idea about it, and I’m fortunate to be guiding her through this process and working with her as her coach and mentor. I’m so excited for this to come out in the world, because first of all, I think there are a lot of really talented people who can deliver great marketing support to people like me. But because they don’t have a system and an infrastructure to operate as a manager and really see themselves as an orchestrator of all things, it ends up feeling like there are a lot of holes that get created. And I think by the sheer nature of being a service provider,
INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT service providers tend to get themselves overwhelmed because the only way they make money in the traditional model is they have to take on more clients. What I see emerging here is you’ve got a body of work that allows people to have different models to grow their income through how successful they make their client. And when someone like me can have someone you might consider your partner and as a trusted advisor and someone who can really take the reins and guide you through the marketing part and to be able to take ownership of getting things down and making sure that that lead generation is always being handled, that is like the most blissful, thriving place anybody can be.
on the lead generation side and that all the moving parts for your launches and your offers are always taken care of, that would be like you’re at the spa in your business every day. And it’s just something that will really be able to uplevel the game of a lot of really great online businesses.
I know so many people who need this kind of support. I had two clients on calls today who said, “I need somebody to take over my marketing!” It is the single biggest complaint and frustration for entrepreneurs on this planet. Now I will say that there are people who are really great marketers and that part is not what gets them frustrated. But overall, I think 80% of the people I work with, me included, we just don’t have the same passion for the marketing as we do for the business itself and for the thing that we sell.
Here’s the thing. There are three camps. There are the people who are great marketers. There are the people who are learning to be great marketers, and for the most part, can do a good job with it, but they want to be doing something else. And because they want to be doing something else, they feel tension and unfulfilled when they’re having to spend so much time marketing. And it’s really hard to flip between being a marketer and then delivering what you sell. It’s two completely different energies, unless you sell marketing. So you tend to create this tension and stress inside of you when you’re a business owner who doesn’t get to spend much time in their passion because you have to focus on the marketing. So that inherently means that having someone who can take that off your plate means that you will stop being a bottleneck in your own growth and you’ll be able to do more of the things that you’re passionate about.
To me, having someone who is trained and is able to take the reins and make sure that your business is successful
In the third camp, these people aren’t good at marketing. They don’t understand it. It boggles their brain.
They resist it. They get frustrated. Yes, it is good to have somebody focus on it. But for the most part, you want to be able to have someone else to have their expertise so that you’re not losing valuable time, money and energy trying to market and not do a good job with it. So I think there will always be one camp that is good enough to do it themselves, but there is such a huge industry out there that desperately needs this service.
Kate: What do you feel are essential knowledge and skills for a truly valuable Online Marketing Manager to possess? Melanie: Some of the things I think an online marketing manager needs to possess and make them an invaluable asset, you have to be able to understand how can you get your client their best leads consistently? Really understanding the marketplace and lead generation and conversion is critical. There are some people who have great ideas but it doesn’t deliver the best results. The OMM’s client don’t need ideas, they need what is going to work for them. I think that’s a must-have. On another completely different side of it, you’ve got to be organized. It’s one of the things I’ve had to let people go over because they don’t know how to organize themselves in order to bring power to the client. And what ends up happening is the client starts to feel overwhelmed and out of the control
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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT because they feel the person they’ve hired is not organized and they’re not getting information or getting enough traction. And they’re seeing this money go out and not seeing good results. And so it causes doubt and fear to show up and they give up on the process before they see traction. You can think of it like if you’re taking ownership of someone’s marketing, you’re literally taking ownership of the business in the sense that your job is to provide revenue to that business owner through the work that you do. And it’s a valuable part but at the same time, not being organized creates so much tension that they lose the process. So I think being organized and structured and really able to put systems in place like a plan and looking at tracking and being able to provide feedback on what’s working and what’s not working is important. I teach my clients how to do this in my Build Your Dream Team program but they really need a good OMM to do it for them. So I think that’s really critical. And I think the third thing is there has to be what I call prioritizing. A really good online marketing manager has to meet the client where they are and take them where they could be. And if you can see what the priorities are for them and know that most of these clients, they are
like wild horses when you’re going to take them on. They have a million things that need to be done right now. And you’ve got to be strong enough to really help them prioritize and focus. Most of the time they’re doing a million things and they’re doing them all really poorly. So a great Online Marketing Manager is going to be able to say, “Here’s where you’re going to have the greatest bang for your buck. Here’s where we focus to get great traffic on your highestperforming opportunities.” You should be covering that client’s investment in you every month. And just make sure that you’re tuned into that and they’ll love you even more. They will hang on to you for dear life and it will make you an invaluable asset.
Kate: It’s wonderful to hear someone with that much experience on both sides of the coin talk about what’s needed. What roles or activities do you delegate to your team and what MUST you handle yourself? Melanie:
The roles and activities that I find most powerful to get off my plate are anything that someone can do better, faster and cheaper than me. That’s the mantra I use when I teach the Build Your Dream Team Program. If you can keep that in the back of your mind as a mantra for leverage, I find that overall, you’ll be more profitable
and more powerful. What happens for many online entrepreneurs is they get really stuck on having to do something themselves and we’re not willing to explore options. I’ve actually, at times, in my business, explored letting go of everything. But what I find is really valuable for me to keep off my plate are the things I don’t do well or stress me out to do. So I’ve always had a bookkeeper. She is awesome. She does my revenue projections. She does my billing. She makes sure that everything is collected. She stays on top of everything that’s going in and going out. And it’s not because I couldn’t but because of the systems I put in place, she will make me more money by staying on top of it. And then we meet twice a month to go over where things are at. I keep my controls in place and review my reports and make sure things aren’t out-of-whack. Another thing I find absolutely essential for me is I have my team handle all communication, with the exception of my private clients who have direct access to me. I have my team handle everything in communications because every time I get pulled into answering questions, putting out fires, dealing with customer service issues, guess what? I’m not doing the thing I’m supposed to do. I find that really valuable. And we
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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT have systems and templates and ways they can handle things if they’re not sure, they can escalate to me for direction but for the most port, over time, my team is really good at handling things. Some of the things at this point, I’m handling myself and have done it different ways. I do the coaching myself. I have had other people who have delivered different coaching programs over time. I am in the process of doing some certification and licensing, going forward. But for right now, that’s something I love doing it. It’s not because I can’t, it’s because I love it and it feeds me. I am so much in my genius when I’m coaching and delivering training that it fills me and makes me better in other areas of the business. It makes my passion come alive. People can always tell when I’ve had a coaching day. I have two coaching days a week. People say, “Melanie must be on a coaching day,” because I’m on fired up by the end of the day. I’m so pumped and excited. I also do all my own interviews and I do most of my own writing. There are times when I’ve had copywriters but I find that writing juices me and keeps me alive. Some of the most powerful things that I get off my plate are just some of the things that I don’t do well, that I put off, or that I know someone else can do more effectively,
like planning, staying on top of getting deliverables done or planning out social media or elements of a launch, doing all the technical editing and fixing websites. I don’t do any of that, I have other people do it for me because then I’m really focused on the thing that I do best.
