How to Convert Old Media Marketing to New Media Marketing

In the marketing world there are several ways that people refer to new media marketing. There are phrases such as:

Inbound marketing
Internet marketing
Web marketing
Social media marketing
Online marketing
Digital marketing
E-marketing
Interactive marketing

The phrase which is probably the most hyped is new media marketing! But, is a marketing strategy that includes blogging, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flckr still new? It’s 2010 not 2007. New media, is not so new anymore!

Consider that some businesses are still in new media denial. There are still some businesses who think they can ignore new media. They believe that old media is still the way to market. So, they still use the telephone, the print ad, the tradeshow and direct mail as the sole way of marketing their business.

The old media examples just mentioned are not obsolete. They can still be effective, but they should be adapted to the new media mindset of your prospective buyers. Let’s look at each of these old media formats and how they can be converted to new media marketing.

Telephone
Rather than cold calling for sales prospects call people to conduct a survey on a relevant industry topic. Invite them to take a survey on the phone or online. If they prefer the online survey get their email address and send them a link to your online survey. Be sure to offer them a free copy of the survey results. Keep them informed by email in the future. Don’t sell anything in this phonecall. The person will remember the content experience about your brand and possibly buy from you when she is ready. Of course, the best use of the telephone is to call all the leads you develop through your inbound marketing strategy.

Print Advertising
Assuming you’re advertising in a relevant publication, make your call to action accessible online on a unique landing page that is attributable to the ad so you can measure it. If you have a phone number in the ad, be sure it’s unique so you can measure the results of the ad. In many cases, print advertising serves to build or strengthen your brand. Even if you have a good call to action, sometimes the best result is brand awareness. Nonetheless, be sure the reader can engage your brand online in a way that can be traced back to your ad.

Tradeshows
You can integrate your tradeshow marketing with your online strategy in several ways. Whether you are exhibiting or just attending a tradeshow you should always talk about the event online before, during and after the event. Use your blog, Facebook and Twitter channels to discuss your contribution to the event as well as the contribution of others. Use Flickr and YouTube to share your photos and video from the event. Connect online with the people you meet at the event to keep the relationships going after the event.

Direct Mail
Similar to print advertising be sure to have a measurable call to action. Consider linking the call to action to personalized URLs (PURLs) as landing pages. This will allow you to measure the results of your direct mail campaigns very clearly with online interaction attributable to your direct mail campaigns.

New Media Transitions
There are many businesses that continue to use old media marketing strategies very well by integrating them with new media channels. Ultimately, you can achieve great sales results by integrating your old media and new media plans by connecting and engaging people the way they want to be engaged.

Avoid using old media strategies in a vacuum. Similarly, avoid using new media tools in a vacuum especially as a megaphone to blast your sales message. Rather integrate your old media and new media channels into the marketing 2.0 mindset so your audience will want to connect with you and your brand to explore what you can do for them.

As I’ve said many times previously, brands who adopt the mindset of a content publisher and a relationship collaborator are the ones whose content marketing strategy delivers the best results. Even old media marketing can convert to new media marketing using an integrated approach.

Are you still using old media marketing? Start integrating it with new media. Tell your story below.

Social Media Lines are Blurring

This podcast is a discussion about a guest blog post I recently wrote on Hubspot entitled: The Lines are Blurring between Social Networks…Let Them!

As we spend time on social networks, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, etc., the lines are blurring between them.

As I’m sure you know there are three types of social media destination sites

Content Publishing sites – Blogs, YouTube, Twitter
Content Sharing – DIGG, Reddit, Mashable, etc.
Networking – Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc.

But, most of these are starting to cross over into each other. For example, people show their updates on social networks. LinkedIn and Facebook both have a “what are you working on now?” status which you can update or you can link to your Twitter account.

The social media lines are blurring….

Is Facebook just a social networking site? What is Twitter?

Twitter is a communication tool as evidenced by how many companies and non profits are using it including Apple, Jet Blue Airways, Zappos, Tampa Bay Red Cross, ABC Action News, etc. The list of enterprise Twitter users is growing every day.

Twitter allows you to have a mini-profile similar to social networks. It’s a very brief profile, nonetheless it has a similar characteristic to a social network profile, just shorter.

What about YouTube? What is it? It’s part social networking and part content sharing. Any business can create a channel in YouTube. It’s free. Just open your channel account, select the type of account you want. I like the “guru” account type for subject matter expertise. You can aggragate video content from any source including your own and any other video in YouTube. If you sell “blue suede shoes” provide a link to Elvis singing “blue suede shoes” video.

If you aggregate interesting video content, promote it to your following in Twitter and to your Facebook friends. So, is YouTube content sharing or social networking? You decide…

If I share ten new videos with you and only one or two of them are actually my videos, you’ll still give me credit for all the relevant videos I sent to you (assuming I’m sending you relevant video content). In this example, I would be a source of good video content, even if I didn’t create all of the videos.

The social media lines are blurring…

As marketers we need to harness all the content and all the platforms that are relevant to our communities. The social web platforms overlap with each other, but that’s ok. Let them. We can use them all.

I predict that in Web 3.0 the lines will be less blurry. We’ll be able to create a common profile that travels with us from platform to platform. This movement is already in progress called OpenSocial led by Google but it’s not ready for prime time yet. Just stay tuned on that…

In the meantime let’s enjoy the fact we can use Twitter as a social networking tool and a communication tool. Ditto for other social web platforms.

One of my favorite examples is the Twitter stream. By using a hashmark with your Tweets, e.g., #rays for Tampa Bay Rays, you can communicate in a real time stream to anyone (anywhere) that wants to follow that stream. I just returned from my favorite Internet marketing conference – Pubcon. People around the world who didn’t attend the conference were following along the comments made by more than half the attendees using the #pubcon Twitter stream.

The BusinessWeek cover story in May 2005 was focused on blogs in business. In the follow up story May 2008 the article discussed all the social platforms and said “the new resume is 140 characters” in a reference to how Twitter is a communication tool.

As marketers we can use all the social web tools to engage our buyers, our community, listen to them and build relationships with them without concern over whether you’re in a blog, social networking site, a media outlet or wherever you may be online.

The market place is busy and crowded. And, the social web opens up doors for conversations. Just get engaged in the conversations even if the lines are blurred. Let them…

Bernie Borges
http://twitter.com/berniebay

Internet Marketing Myths

Internet marketing is comprised of organic search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising and social media marketing.  Many marketers don’t use pay-per-click (also called SEM).  Other than for some of the most competitive keyword phrases in your market niche, you are best served driving traffic from organic search engine rankings.

I argue that marketers should be actively working on their Internet marketing plan on an ongoing basis.  This isn’t a self serving comment as much as it is just reality.  It’s true that a new SEO plan for a website which has not previously gone through the conventional SEO process requires some heavy lifting that usually takes months to complete.  But, once it’s complete, it’s NOT done. 

To think you do SEO as a one time activity is the biggest Internet marketing myth on the planet.  I’ve actually read that and I’m amazed that people can actually think that. 

Search engines crawl your website regularly and ongoing. Imagine if search engines just crawled your website once then never again.  You wouldn’t like that would you?  You want credit for your great new content and for the new incoming links you’ve received over the past weeks, months and even years. 

Search engines crawl websites because they are in the business of providing search results to you and me based on the most relevant content and incoming links.  A website that was less relevant last week may be more relevant this week due to new content and links.  What if your top competitors have made their websites more relevant to your favorite keywords in the past week?  They will probably move up in search engine rankings.

So how can anyone actually believe that once you set up your SEO plan you are done?  That’s like saying once you roll out a marketing campaign, you’re done.  Or, like saying once you go to the gym and exercise, you’re done.  Or, once you …………ok, you get my point by now.

Earlier I stated that Internet marketing includes social media.  If you have not yet acknowledged the importance of social media in your marketing strategy, I urge you to.  Social media has allowed your prospects to learn more about you and your competitors than ever before.  The good news is you are less dependent on outside media to deliver good content to your prospects and customers.  And, the good news (there is no bad news here) is you get to do it as often as you want without needing a Fortune 100 marketing budget. 

The second Internet marketing myth point I’m making is that any business of any size (down to the sole proprietor) can deliver a great message using social media.  If you don’t have your own blog (which you should consider) visit popular blogs in your industry and post comments with your insights and thoughts.  Visit the websites of the main publications in your industry.  They probably have a blog where you can also post comments and see what people are talking about.

These Internet marketing myths can be summed by saying that working on organic SEO in part through active social media marketing can take time and effort, but the choice is do on an ongoing basis or not.  If you don’t you run the risk of being out-marketed by those competitors of yours who are.

If you have an experience to share pertaining to ongoing Internet marketing strategy success, please post it in the comment below.  Share it with us!  The world awaits your input…

 

Do you have a V.P. of Social Media?

While it’s recognized that only about 12% of the Fortune 500 have a corporate blog, those that do take it seriously.  Companies such as Intel, Google, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell and Kodak have devoted people resources to their corporate blogging strategies.

The companies in this list are Fortune ranking companies.  But, companies like Junta42 and Hubspot are not Fortune ranked companies (in fact considerably smaller) and they devote equally impressive resources to corporate blogging.

I’ll single out two blogging trailblazers from each category above.  Matt Cutts is the corporate blogging face of Google.  And, Mike Volpe is the corporate blogging face of Hubspot. 

