To cut to the chase, I can tell you that the impact is minimal at best. Sterling’s articles are always informative and insightful and in this one I think he hit the nail on the head with the following sentence:

While there’s enormous hype and coverage among tech-insiders about “real time search,” the public doesn’t really understand (or perhaps care) what the fuss is all about.

I say he hit the nail on the head, only because he is echoing something I have felt and said for some time. My position, however, is not particularly popular in Internet marketing circles because it’s a classic “I call BS!” position.

You see, I spend a good portion of my day reading about the latest and greatest in Internet marketing. This is never just reported though because everyone needs to add their opinion to each story because that’s how we become “important.” Important to whom, you ask? Mostly to each other inside the industry. This little popularity play leads to some interesting assumptions about just how important all of these earth-shattering Internet marketing developments really are to the public at large. That group,, by the way is significantly larger than anyone would care to admit

So back to Greg’s comment. He is at least willing to admit that “the public” likely doesn’t understand or even care about what we in the industry will prattle on about for weeks, as if world peace had been achieved. Don’t get me wrong, I do it as well, but I have become less comfortable with it. Why? Because my non-industry friends (which make up about 95% of my friends) don’t give a hoot about real-time search. They don’t know what it is and they actually don’t care. I don’t need to assume it. I know it. They couldn’t care less.

Now, here’s the catch. These are people that use the Internet and social media a lot. They are not online novices by any stretch of the imagination. They have really good jobs, make nice livings, have families, and much more. In addition, they don’t care about the latest and greatest toy that Google or Apple or anyone else has developed. They have too much living to do to worry about this stuff. They use Google to answer a lot of questions but wouldn’t even have a clue about how to do an advanced search let alone wonder about real-time search. Oh, and one other thing: They are online marketing’s prime targets, “Wouldn’t it be better to truly understand how the vast majority of people use the tools that we talk about all the time, rather than assume that everyone does what we do?” Maybe the industry struggles at times because we completely miss the point: Most people simply don’t care about the details. They want results. They don’t have time to waste and they are not all under the age of 30 and completely wired (which I contend is another foolish myth we like to perpetuate).

So, do you agree or disagree? Are we just a bunch of self-serving insiders that have lost touch with the actual users of these tools, or am I just whining? Let’s hear it.

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But do you actually challenge yourself to do new things on a regular basis? That is the only way to succeed in Internet marketing, because the situations change, your customers change, your competitors change, the technology changes, and you can’t stand still.

So, make a promise to yourself to try at least one new thing today. Your Internet marketing will thank you for it.

Gee. What just happened here? I wrote my conclusion at the beginning of my article. It’s something that I have never done before. I broke out of my mold! Did you like it? Did it work?

Maybe not. Perhaps I should try something else the next time. But you get the idea. It’s possible that this dopey device will actually get you to pay more attention to my point. Or maybe not. But only by experimenting am I likely to find out what does work better. And in the long run, that’s more important than whether any one experiment works.

And that’s the point of experimentation in Internet marketing.
You need to embrace new things (give them a big old hug) and break out of what you’ve always done, because that is the only way to succeed in Internet marketing. You may not want to accept this, because experimentation is difficult — it is certainly less taxing to repeat old patterns, especially if they seem successful.

To prove it to you, let’s just imagine that everything you are doing in marketing is absolutely perfect. It’s flawless. There is no possible way that it could be improved. Now, that seems a touch unrealistic, but stay with me here. Even in that impossible situation, you’d still need to experiment in your marketing, because things don’t stay the same:

• Your customers change. They might change slowly, but they do indeed change. Even if you are perfectly appealing to them at the moment, you must keep adapting to ensure that perfect fit continues.

• Your competitors change. In the old days, your competitors didn’t change very rapidly, either, but the Internet has transformed things. Nowadays, competitors can watch your every move, right from the comfort of their own offices. Your competitors are probably adapting what they do every time you make a move.

• The technology changes. This factor is probably the fastest-moving of all. A cottage industry exists just to explain every way that marketers must adapt to these changes.

So, you can’t adopt a set of even truly best practices and believe that your job is done. Instead, you have no choice but to conduct marketing experimentally. The best travel directions in the world can’t account for all the mid-course corrections our marketing journeys must take.

So, what are you doing?

You don’t need to twist yourself into a pretzel each day to do something dramatic. Instead, you can do something small — and it doesn’t need to be every day, either. It could be simple, such as commenting on someone’s blog, or signing up for Twitter. Or examining your Web analytics to see whether that new page update is working. We have to personally extend ourselves, just a bit, and to change how our marketing works, too.

Commit yourself to continually adjusting your campaigns and seeing what works and what doesn’t before deciding your next move.

You’ve got a mold, too, whether you believe it or not. If you’re having trouble getting motivated to break out, then re-read paragraph two.

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But where do we start?

This is a recurring theme here as businesses typically jump into Social Media without crafting a strategic plan rooted in goals and objectives. Nor do companies weigh the impact of engagement on the brand itself as social media champions, depending on the department in which they reside, typically monitor and engage in conversations that typically would lie outside of its domain.

MarketingProfs conducted a survey of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers and the results are worth revisiting as they typify a basic view of the opportunities rife within the social Web. Examining these numbers and more importantly, the social media programs currently employed, will help us innovate and evolve.

Successful Facebook Marketing Tactics

Created a survey of fans

B2B – 37.1%
B2C – 37.9%

Surveys are an effective way to garner feedback to continue to earn ongoing relevance. Surveys can range from satisfaction levels, behavior around the prospect or act of referrals, votes towards new policies and services or simply used for entertainment. At the very least, surveys inject variety into the Facebook stream to foster new opportunities for engagement and communication.

“Friending” recent customers with corporate Facebook profile

B2B – 34.4%
B2C – 26.3%

It should not go unsaid that this activity goes against Facebook’s Terms of Service. But with limited and hierarchical functionality of Fan Pages, creating a branded profile is one worthy of consideration. The interaction that fosters in profiles is radically different that those within Fan Pages. It’s the difference between peer-to-peer conversations and top-down broadcasting. Until Facebook realizes the value of commercial accounts, you must tread carefully. Facebook arbitrarily flags and deletes the branded profile accounts as they’re discovered.

Used Facebook user data to profile customers demographics or interests

B2B – 33.5%
B2C – 30.5%

In social media marketers experiment with programs that balance demographics, the categorization of people by age group, gender, education, income, etc, and psychographics, the grouping of people by interests, passions, and connections. Believe it or not, there are services that exist today that can mine data on Facebook to help marketers profile prospects. Outside of those services, many marketers also manually examine the individuals within their social graphs to garner insight into new initiatives and potential trends.

Created a Facebook application around the brand

B2B – 33.1%
B2C – 41.9%

Facebook applications are not guaranteed to earn an audience simply because they’re created. Users are overwhelmed with options for applications and their adoption of new apps are related more to the activity of their friends than to their allegiance to any particular brand. However, they are not ineffective either. According to the survey, MarketingProfs learned that applications were among the most “successful” tactic used by B2B and B2C companies.

Driving traffic to corporate materials through status updates

B2B – 29%
B2C – 28.4%

I’m a big believer in defining the experience. Eventually users engaged in social networks will click through to something, whether it’s something you shared or a social object they discovered. Where are we sending them? Chances are that they are landing on a message-rich, usually lifeless and generic web page or even worse, the company home page. Essentially we captivate people in a highly interactive and social environment and direct them to a static dead-end where they are left to define their next clicks without a renewed sense of creativity.

This tactic, I should mention, was reported as the most common tactic.

Buying targeted CPC ads

B2B – 24.5%
B2C – 27.1%

Targeted CPC (cost-per-click) ads on Facebook are only as effective as the intention and experience to which they’re tied. Many businesses use these ads to increase the number of fans on a fan page or also to promote corporate material. In my work, they have offered a minimum impact on increasing fans and delivered notable results in driving traffic to pre-defined experiences.

Marketers claimed that buying ads is among the least effective of the mix.

Successful Twitter Marketing Tactics

When we think of social media marketing, Facebook and Twitter usually go hand-in-hand.

Fan us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Like Facebook, marketers viewed Twitter as a primary source for generating traffic. As such, most marketers reported using Twitter to send users to marketing Web pages and they seemed to be pleased with the results.

Monitor Twitter for PR problems in real-time

B2B – 40.7%
B2C – 46.9%

1/2 of all B2C marketers polled reported using Twitter to unearth potential PR problems. As we saw with the now epic Motrin Moms example, a PR problem can materialize at any moment, with little warning. B2B marketers also reported monitoring twitter as part of a proactive crises communications program.

Created an in-person event using only Twitter invites

B2B – 37.4%
B2C – 36%

I smirked when I read this. The wording is a very specific and perhaps it doesn’t capture the true story behind the opportunity. Suddenly every brand wants to host a Tweetup. While businesses use Twitter-only invite services such as TWTVITE to promote a brand-related Tweetup, hitting only users on Twitter limits the scope of the potential audience. In my experience, I’ve learned that by extending the visibility of the event beyond Twitter to Facebook Events and also services such as Upcoming.org and Eventful, we can appeal to not only a wider audience, but also trigger highly productive and effective social graphs in the process – perhaps more so than possible in Twitter. A question for you though, if a Tweetup is promoted on any other social network, is it still a Tweetup?