Kate: What
is your favorite go-to tool or system that helps your business?
Melanie: I recommend everybody has an online calendar tool like Time Driver because the back and forth of trying to set appointments is a big waste of time, so I love having a calendaring tool that can synch with my iPhone. To me, that is a big time saver. I’m really huge on project management systems. I use Teamwork Live but everybody has their own favourite. I don’t use Basecamp or Central Desktop. I find them really arduous and too clunky. I like to use something really simple where I can outline the entire project or a team member can and then they can make sure everything is done routinely. It’s assigned to the person, there is a date that needs to be done. I can quickly go in and look to see what the status of a project is and it allows me to have a level of control without being controlling. It keeps my team really productive because they know exactly what has to get done when. Those are two of my favourite systems but I have
tons of things I’ve fallen in love with over the years. It really depends on where we’re at.
Kate:
What is one of your biggest challenges as an online entrepreneur and how did you overcome it?
Melanie:
My greatest challenge as an online entrepreneur is really having the time and the space to continually stay on top of all the moving parts and making sure that when you change one thing in one place that it is synched up everywhere else. That’s probably the single biggest challenge that I face. I know a lot of other people do, especially as a constantly-evolving entrepreneur. I probably have 50 websites out there. I have all different types of social media sites. We have videos everywhere.
So when you’re merging into a new body of work or have a new program or maybe you’re updating your brand, then you have to go back and look at all the places where you referred to other things. So I think that’s one of the biggest challenges and one of the things I’ve had to work out with my team to help them understand that when we’re making changes, how do we do version control? How do we make sure things are fixed all the different places they need to be fixed?
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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT Kate: Can you give us one technique or strategy that you find invaluable in making your business work better?
Melanie: This is a mindset that I think makes my business work better. It’s the mindset of optimizing. And I haven’t always been someone who optimized. I would get bored or restless and instead of figuring out how to make things better, what I would do is think I’d have to create something else. I know a lot of people who are entrepreneurs do the same thing. You want the ability to chase these different ideas and to be able to really be in that creative energy. But I found it was really costly. It impacted my profits. Every launch you do, every time you create something new, you’re in the most expensive part of your business. And so one of the things that has made my business more profitable and actually helped me thrive more as a person, is instead of constantly creating new stuff and saying yes to new opportunities, is to literally just focus on making what I have work better. It requires a lot of discipline and focus and it also requires really understanding how my business functions, like what is the most profitable part of my business? What do I sell that has the greatest return on investment? What does get my best clients into that program? And
it does require you to go deep but it is so satisfying. In a way, it’s about learning to re-channel your creativity so that it takes on a different form. Instead of creating new programs, you’re using that creativity to make the programs you have juicier and refine them and get them into excellence, and get them in front of more people. And people get bored with that because they don’t understand the power that it has. And they don’t understand how it’s costing them when they’re creating new stuff, so I find that one to be really valuable.
Kate:
Do you have any upcoming speaking gigs?
Melanie: I’m very selective about where I speak these days. I don’t do a lot of in-person speaking because as much as I love meeting people in person, my time is too valuable. I have something in the works for June in the San Francisco area so hopefully that will come together. I usually do about four to six a year, so there will be stuff coming up. And I always post on my events page at www.melaniebensonstrick.com/events. I do a lot of virtual events. Every year, I teach a large training on how to optimize your business so you can accelerate your results. We’ll have one of those coming up soon. You can find it on our website. I do telesummits all the time
which is great because in the online marketplace, having virtual access to experts is an extraordinary opportunity. I usually do one or two of those a month. We post those on our events page as well. I’ll be doing a combination of live as well as virtual events this year.
Kate: How can people find you online? Melanie: You can find me online at www.melaniebensonstrick.com where you have access to my blog and some free resources. I’ve got a free gift that you can check out there called 15 Uncommon Strategies for Exponential Profit and Impact. What I do is guide you through 15 of the most valuable strategies that you might not be using. A lot of people don’t realize how valuable they are. If you’re not doubling or tripling your revenue with just one of them, then we definitely need to talk! :) You can also find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/Melcoach. You can also find me on www.twitter.com/melcoach. I’m on Google+. I’m on LinkedIn. Please reach out. I would love to have you join me on my Facebook page. I share a lot of great tips and strategies and I keep you posted on upcoming events there as well. The greatest place to come find me is to get the manifesto on my home page at www.melaniebensonstrick.com.
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WEB PROGRAMMING & DESIGN
INSTALLING WORDPRESS
CORRECTLY
WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
C
reating your own WordPress site is pretty easy when it comes to web pages, but there are probably a few things you can do to ensure that your WordPress installation is more secure than it might be otherwise. Whether you do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you, it’s important to know how to install WordPress securely and correctly for best results.
USE SOFTACULOUS APP INSTALLER INSTEAD OF FANTASTICO One-click installation sounds awesome but the most secure oneclick installation is through Softaculous instead of Fantastico. The reason is that Softaculous allows you to change a few things such as choosing a good username and password that is strong enough to withstand attacks.
DON’T USE OBVIOUS EMAIL ADDRESSES AND PASSWORDS Nix the idea of using “admin@” your domain name. Instead of doing that, choose a different convention for email addresses for individuals within your company. You’re going to want to change them anyway if you lose someone, so it’s not a big deal and you don’t want spammers to be able to figure out email addresses because you used a standard one. That includes passwords. Make your passwords more difficult by not using words, and using a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. Write it all down and keep it in a file outside of your computer in your file cabinet.
CHANGE THE PREFIX FOR YOUR DATABASE Softaculous allows you the opportunity to change the prefix for your database tables. Use it. Wordpress automatically uses the prefix wp_ to create the tables, you want to change that to something else because everyone knows that’s what WordPress uses which makes it super simple for hackers to mess with your website. Choose something you will remember, or please, write it down, just like the passwords and user names.
CREATE PRETTY URLS The default for WordPress is to use very unattractive URLS that look horrible but also aren’t good for SEO. Usually they’ll be something like yourdomainname.com/p=765. This is not good for SEO and it looks bad. It’s not very sharable either. In your dashboard, go to settings, then permalinks and change it to something that works best. The best for SEO is to choose “Post name” for your structure. You can also personalize the structure if you’d like.
DELETE THE DEMONSTRATION CONTENT You want to go ahead and delete all the demo content instead of editing it. Deleting the content is the best way for SEO purposes. Creating new content and getting rid of the demo content that WordPress automatically includes in your installation of WordPress will get rid of strange page names and links. Delete the links, and everything that was created for you in terms of demo content.
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WEB PROGRAMMING & DESIGN
onlinemarketing manager Magazine is a rich resource to help online marketing consultants and other service providers step into their power with confidence and know-how. Do you have a story that demonstrates a way forward and can be just the information or insight they need when they reach roadblocks or feel like giving up on their business dreams?
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SET YOUR TIME ZONE Often people forget to do this, but in the settings area you can also set your time zone. If you plan to schedule posts, it’s going to schedule them based on the time zone settings that you choose. Most people choose the time zone they live in, but if your audience is in a different time zone you might decide to use their time zone instead. That way your posts will appear when you want them to and not at the wrong time.
INSTALL ANTI SPAM AND SECURITY PLUGINS There are many to choose from, but pick the plugins you’re comfortable with in terms of Anti-Spam like Akismet, and Security plugins like Better WP Security. Whatever plugins you use, ensure that they come from a reputable source and that they are updated often. If a plugin hasn’t been updated for a year, it might not be very effective.
SET UP A CONTACT PAGE You can do this with a variety of different plugins like Contact Form 7 or Gravity Forms. You can use either a free or paid plugin and get great results. It all depends on how many features you need. Setting up a contact page right away will enable your audience to send you messages right away.
IMPROVE PAGE LOAD TIMES There are many plugins you can install to improve page load times. If you start now, it’ll be best, before your website gets bigger. Some plugins to try are: Wp Smush.it and Lazy Load for Videos. You can test the speed of your site loading with the Pingdom Website Speed Test Tool.
INSTALL ANALYTICS SOFTWARE OR CODE Most people use Google Analytics, and you can install with an easy plugin after you’ve set it up on your Google Analytics account. But, you can install whatever you prefer for keeping track of your website’s traffic and metrics.
INSTALL SOCIAL SHARING AND FOLLOWING BUTTONS There are many plugins that you can use for social sharing, and following. One of the most popular is Socialize and Cunjo. Whatever you choose to use, it’s important to set up your social sharing right away to make it easy for everyone to share your awesome content that you will put up. Finally, if your website or blog is going to offer reviews, and affiliate products, and items for sale, be sure to set up your disclosure page so that you will be up to date with FTC guidelines. This page doesn’t have to be the most prominent page, but it needs to be easily noticeable in a link on the front page. You can get your own disclosure easily by going to DisclosurePolicy.org website. 34 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
STRATEGY
ARE YOU MAKING THESE MARKETING MISTAKES?
5
WRITTEN BY TRACEY D’AVIERO
M
results you need to consistently grow your business. If you know that you have ebbs and flows in your month, manage your marketing schedule strategically. Get help if you can, and keep your message out there regularly.
arketing your business is an important ongoing part of being (and staying!) in business.
But sometimes the effort we put into it may not give us the returns we are looking for. Sometimes the timing is wrong, sometimes our strategy is wrong, or sometimes it’s something else.
ARE YOU MAKING THESE MISTAKES WITH YOUR MARKETING?
01
ALL OR NOTHING Do you market your business consistently, or do you pop in and pop out when you ‘need clients’ or ‘have time’? Although it can sometimes be difficult to schedule time to market our own business, it’s essential to keep a presence out there at all times. Marketing only when you need clients, or have time is never going to yield you the
02
FOCUSING ON FEATURES INSTEAD OF Look at your marketing message. BENEFITS Does it talk about how great you are and all of the great things you know how to do? Then your potential clients probably aren’t reading it. If you are letting everyone know that they should work with a VA because they don’t have to pay health benefits, that is your first clue that you need to revise your message. Potential clients buy what they need – which is service and support. Talk to them about specifically how you can help them in their business. That’s when they will hear you.
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 35
STRATEGY 03
04
THINKING YOU CAN HELP EVERYONE Talking to the world in general about what you do is a great idea, but not in marketing. Marketing must be strategic in order to be effective. Make the most of your time (and theirs!). Focus your marketing efforts on a specific group of people. Perhaps as a service professional you can help a variety of businesses, but there is nothing that will get you clients faster than honing in on a specific group of people that you can speak very clearly to about how you can help them. Be specific, and get much better clients, every time.
TALKING IN ‘INDUSTRY SPEAK’
One of the mistakes I see VAs make often is to speak in a language that other VAs would understand - but potential clients might not - this is what I call ‘industry speak’. Your potential clients are probably not VAs, so using language and terminology that they might not understand could make them avoid working with you – if they can’t understand what it is you are trying to say. Use the words that your clients use when describing your services. Don’t get too ‘techy’ – save that for your colleagues. And speak to your clients in
a way that lets them know that you understand what they do, and that you can support them.
05
CHARGE BY THE HOUR
Does your marketing message rely heavily on telling your potential customers how much they will pay for your services? That’s arbitrary. “Dollars per hour” doesn’t translate when clients are looking for support. Be more specific about the value they will get for their budget. That’s when they will buy. They can’t guess how fast you work or how long any project will take, so you need to tell them. Know your services inside and out, and tell them how you can help them, and how much it will cost them. That’s all clients really want to know.
The main objective of marketing is not only to be heard, but to be understood by your potential clients – so check what you have ‘out there’ and be sure you are speaking to the right people, telling them the right things, and they will be more inclined to work with you.
Want to learn more about how to craft your marketing message so it speaks to your potential clients? Earn 50K as a VA: The Business and Marketing Bootcamp for Virtual Assistants. www.50kVABiz.com
TRACEY D’AVIERO is a veteran VA and Founder of Your VA Mentor. Tracey trains and mentors professional women and men who are brand new to the VA industry or who have been struggling to make their business successful. Her mission is to educate professionals on how to build and grow successful and profitable virtual businesses in the VA industry by implementing systems and smart principles. To learn more about Tracey, check out her training programs at www.yourvamentor.com
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STRATEGY
SUCCESS Isn’t Always
About What You Do... WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
S
ometimes, success is about who you do things with. One of the problems with being a solo entrepreneur is that you very rarely have a chance to reinforce your best habits. Chances are, you live in a community where most people procrastinate, play video games, overdose on fried food, and positively love distractions. And in order to break away from these influences, we must exert a great deal of energy blocking them out and telling ourselves that we will do things differently. And some people even take pride in this wrongheaded approach. But what if we could form a new community? One based on positivity and mutual support. Wouldn’t it be great if instead of having to rely on ourselves completely, other people could support us when we were down and get us energized about the success happening all around us?
Form A Dynamic Marketing Community.
Look for groups of bloggers or professionals on the web that already exist. Put your toe into the water, introduce yourself, make friends. Maybe one of these goals meet all of your needs. After a couple of weeks of steady contribution, try making your own group.
What Should You Do? At first get to know each other. Build emotional bonds. This seems a little bit cheesy, but there’s a reason why groups like AA make everyone tell their personal story. It’s important for you to have a personal interest in the people in your group. Obviously, you’ll have your individual goals that you are working towards. But look for activities that bind you as a team. Work on a large project that requires accountability, or just read the same book on a monthly basis.
Fighting Obstacles
Start looking for people you can interact with regularly. In the same way that a group like Weight Watchers for Alcoholics Anonymous regularly gets together to stay on track and refocus their goals, you can do the same thing in a marketing community. It’s much easier to do productive things when you’re surrounded by people who are doing the same thing you are. And your interest in the results that they’re having will bring you back again and again.
WHERE SHOULD YOU GO? Finding Like-Minded Friends Here’s the thing - it’s tough to round up a random bunch of people on a message board and expect them to coalesce into a motivated community. The chances of success are much better when you have people who have specialized skills and some level of past success. They don’t have to be millionaires, but they should have a portfolio - a finished blog, a completed project... something that indicates the ability or desire to start a project and see it to completion.
It’s inevitable that some people will drop the ball along the way. Every community style group has a different approach towards keeping their flock together. First, you should remember to always keep the door open. No matter what disappointments you encounter from a person along the way, it’s the group’s responsibility to always be civil so that they feel welcomed back if they leave altogether. Second, when it’s time to get someone back on the wagon, approach them on a 1-to-1 basis. There’s nothing wrong with using the pressure of a group in a drastic situation. But many people will respond better to a quiet correction of an individual.
Stay Encouraged Remember that a community’s goal should be to empower everyone and not set small groups against each other. The more unified you are in your purpose and your methods, the less friction you’ll have, and the less chance you’ll have to fail.
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 37
SEO
AVOID DANGEROUS BLACK HAT
SEO
PRACTICES S
earch engine optimization is an important part of creating a successful business presence online. However, there are many people out there giving horrible advice that can actually harm your business and even ruin your business. These dangerous SEO practices are called “black hat” SEO. If you are caught using black hat SEO tactics your website will likely be banned from the major search engines.
DANGEROUS BLACK HAT SEO TACTICS DUPLICATE CONTENT
This is a really tricky one. The reason it’s tricky is that you can use Private Label Rights (PLR) to round out the content that you create on your website and blog. However, you must make it as unique as possible, over 50% unique before putting it on your website. Mostly though, it’s better to use 100 percent new and unique content on your website focused on your target audience for best search engine results.
INCOHERENT CONTENT
I’m sure you’ve gone to a site from a search result and been very disappointed that the content is not even readable. It looks like gibberish. These are usually websites that scraped content from another site, then “spun” the content to be “unique” so much so that it makes no sense.
WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY Not only does this not work to improve search results, it is just a waste of time and there is no room for doing this type of thing for a legitimate business. Focus on creating awesome content that is enjoyable to read by your target audience.
HIDDEN TEXT
This is simply ridiculous and while it might work short term, it will not work long term to up your search engine results. This involves using a trick where the text is the same color as the background so that humans cannot see it, but search engines can. Just focus on providing relevant, interesting content instead of trying to trick the system and you’ll be a lot more successful.
KEYWORD STUFFING In the old days, this was something even legitimate websites did to optimize their pages for the search engines. Webmasters would include keywords in their meta tags, and keywords like crazy on every page of their site often to a nauseating degree so that the content wasn’t even readable by real people. When creating content for your website, while you do want to include keywords in the text, don’t go crazy. The content should be enjoyable to read by your target audience in addition to informational to the search bots. Most people agree that anything more than 2 percent keywords on any page is too much.
38 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
SEO In addition, try using long tail keywords over single words as well as synonyms so that you’re not using the same words over and over again. Google’s bots are smart enough to differentiate between the words when taken in context.
your SERPs. The fact is, it might work for a short period of time, but once the search engine bots catch on, and they will, you’re going to be dropped in search engine results or out and out banned.
LINK SWAPPING
For search engines link to your site are the same as someone “liking” your site on Facebook. The more links you have, the more people are assumed to like you and the more your clout goes up in terms of popularity. Search engines like to return websites for searchers with a lot of social clout on the top of the search results. But, tricking the system is not going to work long term.
Another popular method back in the day was link swapping. Today, link swapping is considered a bad thing to do. There is no reason why you should not link to sites that you enjoy and want to share with your audience, so don’t be afraid of doing that. However, you do want to ensure that websites you link to are legitimate, above board, and relevant to your audience. But, don’t link to someone just because you made an agreement to exchange links. Just don’t do it.
Avoid all of these tactics if you want to be in business for a long time. Owning a genuine business that gets results in legitimate ways is more important than being first on a search engine result.
It’s true that Google Search uses link popularity as a component in its ranking of websites. The more relevant links to your site, the higher your page rank may be. But Google is looking for specific types of links to your site. The links need to be “natural” and not paid for, or false exchanges, and relevant to your topic to really count and not count against you. Focus on having good content, share it, and others will share it too and link to you naturally.
CONFUSING TRACKING METHODS
It’s not likely you are using session id’s, or too many redirects, and dynamic URL’s, but if you are, Google doesn’t like it. A session id or dynamic URL will be indexed by the search engine bots as if they’re brand-new web pages due to the unique URL that is created. This is a problem because then you have the problem of duplicate content penalties that occur because the bots thinks their indexing a new page with duplicate content on it. Just be straightforward. If you’re linking someone to an affiliate product, it’s okay to state that it is what you’re doing. No need to try to fool either the reader or the search engines about this fact. Affiliate marketing is a common way to earn money on the Internet and is completely legitimate, no need to hide it.
LINK BUYING There are many businesses on the net that offer to sell you 1000 links to your website that will increase
in
ADVERTISE onlinemarketing manager Magazine
The best way to get links to your site is the natural way, by producing excellent information and content that other people want to link to. Also, by providing unique guest posts to high ranking websites within your niche. Don’t cheat the system, it won’t work long term anyway.
SPAM COMMENTING
If you’ve been blogging for any length of time you’ve likely experienced spam commenting. Comments of gibberish or one word comments and then some links (sometimes a lot of links). They do it in order to get links back to their website or blog. Who knows why they keep doing it since it really doesn’t work. Well, maybe it works in the short term but for the long term, it does not work. If you want to use blog commenting as a way to improve SEO, then make smart, coherent, and legitimate comments on other people’s blogs that contribute to the discussion. Don’t waste your time with hiring companies that will spam blogs for you. On your own site you want to reduce spam by using spam filters so that the spam comments don’t hurt your own ranking. Avoid all of these tactics if you want to be in business for a long time. Owning a genuine business that gets results in legitimate ways is more important than being first on a search engine result. Especially by using black hat tactics. Black hat tactics might work in the short term, but they will not work in the long term and they will ruin your business if you keep doing it.
Reach Your Target Audience
CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
Affordably
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 39
SEO
OPTIMIZE YOUR WEBSITE FOR
Google AUTHORSHIP
H
ave you noticed that some search results on Google seem extra special? You might see a search result that has a picture to the left, along with a nice description of the content, and under it a logo appears from the publisher. You can actually achieve the same results if you follow the steps necessary.
01
ESTABLISH GOOGLE AUTHORSHIP
You can easily establish Google Authorship, which will enhance how your articles appear in Google’s Search results. Go to the link above, and follow the instructions to establish your authorship. You’ll need a good headshot, an @yourbusiness.com email address, and the ability to verify your email address and domain name.
02
USE SCHEMA.ORG ARTICLE MARKUP
The website www.Schema.org offers a lot of markup language that you can copy to your own website to improve search results for not just Google Search but other search engines as well. Google, like other search engines use meta data to index your website. You can help it along by using the right code for your headlines, images, descriptions, publish date and so forth.
