Are You Really LinkedIn?

It’s amazing how much I’ve come to rely on LinkedIn.  Don’t get me wrong – I am  not a social media addict.  I don’t Twitt yet.  MySpace makes me nervous.  I use Facebook, but primarily because I have some clients that are obsessed with it as a business tool. 

LinkedIn is different – it’s used (at least by me) for business purposes only.  I use it for research on clients, partners, investors, etc.  I use it to get answers to questions.  I use it to connect with current colleagues, past colleagues, and sometimes for recruiting purposes. 

Let me preface my upcoming rant with this – I am not an “open networker”.  I send invitations to connect to people I know and have worked with, and accept invitations to connect from people I know and have worked with.  Personally, I don’t believe in the “open networking” thing because I think it defeats the purpose of a community like LinkedIn, but hey…to each his own.  So now that you know where I stand on that…

Microsite or Landing Page?

I’ve addressed this question three times in the past week, so it finally registered on my blog-worthy radar.  Microsites and landing pages are certainly related.  Close cousins, yes.  Siblings, no. 

Landing Pages

Let’s start with the landing page.  Landing pages are typically one-page creations.  They focus on one particular offer, and specifically on getting the visitor to take advantage of that particular offer.  Sometimes called lead capture vehicles, landing pages are used primarily for direct marketing programs – pay per click search engine marketing, direct mail, print advertising, etc.  Well-designed landing pages are critical to the success of these campaigns, and the savviest of marketers use and test hundreds of different landing pages in order to optimize conversion rates. 

For visual reference, here is an example of a Gold’s Gym landing page touting their 7-day free membership:

Gold’s Gym Landing Page

Microsites

Microsites, sometimes called minisites or sitelets, typically consist of a cluster of web pages and are used for a variety of purposes: 

• Large consumer goods companies may use microsites to independently market a new product, because the primary company website may leave the product underexposed. 
• A newspaper may use a microsite to cover a time-sensitive and popular event, such as the upcoming presidential election or the Olympics. 
• A business-to-business software company may use a microsite to provide prospects with deep information on a product, information that cannot be handled via a landing page. 

In many cases microsites, like landing pages, are designed to convert the site visitor into a lead, but that lead capture is handled through a more content-heavy approach.  An additional benefit to building a microsite is enhanced search engine optimization opportunities.  Microsites are typically housed on a domain separate from the primary company website and contain sometimes dozens of pages of topic-specific content, setting the stage for high organic search rankings.

Here is just one example of a well-designed microsite from Black & Decker:

Black & Decker VPX System Microsite

How Do I Choose Between Microsite or Landing Page?

First of all, you don’t have to choose.  Most sophisticated marketers will have a need to use both microsites and landing pages somewhere along the way.  If you’re trying to choose for a particular project or campaign, your decision factors should include:

• Marketing campaign objectives
• Budget
• Content

The examples above should help you identify whether a microsite or landing page is the best fit for your needs.  If you’re still left scratching your head, go ahead and drop me a line and I’ll offer my viewpoint.

What is Social Media, and what can my business do with it?

Social media is hot.  If you’re a marketer and you don’t know that, you must be busy reading your back issues of The Industry Standard. 

From a business standpoint, 90% of companies are trying to figure out how to address social media, and the other 10% are just pretending they know what they’re doing with regards to social media.  Much like the early days of the internet as a new medium, social media vehicles are developing so quickly that it’s almost impossible to keep up and address the business opportunities associated with social media.

My guess is that social media is going to be a topic covered in this blog for years to come, but just in case this is the last time we discuss it, here are a few things you should know about this phenomenon:

Building The Internet Marketing Department

Clients and agencies frequently ask me about how I’d structure an internal internet marketing department.  Clients typically ask because as they see their internet marketing programs expanding, they naturally begin to wonder if they can save money and take more control by bringing the entire function in-house.  Agencies typically ask because they see client dollars shifting at a rapid clip towards the internet, and they naturally begin to wonder whether they can create a new revenue stream within the agency.

No easy answers here.  Factors include company type, size, industry, budget, existing leadership, financial goals, etc.  It goes without saying that every situation is unique.  Over the next few months I’ll provide some deeper insight into the topic, but here are two initial pieces of guidance:

Website Copy – Why Lorem Ipsum Turns into a 3-Month Delay

Raise your hand if your website redesign or relaunch has been delayed due to website copy modifications, or specifically the idea that 2-3 members of your senior management team need to review site copy before it goes live. 

Based on experience, I am certain there are a bunch of you with your hands raised.  4 of every 5 website projects I’ve been involved in veer off track due to delays in the copy approval/revision process, not necessarily the copywriting process (although the initial copywriting phase is a delay candidate as well).

