The Singapore Marketer (Apr-Jun 2015)

the singapore

marketer knowledge for marketing excellence

apr-jun’15

Search Engine Optimisation

Taking you from

Lost to Found PLUS+

04 5 SEO Strategies That 95% Of The Local Companies Are Not Using 28 Ten Ways You Can Use LinkedIn to Prospect More Effectively

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MCI (P) 034/06/2016 The Official Publication of the Marketing Institute of Singapore, the National Body for Sales and Marketing

Editor’s Note

Dear Readers, THE SINGAPORE MARKETER

April - June 2015

Editor Amy Bey

amy@mis.org.sg

Contributing Writers Ding Neng, Paul Lim, Mark Laudi, Pamela Wigglesworth, Ankur Bagga, Fua Kia Liang, Leonard Tan, Jean Greaves and Vincent Lee MIS EXECUTIVE COUNCIL President Roger Wang 1st Vice President Bhavik Bhatt 2nd Vice President Lee Kwok Weng Honorary Secretary Dean Shams Assistant Honorary Secretary Dr Ramesh Tarani Honorary Treasurer Paul Lim Asst Honorary Treasurer Lydia Neo Council Members Leonard Zuzarte Michael Tan

Noticed the publication you are holding is more compacted now? We have received feedback that readers prefer a handy sized publication while they are on the move, so we came out with this! Along with the new size, we have also undergone a design overhaul for the publication. It now looks more polished and sleek. We hope you like the new look!

Despite the size reduction, we did not discount the article content of the publication as we always focus on bringing quality editorials to you. If you would like your article to be featured in our publication, please write in to singaporemarketer@ mis.org.sg.

We decided to kick start this revamped publication with a trending topic, Search Engine Marketing. In the online world, we are one click away from getting trounced by a nimble rival or an entrenched competitor that gets smart or lucky. Your business definitely needs to have a Search Engine Optimisation strategy in place if you are interested in succeeding in terms of online marketing; it remains one of the single most important components of any organisation’s branding efforts and online presence. However, marketing to your online target audience requires a set of complex algorithm.

In this issue, you can find many informative articles on ways to build or beef up your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) mechanism. Bundled with it are some case studies to help you to understand more about its application. Also, we are honoured to have a chat with Mr Tan Meng Liang, Head of Paid Search and Analytics of Accor to capture his point of view on things to note when developing an effective SEO plan.

It’s now time to flip the pages for the new reading experience!

Amy Bey / Editor

Design & Layout Kelvin Wang Production, Advertising & Circulation Joreen Yee joreen.yee@mis.org.sg Publisher Marketing Institute of Singapore 410 North Bridge Road Singapore 188726 Tel: (65) 6411 1620 Fax: (65) 6338 8695 Email: singaporemarketer@mis.org.sg Website: www.mis.org.sg

The Singapore Marketer is a quarterly magazine published by Marketing Institute of Singapore. Printed in Singapore by Stamford Press Pte Ltd. 209 Kallang Bahru, Singapore 339344. Tel: (65) 6294 7227 MCI (P) 034/06/2016.

Subscription is available upon request; please contact Joreen Yee at joreen.yee@mis.org.sg.

To contribute articles, please write to singaporemarketer@mis.org.sg.

The views expressed in The Singapore Marketer do not necessarily represent those of the Marketing Institute of Singapore. No responsibility is accepted by the Institute or its staff for the accuracy of any statement, opinion, or advice contained in the text or advertisements, and readers are advised to rely on their judgment or enquiries, and to consult their own advisers in making any decisions which would affect their interest. All materials appearing in The Singapore Marketer is copyright. No part of the publication may be reproduced without prior written permission of the Marketing Institute of Singapore. The Marketing Institute of Singapore welcomes contributions and letters. These might be edited for clarity or length. Articles, letters and requests to reproduce articles appearing in The Singapore Marketer should be sent to the Editor, Marketing Institute of Singapore, 410 North Bridge Road, Singapore 188726.

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Content Page

16 Feature Fact check: does video really contribute to SEO?

Cover Story

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The 5 SEO Strategies That 95% Of The Local Companies Are Not Using, And How You Can Use Them To Dominate Your Niche!

Business School

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Growth of Marketplaces - A Stepping Stone

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10 Ways You Can Use LinkedIn to Prospect More Effectively

Marketer@work

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Interview with Shobhit Shukla, Chief Revenue Officer, AdNear

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Spotted

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What’s Up

A Marketer’s Story

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Interview with Tan Meng Liang Head of Paid Search and Analytics, Accor

Focus

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Revealing Top Secrets For Good Website

Guru Talk

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Five Steps to Fast-track your Search Engine Optimisation

Digital Digest

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Mobile SEM: Vital for your Online Marketing Success

Learning site

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How Emotional Intelligence Boosts Sales Using Search Engine Marketing /Search Engine Optimisation for Marketing Success

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Cover Story

The 5 SEO Strategies That 95% Of The Local Companies Are Not Using, And How You Can Use Them To Dominate Your Niche!

» By Ding Neng

Search Engine Optimisation has been around for years, and it is one of the most common marketing strategies local companies use to reach the online audience. However, search engines have evolved and have become ‘smarter’ in how they rank websites on their search results.

Gone are the days where stuffing tons of keywords in your content or spamming backlinks to your website is going to help to boost your rankings. However, 95% of the businesses out there are still implementing these outdated strategies, and hope that their websites will appear at the top of the search results.

If you are running a local business, and you want to get huge, consistent flow of visitors and customers to

your shop, then you have to focus your efforts on the strategies that are working on search engines right now.

As you would have known, there are many ways you can do search engine optimisation. However, I will focus on the five critical SEO strategies you can use to dominate your niche right now.

1. Set up your Google Business page.

Google allows you to create a business page for your company, and allow you to add in all the important details of your company, including your business description, contact number, working hours, and website address.

This is a Free service provided by Google, and it is only available for any local business with a valid local

address.

With a Google business page, Google will display your business page in the search results, along with your critical business details like address and contact number.

For example, if you run a flower shop at Clarke Quay, and if your

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Your purpose is to get your content go viral and being shared across the platforms and send social signals to your website...

Google Business Page is well set up, you will see your page under the location listing on first page of Google, along with your business information including the shop name, address, contact number.

This allows anyone who wants to buy flowers at Clarke Quay will know your shop location with just a simple Google search like ‘flower shop Clarke Quay’ without visiting your website. If the person clicks your Google page, Google Maps may even lead him with directions to your shop!

2. Submit your business to online directories.

Online business directories provide an avenue for local businesses to list their business and boost their online presence. Directories are usually visited by people who are looking for products and services. Hence, you will want your business to be listed in the correct categories in the directory.

That’s not all! By listing your business in directories, you are also boosting the ranking of your Google business page (remember we talk about it earlier?). Google allows a maximum of 7 Google business pages to show in its first page location listings, and you want to be at the top of that list. One criteria to determine the position is the number of citations that your business have on online directories.

A citation with your business NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) will count as a ‘point’ to boosting your Google business page ranking.

The higher the number of citations you have, the higher the chance for your Google Business page to come out top on Google location listing.

That also means more leads and customers to your local business!

3. Optimise your own website for search engines While working on external web properties such as Google and online

directories, don’t forget to optimise your own website too! You may have known some basic on page optimisation strategies, such as updating your meta tags with proper keywords and description of your website. However, most business websites just stop there.

If you run a local business, you want to take it further. Go to your ‘Contact Us’ page and add your business NAP and a Google map on it. With this critical information on your page, you have ‘informed’ Google that your website is optimised for location. This means that any search for your service near your area will prompt Google to display your website in the search results.

4. Get on social media!

Social media is not new, and you may have seen how some businesses use it to grow their business. However, the topic today is not so much on social media

Cover Story marketing. It is on search engine optimisation, and yes, social signals is going to determine your search rankings too.

Google has included social signals, which is the activity of the website on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to be part of the algorithm in determining search rankings. This is logical because of the growth of social media in the past few years. If a website is going viral and heavily shared on Facebook, Google will want to put it high up in its search engine, or risk being labeled as ‘slow’ in providing updated search results.

If your local business has not catch up with social media, you can start by creating and completing your accounts with your full business information. Then, build a following by posting updates about your business, products or services, and above all good content.

Your purpose is to get your content go viral and being shared across the

platforms and send social signals to your website. This will work very well if it is done properly. This also brings us to the final and most important strategy in SEO. 5. Content is also King in the SEO world The Singapore Marketer’s first edition for 2015 has mentioned how important content marketing is, and how it is still the King in the noisy social media world. (If you have not read it, go subscribe it now!)

Not only that, it is also the King in the SEO world! While 95% of the businesses are spamming high volume, low quality links to their site, you can get ahead of them by earning high quality links from authoritative sites in your niche.

That is only possible with content marketing. Authoritative websites will want to feature your content because it is enriching, enlightening, and even entertaining to their audience.

If you have not started a company blog, then don’t. Start with guest blogging instead. Write for other established blogs in your niche. By putting your best content on other blogs first, you can tap into a bigger audience, build your brand, and earn powerful backlinks, which in turn boost your SEO! Conclusion There are many SEO strategies you can implement to boost your search engine rankings, to help you get more leads and sales for your business. These five strategies above are just the start, and I think they are the best ways to start. These are the strategies that have worked for me and my clients, and have proven to stick for the long term too.

If you have not started SEO for your business, try to incorporate the five strategies above into your business and see what an impact it makes for your business for the next six months.

(All images are provided by the writer)

About the writer

Ding Neng runs a search marketing consultancy specialised in using inbound marketing strategies such as search engine optimisation to drive leads and sales for his clients’ businesses, mostly in competitive industries such as education, real estate, wedding, and the financial services market.

You can find him at Frozenrank.com.

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Interview with Tan Meng Liang

Head of Paid Search and Analytics, Accor 8

Formerly from TripAdvisor, Mediacom and SPH and currently the Head of Paid Search and Analytics in Accor, Tan Meng Liang oversees 8 agencies across the Asia Pacific Region and he has organised and scaled up Search Engine Marketing Campaign in 7 Markets across multiple search engines and partners. Let’s hear from Meng Liang on his view points on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and tips on doing your SEO effectively.

How did you get your start as a search marketer?

13 years ago, I took up a job offer as an e-commerce executive in a local SME called Prince Flower Shop. They were looking to expand their website operations and marketing. At the beginning, I didn’t know much about digital marketing, but it turned out to be rather enjoyable, especially in the dark arts of SEO. Fast Forward to the present, I am now overseeing paid search and analytics across APAC for Accor

AAPC involving many stakeholders.

Although most of my job now revolves around SEM and web analytics, I still maintain a strong interest in ensuring that the right SEO techniques are being applied for the local Asian markets.

What has been your biggest challenge?

My biggest challenge in my early professional life has always been to get support from a wider group of stakeholders and budget owners to participate in any search

programme, paid or in SEO. Business owners need to be educated on the importance of search and while this takes time, the situation seems to have improved massively over the past few years.

Now the search budgets is getting larger with each budget cycle, the biggest challenge nowadays is to make ensure they are being used productively (e.g. not blowing away money on single generic keywords or running an SEO program without tracking properly). Again, lots of talking and education is needed.

A Marketer’s Story

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What has been your biggest success?

I would say helping TripAdvisor set up paid search operations in Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia simultaneously on Google, Naver and Yahoo/Bing and running them on huge budgets.

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It sounded pretty impressive considering that the agency staffing requirement would be about half a dozen heads. However, TripAdvisor had invested a lot of time and money in engineering support, tools and processes. Compared to my other projects, it was a relative breeze.

It made me more cognizant to the fact that processes, scalability and automation are keys to running huge multi-markets search campaigns efficiently.

Please list three things companies should be aware of when embarking on a search optimisation plan.

1. Know who your customers and audience are - Provide them the best experience on the website. Ranking algorithms are constantly being created or improved upon to reward such sites.

2. Constantly test, monitor and change. It’s pretty hard to get it right the first time round and consumer needs are always changing. Get insights from web analytics tools, always improve and adapt.

3. Mobile is huge nowadays. We are living in a multi device world now and for many, their smartphone might be the only device they would use to interact with your brand online. Never have any SEO strategy which doesn’t incorporate mobile SEO. Do you think companies should build their website or SEO first and why?

I don’t see those two as mutually exclusive. They should go together unless the website is created for a very specific purpose with a fixed user group.

Search has quickly become a crucial component to every marketer’s brand strategy - but where do you feel it is still falling down generally?

Where I feel is falling down generally is that most search strategies is still very much in its own silos. It takes a lot of time and effort to coordinate search activities with the other channels.

Spend through search has become a normal approach over the years, are we near an end to seeing people truly attempt to game the SEO system or will that never go away?

While gaming the SEO system will never go away, ranking factors which assist in gaming the search engines are significantly less important now.

E.g. meta texts which encourages keyword stuffing. However as long as there is a huge incentive in getting sites to rank well, there will always be people would try to game the system. Just be warned that there will be penalties when such sites are caught or get trapped in an algorithm update.

What do you think are some of the most important elements of synergising social and SEO efforts?

I think that is a whole subject in itself, but the two key elements are 1. Align search with the social media department when planning for campaigns 2. It’s also good to have social listening tools to pick up social conversations to better decide on keywords strategies for content management.

A Marketer’s Story

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I am still the same good old 4P marketer.

Price, Promotion, Placement and Product. However, a few years ago I added another P - Processes.

When it comes to pushing content, which social sharing platforms do you believe carry the most “juice” for search engines? How can it be done better?

I would look at the major international platforms for Google and Yahoo, e.g. Facebook, Twitter and Google+. For the APAC marketer, he/she might want to consider using Weibo in China or Naver Blogs for Naver and so on.

To do it better, instead of just targeting for “Likes”, try having valuable content to share with your audience. Get them engaged and talking about your brand online.

Better still, get them to be your brand advocates.

What is SEO one-big-thing that one should be looking forward in year 2015?

The need for organization wide coordinated efforts to build, run and market websites focusing on optimizing user experience and excellent content. SEO efforts shouldn’t be sidelined to just the meta-texts and a couple of headings while the website continues to give users a bad experience. I think most executives now understand how having bad websites can quickly affect their brands.

What kind of marketer would you describe yourself as?

Essentially, I am still the same good old 4P marketer. Price, Promotion, Placement and Product.

However, a few years ago I added another P - Processes.

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Revealing

Top Secrets For Good Website

» By Paul Lim

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Today, it’s an internet world and the world is on the internet.

About 85% of consumers use the internet to search for products and services they need before they make a purchase. Most customers will assume your company has a website and may search for your business only to find you do not exist on World Wide Web. Don’t let your competitors snatch your customers away by not having your own company website.

Whether you provide products or services, your website will provide an alternative location to sell them.

A website is a great place to sell your products to a wider market; even services can be made available globally. Don’t forget, even cars and house sell online.

Website improves customer service by providing answer all the customers’ questions you can keep them up-to-date. What better way to provide them with value added service than by sharing information on the website. Many consider website necessity as platform to connect with potential customers and eventually convert into sales.

The most fundamental is to build good website which able to drive targeted traffic to your website.

Here are website secrets which get customers to visit your website and generate revenue A Strong Headline: There are millions of websites in the cyberspace competing for several keywords but how exactly do

you hope to get people to read what you write?

As much as good content and aesthetic design could be of great value to a website, a strong headline could just be the secret you need to make people read your website. Give special attention to how catchy and compelling the title of your headline looks and sounds. If your headline is appealing to people, you will see more people clicking through to your page. It takes a lot of thinking out of the box to arrive at very good eyecatching headlines. “ Some good Headlines Copywriting such as Free, Discount, Guaranteed, Incredible Offer, 1 for 1 promotion etc. could be very good trigger to a strong and appealing headlines. In order to truly persuade a visitor to your

Focus

website to keep coming back, use more of trigger words such as, What, Why, When or How. Take the subject “Riding A Canoe” for instance. The 3 example headlines as appended • “How to Ride A Canoe?”

• “Why I Love Riding Canoe?”

• “10 Best Ways You Can Ride a Canoe Effortlessly Like a Professional”

Know Your Target Market The first step towards knowing your target market is to have a proper understanding of the problems that you solve and identify who is most likely to be affected by these problems. These are the people likely to buy from you.

Make a list of those likely to be affected by these problems and group them either according to profession, age, educational attainment, retirees, earning

capacity, marital status, sex etc.

Try to find out how these groups of people may likely benefit from your offer by asking yourself questions like who are the people suffering these problems most, and who loses most by not solving these problems?

If you are able to prove that the cost of not handling the problem is much more than the cost of dealing with them, then your case becomes compelling.

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Planning for SEO With a well thought Keyword & Content strategy in place, you will benefit from more qualified traffic and sales by skillfully incorporating into search engine keywords. The potential customers able to find your services in unpaid algorithmic search result faster and quicker.

Your website will be recognised by major search engines faster, keeping you away from automatically being placed at the bottom of the page.

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Increase your online exposure and improve visibility when your website falls on first page and easily for customers search the services you offer. You need to upgrade your content regularly to uphold your first page status as the result will increase the sales dramatically by generating hot sales leads from highly target website traffic.

Integrate Social Media & Videos Using Social Media and Video sites you can direct traffic to your website on a regular basis or when you have something to share. The inbound links from high-profile websites such as Facebook,

Linkedin, You Tube, Twitter, Flickr, Google+ and others will increase your search engine results page ranking.

Create a professional profile on Linkedin to demonstrate your skills and expertise for anyone looking for what you offer. Create a Twitter profile and post relevant tips and information with links to corresponding articles on your website while short videos and upload to You Tube to showcase your work or demonstrate useful tips to help customers, Always include a link back to an appropriate landing page on your own website and ensure you include a call to action on the page “About Us” Page The primary purpose of this page is to get a point across to the user.

That purpose is to tell the user about your company and what you can do for them or have done for others.

This page is also expected to furnish the viewers with the information they need and also give them social proof, testimonials and other authenticity statements that make your site or blog worthy of being read.

“Contact Us” Page Any business meant to add value to its target audience must have a feedback platform through which those interested in the service or business offered can contact the company for more details. It could be frustrating when one is not able to get in touch with needed business or services. Be professional and get a customized domain email address and a phone number and make sure you attend to your calls and answer your emails promptly.

Power Pictures and Graphics Simplicity always makes things much more legible. We are more influenced by what we see as this has a way of recurring more often than what we read. Good graphic designs with power pictures are very good as it tends to engage visitors more at a rate higher than texts only.