03
LOGO USAGE
Be sure that you include your logo on your Google+ page and that you also link to your website. This will help Google to recognize your website if you also use the right organization
WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY markup that you can also get from the website Schema.org, to give the search bots the clue using the proper code that this is a logo.
04
WRITE GREAT CONTENT
Your audience wants really good content. It doesn’t have to be short to be good. If you have really good information that takes more than one page to articulate, then it’s important that you write that content. If you have ideas for content that is longer, not fluff and seriously important then you might end up featured on Google’s “in-depth articles” if you also have the right markup language and everything else that goes with it.
05
LET GOOGLE TEACH YOU
Google has many tools for Webmasters, and you can learn everything you need to know by looking at what they offer. Google provides webmasters every advantage possible by not keeping anything about their algorithms a secret. They tell you what is needed to have a high ranking website and high ranking search results. What’s more, if you follow their guidelines it works for other search engines too. Any webmaster who is serious about improving search results for their articles, and their websites can implement these techniques today and see a huge difference in their search results tomorrow. These techniques work far better than trying to use tricky black hat SEO to get more traffic. Instead, follow Google’s lead and implement the techniques they most recommend and you’ll see better results than you thought possible.
40 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
BRANDING & POSITIONING
HOW TO MAKE YOUR
BRAND STAND OUT WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
T
oday’s marketplace of ideas is very competitive. Not only do you have to compete with your neighbour, but you have to compete in the international marketplace. Effective branding can make your brand stand out among the rest as a singular entity that somehow is deemed to be better than the others. The way in which a brand stands out from the competition is to understand its audience, be different and passionate enough to care about the quality of the products and services produced. A brand that differentiates itself from the competition thrives because of competition because it makes them even better. Making your brand stand out doesn’t always require loads of cash but it does require that you use the tools that you can afford and that you’re able to impart your vision to any team members that you bring aboard to help.
Understand Your Audience All marketing starts with this one concept. You must research and understand exactly who your audience is. Without knowledge of your audience you cannot adequately create products or services for them, nor can you speak to them on their level to elicit the responses that you desire them to take, such as buy your products or use your services.
Differentiate Yourself From Your Competition Competition is good, but you must be able to explain why you are different from your competition. How is your product different from theirs? What makes you so special? Why should your audience choose to purchase from you over the next guy? If you can’t say what makes you special and different, then no one else can either.
Be Passionate About What You Do While passion is not a real prerequisite to start a successful business, you can start a business about something that happens to be profitable that you don’t love, but you won’t be happy doing it long term. When you truly love something and are passionate about it, it won’t feel like work and you’ll
actually work harder and longer without even realizing it, thus you’ll make your brand stand out just because of your attitude.
Practice Consistency in Quantity and Quality No matter whether you are producing a product or a service it’s important that you are able to create quality work on a consistent basis. Also, when it comes to marketing and getting the word out about your business, both quality and quantity matter. The more you post about, and talk about your products and services the better.
Love The Competition Don’t be scared of competition. Without competition you might not even have a viable business. If, during the research phase you cannot find any competition you need to think long and hard about whether there is actually a need for your business to exist. Competition is going to make you better and the single fact of competition existing means you probably have a good and viable business model.
Use The Tools You Can Afford To Get The Word Out There are many tools available for marketing, such as social media, blogs, websites, online and off line advertisements and so forth. It’s important that you use the tools you can afford to their maximum benefit to get the word out about your brand. Internet marketing is the least expensive form of marketing there is, don’t be intimidated by competing with bigger brands. Don’t even try. But work hard to get the word out about your products and services using the channels that you can most afford. Finally, you need to have the ability to motivate team members to realize your vision. You can do this by developing an awesome mission statement and making sure everyone on your team, whether employees or contractors, understand what you stand for and can articulate it to others. Becoming a successful brand is in your grasp if you just work at it every day and believe.
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 41
7
STRATEGY
STEPS TO A
SUCCESSFUL MARKETING
AUDIT
A
WRITTEN BY LISA MANYON
re YOU sure your online marketing is as streamlined as it needs to be?
of someone you trust) to make sure it’s done properly and in some cases, that it’s done at all…
Let me take that question a step further… have you considered marketing audits for all of your offerings and revenue streams?
Remember how I share that each of your online offerings needs to have its own strategy (that means external marketing and internal marketing).
Do you have a system in place to monitor communications and make sure your team (current or previous) sets up your online communications properly?
I often teach by example and this valuable lesson can save you time, money and lost clients. I double-checked on an autoresponder email series for a specific offering and I found that the AR’s were set up but the content was NOT loaded. WHAT?!!
I am seriously asking this and for a very good reason. AND part of that reason is I learned the hard way that you must personally spot-check the work your team is doing (or enlist the support
This means that my clients who ordered that specific product were not receiving the intended follow up marketing messages
LISA MANYON is “The Business Marketing Architect.” She’s the creator of the NEW
marketing model for success. Her philosophies are featured in Inc. Magazine and alongside visionaries Richard Branson, Jessica Jackley, Arianna Huffington and B Corporations like Ben and Jerry’s in the bestselling books Wonder Women: How Western Women Will Save The World and Engage: Your Step by Step Guide to Creating a Workplace that You, Your Co-workers and Your Customers Love! An award-winning blogger and president of www.writeoncreative.com Lisa focuses on turning prospects into paying customers.
42 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
STRATEGY to let them know how I can best support them. They had been getting blank messages with only a subject line. YIKES!!!
03
Revisit your strategy to plan for success based on creating a lifestyle that fully supports you
This should have been ready to go and tested by previous team members and it WASN’T. I wrote the copy and sent it off to be proofed and loaded and it didn’t happen. I have to take some responsibility because I should have been spot-checking and insisted that the test email series were sent directly to me for final approval. I’ve since set up a system to monitor all communications for all new products and services (and we’re double-checking all the current ones, too). Needless to say, it was a BIG surprise to find this error and an opportunity to improve systems.
04
Update web content, strategies and packages to ensure you’re connecting genuinely with your ideal prospects and moving them to paying customers (This is often where unrealistic web expectations are uncovered, and this is a really good thing, because it could mean uncovering additional revenue streams and/or ways to increase profits)
05
Review your opt-in offer and follow-up email sequence to make sure it’s in alignment with your goals and what your clients want (this can include review and update of email sequences for each of your offerings)
06
Create an Internet marketing editorial calendar so your marketing efforts strategically support your revenue goals (I call them content strategy plans and you can read about some of the results my techniques have generated for clients here) to support your projections and revenue goals
07
Consistently review and monitor your results for a mutually agreed upon amount of time (6 months is often optimal and then you can reassess what you really want, need and have achieved before you renew).
AND this experience is exactly why online marketing message and strategy audits are necessary (we shouldn’t have to micro manage but clearly there needs to be some additional quality control and systems in place). How long has it been since you checked your email sequences, opt-in offer and follow up correspondence? I’m so glad I checked this myself (albeit a bit disappointed that the job was NOT done as reported). I wonder how much potential business that team mistake cost me? I wonder if similar mistakes are costing you business? Sadly this isn’t an isolated situation. Not in my business and likely not in yours unless you already have systems in place and are regularly reviewing content and strategy. If so, good for you! It’s important and if you’d like some support, I can help.