Contacting Twitter users tweeting negatively about the brand

B2B – 36.7%
B2C – 44%

While this is a shared tactic between PR and customer service, this is a program that requires some form of workflow and process tied to it. It’s very easy to confuse who should respond to which tweets and who already did versus which tweets require response.

As you venture deeper into the world of monitoring and responding to negative or hostile tweets, you should note that consumers are learning that taking to Twitter begets a response. And, with every response they earn from brands, they along with others, are encouraged, and as such, conditioned to increase their activity of voicing complaints in a public spotlight.

Driving traffic by linking to Web pages

B2B – 35.7%
B2C – 35.2%

Again, similar to Facebook, we need to redefine the experience. Sending prospects, customers, and influencers to Web 1.0 pages is not an extension of the Twitter culture nor the expectations that define it.

Provocative text to drive link clicks

B2B – 34.8%
B2C – 40.6%

I found this to be an interesting survey question. I suppose that if businesses are sharing content in a compelling wrapper that doesn’t employ sensationalism or the equivalent of marketing parlor tricks, then these numbers represent effectiveness. However, if Tweets are rich with gimmicks, then these numbers dictate an alarming trend. As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” To earn attention nowadays requires a level of creativity that mirrors the methodologies of creative advertising and marketing fused with the grounding of strategic communications and marketing. Attention only continues to thin and therefore requires planning and editorial programming to ensure relevance and appeal.

Invite Twitter users who tweet positively about a brand to do…

B2B – 34%
B2C – 33.9%

There are many programs that are led by marketing, PR, and customer service that attempt to transform positive tweets into the basis for an advocacy or official ambassador program. As this tactic increases in ubiquity, consumers are getting wise to the power in social media. Like in the aspect of negative tweets, consumers are also learning that while money doesn’t grow on trees, it does grow on tweets. Meaning, consumers expect something for their loyalty. Consider this prior to engaging.

Increased Twitter followers using traditional media mention

B2B – 30.7%
B2C – 30.4%

Timing Tweets to maximize views

B2B – 26.9%
B2C – 30.5%

As attention spans thin, we realize that there’s an art and science to what we tweet and when. As documented by Dan Zarrella, there are various times and days that reveal when the attention aperture is open and people are amenable to hearing messages and clicking through to shared links.

This, my friends, is the true opportunity and challenge within Twitter. We become media programmers, and as such, our content as well as timing and promotion dictate the size of the audience and the resulting activity.

Driving sales by linking to promotional Web pages

B2B – 22.4%
B2C – 24.6%

Dell paved the way for this category and continues to do so. If you were to read the report, you might believe that they are the exception however. Most respondents claimed that this tactic was among the least effective. Perhaps that’s because many of the respondents didn’t anticipate the needs and drivers of their followers. Dell, among other companies, has learned that there are indeed triggers that engender responses in the form of commerce. What’s more important, consumers are reporting that they follow brands to learn of deals and special offers. And, 64% of consumers reported that they make a purchase from a brand because of a digital experience via a Website, microsite, mobile coupon, or e-mail.

In 2010, we are inspiring a new era of socialized marketing and engagement.

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It’s not that demographics will never be important in search. As personalized search takes hold (and especially as mobile search grows in importance), marketers are likely to know much more about searchers than they do today. So, you might, in fact, know gender, age, industry, and other demographics (and firmographics).

But that’s not he place to start. Instead of trying to map your existing market segments onto search, you need to give in to the idea that the first level of segmentation in search marketing is the keywords that yur customers type into the search engine. Those keywords give you the insight you need to craft the message, whether it is for a newbie trying to solve a problem or for a customer that has purchased many times in the past. It’s the difference between “Unix server” and “IBM Blade Server model 3426-A45.” Theres a huge difference in the proper message between those two segments, just as in offline marketing, you have different message for different segments.

That’s the key to success. Put your messaging ability to work. Instead of trying to think about what message you want to send, and blanketing it over as many people as possible, you must do your keyword research to find out what people are looking for. Then, like a good salesman, you tailor your pitch to hit the points they need.

So, market segmentation isn’t dead when it comes to search marketing. You just need to take what you know about segmentation and apply in in a new way. If you do, your skills in messaging will suddenly start to make you successful in search marketing, too.

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In a world overrun with marketing messages, the next wave of marketing technology will cut through the clutter, building automated marketing campaigns that address customers’ wants and needs individually. The result: greater customer intimacy, improved loyalty, and higher revenues.

Moving quickly will gain real competitive advantage for organizations that start planning for the future, according to a new report by Booz & Company.

Next generation marketing technology should be developed with three primary goals:

The first is to instantly collect data from a variety of channels and then distribute relevant information back to those channels.

The second is the capacity to compile and generate a coherent view of every customer taking into account his/her histories and preferences.

The third is the creation of business rules that will govern every customer interaction.

“To achieve a next-generation marketing strategy, CIOs must work closely with marketers to lay out the overall strategy, and then translate it into processes and rules that will occur at every point of contact,” stated Ramez Shehadi, a partner at Booz & Company.

In marketing, knowledge is power

Next generation marketing campaigns can go beyond traditional marketing’s rough efforts at customer segmentation by using IT to gather more refined perspectives on customers and their behavior. Messages and offers can be generated through dynamic, rules-based software engines, and tailored to a “segment of one”— making the right offer to the right consumer at the right time.

Designing a next generation architecture

Next-generation direct marketing demands a front-to-back rethink of the overall IT architecture, with the ultimate goal of better understanding the customer. Within the new architecture, all channels, including customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems must connect to a central integrated engine, which mediates between channels and the customer data and back-end processing. The central campaign engine should also contain the business rules that govern every interaction with every customer.

“Key to the success of the architecture is the creation of a flexible model of the metadata that controls customer information,” Shehadi said. This enables marketers to tap into any number of customer data warehouses, without the time and effort required to inte­grate all that information into a single database. It also allows every channel to tap into the same collection of customer information. A critical innovation lies in removing the typical siloed, channel-specific archi­tecture on which most current direct marketing and campaigning technol­ogy depends.

The new architecture provides unprecedented flexibility as campaigns can be designed and executed without needing to be tied to individual chan­nels. The business rules required by each channel are integrated by the system, allowing marketers to design cross-channel campaigns that can easily shift direction between channels.

The system is also designed to support all critical processes and workflows required by each campaign; from planning and the build­ing of the rules engines to campaign execution and the orchestration of multiple campaigns. “Business users benefit further through increased usability with “dashboards” to aid in interacting with customers, manag­ing campaign workflows, monitoring a campaign’s progress, and assessing its performance,” noted Chahine.

The path to the next generation

Next-generation campaign success depends on the design of the new system and how it is incorporated into an organization. Each step requires the willingness to rethink the overall marketing strategy, from the tactical processes involved in each campaign, and the IT tools required. The skills required to design and execute analytic campaigns must be developed and, the technologies required to enable those cam­paigns must be built. Most important, from begin­ning to end, the CIO and the CMO must work together as partners to design, build, and test the necessary infrastructure, and to expand it, step by step, throughout the organization.

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The urgency to meet the timely needs of a company’s sales reps, resellers, franchises, and others revenue producers is even more pronounced now in a down economy:

Cracks in the marketing chain could be perceived as deeper trouble within the overall organization. According to a 2008 Forrester survey conducted well in advance of last fall’s meltdown, more than 40 percent of respondents struggled with campaign design, offer management, and customer segmentation. Nearly 60 percent of respondents lacked the ability to both manage marketing processes and resources and coordinate campaign management across channels.

Companies faced with the dilemma of making marketing staff cutbacks, or risking worker overload, can find safe harbor in multichannel campaign management systems, called enterprise marketing platforms (EMPs). In fact, EMPs are one of the fastest growing areas of CRM. Here are three steps to evaluate the right EMP to keep your marketing channels viable…

1. Look for a Total Solution at a Reasonable Price: Look for a complete solution from a company that demonstrates e-marketing prowess, as well as traditional media and analytics competencies.

2. Know that their automation processes work: When evaluating a company that offers EMP services, make sure its systems are reliable and that other known companies are using them. Ask for case studies or contacts of current customers. Once enabled, the automated process should allow flexible multi-wave campaigns and programs to flourish with greater customization in vertical channels, or by product line, for all forms of electronic media and print on demand.

3. Look for hot MDF applications: If everything looks positive in your due diligence for an EMP partner, look hard again at how strong its market development fund (MDF) application really is. The best performers will offer built-in redundancies for error-free execution, making it easier to drive reseller behavior and to fund, track, and manage marketing essentials.

Great outcomes with measurable benefits?You will know that you made the right choice in an EMP partner when you see forward traction in these critical areas:

• Optimizing Reach
• Achieving cost savings and greater visibility

If you have come this far with your recession-proofing measures and have managed to stay viable through the storm, you will have worked the magic available to you when aligning with the right EMP organization. Imagine where you’ll be when the clouds clear.

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As the social web evolves, attention is shifting away from destinations and migrating towards packaging and engendering micro experiences. These self-contained environments are delivered directly to individuals where their attention is focused, catering to their appetite for consumption. Whereas Websites served this function from the 90s until recently, it was the interactive, immersive banners that resided on Web pages, improving over time, from Web 1.0 to 2.0, that would set the stage for encapsulated activities delivered through an undercurrent of marketing and messages. These rich multimedia applets evolved along with the rise of the most formidable trends online today:

- Social

– Mobile

– Real-time

From widgets to social network applications to mobile apps, the road between a brand and the brand you isn’t as elusive as one might suspect. It’s paved by the profiles created in each social network, defined by behavior, en masse, and while the roads are open and often toll-free, their direction perpetually changes with technology and trends.

The Fusion of Branding with the Mobile Lifestyle

The road to mobile productivity and connectivity wasn’t born yesterday. Their rise to ubiquity was catapulted with the mainstream glory days of the Palm platform, ultimately superseded by that of Windows Phone, Blackberry, and Nokia. But it wasn’t until the iPhone that we started to realize that mobile apps represent fully contained branding experiences, that to the surprise of many, compel users to download and readily interact with the app and beyond.

Most recently, VW opted out of a traditional marketing and advertising campaign when planning the debut of its 2010 GTI and instead funneled talent, resources, and dollars towards the development and distribution of a slick, interactive and stylish iPhone app with the new car at the center of the experience. Many industry experts considered the move either visionary or foolhardy. The point is that it realized that its target customers were most likely among the millions of iPhone customers actively seeking cool apps.

According to an AdAge article published in October 2009:

Volkswagen of America is launching the newest-generation GTI exclusively on an iPhone app, a cost-efficient approach the automaker said is a first for the industry. VW’s Real Racing GTI game for the iPhone and iPod Touch in the App Store includes a virtual showroom.

When the marketer introduced the GTI in 2006, it spent $60 million on a big-budget blitz with lots of network TV. By comparison, an executive familiar with the matter estimates the annual budget for mobile AOR services is $500,000. And while an iPhone-only strategy may seem limiting, consider this: In September, Apple reported there are more than 50 million iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide. By comparison, CBS’ “NCIS,” the most-watched show for week ending Oct. 18, reached 21 million viewers and commands an average price of $130,000 for a single 30-second spot.

The true opportunity for branded apps however, isn’t relegated to the corporate giants who will no doubt continue to experiment with portable experiences. The real promise lies in the potential for individuals and small businesses to participate in mobile branding and engagement. Whereas the social Web democratized the ability to create and publish content while equalizing the opportunity for influence, mobile apps represent the syndication channels that will propel content into the hands of potential customers, stakeholders and advocates wherever, whenever.

To Get Things Done, Sometimes You Need to Do It Yourself

Celebrities, artists, performers, authors, and tech-savvy entrepreneurs and businesses are already distributing or developing iPhone applications to serve as their brand agents as well as trusted companions to fans and loyalists. What the Webmaster was to the early days of Web 1.0, developers are to the world of mobile applications. At an increasing clip, brands and personalities are seeking referrals, ideas, and bids from individual designers and agencies to create a killler app to either connect communities and/or create a supplemental revenue opportunity. Estimates range from a few thousand to tens of thousands.

So for those up-and-coming artists, entrepreneurs and small businesses, the idea of developing and marketing a custom app remains wishful and intangible.

Until now…

DIY? There’s an app for that.

I recently joined the board of advisors for Mobile Roadie, a new startup that is changing the way people interact with brands and personalities. @MobileRoadie is much bigger than the name implies. It’s an incredibly sophisticated infrastructure that places the power of creating an iPhone app and marketing it through iTunes within reach of almost anyone. Android support is expected soon.

The Mobile Roadie team essentially created a Web-based dashboard that walks users through the steps of creating, designing, customizing an elegant, rich, and fully immersive app that also gets automatic approval and distribution in Apple’s strict iPhone AppStore. More importantly, it channels all aspects of brand engagement, storytelling, news, conversations, traditional mailing updates, and commerce into one fun, easy-to-use, and encapsulating domain.

With Mobile Roadie, users can promote events and sell tickets directly via Ticketmaster and LiveNation (for performances) as well as link directly to commerce engines and Websites with content for sale.

For those brands that require a more sophisticated, custom, and interactive application, the Mobile Roadie team also serves as a talented design studio, already creating apps for some of the biggest names in the business (stay tuned).

In addition to artists, small businesses, and entrepreneurs creating and distributing apps, Mobile Roadie will also fuel a new trend in content publishing and distribution. Many bloggers are already extending their platforms from the blog HQ to Twitter, Facebook, RSS feed readers, and other social networks. In addition, several bloggers and publishers are also embracing the Kindle and Nook platforms (click here for a sample). Now, with applications such as Mobile Roadie, bloggers will have the ability to syndicate content as well as other social objects and promotions directly to the iPhone.

In just the last week, Jeremiah Owyang and Dave Taylor individually demonstrated their new iPhone apps to me with great enthusiasm. My little secret was that I also had an app, but I wanted to wait until Mobile Roadie opened its new platform.

In fact, not only is Mobile Roadie available now, it also announced a partnership with Ustream to live stream video from events, discussions, performances, etc., directly to the iPhone app.

For those using an iPhone, it is with great excitement that I announce the availability of my little app experiment. Without pulling any strings, I wanted to test the process of creating and marketing an app on my own to experience the process and also provide feedback to improve it. As it’s a new service, you’ll notice that it caters to musicians, hence the name. However the team is already verticalizing the application for business, authors, artists, bloggers, among other important markets and applications.

Touring the New Mobile Roadie App

iTunes View

iPhone Dashboard

App Home Page

The App News Feed (My Blog Posts)

Tweets

Upcoming Events/Appearances

An Interactive, Embeddable Fan Wall (Perhaps my favorite feature)

A Complete Mobile Experience – Videos, Biography, Mailing Lists, Links, About, Commerce

Whether you are a rock star, movie star, business owner, author, blogger, artist, or represent a corporate brand, in the era of the social and mobile Web, you now also serve as a brand manager in addition to your other roles. Creating and implementing a mobile strategy is no longer a luxury. In truth, mobile represents a marketing, service, and communications program that is both substantial and of great importance.

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While we have a good looking group this week, the Search Agents was the winner for the best looking Search Marketing blog. Not only does it offer a clever theme, but content and usability to boot. There are more contributors listed than most SEM agencies have in their employ. Content is balanced between SEO and SEM followed by everybody’s friend, Social Media. The Search Agents is the official corporate blog of The Search Agency, an integrated online marketing firm headquartered in Santa Monica, CA.

Let’s get to it with the last BIGLIST class of November 2009:

• Actionable Insights – Covario isn’t just a leading San Diego company in the interactive marketing analytics space, it’s full of Covarians. What do those Covarians do when they’re not using their clever software to automate and analyze SEO and PPC? Why, they’re writing about industry news and updates, indepth analyses, strategic and tactical advice on a blog good enough to make it on the BIGLIST.

• SEO Contrarian – What are the chances of another SEO having been a Combat Engineer in the Army? Except my stint was long, long ago. Ari Ozick has his opinions and even a Manifesto, which makes for interesting blogging, especially when mixed with skill and first hand experience. Don’t let the SEO Scum category scare you, just read.

• Shark SEO – Dave Peiris works for iCrossing in London and besides playing with search engines all the live long day, he likes coffee, jaffa cakes, napping and designing clever linkbait. The good kind.  The blog has a very cool design but reading what’s on a good SEO’s mind is even better. And no sharks to be seen.

• Best SEO Blog - With an awfully literal name, (oh wait, we do that too) this blog by Michael Martinez, Nicholas Ramirez and Gene Tapang from Visible Technologies puts out “the latest in search engine marketing tactics, the tried and true techniques.”  With posts back to 2007 there’s plenty of SEO insight to gain, which is a good thing in a world currently dominated by social media content.

• SimpleFuzz – Jeremy Martin admits to his vices: webaholicism. Which of course, is a good thing when you blog, since that openness means the opportunity to exchange ideas. Say, on the topics of seo, social media, ppc, blogging or web design. This blog is a great resource for small businesses in Utah, where it’s written and beyond.

• Holistic Search Marketing – Like TopRank’s BIGLIST, Peter Young (Head of SEO at Mediavest in Manchester) has his own list called TSMR (Top Search Marketing Resources) that you may want to get on. I can’t tell you how here, you’ll just have to visit his blog and find out. While you’re there, check out all the fine SEO and Google focused blog posts too.

Made the BIGLIST did you? Well then don’t forget to wear this impressive badge.

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How does it go?

Do you dread it, or is it fun and easy?

If you’re like most people, you’ve probably had one of two experiences: You either ended up sitting in the front of a blank computer wondering where to start. Or, you struggle, agonize and finally write something you are happy with, but it generates little or no response.

If either of these scenarios hits home for you, then you are in for a treat. Today I’m going to show you a way to avoid both of those horrible fates.

How? By sharing one of the best kept secrets for easily writing copy that really sells.

And believe it or not, it has far less to do with your writing ability than you would think. In fact, all you need to be able to do is write clear, easy to understand sentences and this secret will vault all your copywriting into the stratosphere.

Are you ready? Good.

Here’s the real secret to crafting compelling copy quickly and easily: Preparation.

Yeah, I know. You probably wanted to hear that about as much as you want a root canal. But trust me, it really works.

Abraham Lincoln once said “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” The same holds true when it comes to writing marketing materials, ads and even sales presentations.

So before I start writing, I do quite a bit of work “sharpening my writing axe”. And by the time I’m done, whatever I’m working on is already 75% written.

Now I’m going to show you exactly what I do to get ready to write knock-out killer content. To make it even easier, I’ve broken the process down into 10 simple steps…

1) List all the features and benefits of your product or service.

2) Make a note of what makes your company, product or service different from competitors. Marketers call this your USP or Unique Selling Proposition.

3) List of all the pains or problems your product or service solves.

4) Describe your primary customer or ideal target market. Include all possible details such as sex, age, race, education, geographic location, socioeconomic demographics, etc.

5) List any pains or problems your target customer is likely to have (whether or not they relate to what you are offering). Try thinking about their goals and dreams, and what could be stopping them from achieving those.

6) Write down what your ideal client stands to gain by purchasing your product or service, and what they stand to lose if they don’t.

7) List every excuse or objection you can think of that might cause customers to resist or delay making the purchase, then write down answers or rebuttals for each?

Write down any details that need to be included like price, location, details etc.

9) Note the purpose of the piece. In other words, what do you want folks to do after they read it (buy something, click here, call to request a free sample, give me their name and email, etc.). This will become your call to action.

10) Decide on the specifics of your offer. How much is it? What is the guarantee? Is there a payment plan? Rebates? Free extras? Bonuses? Up sells? Once you’ve done all this, it’s just a matter of reorganizing the information, adding a few transition phrases, and creating a really juicy headline. That’s it. Not sure how to arrange all the information?

Here’s a good rule of thumb you can use that works amazingly well no matter what you are writing…

1) Start with the pain or problem.

2) Explain the solution and benefits.

3) Address any potential objections or questions.

4) State what they stand to lose by not buying your product or service.

5) Finally, include the offer, a call to action, and your contact info.

Simple as that. So next time you get ready to write anything that is supposed to make customers take notice, and take action, just grab this handy guide. It is sure to make your writing less difficult, and more effective. Who knows…you might even start enjoying it!

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Google’s policy of serving relevant ads in response to user queries coupled with complex factors like quality score can make Adwords a minefield for a novice or intermediate level practitioner so much so that a lot of money is coughed up to elicit a poor ROI (Return on Investment) or not the best bang for your buck in layman terms.

If you are in a position where you have set up PPC campaigns and they are not doing well, then you could use the following guidelines to fine tune their performace to achieve optimum results. Let us get cracking.

1) Relooking at Opportunities:
There is a good chance that you would have done keyword research relevant to your industry before setting up your PPC campaigns. If you are finding that your campaigns are not doing well, then you will have to do a more indepth keyword research and dig deeper to find the “money keywords” – keywords that have decent amount of traffic (ideally 1000 searches per day or more) and less competition (50,000 and below).

If your site has been in existence for some time with Analytics installed, then your Analytics account will provide you a wealth of information. You can look at the keywords that are bringing in organic traffic and you can use these as the seed keywords for your keyword research and build on the opportunities presented in your domain of business.

2) Targeting and Relevancy:
These are the two mantras you have to keep in mind when setting up a new campaign or reorgainising an existing campaign. If you have a group of keywords that are well related to each other and can be grouped into a relevant ad group targeting an underlying theme, that is the first step of achieving relevancy.

The ad copy for that ad group must reflect the same idea as the keywords themselves. When writing the ad copy, make sure you include the representative keyword in the title and include it once in the two lines that make up the ad copy description.

Always your ad must show a clear benefit and it should have a clarion call to action. If you do not ask users to take action, they probably never would. Do not waste precious ad copy space by using words like Click here.

If you are stating in your ad that your blue widget would do something, then make sure that the landing page which that ad leads to dwells at length and explains clearly that benefit. Never mislead users by staing something in the ad and having a landing page that is totally different. If you get all the above correct, then you are well on your way to improving relevancy and targeting which plays a huge part in the optimisation of the quality score.

If your current PPC campaigns are not doing well, then you must ensure the relevancy of keywords in the ad group. For example, if you are a builder and you build both industrial and residential buildings, you must have two distinct ad groups, one each for Residential Buildings and Industrial Buildings. Though they are both buildings, they are distinct types of construction and you must differentiate between them.