A high definition image drives higher engagement and sales Provide Impressive Testimonials A good and impressive testimonial is a good traffic booster. If yours

Focus

is a service industry that relies on customer service and referrals, a good testimonial which have benefitted from your services in times past on your website will drive more traffic to your site. An outdoor event business could have client testimonials about your excellent service delivery and efficiency.

Tailor your site so that it offers the information users are likely to be looking for.

A Clear Navigation Bar A clear navigation bar is a plus to any website. Be as simple as possible in choosing a name for the pages on the navigation bar. An easy to understand and logical names that will help your visitor to fulfill a particular call to action will be much better as being clever with words may turn people off.

An Opt-in Box An “opt-in” box is a dialogue box popularly called a tick box. It is always in response to taking a decision on a website, in which a visitor to a website shows how he would like to be contacted by a particular form of communication.

Using an individual data contrary to his approval could put the organization concerned in trouble. It is a way of demonstrating a user’s consent and turning your visitors to subscribers.

Order Page The main goal of any e-commerce website is to convert visitors to buying customers. The order confirmation page can also be called a ‘Thank You’ page.

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A good and impressive testimonial is a good traffic booster.

It is the right thing to say ‘Thank You” to your buyers each time they complete a payment and more importantly, it helps you to maintain a relationship and interaction with a user as this may result in another sale from the user.

About the writer

Paul Lim is an entrepreneur who owns 2 companies in different area – Print Management and Website Design & Development. AStar Success Pte Ltd has been awarded Asia Excellence Award specialises in Website Design & Development, Graphic Design, Marketing Ideas and 3D Visualisation. Find out more at www.astar-success.com. Paul is also the Honorary Treasurer and Chairman of Marketing Institute of Singapore’s HR & Finance committee.

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Feature

Fact check: does video really contribute to SEO? » By Mark Laudi

When marketers think SEO, they are primarily concerned with driving potential customers to their website. Having a video on your site helps, because videos are one way to attract the attention of search engines. But there is a second aspect SEO marketers need to be aware of: optimising the video itself for search.

Let’s start with a reality check: there are many statistics on the internet proclaiming the effectiveness of video in attracting hits and conversions. Statistics from MOZ.com in 2009 said blog posts with videos included attracted almost 3 times more links from other sites than a plain text post. Posts with videos, images, and lists attracted

almost 6 times more links than a plain text post. And a much-quoted Forrester report said having video on your site increases the chances of a page 1 ranking on Google by 50 times, according to Forrester.com.

But before you rush out and feverishly pepper your website with additional media, it’s important to note that the quality of your video counts, too. Since the MOZ. com post was published, search engine operators such as Google have revised their algorithms many times over, and they won’t be fooled into giving your site a higher rank just because you have placed any old image or video on it. Google famously updated its algorithm a few years ago in initiatives called “panda”

and “penguin”, which penalised low quality content, and sites which were over-optimised. Even the author of the Forrester research added a disclaimer to his post as long ago as August 2012, saying “As much as I appreciate seeing this research continue to circulate online, I’d like to note that these findings are now almost 4 years old, and are almost certainly no longer accurate. Just as you wouldn’t rely upon Nielsen ratings from January 2009 to tell you neither what’s popular on TV today, nor can the data below tell you how Google is handling search results today.”

So let’s look at the facts as they stand today, in 2015.

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One factor Google uses to determine a website’s rank is how long visitors remain on its pages.

Fact #1:

Fact #2:

There are many ways search engines determine rankings, one of which is video.

Text content associated with your video is crucial.

That is to say, simply placing a video on your website will not propel your site to the coveted number 1 position. Video contributes to your overall rankings. The algorithm Google uses is a closely guarded secret, but by some estimation having a video on your site makes a 0.5% difference to whether you rank higher in search.

This means: yes, you must have video on your site, but so many sites now have video that it is simply a way to keep up with everyone else, not to surpass them.

One factor Google uses to determine a website’s rank is how long visitors remain on its pages.

Video and images help engage and entertain your readers, so they stay longer.

This refers to the metadata, such as titles, descriptions and tags.

Check out the graphic to see what the upload page of YouTube looks like, and where this information goes.

The overall concept to remember is that your video metadata needs to integrate with your other SEO initiatives, such as finding keywords most frequently used by your target market, which you address in your video.

Let’s look at the title first. This is where you need to think like a newspaper sub-editor. The title of your video is like the headline of an article. It must be interesting enough for people browsing videos to want to watch it. Headlines must be short, bold, colourful, and contain enough conflict or suspense to work as a teaser.

This sounds so simple, yet I frequently see videos titled

“Speech by Mr Smith” or “Second presentation”. Or, worse still, the arbitrary name of the video file that was uploaded.

Come on, would anybody really search for these terms, let alone click on a title like this?

Boring headlines are poison for publishers.

At the same time, racy, misleading headlines might lure unsuspecting visitors in the short-term, but after the initial clicks subside, search engines get smart and don’t drive traffic your way anymore.

So, don’t go overboard with sensationalist titles such as “OMG, look what happened?!” or “I can’t believe he said that”. This won’t do much for your brand’s credibility.

Going back to my sub-editor analogy, think broadsheet, not tabloid.

But a little bit of effort with the title will go a long way. I have come across a list of words which apparently draw a larger number

Feature

of clicks. These words are Video, Tutorial, Review, Test, What is, How to, Demo/Demonstration and Explained/Explanation. I don’t have any scientific proof that they work, but given that “how-to” videos are among the most popular categories among online viewers, these words do not look unreasonable.

Ideally, the title should also include keywords your target audience is likely to search for.

Use tools such as Google Adwords Keyword Planner, Bing Keyword Tool, or Übersuggest.

Similarly, the description also needs to be more than just a few words that merely elaborate on the title, or a space that is – cringe – left blank.

Start with “Learn how to”, “Find out how/what…” and other phrases that tell viewers what value they gain from watching.

adding language, geo-location and other details. The more detail you add, the greater the utility for the viewer.

Also, add your website URL and possibly a call-to-action (keep it as non-salesy as possible), so that if your video is shared or embedded in other sites, viewers are directed back to your site. This also helps your In-Linked Domain (ILD) score, because the other sites where your video is embedded are in essence recommending you.

Which leads me to the third and arguably most important fact:

Finally, add tags, which are already auto-suggested for you.

Ideally, add the names of people and places associated with the video.

Clicking through to advanced settings, you can see options for

Fact #3: Focus on the quality of your video, and the rest takes care of itself.

If your content is valuable to your target audience, it will get shared, and the social score of your video will rise. You don’t need to try to “game” the algorithm in order to beat the system.

Make your content current, urgent and relevant, and higher rankings in search results will follow.

About the writer

Mark Laudi is a former CNBC television presenter and producer, who emcees and moderates many business events in the Asia Pacific region.

He is the Managing Director of Hong Bao Media (Holdings) Pte Ltd, which produces content marketing videos at their content foundries in Singapore and Malaysia.

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FIVE STEPS to Fa s t- tra c k yo ur

Search Engine Optimisation Âť By Pamela Wigglesworth

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Guru Talk

Can you remember back to the time when you first started your business and you officially launched your website? Think about all the time and effort you put in and how excited you were to finally get the business off the ground? You were giddy with great expectations and life was feeling pretty good. Maybe your start date wasn’t all that long ago or maybe a few years have already passed.

Now fast forward to where you are today. You might be scratching your head and wondering what happened or why the dream business you created a while back has not materialised as you had once imagined.

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Consider this…you might have the best product in the world, but it can’t help people if they don’t know your business, product or service exists. In essence, when consumers can’t find your business, it is the equivalent of you living on a deserted island.

Living on the island may have been fun at first, but now your resources (your time, finances and energy) are starting to wear thin. It’s time to get off the island and back to civilisation where you can be revitalized. It’s time to rescue your business.

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Listed below are five simple tactics that you can do to drive traffic and improve the chances of your website or blog being on page one for Google and more importantly, found by potential customers. Some of these tactics you can do yourself, others may require you to speak to your webmaster to implement. So grab your life ring and let’s jump in the water.

1. Use your main keywords within your website title tag.

If people don’t know about you or your business, then they can’t type in your business name to find you online. The way they are likely to find you is through the keywords that they enter into the Google search box. Determine the major keywords or keyword phrase (3 to 4 words that people would use in a search) that describes any of the following: what you offer; the benefits of your product; or how you solve a problem.

Now go to the back end (the dashboard) of your website and list that keyword phrase in your title tag

section followed by a vertical bar and then your company name. Hit the save or update button.

Let me demonstrate what I mean about the process. I work in the training and development space for corporates. I’ve also identified the major topic that people seek me out is for presentation skills training.

Therefore my focus for my keyword phrase is corporate training and presentation. To further narrow down a prospects search geographically, I also include my location as part of my keyword phrase.

My title tag reads:

Singapore Corporate Training | Presentations | Experiential Hands-on Learning

By having relevant keyword phrases in my title tag, I don’t need to worry about whether or not people know my company name, I just need to indicate the keywords people are searching for and it’s more likely I will be come up on page one for the organic search listing.

Make sure you also add these keyword phrases in the keyword meta tag section for your home page.

2. Spy on your competition.

One of the best ways to determine great key words is to check out your competition to see what they are doing. Take a moment to list out the top 10 keyword phrases that people would use when searching for your type of product or service. Now type in keyword phrase and note what comes up as the top five websites for this keyword phrase. Here’s the fun part.

I want you to do two things. Look at each of the website names that come up. Each of the underlined

phrases or sentences is what is listed in their title tag. Notice how many companies list the benefits of their offering vs. the name of their company.

Now you can do a bit of spying.

Click on the website. Now right click your mouse. Scroll down the menu until you come to View Source. Click on this and it will take you to the html code page for the home page (you can do the same for any page in a website). Here you will be able to see the title tag phrase shown as in code as <head><title>. Scroll down a bit further and you will see where

Guru Talk it says keywords. Here is where you can see some of the keyword phrases that may wish to include for your website to drive traffic to your site; some which you may not have thought about.

all of the pages within your site. A XML sitemap makes it possible for all pages to be found. Have your webmaster do this for you. It will take him or her a few minutes so it can be done for you FOC.

3. Add an XML Sitemap to your website.

4. Re-submit your Website to search engine directories.

An XML Sitemap is a structured format that a user doesn’t need to see, but it tells the search engine about the pages in your site, their relative importance to each other, and how often they are updated. A sitemap is an easy way to inform search engines about pages on your sites that are available for crawling.

Site maps can improve search engine optimization of a site by making sure that all the pages can be found.

Chances are your website has already been listed with the major search engine players such as Google, Yahoo and Bing given that you’ve been in business for a while.

The purpose of re-submitting is so the search engines can update your site and index each page based on your adding in the site map.

Most webmasters will list your website with search engines; however it is usually only the home page that gets indexed, not

Look for a free website submission service to use to get listed on the various search directories. You will need to go directly to Google and Yahoo to add in your website as they require submission to be done manually.

5. Write a blog post and then spread the news.

Sharing valuable content and tips is a great way to drive traffic to your website, blog or newsletter. Start by writing a blog post once or twice a week. Once you’ve posted the blog to your site, start a discussion on the different LinkedIn groups you belong to. Write 3- 5 sentences in your discussion and then give a hyperlink (back to your website) where people can read the full story.

Consistency is the key with blogging. If you content is newsworthy or informative, people will begin to follow you and eventually the traffic to your site will increase.

Start today and begin implementing just a few of these tactics. I’m confident that in a few short weeks you will begin to see an increase in the amount of traffic coming to your website. The key is to have quality content on your site to keep them coming back. Now go get started.

(All images are provided by the writer)

About the writer

International speaker, training and author Pamela Wigglesworth works with companies across multiple industries to enhance their branding, marketing communications to get big results on a small budget. She is the Managing Director of Experiential Hands-on Learning and the author of Small Business Acceleration: Get Noticed using Facebook, LinkedIn, Email Marketing, Public Relations and Video Marketing. To learn more about Pamela visit www.expereiential.sg or email courses@experiential.

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the singapore marketer apr-jun’15

GROWTH OF MARKETPLACES – A STEPPING STONE

24

» By Ankur Bagga Main challenges that marketplace is facing today Marketplace websites are transforming we buy and sell today. Successful examples of marketplace anywhere, are not just engaging the merchants and the buyers on one platform, but also providing value to their respective interests.

However, I see a few challenges in the running for being a successful marketplace service provider. I will start with the ‘Chicken & Egg’ situation, in a double sided marketplace environment.

It is often confused for if there are enough ‘supplies for demand’ or ‘demand for supply’, as they try fulfilling both ends.

Having said this, at the same time we are trying to ensure if the buyers can find & purchase what they’ve come for on the website, making it ever so important for an appealing homepage with relevant

products/content.

The challenges for a double sided marketplace could range from a variety of business functions, which is why I will now be classifying these challenges into categories: 1) Challenges from Seller’s Perspective Shift from paper to digital: Marketplaces might have to walk that extra mile in explaining the switch over from a rather traditional style of retailing to a less widely accepted online selling platforms.

Inform & Educate: The sellers could be equipped better by education such as a guide to growth. I am pointing towards providing in depth detailed materials on ‘how to succeed together’ model to the rewards and exposures they might earn in the process.

Merchant’s Benefit: Marketplace

platforms might need to step up in providing training offering understanding of complete fulfilment with logistics service, secure payment gateways, traffic & customer care.

Enticing the Seller: There might be a challenge to entice a merchant in today’s online retail, given that there are marketplaces coming up rapidly.

There might be an already successful marketplace platform, that the merchant needs to be made aware about.

Sellers might need less convincing realizing that adopting marketplace could be an ideal starting point for any newbie or rather mature sales channels for any business that might already be selling online.

Whole shift in mentality: In considering to choosing to sell on Marketplaces, brands might be left feeling without having their own online space.

Business School Not all Big Brands would want to be seen on Marketplaces, along with other smaller brands. It might also be a challenge attracting business of all sizes with classification of sellers, with different approach & guidelines, treating each merchant with a much deserved individuality:

is not available as well as the merchants being able to have insights at the same time of what is selling well and what is not.

Protection: Not just of personal data, but also a small ‘Money back guarantee’ can be seen doing the job in attracting buyers.

Classification of goods (Categories): As a marketplace, drafting a range of do’s and don’ts for the merchants could be seen important. For example, knives cannot be sold online in many countries or not to sell to under 18s for that matter.

We also have different transaction value percentages (final selling fee) to construct across various categories.

Shipping, Tracking & Returns: Brands are seen putting in the trust for a fulfilment marketplace platform, trusting them to ship their goods to the end customer. Drop Shipping Challenges such as delivering incomplete, broken products (or even lost goods) might hurt their brand image.

(Image taken from: eBay.com)

2) Challenges from Customer’s perspective

Quality: for both ends of transactions in my opinion. As a marketplace provider, we are carrying brands names & their image.

They say ‘sellers will go where the buyers are’. With this lands the flip side situation of attracting buyers to the marketplace.

Set up FAQs & Self help: might help the consumer gain confidence in proceeding with the transaction.

To tackle the biggest ‘trust factor’ value of parting away with your money on online sales channels, cyber crime & protection of personal data are also seen as the biggest concern. Streamlining these issues and adding credibility to a market place brand, it’s pivotal to its growth in order to attract more buyers to the website.

3) Operational Challenges

Trust: Trust being another factor, not only to pay up online, but whether to trust the seller is another story. Letting the buyers to opt to be anonymous, is also seen as an added benefit to the consumer.

At the same time as neutral marketplaces, it might also to important to show up as much sellers details as possible.

Being transparent: is seen another challenge in terms of being honest for both the parties. Sellers might appreciate at times when something that they want

To start with the challenges the operational side of things might bring on the table for a market place, I would like to highlight the pointers below: DSA/DSR: To adhere to the Distance Selling Act/Regulations, especially when trading cross country.

Seller Acquisition & Management: To attract is just half of the battle won in my opinion. To manage and nurture the merchants opens another level of operational challenges, which the sales/ support team will have to looks into.

Right from conducting seller quality audits, selling standards might have to be looked into too, based on their feedbacks, communication with the buyer, etc.

Marketplace platform will have to adapt to sophisticated systems when it comes to handling logistics and the entire fulfilment process. Miscellaneous bits like providing tracking information for each order/parcel as well as generating returns management authorization (RMA) number for a better management of returned goods.

3rd PL agreements: For all E-commerce set ups & marketplace (providing fulfilment facility), it might be of utmost importance to have proper contracts in place with a well established and superior carrier company. Becoming the backbone of logistics, it could be a challenge to have third party on board with systems and processes falling short.

Self help systems: Putting self help such as ‘Tutorials’ & ‘FAQs’ may also be very useful both, for the sellers as well as buyers. Holding information that can help merchants and the buyers, could hinder growth for any marketplace. Hence the challenge of a constant effort to provide up to date assistance in the form of training videos, emails or FAQs, could be quite important.

Training on boarding sellers: Helping sellers tirelessly to grow as a marketplace grows could also be another challenge.

But one all marketplaces would have to keep up with.

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the singapore marketer apr-jun’15

26

Which marketing channels to leverage on, in order to make any marketplace successful?

both ways for the sellers and the buyers, serving relevant and compelling ads.

From a seller perspective, I would focus upon ‘qualified lead generation’ aimed at Brands, Designers & Boutiques.

Leveraging the art of attraction using ‘inbound marketing’ methodology, which focuses on finding prospective buyers who are likely to be searching for new and effective sale channels.

Example: See eBay considering Google ads in order to gain traction in the UK & USA.

With the use of SEO, blog content, keywords and social media, we shall aim to acquire traffic. These are people who might be looking for a marketplace platform service whom we have managed to attract via our content. Once the visitors are on the website, we attempt to convert them into leads with the help of landing pages and smart forms. Our sales department to then follow on the lead to push them further into the sales funnel.

Once converted into customers, we can hope for a ‘word of mouth’ for the network to grow (call them promoters).

Highly Targeted eDM Campaigns: Aimed at the Brand Owners, Designers & Boutique shops enticing them to join the marketplace by highlighting the benefits it will bring to their online presence.

Affiliate Marketing: Using the power of referral, we aim to feature tops sellers in a promotional video. This will not only market their brand, it will also provide any marketplace some form of credibility for the prospective brand/designer boutique that might be considering a marketplace.

Linking Merchant: Linking merchant websites or providing tools (Call to action buttons) will not only give the merchant a change to portray themselves as a multi channel seller, but will also prompt other merchants to follow suite.

Paid Campaigns: In an attempt to offer the right product, to the right person, at the right time. I am aiming for not just ‘content marketing’, but ‘context marketing’ with the use of Display Ads. Paid campaigns can be seen work

YouTube channel: With video on their highest use, the use of YouTube channel might serve as a perfect medium for tutorials for sellers as well as educating on how they can grow their businesses together with a marketplace.

1. Pop-Up Stores (London) eBay tested the UK market a few years back in order to see how well they could do with a pop up store, where they will encourage shop visitors to use their smart phone/device to scan the QR code, that will bring the visitor straight to the eBay product listing page.

2. Harness the power of Social Media: Pinterest (ASOS Marketplace example) Seeing that fashion & apparel being an extremely image driven industry, it would best to use the power and incredible returns Social Media channels would bring for any Marketplace.

Asking supply side (i.e. merchants) to leverage Social Media would also bring about some traction in the demand side of things. Especially with the use their own case studies, featuring themselves.

Concentrating on a specific segment/ category: with the use of industry centric channels to expand.

Offline Channels: •

Direct Mailers (aimed at both, sellers & buyers)

•

Media Articles (aimed at who wants to sell, attracting merchants big and small)

•

Magazines Adverts (aimed at both, sellers & buyers)

•

TV Ads (Tele ads for Gumtree, eBay MadBid – have provided substantial growth)

Seller referral scheme:

(Image taken from: ASOS.com) 3. Referrals through social media ‘shares’: In harnessing social media to drive sales with the use to top class imagery, asking partners/merchants to talk about it on their favourite channel, would be an added help. Social media fashion influences in Singapore and abroad, could also make it go an extra mile for brand awareness.

•

Incentivise seller for introducing a new seller

•

Feature seller & case studies (star of the month programme)

Weekly newsletters & updates: To inform & educate about the ‘Hassle free’ channel, a Marketplace is in offering end to end fulfilment service, leaving the merchant to just ‘Pick & Pack’.

Get SMEs online: SME centric programs. [Running PILOT Programmes].

Highlight that there is no website needed, no investment. Just get selling

Business School with a marketplace with ready visitors/ traffic to come online and buy your product.

Offering allowances to beat competitors: •

Offering exemption of listing insertion fee.

•

Charging Low final Valuation Fee (Category specific pricing)

(Image taken from: ebay.com)

•

Stock clearance special (job lots) listings.

•

Bulk inventory upload. Appointed internal staff to co-ordinate with sellers for product population.

Enticing Calls to Action (CTA) Button to show on various web pages:

Offering Amazon style Fulfilment: As a part of the complete ‘fulfilment service offering, marketplaces can utilize on the warehousing capabilities in offering its smaller sized partners with storage options at marketplaces’ own premises (sorting storage problems) Offering an international exposure to the small merchants who otherwise would have to go an arm and length to achieve the aim of selling abroad (conditional the III party logistic company instated).

(Image taken from ebay.co.uk.)

(Image taken from ebay.com) Targeting big retailers: I have known of the best names in UK retail marketing such as TESCO, ASDA Wal*Mart, Argos etc. selling successfully on eBay.co.uk.

Some of the brands are proudly advertised on the eBay home screen.

(Image taken from: internetretailing.net)

(All images are provided by the writer)

Rewarding existing sellers: with higher seller levels (Power seller, Top Rated – ex.

Form ebay) Advertising rates and benefits: See eBay example of levels of shops as best suited to the seller.

About the writer

Ankur Bagga heads digital marketing for Enfactum Singapore as the Business Development Director. His past experience have been from the UK, selling cookware online for a well-established British cookware manufacturer, handling multi online sales channels along with e-commerce marketplaces like Ebay shops & Amazon store. He earned himself extensive experience in e-commerce set ups, online retail and merchandising, digital marketing & business consultancy over the years.

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the singapore marketer apr-junâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

28

Âť By Fua Kia Liang

Business School

1

Prepare a digital version of your 30-Second Commercial and include that text in your LinkedIn® profile.

The main thing to remember about LinkedIn is this: It is a huge, never-ending, virtual networking event, and you have to be ready with the right response to “What do you do?” Your 30-second commercial is the answer to that question, as told from the point of view of a PROSPECT IN PAIN who eventually TURNED INTO YOUR HAPPY CUSTOMER. So for instance: “We specialize in custom designed inventory management systems for manufacturing and distribution operations. We’ve been particularly successful with companies in the X, Y, and Z industries that are concerned about the costs associated with inaccurate inventory counts, unhappy with frequent paperwork bottlenecks that slow down the fulfilment process, or disappointed by the amount of time it takes to reconcile purchasing, invoicing, and shipping records. We’ve been able to create hand-in-glove inventory management systems that help our customers save time, attention, and money.” If something like this isn’t on your LinkedIn profile, you’re at a competitive disadvantage.

2

Add connections to your network.

If you invest a minute or so each working day clicking the “connect” button on the “People You May Know” list that LinkedIn posts in your feed, you will broaden your network … and you will become known as someone who broadens the network, which is just as important.

Remember: Everyone you talk to about business or meet during the course of the business day is a potential LinkedIn connection!

3

Play fair.

Only “connect” to people you actually know. LinkedIn will backfire on you if you pretend to know people you don’t. Don’t test this. Believe it. Ask for introductions to people you don’t know.

(See 4, below.)

4

Build out your lead list.

Spend five minutes a day investigating the connections of your contacts to see who you don’t know personally, but would like to meet. Make a note of those to whom you would like introductions. Start first with the “Recommendations,” as they are most likely the strongest relationship of the LinkedIn user you are viewing. BUT: Ask for the recommendations outside of your LinkedIn account via standard email (or voice-tovoice contact). You’ll get a quicker answer.

5

Follow your current clients and prospects.

Spend another two minutes each day looking up your current clients and top prospects. Find out whether they have a company page; if they do, follow it and monitor it.

6

Post an update.

Spend 60 seconds each working day posting an “Update” to your LinkedIn network. Use the daily update

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the singapore marketer apr-jun’15

to share a link to an article or a video that is relevant to your prospects and customers. Use the “LinkedIn Today” feature on your LinkedIn dashboard. Each time you post an update, you are displayed on the feed of all the people with whom you are connected. DO NOT SELL when you post updates! Add value and share expertise.

7

Join groups.

LinkedIn lets you connect with people who are in groups with you. Use this as a targeted way to add value to others, share insights, and build out your network with prospects. Invest five minutes a day on this.

8 30

Use LinkedIn to celebrate the accomplishments of others.

When you come across a news story or post that offers good news about your client or prospect, or any key contact, share the news as a status update.

Recognize the person with an “@” reply. That will ensure they receive notification of the mention. Spend a minute a day on this.

9

Write a recommendation.

It is often quite difficult to secure LinkedIn recommendations. Think about it. It takes the writer time to log in, write them, post them. Instead of waiting for this to happen to you, devote five minutes a day to writing and posting (reality-based) recommendations for your customers and key contacts. Once your contact approves the text, the recommendation will show up on his/ her LinkedIn account. This will align you with your contact, serve as a permanent top-of-mind promotional piece for you and your organization, show the network that you work together, and make it much more likely that your contact will look for a way return the favour.

That could be either a referral or a recommendation.

Often, it’s both.

10

Stop.

The key to success on LinkedIn is investing a little bit of time every working day – not six hours a day for a week straight, then nothing.

About the writer

Fua Kia Liang is the Vice President of the Singapore office of Sandler Training®, a leading provider of a comprehensive set of sales, management, leadership, coaching and related training programs.

Sandler Training® believes producing lasting change in people only comes about through ongoing reinforcement. It works closely with its clients to customise training solutions that meet their specific needs.

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The regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most prestigious multi-sport event will see its return to Singapore after a 22 year wait when the republic last hosted the Games in 1993. The 28th SEA Games which will be held from 5 -16 June 2015 is organised by the Singapore Southeast Asian Games Organising Committee (SINGSOC). The Games is held in conjunction with Singaporeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 50th anniversary and will host more than 7,000 athletes and officials from 36 sports.

the singapore marketer apr-junâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

Mobile SEM: Vital for your Online Marketing Success

Âť By Leonard Tan

32

Digital Digest

Marketing your business is way more than just crafting a message and deciding how to split your budget; it’s also about keeping up with trends and putting your money where you’ll get the best returns.

The Internet is a dynamic realm, and online marketing is in constant flux, including search engine marketing, which has evolved over the years with more sophisticated search algorithms and targeted results.

If you haven’t started Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, it’s not too late. If you have, then you need to complement it with mobile advertising. The key is to include mobile marketing as part of your overall Internet marketing strategy.

Consider the following example:

Does that sound familiar? We’re all guilty of unconsciously being reliant on our mobile devices, and it’s something we all see around us on a day to day basis: Young and old alike have their eyes glued to their phones be it for business of pleasure.

But what some companies fail to realize is that this new behavior can, and should be utilized as a marketing opportunity for them.

What We All Know About Mobile SEM Highly targeted: One of the key benefits of SEM is its element of being targeted to specific categories of audiences, which coincidentally is harmoniously suited for mobile searches. Location services on smartphones allow advertisers to further effectively strategize their advertising in a more dynamic manner.

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the singapore marketer apr-jun’15

To give you an example, if one operates a restaurant in the central area of Singapore and runs SEM ads, you have the technical ability to advantageously target users within a two kilometer radius to whoever who searches for “restaurants near me.” Business owners can further choose to target customers who are more likely to request for locations in their vicinity. This approach is a cost-effective tool for advertisers who have a smaller budget but still want an operative online presence.

34

Lower cost: According to several search agencies, if compared with desktop cost per click, the CPC for the same keyword on mobile tends to be lower. Furthermore, click shares for mobile and tablet has gone up 29% in Q1 of 2014 vs. Q1 of 2013. What this means is that the advertiser is paying less for each potential customer while simultaneously securing their position in an expanding market.

Needless to say, desktops still account for the majority of clicks, however ignoring this growing mobile trend would be detrimental to marketing performances and overall business growth.

Response: The mobile phone is inherently a personal device, and this translates to user’s online behavior: Up to 90% of mobile users take some form of call to action as a result of a Google search, according to Google. These actions could be in the form of a purchase, a visit to the business, or a bigger interest on the product leading to a continuation of research. No other form of

advertising can assert such a high response rate or as much consumer engagement.

Catching Clicks With Google Mobile Extensions We’re all fighting for the consumers’ clicks, and it’s no different on the smartphone, tablet, or desktop. Standard SEM bestpractices also apply to mobile, of course, but Google has also implemented a range of features and extensions to elevate conversions for mobile. Use this and take advantage of them to get the most out of your advertising dollar!

site and looking for your number.

Remember: people working on the move want information – fast!

They are also conditioned to use their phone for calls; calling you for information on their phones comes instinctively to them.

Mobile Site Links

Click-to-Call Extensions

A click-to-call extension allows searchers to call your business directly without going to your full

These site extensions enable users to directly enter the page they’re interested in, without having to navigate through the rest of your website. The last thing you want is to frustrate your searchers by making them maneuver off your site and go back to the drawing board by looking up a better featured competitor. The easier you make it for searchers to get to what they want, the quicker you get their call to action and chances are, they will make the move to purchase.

Digital Digest Location Extensions

App-Promotion Ads

You’ve Got Them Where You Want Them... Now to Keep Them There A study by Google and AnswerLab (PDF) on 100 over mobile users provides valuable insights on user behavior on mobile devices. As expected, it found that attention span tends to be shorter. Accordingly— and keeping in mind the smaller screen—the information you display should be of utmost relevance to the customer.

Customize Mobile Sites

The best way to reach out to local customers would be through location extensions. Let searchers know where you are and how to get to you. The phone is a symbol of convenience, and your ad can show that. If your business is close to them, the more likely they are to want to engage your services.

Another recent change in behaviour is how Mobile users spend a lot of time on apps. With so many apps available in both the Apple app store and Google Play store, it might seem difficult to put your app out there and get noticed by users.

The app-promotion ads (previously “click-to-download”) allow you to feature and promote your apps when users search for you.

Keep your call to action simple and prominent, where users will not miss them. Visitors to your site will have an easier time trying to contact you, while secondary information can be kept below the fold. If you have menus, keep them simple.

Mobile users typically don’t have the patience to scroll through an extensive list of information, and what works on the desktop won’t on the mobile.

A Search Function If you’re looking for something specific, the natural inclination would be to search for it. Of course, the results have to be relevant.

The participants in the Google and AnswerLab study judged a site’s search based on the initial page of results returned and did not bother swiping to more than one search results page. Added functions such as filters, auto-complete, and autocorrection of misspellings can aid you in making sure the results are

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relevant to the customer so that they stay on your site.

Ensuring Conversions Getting them into your website is half the battle won, but making sure they convert is a much more complex task. A turn-off for mobile users is having to register before purchase, more so if they are unfamiliar with the brand. Offering a guest checkout prevents users from getting frustrated and questioning how registration would benefit them. It boils down to one thing: The smoother you make the process, the better the chance that the customer will follow through.

Form Entries

36

Entering text into forms can be one of the most tediously minuscule tasks to do on a mobile device, but it doesn’t have to be.

Just small, simple tweaks make a world of difference. Streamline the information-entry process by automatically presenting number

pads for fields that require it, such as birthdays or telephone numbers.

Do you have a long list of options for certain fields? A drop-down menu offers a straightforward method of input. Finally, real-time validation offers users immediate feedback regarding the information they enter and prevents the need to resubmit; it serves as a guide for users and alerts them of any problems before they hit submit.

Site Usability If you’re designing a mobile site, commit to it and have your entire site mobile-optimized instead of just specific pages. Participants in the study had more difficulty navigating sites that had a combination of desktop and mobile-optimized pages vs. pure desktop-version sites. Be careful of your labels though, and avoid offering a “full site” option, which causes users to be wary that the mobile site is condensed and contains less information. If your mobile site contains all the

necessary information, consider doing away with the option of clicking to a “full site” version; if you must, label it “desktop site” to help avoid such perceptions.

What Next?

On mobile devices, everything boils down to one thing: convenience. Customers are out there looking for you and what you offer. Mobile marketing has become such an essential component of search marketing that you shouldn’t miss out on.

The mobile audience is growing exponentially and the pie is there for you to take a bite at. Execute marketing on mobile well and you are on your way to ensure they follow through and become your customer instead of just another site visitor who left without taking action.

Incorporate the techniques noted in this article unto your online marketing, and you’ll see your conversions on mobile rising faster than you can say “Hello!”

(All images are provided by the writer)

About the writer

Leonard Tan is the founder of PurpleClick, an award-winning online marketing agency specializing in search marketing. He is also featured in Red Herring Top 100 Asia, among the list of the world’s best technology innovators.

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the singapore marketer apr-jun’15

How Emotional Intelligence

Boosts Sales

» By Jean Greaves

38

Every sales person understands all too well that customers present only about five steps between hearing “Hello” and saying “Sold”!

There are just five steps to success: 1.

Build the relationship

2.

Find the need

3.

Meet the need

4.

Jump the hurdles

5.

Ask for the sale

Yet why do five little steps sometimes feel like the journey of a lifetime with some customers? The answer lies in how our brains are wired. Sales people, like all people, are not logical creatures, and neither are their customers. Sales people have moments when they feel discouraged, anxious, pressured, distracted, and even overzealous.

When any of these emotions surface from either party, the feelings can take over the process and stall the sale or steer it off track. On a sales person’s best day, he or she feels optimistic, patient, energetic, and confident. Customers, too, have days when they feel rushed, skeptical, hesitant to move forward, or even overzealous and naively excited.

When we asked sales professionals how they react when their emotions take over, sales professionals say they behave in one of the three ways: they become louder/faster (52% of behavioural reactions), they become slower/ quieter (18%), or they become distracted altogether (30%). While one sales professional gets amped

Learning Site by her emotions (“I talk faster”), the next sales person gets shut down by them (“I become tongue-tied”), and the next befuddled by them (“My thoughts fray”).

None of these reactions help make the sale. What does make the sale is the relationship? Customers look for the sales person who reads and understands their needs, someone who can be trusted, and someone who focuses on customers, not on himself or herself. Just like jumping the hurdles to the sale itself, sales professionals have to jump the emotional hurdles in the sales process, their own and their customers’. The great sales person has to have emotional intelligence.

How Emotional Intelligence Skills Help Make the Sale Those sales professionals who can spot their emotions when they happen, understand them, and manage them well will be the ones who find it in them to manage their schedule well, remain positive when their clients aren’t, and make one more sales call when everything says it will be tough. These sales professionals’ ability to be self-aware and self-manage will help them stop formulating their next pitch while the customer is talking. They’ll become great listeners, and they’ll hear what the customer is really saying. This makes spotting the pitch that will resonate and stick so much easier and more authentic. Good personal competence skills, the first half of a high Emotional Intelligence (EQ), will help sales people self-motivate, will

prevent them from getting in their own way, and will give them the confidence to ask for the sale.

The 4 Core Emotional Intelligence Skills

Copyrights Material: TalentSmart

Social competence skills, the second half of a high EQ, help sales professionals become great at forming and strengthening authentic relationships with their client.

Not only will sales professionals establish rapport quicker by learning to make the most of their natural communication style, but they’ll also be more curious about what’s important to their clients and why.

Social awareness skills enable sales professionals to get to know the client’s personality style. The high-EQ sales rep builds trust over time because she understands and addresses clients’ hesitations. She’s skilled at reading not only what is said but also how her client says it or what’s not said. She discovers what to talk about and when. These little things are what form deeper longerterm relationships with customers.

While finding out her client’s true

need, meeting that need, and jumping any hurdles, she’ll hold off assuming she’s nailed the sale and gather more and better information at each step. She’ll know when to recognize the moment to ask for the sale because emotional intelligence skills will equip her with the level of sophistication required for becoming a star salesperson—one who is truly client-centric.

EQ and the Bottom Line If your company has not yet invested in emotional intelligence skills as a key competitive advantage for your sales force, consider these numbers . . .

•

At L’Oréal, sales professionals hired based on their emotional intelligence outperformed their peers by $91,370 at the end of the first year.

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•

In a national insurance company, insurance sales agents weak in specific emotional intelligence skills such as self-confidence, initiative, and empathy sold average premiums of $54,000 while those who were strong sold average premiums of $114,000

•

90% of top performers score high in EQ, and EQ is twice as important as IQ in helping people achieve their personal and professional goals.

Our clients find time and time again that teaching their salespeople to both recognize and respond to their emotions, and the emotions of their customers make a tangible difference in commissions and the companies’ bottom lines.

Here are just a few strategies from the Emotional Intelligence 2.0 that will help your sales professionals improve results at each stage of the sales process.

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(All images are provided by the writer)

About the writer

Jean Greaves, Ph.D. is the co-author of the best-selling Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and co-founder and CEO of TalentSmart, the world’s leading provider of emotional intelligence books, assessments, training and coaching. Her best-selling books are available in 25 languages and more than 150 countries. Dr. Greaves leverages her twenty-five year track record of consulting, executive coaching, speaking and applied research. She has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, Fortune, Forbes, The Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

the singapore marketer apr-jun’15

Using Search Engine Marketing / Search Engine Optimisation for

Marketing Success

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» By Vincent Lee The traditional marketing tools are Trade Shows, Trade Promotion, Personal Selling, Direct Selling in which marketers try to reach out to their potential customers. Now with Internet as the enabling technology, Marketers have another new tool in Marketing Toolbox which is Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation, abbreviated as SEM/SEO.

The amazing advantage of SEM/ SEO is it allows potential customers to find you rather than you looking for the customers.

In SEM, whenever a potential customer key in search query in a Search Engine (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu in PRC, Naver in South Korea and Yandex in Russia) that is relevant to the company’s business, an advertisement will appear at

either the top or left sides of the display. This is especially helpful for company who is relatively new or unknown that needs to create more visibility and awareness to the market by driving up the traffic to the company website. Another benefit of SEM is its Pay-Per-Click (aka CostPer-Click) model in which company only pays whenever someone clicks on the advertisement to be

Learning Site

directed to the company site. If the advertisement is not clicked, it remains on the screen and not been thrown away like traditional printed advertisement. This means free exposure of advertisement on Search Engine.

SEM synergised with SEO At the initial stage, you need SEM to attract consumers’ attention to click and direct to your website. As more users do the same task, Google mechanism increases your website ranking thus allowing your site to be ranked higher when others do the same keyword query. Thus, SEM is more suitable for Small Medium Enterprises to attract attention at initial stage of business operation. As business grows and the company have more information such as user search patterns, website is designed in a manner to be more easily listed in organic search results

by SEO. Usually, more established companies have one or two staffs working in SEO cross-functional team between IT and Marketing department.

SEM/SEO Usages on Seven Marketing Aspects Here are seven aspects of marketing in which SEM/SEO that can be applied to achieve business and marketing success.

1. Redefine Your Target Audience Using tools like Google Insights for Search, you can observe the demographic profile of people who search for your brand, products or services. This demographic data comprises age group, gender, income level and location. Map your search audience to your traditional target audience can easily shed light on whether you are talking to your best possible prospects.

2. Competitive Intelligence Careful examination of upstream and downstream data using tools from comScore on where people go before and after your site and competitors’ sites shows how well you and competitors are doing at satisfying customers’ needs.

Questions such as “Which of your competitors has largest number of referral traffic to your site? Do people

hurry to one particular competitor after leaving your site?” can be answered.

Likewise, tracking competitors’ SEM/SEO keywords with tools like AdGooro do more than inform search advertising campaign strategy; it helps you to understand how competitors have positioned and branded themselves in the market.

Similarly, if you want to know what direction your competitors are heading - are they competing on product feature, quality, price, service? – monitoring of their search is a great starting place.

3. Refine Your Unique Selling Proposition As we know about the importance of Unique Selling Proposition and desire to standout on a Google results page, strong differentiated Unique Selling Proposition is necessary to achieve this. It is always a good practice to test a variety of different creative messages on Google to see which one works best. This improves Quality Score and Click Rate for Google search ads, helping to inform the Brand Positioning.

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the singapore marketer apr-junâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Using tools like Google Insights for Search, you can observe the demographic profile of people who search for your brand, products or services.

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Furthermore observing the location on your website where people click following search queries and if they convert can tell you how your Unique Selling Proposition is resonating and linking this data back to the original query reveals valuable information.

4. Performance Measurement of Traditional Ads Each time a TV advertisement spot is broadcasted and newspaper ad is published, monitor for companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brand or product search query volume. The opportunity to use search to measure media performance does not stop at TV. Query volume for your brand, trademark and related words used in offline ads can give a feeling of how well those TV advertisement spots

and newspaper ads have resonated with target audience.

In 2006, Pontiac car commercial featured an action call known as Google Pontiac to see for yourself in which target audiences are encouraged to Google search after Pontiac TV commercials were broadcasted. This is an early case illustrating the impact TV commercials can have on search activities.

demand for your brand, product or service is distributed over specific regions. Are millions of people searching for your brand in Asia Pacific region? Which are the top 3 Asia Pacific countries in Volume?

Schedule of market venture into these countries before competition heats up?

At the same time, analyzing your Google AdWords campaign data can surely tell you which particular cities have better chance to be converted.

5. Decision Marketing on Market Venture

6. (Re)development of Your Site

On the lines of service tailoring and product selection, search data can be used to measure which geographic markets to venture or penetrate into. Google Insights for Search allows you to show how

World Wide Web geeks and nerds worldwide are familiar with many applications of search engine to web site development. SEO is a practice of designing the site to be ranked at high spots in organic

Learning Site

search results is one of such major applications. It is a general SEO best practice to evaluate search queries in finding ones with the right balance of volume and winnability— a SEO term around which the web site code, structure and content can be built for Search Engine Spider to crawl through.

Moreover, the search query data can and ought to be used when designing onsite search functionality, i.e. the search engine on your site that visitors can use to search your content or product catalog.

7. Inform Online Display Media Buys Checking out which are the sites where your brand and related visit is a great way to assemble online Display Media Plan. With tools like Google AdPlanner, comScore you are likely to see that consumers who search for your competitors or popular keywords have frequent a specific category of web properties.

Instead of bidding on competitive or expensive keywords, you can try and reach your target audience on those prevalent web sites.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” -Albert Einstein, hence it is up to marketers’ imagination on SEM/SEO applications beyond these seven aspects for marketing success.

About the writer

Vincent Lee is an Engineer-turned-Marketer. Having worked with the “Product” aspect of Marketing Mix as an Engineer for several years, now he specializes in Strategic Marketing with focus on Asia Pacific region.

He graduated with B.Eng. (Electrical & Electronic Engineering) from Nanyang Technological University and Professional Diploma in Asia Pacific Marketing awarded by Marketing Institute of Singapore and National University of Singapore, Extension. He is an active member of Marketing Institute of Singapore and especially, enjoys the monthly Marketing Guru Talks and other networking sessions.

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Interview with

Shobhit Shukla, AdNear, Chief Revenue Officer 46

Shobhit currently runs AdNear’s Asia Pacific business, where he is responsible for leading and executing on their vision for the future of digital advertising. In this issue of The Singapore Marketer, Shobhit shares his view on location-based marketing.

1. Share with us about Adnear’s service offerings.

AdNear is a location intelligence company that leverages historical location data to collect insights to help marketers better understand user behaviors, bringing them closer to their target audiences.

We differentiate ourselves with our proprietary geo-location technology, which enables us to track the location of devices without relying on the use of GPS or operators.

AdNear is constantly innovating and improving to help our customers grow. We are the first mobile

platform globally that employs the use of drones to collect wireless data, as this data collection method offers better coverage, translating to greater accuracy of data analysis.

2. How does the intelligence report generated by AdNear help Marketers make informed decision?

Consumer Insights from the intelligence report aid marketers in better understanding their target audiences. The data can be further analysed to build customised audiences for brands who can use these to define their offline & online

marketing strategies.

Additionally, due to the large amount of time people spend on mobile, the data collected is extremely relevant and powerful in understanding user behaviour.

AdNear’s huge base of more than 530 million mobile audiences enables marketers to go further and target the right audiences beyond the proximity of the actual store.

In a nutshell, these insights offer marketers a rare opportunity to identify, understand and reach out to their target consumers.

Marketer @ Work

3. Which industries do you think will benefit most from your locationbased services? And why?

Though we have worked with a wide range of industries, AdNearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s solutions are extremely relevant to the Fast-moving consumer groups (FMCG), Retail, quick service restaurants (QSR) and automotive verticals. Our products go beyond location and can reach out to specific audiences and all industries can leverage this data.

Though location based services see higher engagement for retail and QSRs, the audience reachout works for a wide range of industries like automotive, where the goal of a premium auto brand is to reach the affluent instead of the consumers near the stores.

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4. What are the different types of location-based mobile marketing?

Dependent on the business’s marketing goal, merchants could choose from various types of location-based mobile marketing strategies, which include push notifications, SMS and mobile ads activated when the consumer is within the targeted area.

•

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•

Choosing the wrong context.

Marketers should recognise and evaluate the context when understanding audiences. For instance, while someone near an automotive outlet might not be looking to purchase a car, the same analysis does not necessarily apply to retailers and fast-food restaurants.

•

Choosing the wrong audience Understanding your audience is crucial in location-based marketing. For example, marketers should not be promoting a student discount

campaign in Singapore was very successful and garnered a high Click-Through-Rate of 1.6%.

Deploying the wrong medium

Audi Singapore aimed to reinforce the benefits of its Quattro technology and establish Singapore as the land of Quattro with its challenging road conditions. Audi deployed an in-app banner and rich media with video to educate their targeted affluent and tech savvy audiences on Audi’s Quattro technology. To elaborate, an in-app ad would notify their targeted audiences as they enter adverse road conditions, which were identified as ‘Quattro’ zones. The ad directs users to Audi’s Facebook page, which educates them by linking road challenges in Singapore to Audi’s Quattro technology. This location-based marketing strategy was in addition to TVC, Social Media campaign and video teasers.

Marketers should recognise the preferred communication medium for their target market.

As mentioned earlier, there are various types of locationbased marketing. Deploying the wrong medium to promote an advertisement, such as using sms to reach a group of targeted audiences that do not use the medium would be futile.

5. What are the common mistakes made by marketers when it comes to location-based marketing?

Marketers should avoid four common but costly mistakes when engaging in location-based marketing campaigns.

to a professional, who is near a fast food restaurant.

•

Not using existing insights from previous campaigns Insights from past campaigns are useful resources to refine new campaigns. Campaign targeting needs to be constantly refined during and after the execution phase. For instance, if a particular factor (time/day/ audiences/location) garnered higher engagement, the new campaign should take them into account and build upon these insights.

6. Share with us a campaign managed by AdNear that has garnered the best Click-through-rate for client.

The Audi Quattro technology

7. Misfiring campaigns stemming from overuse of location-based tactics suggests a big challenge for marketers. What does it take to execute a location-based strategy correctly?

Understanding the audience and acting on past consumer insights is key for marketers to drive engagement and stay relevant in an overcrowded marketing space.

Marketers should be clear on the result metrics of the campaign and ensure that they are on track

Marketer @ Work

with the right target of location, context and audiences. Additionally, advertisements should be interactive and clear to engage the audience and ensure precision of messages.

was to drive footfalls to its nearby outlets that were running an offline movie integration offer with X-Men: Days of Future Past. We developed an unique targeting strategy by promoting Pizza Hut’s X-Clusive meal offer through in-app advertising banners to movie goers and shoppers during lunch and dinner hours. The campaign was a success garnering post click engagement of 11.7%, which was more than twice of the regular four to six per cent.

8. What developments do you expect to see in the five years?

The marketing industry is constantly evolving. We expect to see these three key developments in the marketing industry in the next five years: •

Media Integration This includes targeting across smartphones to desktops to tablets to even an extension of TV and out-of-home (OOH).

Understanding users across and around these mediums particularly keeping mobile as the center point is likely to happen in the next five years.

This means you could be seeing an ad on a billboard that get’s extended to your mobile and later at home you get an offer on the same ad on your desktop.

AdNear has taken the lead with our Pizza Hut + X-Men offline integrated movie marketing campaign in the Philippines. Pizza Hut’s goal

•

Native adoption Native ad formats have been in talk since sometime. It’s become a cliché in the industry.

But now with large publishers taking native ad formats seriously, ad exchanges will soon adopt an approach to this.

•

Offline measurement Measuring engagement to the last mile has always been a challenge. Only the mobile medium has the power to address this. The next five years will see various approaches to measuring offline engagement via mobile advertising.

Integrated offerings will make this possible, at-last.

9. What advice would you give to those considering starting a mobilelocation campaign?

Having a clear set of objectives is vital to start a mobile-location campaign. The nature of it varies according to the objectives. For example, it could range from driving traffic to their events, increasing footfall, raising awareness as well as obtaining insights. Depending on the objectives, audience targeting and profiling are significant factors in ensuring that the right audience receives their content.

10. What kinds of costs and resources are definitely needed for this kind of marketing activity?

The cost of such marketing activity is dependent on the number of locations and the type of targeted audiences.

We also encourage brands to participate in the process of building their custom audience segments via their research, which are relevant to their campaign goals, rather than target pre-defined audience/location groups.

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the singapore marketer

SPOTTED

apr-junâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

Marketing Guru Talk:

The Content Marketing Revolution 22 January 2015 410 North Bridge Road, Marketing Institute of Singapore

Graeme Somerville-Ryan explains why content is king

Networking with fellow Content Making enthusiasts

Marketing Guru Talk: 50

What every Marketer needs to know about Crowdsourcing 5 February 2015 410 North Bridge Road, Marketing Institute of Singapore

What should and what can be crowdsourced?

The Q&A session that turned into a mini discussion David Bebko giving us an indepth insight into Crowdsourcing

What’s Up

Organiser: Marketing Institute of Singapore Email: events@mis.org.sg / 6411 1630 Website: www.mis.org.sg/membership/events

Soundtrack Your Brand with Spotify To the average Spotify user on the street, the free music streaming service is simply about having the right music anytime, anywhere. However, Spotify is also an excellent platform for marketers. With music being an indispensable part of people’s lives worldwide, Spotify’s reach of 60 million users in 58 countries, and cross-platform compatibility with Facebook, twitter and blogs, the sky is the limit for companies wanting to soundtrack their brands.

Jonathan Nadiranto, Sales Director for Spotify Asia will be sharing the story of Spotify, how it is unique as a marketing platform, and previous collaborations with brands.

Key Points:

Date: 16 April 2015 Time: 6.30 pm – 9.00 pm Venue: MIS Executive Lounge 410 North Bridge Road #01-00 Singapore 188726 Registration: MIS Students – Complimentary MIS Members – $20.00 Non-members – $35.00 Public Tertiary Institution Student*: $10 *This includes all students from NUS, NTU, SMU, NYP, NP, SP, TP and RP only.

1.

Introduction to Spotify

2.

How to leverage Spotify as a marketing platform

3.

Collaborations: creative campaigns

Jonathan Nadiranto Sales Director, Asia As Spotify’s Sales Director for Asia, Jon drives the sales and marketing direction for brands on the service. Jon focuses his passion, energy and time to ensure brands have the tools and creative prowess to effectively capture and communicate their message to drive business success.

Prior to his current role at Spotify, Jon spent several years working with the best and brightest marketers and brands across the globe while at Facebook and InterActiveCorp (IAC). With over a decade of sales and marketing experience, executive coaching and most importantly, real-life business experience, Jon’s ability to integrate authentic stories with his interpersonal skills draws his audience into a more intimate and personal level.

Contact: 6411 1630 Email: events@mis.org.sg Website: www.mis.org.sg/events

*MIS reserves the right to amend the programme without prior notice.

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the singapore marketer apr-jun’15

Organiser: Marketing Institute of Singapore Email: events@mis.org.sg / 6411 1630 Website: www.mis.org.sg/membership/events

Become an Irresistible Brand with Neuromarketing

Delving into the Subconscious Consumer – finding out what they really think, not just what they tell us By 2016, the Asian economy is set to represent the largest consumer market worldwide.

As multinationals scramble to develop and extend their products into the Asia-Pacific region, accurate insight into what Asian consumers will or won’t buy is a key determinant between success and failure at this scale of investment. Despite millions of dollars spent on traditional market research methods, many new products and services still flounder within a year of launch in these diverse markets. What can explain this high failure rate?

Neuroscience has now revealed that much of our behaviour is influenced by brain processes that operate below our conscious awareness. So marketers who rely solely on consumer’s explicit or spoken feedback are only capturing the tip of the iceberg in terms of the multitude of thoughts, emotions and cultural influences that shape consumer choice at a subconscious level.

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Date: 13 May 2015 Time: 6.30 pm – 9.00 pm Venue: MIS Executive Lounge 410 North Bridge Road #01-00 Singapore 188726 Registration: MIS Students – Complimentary MIS Members – $20.00 Non-members – $35.00 Public Tertiary Institution Student*: $10 *This includes all students from NUS, NTU, SMU, NYP, NP, SP, TP and RP only.

Contact: 6411 1630 Email: events@mis.org.sg Website: www.mis.org.sg/events

*Neromarketing is a new field of marketing research that studies consumers’ sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli. It employs a range of techniques to capture these vital non-conscious consumer reactions to brands, products and campaigns.

Key Points: •

What is neuromarketing, how can you use it, when to use it and how to commission research

•

Understand the commercial value of a combined conscious and subconscious approach to consumer insight

•

Learn how to develop much more effective, targeted consumer messages

Professor Gemma Calvert Director for Research & Development Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI) Professor Gemma Calvert is the Director for Research & Development at the Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI) based at the Nanyang Technological University and the Founder of Neurosense – one of the world’s foremost neuromarketing companies established in 1999. She is an internationally renowned cognitive neuroscientist with a BSc in Social Psychology and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Oxford. She is also an accredited Chartered Psychologist.

Professor Calvert has published over 60 articles in the field of human brain science and her research on the power of the implicit brain has been widely covered in international press and television media, including Time, Newsweek, The Economist, The Straits Times, CBS 60 Minutes, the BBC World Service and several other worldwide documentaries on the brain in business.

*MIS reserves the right to amend the programme without prior notice.

She has served as a Member of the Global Agenda Council on Neuroscience and Behaviour for the World Economic Forum (2011–2014), is a Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy, U.K and currently sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Neuromarketing Science and Business Association.

With insightful articles highlighting current and emerging trends in the marketing field, The Singapore Marketer is your gateway to staying connected with what truly matters in the marketing fratenity.

subscribe now!

The quarterly publication is read by more than 10,000 marketers and advertising professionals, and while The Singapore Marketer is available complimentary to members of the Marketing Institute, senior managers and above from selected industries, we are now offering an introductory rate of just $19.26 for 4 issues to aspiring marketing managers, strategists and other marketers.

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