HERE ARE 7 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL MARKETING AUDIT:
01
Review revenue streams and projections to make sure they are realistic and attainable not just based on someone selling you “hope”
02
Make adjustments and suggestions for new direction as necessary and in alignment with YOUR big vision
When enlisting the support of an outside party, clearly outline the benchmarks you want to achieve during your contracted time (This should be based on YOUR goals). This should not be cookie cutter — it should be personalized and if it isn’t RUN, don’t walk, away! Is it time for a marketing audit? When was the last time you fully reviewed your revenue streams and marketing messages?
To start, visit www.writeoncreative.com and get your FREE Copywriting Action Plan to improve all of your marketing messages.
Lisa Manyon
CLICK AD TO VIEW WEBSITE “The Business Marketing Architect” A Content & Copywriting Strategist for Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs
Discover the NEW marketing model for success and get your FREE Copywriting Action Plan
As Seen In
to help you improve all of your marketing messages (as seen in Inc. Magazine and Wonder Women: How Western Women Will Save the World). www.writeoncreative.com ~ Powerfully communicating your marketing message to get results! ~
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 43
BRANDING & POSITIONING
IS YOUR
ABOUT PAGE RUINING YOUR IMAGE? T
WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
he mere presence of an about page has a lot of marketers confused. When we see “about me” we naturally want to talk about ourselves, right? Well, guess what, this is the wrong answer. Your about page is not supposed to be about you, well not completely. After all, it’s really designed to tell your audience more about you and why you are the right person for the job or to create the product or services that your audience needs. So, it’s really about them.
Stress Benefits Over Features You’ve heard this before. People want to know “what’s in it for them” so on your about page you need to be describing how you can solve their problems, answer their questions and fulfill your audiences’ needs. Your about page needs to show the proof that you are the right person to help them.
Weave a Memorable and Relatable Story If you can weave a story about how your experience and background make you the ideal person to solve your audience’s problems then you’ll create a winning about page. Perhaps you created the product or service due to your own need for the product. What is that story about? Maybe you saw a need and filled it. Talk about how and why you did that and why you’re the right person to do it by sharing with your readers the story of how it all began.
in
ADVERTISE onlinemarketing manager Magazine
Include a Professional Headshot While your about page isn’t to be focused on you, people still like to feel like they can see you and know you. Include a professional headshot that encompasses what your brand means to you and should mean to your audience. It should fit the personality of your products and / or services and your brand. Take the time and spend the money to get a professional shot taken. You can find people who will do this at local colleges and universities for about 50 dollars for a digital DVD full of pictures from an hour photo shoot.
Prove You’re The One Your about page is an excellent page to include testimonials, endorsements and if you have a good amount of social media followers include buttons to follow you with the counts right there for all to see. Also, this is a great place to include your newsletter sign up form. After all, they’ve just got to know you better, they’re ripe for joining if they’ve not joined already from you front page form. Finally, let go of the third person bio. Pretend you’re meeting your client for the first time. It’s not likely you’d talk in third person about yourself. Right? So, don’t do it on your about page either. Just be straightforward and use first person. After all, you are telling your audience about yourself and what you can do for them, not what someone else can do.
Reach Your Target Audience
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Affordably
LIST BUILDING & LEAD MANAGEMENT
EMAIL MARKETING THE MONEY IS STILL IN YOUR LIST
S
WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
ome people are running around claiming that email marketing is dead. Of course they’ve been saying that for years, while it continues to work like a charm. What’s really dead is spam. Email inboxes have become more intelligent, just like email users. You’ll need to develop email best practices and figure out the best approach for your email marketing depending on who your customers are. But, email marketing still works.
To ensure that your email marketing is getting the best results it can, consider these tips. UNDERSTAND YOUR MARKET You need to keep studying your customer to ensure that you know what to say to them in emails to get them to act. If you don’t know who you’re marketing to, you won’t be successful. Use surveys and questionnaires to learn more about your market and to engage with them on product creation and recommendations.
UNDERSTAND YOUR GOALS & EXPECTATIONS Each email marketing campaign that you undertake needs to have its own goals and expectations. If you know what you want out of a campaign it’ll be easier to create the copy that directs your list members to the right call to action. If you’re just flying off the seat of your pants you won’t know when success hits.
FOCUS ON MOBILE-FRIENDLY EMAILS Most email readers are starting to read their email from their mobile devices. It’s more important than ever to develop mobilefriendly websites and mobile-friendly emails if you expect your customers to read what you have to say.
CREATE SPECIFIC LANDING PAGES The landing pages you create for social media, guest blog posts and email all need to be different. If you aren’t focused on where you are sending your readers, they won’t be that focused on it either. When someone clicks your email to buy something, they want to buy it, they don’t want to read another long sales page.
PERSONALIZE YOUR EMAIL CAMPAIGNS Personalization today goes far beyond including the customer’s name in the email. Segmenting your market is an important component in any email marketing strategy. Your market needs to be segmented based on their behavior so that email content can be specifically directed at the user in question. Do you know when your customer has a birthday, or a special day? If you do, you should be taking advantage of the knowledge and reaching out to your customer on those special days and life events.
KNOW WHEN AND HOW MANY EMAILS TO SEND If you’ve properly segmented your market, it’ll be clear who needs to get more emails, and who needs to receive less emails. Also, you’ll understand when to send the emails for best results. What time of day works for your audience? Is there a clear pattern that shows up when you review the analytics? You are reviewing analytics right? Email marketing is far from dead. It’s still the most effective method of reaching your customer. After all, if you have their email address they’ve given you permission to market to them. They’ve opened their door and let you into their home. What’s more, due to mobile technology, they likely carry you with them wherever they go. Make the most of it.
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 45
LIST BUILDING AND LEAD MANAGEMENT
A NEW TAKE ON THE OF
CUSTOMER DATA
B
ig Data is the latest corporate buzzword. Last year, Harvard Business Review revealed that it considered those who analyze data for a living have one of the “sexiest” careers around! Clearly, I should have paid more attention in stats class when I was younger. However, slaying the data dragon in your online business doesn’t have to be complicated - especially if we look at it through fresh eyes. The most common metrics analyzed in any business is revenue. But tracking revenue alone doesn’t provide the big picture. It tells what has happened in the past and provides little insight on the future, despite what forecasters might say. For instance, five years ago the five-year financial projections of Research in Motion (the makers of BlackBerrys) looked quite rosy. How far from they are from that rosy picture today. So what is the best way to understand your customer through data interpretation?
The 4 Vs: Value, Volume, Variety and Velocity. The 4Vs were originally defined by IBM to describe the flow of data from a multitude of originating sources and formats into a single entity for analysis -- online business translation -- how we can use the data we gather in our shopping carts and listbuilding programs to understand customer loyalty?