Why so many cooks in the kitchen, you might ask?  From what I can gather, the reasons are fairly simple.  In a mid-size organization, a Director or Manager level employee “owns” the website project, and may even have a webmaster or marketing manager as a “co-owner”.  Then you insert 1-3 members of the senior management team, all of whom (rightfully so) hold a stake in the success of the website.  Those members of the senior management team may be involved in the early phases of the website revamp process – they want to sign off on final design, general site structure, etc.  But what they REALLY want to get involved in is the copywriting of the website, or at least the critique of copywriting piece of the website.

Right or wrong (and senior management getting involved in copywriting is not necessarily a bad thing), here’s why senior management wants to get involved, and why it always causes delays:

My New Site is Almost Ready – What About SEO?

We hear this all too often from companies.  They’ve engaged a web design/development firm to build a shiny new website, complete with all kinds of spectacular functionality, and yet the concept of search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t addressed until the site is in some type of beta phase, ready to launch.

While the recommendation is always to address SEO during the earliest stages of a website redesign project, the “I forgot about SEO” camp can relax a bit.  Assuming the has been structured correctly from a design/coding standpoint, you will still be able to handle SEO appropriately prior to site launch and in a more comprehensive manner post-launch.  So let’s discuss the simplest things you can do during these later stages…

Local Search – What’s up Doc?

We all know that doctors don’t always have the time, knowledge or resources to market their practices.  That being said, there is one cheap, efficient, fast method that doctors can use to drive new patients, and retain current patients – local search listings.

For the sake of this exercise, we’ll use this new search engine called Google.  Hopefully everyone has heard of it.  Let’s assume I am looking for a pediatrician in Morristown, New Jersey – naturally, I go to Google and type in “pediatricians morristown nj”.  Although your results may differ slightly depending on location and your preferences, here is what most will see:

http://www.google.com/search?complete=1&hl=en&safe=off&q=pediatricians+Morristown+NJ&aq=f

BFF: Marketing & Sales?

My apologies on the use of the modern acronym.  For those who don’t know, “BFF” stands for “Best Friends Forever”.  Now, on with the post…

I was recently re-reading a post from Brian Carroll in his B2B Lead Generation Blog, titled “Collaboration Huddles and 35 Other Ways to Improve Sales and Marketing Teamwork”.  Although I can always grab something useful from Brian’s posts, within his list of 35 I immediately stopped when I read #15:

15. Get the marketing team out in the field with the sales team regularly.

Buckets of Leads

When I hear clients make a statement like “we rely exclusively on pay-per-click to drive leads into the business”, I cringe.   Don’t get me wrong – I am as big a proponent of using pay-per-click SEM for lead generation as anyone else, but it’s the word “exclusively” that frightens me.  The most successful lead generation marketers I know follow some simple rules:

1. They start with identifying the metrics that matter for any lead generation campaign – initial value of a new customer, lifetime value of a new customer, average lead-to-sale conversion rate, target cost per lead, target cost per new customer, etc.
2. They set up the appropriate tracking mechanisms (web analytics, CRM, lead scoring tools, etc.) to ensure that their lead generation campaigns are measurable.
3. They diversify their lead generation sources as much as possible.
4. They test, test, and test again.
5. Based on testing, they refine each campaign tied to each source of lead generation.
6. They test, test, and test again.
7. Based on testing, they narrow down what works and what doesn’t and adjust their lead generation “portfolio” to reflect that.

The Most Challenging Copywriting Job in the World

I’ve always said that writing ad copy for pay-per-click ads, particularly for Google AdWords, is an extremely challenging task.  Here’s why:

• Google gives you what seems like 10 characters in which to fit your entire marketing message.  OK, I am exaggerating, but most marketers and copywriters are long-winded folks by nature, so restricting us to somewhere in the range of 100 characters is tough. 
• As opposed to a print ad or radio spot where writers and creative folks are able to express concepts with supporting visuals or audio cues, the typical ppc ad is relatively lifeless.
• Your ads appear right above or under ads from 3-20 of your closest competitors, depending on your category.  Not exactly exclusive territory.
• If you’ve designed your ppc campaign well, you’re controlling which ad copy is appearing under individual keywords.  That being said, even knowing which keywords a search engine user is searching for does not mean the writer knows the search engine user’s ultimate goal of searching.

OK, OK.  I’ll stop giving copywriters and PPC professionals a reason to ask for a raise, and instead focus on a real-life example of solid ad copywriting.  I was recently searching for a plumbing/heating company to repair our water heater, and realized that we’ve never really liked any of the plumbers we’ve used.  Without much time to ask for any referrals from friends/neighboors, I did what most folks do these days – I googled it. 

To protect the innocent, I am going to remove the actual geographic descriptors and company names from the remainder of this post.  Here’s how the next steps unfolded: