Maximizing conversions vs. creating brand awareness

Companies offering services or products online are often primarily concerned with maximizing conversions. But is conversion marketing always the right strategy? Depending on the product it can be a good or ineffective strategy. If you are selling a simple product, which does not need much explanations, focusing on a direct response campaign strategy can pay off. Key metrics for this case are conversions, in particular cost-per-conversion, conversion rate and most importantly view-through conversions.

In case your target group needs to be educated about your service or product your success metrics should not be conversions at first. If you are educating potential users and promoting your brand (both parts of a recommended sales cycle, which should be included when explaining  a product or service) your focus should be on reach (impressions and frequency leading to increased brand awareness), user engagement and at a later point - view through conversions. 

 

Impact of CTA's on metrics

In many cases success of campaigns targeting an increase in organic and direct traffic is depending on a slow build up of content, keywords and social media reach. The better the content and keywords, the easier it will be to find your companies services. 

In order to speed up this process affiliate marketing can help with both - reach and frequency, which are ultimately leading to conversions. Please check my previous post on affiliate advertising, the fastest growing sector in marketing - HERE. While a content strategy needs time to be implemented (generating content, optimizing keywords, creating reach in social media), there are other, short term strategies, which can help to achieve short-term goals. To generate fast results while implementing a long-term content strategy optimizing paid search campaigns (via negative keywords, site exclusions, ad scheduling, enhanced campaigns, etc.) can be effective in order to generate higher quality traffic with potential for later conversions. 

What is your experience with conversion vs. brand awareness / content strategies? As always feel free to tweet @global_trend me or simply leave a comment! 

Tonic Marketing on Google+

Google+ is growing fast and the last features implemented are impressive. Having a business page is not only a tool for improving your search rankings anymore.

Join Tonic Marketing on Google+ to learn more about how you can use Google+ and many other platforms including Pinterest and Twitter for your marketing strategy.

Join our community today for discussions about the latest trends in marketing.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115539948569284362421

Tonic Marketing's community on Google+

Stay tuned for more on Google+ and how you can use it for your business. As always feel free to contact me on Twitter @global_trend

Solving the SEO Puzzle Part 5

In our previous posts on how to improve search engine results we mainly focused on basic strategies with big impact. But focusing on the plethora of small details can also be helpful.

 Follow these 5 strategies to fine-tune your SEO strategy:

1. Choosing matching filenames 
Besides your domain names, the first thing search engines discover on your website are... filenames.  Just as filling web pages with relevant keywords, giving files content-matching names should be part of your SEO strategy. Using a descriptive name is much more effective than conventional naming such as page1.html, page2.html,  and so on, especially when you want to make changes to the content of individual pages on a web site that has grown to hundreds of pages.

 2. Create a privacy policy
Many in the SEO community suspected privacy policies to have an impact on search rankings. It makes sense, since it shows engine algorithms the legitimacy of a business. If you need help with your privacy policy, check out www.freeprivacypolicy.com

3. Using 301 redirects:
Sometimes a website-redesign has to be done. Unfortunately search engines are not friendly with much change. If search engines have already spidered and indexed an original URL and website visitors have added the page to their bookmarks, it is crucial to let both visitors and search engines know that the site has moved. Setting up a 301 solves this problem.

4. Maximize Exposure via StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon offers submissions of your own websites, blogs, videos, and news articles, all of which can help you generate buzz and traffic. Make sure to include backlinks to your sites!

5. Optimize Blog Posts for Technorati
Think of Technorati as Google for Blogs. Well, there is Google Blogs, but Technorati is bigger - it tracks around 180 million blogs and is the most recognized authority on what is happening in the "Blogosphere". Hence creating a high popularity (authority) for your blog is not a bad idea. This can be done by regular participation in the blogging community - post links to other blogs, connect with others via Technorati and use keywords (this is how people will find your blog on Technorati) Verifying your blog on Technorati can be difficult - make sure to contact me on Twitter @global_trend if you have any questions about this process.

Do you see other SEO strategies you would categorize as "fine-tuning"? Please feel free to comment with ideas and questions!

Top Five LinkedIn Groups for Fashion Marketing

After joining and leaving groups on LinkedIn for quite some time I finally found a few interesting and useful groups for fashion & marketing professionals. 
I selected them by interaction within the group, number of members and quality of members.
Here is a short overview including group name and description:

1. Trendwatching 
Our trend findings help CEOs, executives in the marketing world and anyone else interested in the future of fashion trends, to dream up new goods, services and experiences for (or even better, with) their customers. Main focus of Trend Watching are Fashion, Trends & Marketing. Make sure to join the group's Google+ Community 

2. Fashion Marketing & Digital Media Group

The Fashion Marketing Group (FMG) is a networking platform for executives who are passionate about fashion, marketing, digital media, and culture.
FMG is a place to crowdsource strategy, gain industry literacy, and connect the dots between Fashion, Advertising, and Technology.
Network with top recruiters, ad agencies, brands, content creators, investors, retailers, and emerging talent.
Welcome to FMG. Where Fashion Meets Digital Media.

3. Style Careers
The StyleCareers LinkedIn group is a networking hub for experienced, fashion industry professionals.

Like StyleCareers.com, the StyleCareers LinkedIn group is focused on the wholesale/home office side of the fashion industry.

4. JBC Style Fashion Network

JBCStyle is a team of recruiters positioned to help you find a job in the Fashion, Beauty, Action Sports, Accessories, Retail and Home industries. We work with top fashion brands and companies worldwide. With over a decade of experience matching key brands with ideal candidates, we are uniquely positioned to help you whether it to source top talent or to take the next step in your career. 