VALUE: The idea behind this way of thinking is to create a dynamic customer-specific profile: it is dynamic as it will be altered by the addition of every data point, meaning take a look at your email marketing lists and how you segment each customer. It’s here you’ll see patterns developing over time for each customer that are critical to understanding their relationship with your business. VOLUME: This refers to how much a specific customer buys on a single order. This is the first point of the data segmentation. You need to watch that customer’s purchasing activity over time in order to understand what drives them to
4 Vs WRITTEN BY IAN CLARKE
buy and what the initial point of contact was (e.g. what landing page, etc.).
VELOCITY: Here in tandem with above, you need to analyze if the time between orders for a specific customer is increasing or decreasing. Again, to watch a specific customer’s activity patterns that will reveal a pattern with certain products or services.
VARIETY: Again, this relates to list segmentation. How many people purchased product X and product Y? How many others purchased only product X? And, here’s something many online businesses never consider: what products are your customers buying from someone else that you could be selling them? Definitely worth checking out! To put all of this into perspective, let’s assume that I run a restaurant. I should (I would hope) have a very good understanding of how many hamburgers I sold last week. I might even analyze how the number of hamburgers sold over time is changing. If I was really into data, I start looking for correlations: if a person buys a hamburger, what percentage will buy a salad? What percentage will buy French Fries/Coke, Pepsi, Ginger Ale or Root Beer? This type of analysis could help me make better purchasing decisions with my suppliers. What I am probably not analyzing is who bought the burger. If I knew who bought the burger, than I would have ways to try influence customer behavior and loyalty. I could do such things as give them every tenth burger for free, or email them a coupon on their birthday, or a whole host of myriad marketing activities that send a single message: I appreciate your business. The better we are at delighting our customers, the more loyal (typically) they will become. We can only delight them if we understand them. And we can only understand them if we analyze them. Hence check out your ‘Big Data’ on a regular basis to see how you can tweak your offerings to ensure customer loyalty and revenue growth continues!
IAN CLARKE
is a Toronto-area biotechnology executive. He blogs at www.iansclarke.com, and can be reached at iansclarke2@gmail.com
46 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
CONTENT MARKETING
5 TIPS TO TAKE YOUR CONTENT MARKETING TO THE NEXT LEVEL
WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
T
oday, blogging isn’t enough. You have to have an overall content marketing strategy that involves many different nuts and bolts to put the entire thing together in a coherent, cohesive manner. Try these five tips to take your content marketing to the next level.
01
CREATE A CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
Don’t just try to pull your content marketing off by the seat of your pants. Instead, sit down and creating a content marketing strategy for the next quarter, if not the bones of the entire year. If you create the strategy for the year, you’ll be a lot more likely to be able to carry out your plans and reach your content marketing goals.
02
HIRE A CONTENT MARKETING MANAGER
If you don’t think you have time to do it all yourself, and you probably don’t, you can hire a content marketing strategist, or a content marketing manager to help you take your content marketing to the next level. A content marketing manager can plan your year, research keywords, develop the content, and work with writers and your team to implement the content marketing strategy from A to Z.
03
KNOW ALL YOUR TACTICAL OPTIONS
There are so many different content marketing tactics that you can implement. How many of them are you using from this list below? Annual Reports Apps Articles (on and off your website) Blogs (on and off your site) Books (eBooks and Print) Branded Content Case Studies Infographics
Try to use as many of these content ideas as you can. The more you use, the better. Remember that you can repurpose content created for one tactic to use in another tactic.
04
BE MORE SOCIAL
Using social media networks to distribute your content is something that is an imperative in today’s online marketing world. But, in addition to distributing content you need to be active in other ways on social media to make it count more. Repurposing your content to use on different media is a key component in a workable and successful content marketing strategy.
05
CREATE MORE CONTENT
Finally, you need to create more content. Studies have shown that blogging at least 20 days a month will increase your traffic by over 90 percent (Hubspot). The content also needs to be focused, relevant and unique to get the best results. Quantity is important but so is quality. By implementing these five tips you will take your content marketing to the next level and boost your online presence multiple times over. Create original content targeted to your audience and present it in unique ways for the best results.
Magazines (online and off) Micro Websites Mobile Content Newsletters (online and print) Online and Offline Events Online Presentations (slideshare.com) Podcasts Print Content (offline newsletters and magazines)
Research Reports Social Media Syndicated Content Videos (youtube.com) Virtual Conferences Webinars White Papers
ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 47
SEO
THE IMPORTANCE OF TO
BOOST YOUR STATUS WRITTEN BY PAM IVEY
S
earch engine optimization (SEO) is something you’ve likely heard a lot about as you build your website and market your business online. SEO helps your business stand out among all the others on the web. The right SEO can help your website be returned on the first page of searches on many different search engines including Google Search.
What is SEO SEO consists of performing various tasks to ensure a higher page rank for search results for your website. There is both on page and off page SEO that you can do to help boost your search engine ranking.
ON PAGE SEO Various things that you can do such as ensuring you have keyworded title tags, headers, subheadings,
page names, image alt tags, URLs and content with the right keywords on each page of your website including each blog post is considered on page SEO. These are all equally important factors in helping search engines find your content.
OFF PAGE SEO
Using social media, article marketing, blog commenting, eBooks, eReports, syndicated content, guest blog posts are all part of off page SEO. The point of off page SEO is to get links back to your website and to gather social proof that you are relevant and even a leader in your niche.
Why You Want to Use SEO Search engines lay out the rules for you so that you can ensure that your audience finds you. You may as well use the rules and guidelines that they share with website developers. Google
48 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
SEO doesn’t make it a secret how they rank websites for search. Neither do any of the other major search engines so you may as well use their guidelines to give your website and business the best chance possible of being successful.
INFOGRAPHIC - CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW
SEO enables you to give search engines the information they need to return the right results to the consumers who are doing the searching. Without following a few SEO rules search engines have no idea what your site is about, or who might want to view the content on your website. Therefore, following a search engine’s recommendations for proper SEO is essential to being found. It’s also important to keep up to date on new SEO rules and guidelines. As search engines evolve and their algorithms change in order to return the most relevant results for searchers your tactics have to change too. Keeping up to date on the changes in SEO can take a considerable amount of time, but it’s worth it to keep your website at the top of the search results.
How to Hire an SEO Expert Luckily, you can hire an SEO expert. Someone who is an expert in SEO will do the work of keeping up to date on SEO guidelines from the major search engines. An SEO expert will understand what to do and what not to do. Before you hire someone who claims to be an expert in SEO do your research. Ask the SEO expert for a list of past clients that you can contact.
INFOGRAPHIC - CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW
Before you contact the customers, figure out where the people rank on various search terms that are relevant to their industry. In addition, be sure to find out exactly which methods the SEO expert wants to use to improve your search results. You don’t want to be involved in anything that remotely resembles socalled “black hat” techniques. They need to use legitimate on page and off page SEO techniques to get results, not link buying scams or questionable paid blog posting tactics. In short, they need to follow webmaster guidelines for the major search engines and steer clear of tactics that the major search engines do not like. Finally, get in writing exactly what the SEO expert is promising to do for you in terms of search engine results. No one can actually guarantee you first page results, but they can explain their strategies to help improve your search engine ranking, as well as how long it might take, and the full cost of their services.