Try reorganising your campaign at the granular level and accord each and every distinct keyword the respect and value it deserves. Avoid lumping unrelated keywords together. You can bet that these keywords will be rejuvenated and gain a fresh lease of life and start performing really well.

3) PPC Landing Page
You have improved the targeting and relevancy of your PPC campaigns. The next important criterion is the landing page for the ads that display triggered by the keywords in your campaigns that match the searches made by users on Google.

The landing page plays a very important role in determining the quality score, a mystery component that is evaluated by the Google algorithm. Human nature is such that when something is shrouded in secrecy, the human mind tries to analyse it to the maximum possible extent.

I like to keep things simple. In my opinion, I do not worry about the quality score excessively. All that you need to do is get the targeting and relevancy spot on and the landing page near perfect. The quality score takes care of itself.

Ensure that your landing page is in total sync with the keywords and the ads that lead a user to it. Your landing page must contain the representative keyword in its title tag, meta description and h1 tag to start with.

Your copy must also include variations of the representative keyword (in other words, the other keywords contained in your ad group targeting this specific landing page) when defining the benefits of your product or service.

Sell the benefits of your product/service and keep features to a minimum. If your product/service is solving a problem, then go ahead and lay it out for the whole world to see. Users are looking for solutions to problems. When a great solution is found, a user automatically ends up a buyer.

Have clear calls to action and embed them as anchor text on the landing page. By highlighting the call to action as a clickable link, you are getting the user to focus on the blue underlined text and at the same time, you are able to gain value in terms of improving quality score for your keyword phrase by making it part of the anchor text.

The common belief is to have a tight sales funnel. I myself do not like to divert a user’s attention much when she lands on a landing page. I tend to remove the global site template from landing pages. The reason is two fold. It is possible to accurately track the user’s path from the moment they land on the landing page. The second reason is to minimise the user distraction.

You are paying for every user that lands on your optimised landing page. You want to capture their focus and lead them on through the sales funnel and this is achieved by making them take action (in our case, click the link) and take them to buy your product or sign up for your newsletter or whatever it may be on the following goal page.

But for the purposes of quality score, you would be well advised to have links on the landing page. You can have links like Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy at the bottom of the page. At the top, you can have links to Resources and any other information laden areas of your main site. From the user perspective, this also gives the user the feeling that she is not hemmed in and led like cattle to the final desired goal.

Again, if you are getting a user to fill a form, please do not make the user sweat it out. Have a form with just 3 or 4 fields where you capture their name, email address, phone number and comments. Then call them or email them to prove you are a human operating a business and take your sales process to the next level.

If you sell products and have a shopping cart, please make it a simple and intuitive process for the user to go through the sales cycle. Have a clear call to action with a button saying Add to Cart or Buy Blue Widget. Do not make the user jump through too many hoops that would result in frustration and make her leave your site.

4) Analyzing Results:
Once you have reorganised your PPC campaign, it is vital to have an eye on the results as much as you can. If it is an existing campaign, you should get a clear sign of the trends in a week or so. If it is a brand new campaign, it will take atleast 3 months to get a clear picture.

Just as in real life, even your keywords are all not created the same. You will find a few keywords that are foot soldiers. They will bring in good load of visitors but not necessarily convert. You are going to have a few lynchpin keywords (royalty kind) which can convert like crazy. These are the superstars.

You will find dummies that just do not fire up.

If you find that certain keywords are not recording any clicks over 3 months, then there are two ways to look at it. Maybe they need to be checked for better targeting and relevancy. Else, there is no demand in the market for the product or service that the keywords in question represent.

Group them into a distinct ad group and see if they fire up. Wait for another couple of months. If nothing happens, pause them. Please do not delete them. You can read my earlier post titled Taking On An Existing PPC Campaign – Things To Be Aware Of explaining the PPC account history.

5) Cutting down Costs:
This is not directly connected to the optimization of a PPC campaign but it is handy if you are not loaded with money. Adwords is Google’s revenue generating flagship. Click costs are only going up everyday. There is no way the CPCs (cost per click) are going to tank in future like the stock market. The best thing you can do is run your campaigns on Adwords for atleast 3 months.

You can easily pick out the winners at the expense of paying a “good” price as CPC even after using the above techniques for optimizing your PPC campaigns. After 3 months, start advertising on Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN Adcenter with the winning keywords. You are going to pay less than what you would pay on Adwords.

If you are happy with the response from these two big networks, you can either switch off the Adwords campaigns and concentrate on improving your site’s position on the organic SERPs. You can also have the luxury of paid traffic albeit at manageable budget levels.

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