5. Pinterest International

International networking and marketing via Pinterest. Increasing influence of group members on Pinterest via networking and exchange of ideas and marketing strategies. Simple & effective for everyone trying to build a strong individual or corporate profile.
Join the group on LinkedIn + leave your Pinterest profile + start following each other
= more exposure for your images, brand (meaning more influence as user)

As always feel free to get in touch on Twitter @global_trend

http://www.blogdash.com/full_profile/?claim_code=931fd87b5fad32adb35dd2a41185373c

Content marketing - the new face of online marketing?

Let me start by apologizing for abandoning this blog for months. I had to run a few errands. Like change city (Tonic Marketing is now made in the city of angels), job, etc. - the usual stuff.

In my new position I came across several interesting online marketing strategies, in particular one I found worth blogging about - Content marketing. Maybe I should use a hashtag here, since it was named word of the year 2012. Maybe because content marketing is one of the "trending topics" among marketers in early 2013.
But why is everyone and their mama talking about content marketing suddenly? It has been around for years. Well, lets take a closer look.
I agree with +Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOMoz, who says it does most of what advertising attempts do - build trust and familiarity of an audience toward your brand. To keep it simple - content is giving someone a reason to link to you. When in the past all you needed was a website, setting yourself apart from the competition nowadays is much more complicated. Besides the obvious ways via pricing, product quality or community, content is becoming the main tool to create competitive edge.

The following graph shows some of the challenges when creating relevant content.

Content marketing, which is often mistaken as inbound marketing (a term invented by a smart team at hubspot for promotional purposes) is certainly not the new face of online marketing, but an integral and vital part of online marketing. Businesses and agencies are beginning to realize that link building without relevant content will limit your results or even push back. Content connects and drives every part of online marketing and businesses not able to produce engaging content (see graph above) will fall behind.

And since I am keen on using 2012 word of the year - #contentmarketing. Not just because it's trending.

Please feel free to contact me with questions via LinkedIn or Twitter (@global_trend)

Solving the SEO puzzle part 4

Due to recent events I looked at some interesting SEO strategies for lifestyle and fashion websites with a community character.

Creating improved search engine rankings via community participation can be key for sites dealing with popular topics such as tv, fashion or lifestyle. I am always surprised to see that brands in these industries  are not using this channel more frequently. The reason might be that community participation takes time. Time to build the channel, time to build the traffic... I still believe its worth to invest in it. Here are a few reasons:
1. Adding value to the community increases the chance that your link and comment are posted.
2. Acquiring links through blog participation works effectively to achieve improved rankings on Yahoo & Bing. (not as effective on Google)

Solving the SEO puzzle with Tonic Marketing

What are the steps in order to increase my ranking via community participation?

Try to comment on blogs that are as closely related to the theme of your website/blog as possible. Make sure to check the PageRank of the selected blog and comment if it is higher than 4. You can find these blogs by searching for a keyword related to your site in a blog directory such as http://blogsearch.google.com
In the next step evaluate your linking partner. Is the content relating to my site/blog?
In addition to blogs make sure to participate in forums about your topic. You can evaluate forums just like blogs via PageRank. This is especially important for lifestyle and fashion blogs, since there are thousands of forums and blogs out there.
In most of these forums it is crucial to first add value via content. Do not start with promoting your latest line right away, but rather join existing conversations about the topic (e.g. handbags) itself.

Unlike blog comment links, forum post links do not contain a nofollow attribute, making them useful for increasing your rankings in all the major engines. Certain forums allow you to place a link directly into your forum signature, which is simply a personalized line of text that follows each of your posts. This method is less obvious than placing links directly into posts and therewith more effective.


In order to create a good SEO strategy for your company it is crucial to stay on top of the latest developments in SEO. Besides my research on several blogs I found the latest edition of Search Engine Optimization by Kristopher B. Jones (founder of pepperjam) very helpful and up to date. You can get it here:



Do you have any experience with community participation? How did it affect your rankings and traffic? As always, please feel free to contact me with questions about this topic via Twitter:
https://twitter.com/global_trend
(I also like my new, fancy twitter page header...!)

Solving the SEO puzzle part III

Link & Article Directory Submissions
The reason you may have heard about link directory submissions as a SEO tool is because.... (drumrolls) its so easy. Simply submit your website's URL to directories such as Yahoo, AboutUs, Best of the Web, etc. and feel good about your enormous SEO activities.
I like to call it the "slacktivism" of SEO (slacktivism - According to the urban dictionary the act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem. - Click here to save the planet... If you need more examples - Facebook is full of it!)

Saving the world via Social Media. Its so easy...

I recommend not to rely too strongly on directory submissions to raise search engine rankings. Mainly because of the ease with which these links can be obtained and the number of directories that exist, they are not given much credibility by search engines anymore. -Yes, I know that it used to be different 5 years ago, but we are talking about SEO and not print marketing... (Sorry to all the traditional marketers out there)
Performance Pointer: If you like to keep using directory submissions make sure to focus on directories that have been in existence for at least a few years and possess a large number of backlinks. If you want to invest into directory submissions, make sure to use a software that submits to several directories at the same time, such as Directory Submitter


However if you are interested in promoting articles on your blog or certain topics on your website article directory submissions can be useful. Here is an example: After finishing & publishing this blog post, I will go to ezinearticles.com and submit it to the relevant category. Now there are many directories out there, but to increase the chance of exposure I would recommend to use the ones with a high visitor base, such as goarticles.com, articledashboard.com or isnare.com

What are your thoughts on article submissions or increasing traffic on blogs/websites via directories? Feel free to comment or write me on Twitter @global_trend