Matt Cuts is often seen at Internet conferences in a t-shirt and jeans talking about whatever topic is hot at the conference de-jour.  Matt is also very active in his blog which appears to be sponsored by Google, or at least sanctioned by Google.  Matt is the official “webmaster” guy who represents everything Google.  In my opinion Google has very effectively humanized their corporate identity through Matt.  He is a regular guy.  He is not an executive.  He doesn’t speak over any one’s head.  In fact, he is a like-able guy who speaks in plain English.  Even if you don’t like Google’s position on topics as represented by Matt, it’s hard to have a hostile view of Matt, as the face of Google.  He is truly a regular guy.

Hubpot’s blog is branded under their name.  In full disclosure, I am a fan of the Hubspot Internet Marketing platform.  One of many things Hubspot does well is devote time and energy to their blog.  The main guy who is the corporate blogging face for Hubspot is Mike Volpe.  Mike’s title is V.P. Marketing, a pretty mundane title for a cutting edge Internet company.  I’ll forgive him for this because Mike does an excellent job of blogging on a myriad of Internet Marketing topics (he has help from some of his colleagues too).  In essence, Mike is educating and evangelizing the benefits of corporate blogging for Internet Marketing benefits.  Hubspot is a young company.  Their rapid brand growth is evidence of how effective corporate blogging can be. 

Corporate blogging can’t be effective without first deciding that it is important to your business.  Those businesses who think the benefits can’t be measured haven’t studied it enough.  These are the same companies who will eventually be blind-sided by their competitor’s corporate blgging strategy. 

The biggest risk to a corporate blogging strategy is not recognizing that it should be part of a bigger picture social media strategy.  You wouldn’t launch an advertising campaign without first setting the corporate marketing strategy.  The advertising should support the corporate marketing strategy.

Social media is fast becoming a strategic element in corporate marketing.  In some businesses people’s jobs are being defined under the social media umbrella, and in some cases whole departments.  We’re starting to see titles such as “Chief Blogger,” and “V.P. Communities and Conversations.” 

The commitment these companies are showing is to a strategy of conversations with people they want to converse with. 

Being in the conversations is everything in a social media strategy.

The online publication B2B Online covered this topic recently.

I am sometimes asked about my title: “chief find officer.”  Hmmm…Maybe it’s time for a title change…

 

 

Junta42 Top Content Marketing Blogs

Our blog is focused on providing tips, ideas, best practices and advice on Internet marketing.  My hope is our readers benefit from this blog. 

The Find and Convert blog has just been recognized by Junta42 with the #7 rank on its top 42 Content Marketing blogs, out of a total of 118 total content marketing blogs.  Our blog is recognized for Internet marketing content. 

The complete Junta42 listing of content marketing blog sites is here: http://www.junta42.com/top_42_content_marketing_blogs/.

The press release from Junta42 provides more detail including their criteria for selection.

While the recognition for good marketing content is cool, the best thing about this is the convenient access to so many other great content marketing blogs on one list! 

I hope you get value from the complete list of content marketing blogs and the Find and Convert blog.

The Importance of Measuring Bounce Rates

A bounce rate refers to the rate at which people “reject” a page on which they have landed in your website.  Website analytics tools consider a visitor a bounce if they only see one page and leave your site.  Some tools use time spent on a landing page as a bounce rate criteria, e.g., 10 or 15 seconds. 

Analytics tools provide bounce rate information at several levels.  I’ll use Google Analytics (G.A.) as the reference.  G.A. provides an average bounce rate across your entire website, plus bounce rates for each page.  My favorite bounce rate metric is for keywords. 

Measuring bounce rates for keywords is a very meaningful metric because you can see how well your website visitors are  consuming your content based on keywords delivering traffic to your website.

If you are getting traffic to your website for your top 10 keywords, and one of your top 3 keywords has a high bounce rate, you need to examine the content.  It’s possible your content is not adequately feeding your website visitors what they want.  Perhaps the content doesn’t do a strong enough job of conveying the main thing about this keyword.

Sometimes, content revisions for keywords with high bounce rates can make a big difference in conversions. 
Do the math.  If your bounce rate improves by 10% the conversion rate impact can be substantial on leads or sales.

There are other factors which contribute to bounce rates, including where they came from.  Generally, we pay closest attention to the bounce rates for keywords coming from search engines.  The premise is that someone searched on a keyword phrase and landed on your website.  We like to say, “this person is looking for you.”  So, when they find you, did you do a good job of connecting with the visitor?  Of course, not all visitors will be relevant or qualified.  But, we’re talking about statistics.  So, we like to maximize the statistical probability of delivering a good match between keyword searches and landing page content.

Any search engine optimization or pay-per-click strategy requires paying very close attention to bounce rates.  Studying bounce rates as indicators of the connection between visitor’s searches and your content can play a big role in successful internet marketing practices.