The importance of good SEO cannot be overvalued when it comes to boosting your search engine results, page views, and status on the Internet. Therefore, it’s also important that you don’t skimp on SEO services.
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UPCOMING EVENTS Have an event you’d like included in our list? Drop us a line with all of the details to editor@ommmagazine.com
DATES
EVENT NAME
LOCATION URL
January 23 - 25, 2014 Traffic & Conversion Summit 2014 San Diego January 26, 2014
SMX Jerusalem
Jerusalem
ABOUT
http://trafficandconversionsummit.com/
DIGITAL MARKETING
http://searchmarketingexpo.com/israel/
SEARCH MARKETING
February 4 - 6, 2014 Social Media Strategies Summit Las Vegas http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/las-vegas-2014/ SOCIAL MEDIA February 6 - 9, 2014 London Affiliate Conference London http://www.igbaffiliate.com/events/londonaffiliateconference/ AFFILIATE MARKETING February 11, 2014 The Digital Content Summit 2014 London http://biztechreport.co.uk/digital-content-summit/ CONTENT MARKETING February 17 - 21, 2014 Social Media Week
New York
http://socialmediaweek.org/newyork/
February 18 - 20, 2014 Tech Marketing 360
Dana Pt, CA
http://www.onlinemarketingsummit.com/
SOCIAL MEDIA DIGITAL MARKETING
February 26, 2014 ContentTECH Virtual http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/events/ CONTENT MARKETING February 28, 2014 SearchFest 2014 Portland http://www.sempdx.org/searchfest/ SEARCH MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA March 3 - 6, 2014 E Tail West San Antonio http://www.wbresearch.com/etailusawest/home.aspx ECOMMERCE & MULTI-CHANNEL RETAIL March 7 - 11, 2014
SXSW Interactive
Austin
http://sxsw.org/interactive
March 11 - 13, 2014
SMX San Jose
San Jose
http://searchmarketingexpo.com/west/
SOCIAL MEDIA SEARCH MARKETING
March 17 - 20, 2014 Pubcon New Orleans http://www.pubcon.com/new-orleans-2014 SEARCH MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA March 18 - 19, 2014
Ad Tech Australia
Sydney
http://www.adtechaustralia.com/sydney/
DIGITAL MARKETING
March 20 - 21, 2014
Ad Tech New Delhi
New Delhi
http://india.ad-tech.com/
DIGITAL MARKETING
March 24 - 25, 2014
Digital Innovator’s Summit 2014
Berlin
http://www.innovators-summit.com
March 24 - 28, 2014
Summit: The Digital Marketing Conference
Salt Lake City http://summit.adobe.com/na
March 25 - 26, 2014
SMX Munich
Munich
http://smxmuenchen.de/
CONTENT MARKETING DIGITAL MARKETING (ADOBE) SEARCH MARKETING
March 25 - 26, 2014 LeadsCon Las Vegas Las Vegas http://leadscon.com/ VERTICAL MEDIA & DIRECT RESPONSE MARKETING March 26 - 27, 2014
Ad Tech San Francisco
San Francisco http://na.ad-tech.com/sf/
52 | ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
DIGITAL MARKETING
March 26 - 28, 2014
Social Media Marketing World
San Diego
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/smmworld/ SOCIAL MEDIA
March 28, 2014
Reykjavik Internet Marketing Conference (RIMC)
Reykjavik
http://www.rimc.is/en/
DIGITAL MARKETING
March 31 - April 2, 2014 Content Marketing World Sydney Sydney http://sydney.contentmarketingworld.com/ CONTENT MARKETING March 31 - April 3, 2014 ClickZ Live New York New York http://www.clickzlive.com/newyork/ (formerly SES Conference & Expo) SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING April 23 - 25, 2014 InfusionCon Phoenix http://www.attendicon.com/
AUTOMATION, SMALL BIZ SUCCESS
April 29 - May 1, 2014 Social Media Strategies Summit Chicago http://2014.socialmediastrategiessummit.com/chicago/ SOCIAL MEDIA May 7, 2014 DigitalMedia Summit Toronto http://digitalmediasummit.ca/ SOCIAL MEDIA & INTERACTIVE MARKETING May 13 - 14, 2014
SMX London
London
http://searchmarketingexpo.com/london/
May 27 - 28, 2014
SMX Sydney
Sydney
http://searchmarketingexpo.com/go/sydney SEARCH MARKETING
June 10 - 11, 2014
SMX Advanced Seattle
Seattle
http://searchmarketingexpo.com/advanced/ SEARCH MARKETING
SEARCH MARKETING
June 11 - 12, 2014 Social Media Strategies Summit New York http://2014.socialmediastrategiessummit.com/new-york-2014/ SOCIAL MEDIA June 16 - 17, 2014
SMX Paris
Paris
http://smxfrance.com/
SEARCH MARKETING
June 17 - 19, 2014
Internet World
London
http://www.internetworld.co.uk/
DIGITAL MARKETING
June 18 - 19, 2014 Social Media Strategies Summit Amsterdam http://2014.socialmediastrategiessummit.com/amsterdam/ SOCIAL MEDIA June 24 - 27, 2014 Amsterdam Affiliate Conference Amsterdam http://www.igbaffiliate.com/events/amsterdamaffiliateconference/ AFFILIATE MARKETING July 8 - 9, 2014
Ad Tech Singapore
Singapore
http://www.ad-tech.sg/
DIGITAL MARKETING
July 8 - 9, 2014
Ad Tech Kyushu
Kyushu
http://www.adtech-kyushu.com/en
DIGITAL MARKETING
July 14 - 16, 2014 MozCon Seattle http://moz.com/mozcon SEO, CONTENT, PPC, ANALYTICS, SOCIAL MEDIA August 10 - 12, 2014
Affiliate Summit East
New York
http://www.affiliatesummit.com/
AFFILIATE MARKETING
Sept 8 - 11, 2014
Content Marketing World
Cleveland
http://www.contentmarketingworld.com
CONTENT MARKETING
Sept 15 - 18, 2014
Inbound Marketing Summit
Boston
http://www.inbound.com/
INBOUND MARKETING
Sept 17 - 18, 2014
Ad Tech Tokyo
Tokyo
http://www.adtech-tokyo.com/en/
DIGITAL MARKETING
Sept 30 - Oct 3, 2014
SMX East
New York
http://searchmarketingexpo.com/east/
SEARCH MARKETING
London
http://www.ad-techlondon.co.uk/
DIGITAL MARKETING
New York
http://na.ad-tech.com/ny/
DIGITAL MARKETING
October 21 - 22, 2014 Ad Tech London November 5 - 6, 2014
Ad Tech New York
November 20 - 21, 2014 SMX Las Vegas Las Vegas http://searchmarketingexpo.com/socialmediamarketing/ SEARCH MARKETING / SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014 | 53
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