James Robertson BSc MScOnline Marketing Expert

Overview for today

A summary of best practice in online and social media marketing and how to deliver return on investment

My role today is to act as your independent online marketing consultant: to give you the best, impartial advice,

irrespective of who you may end up hiring

So… - who am I?

Every project I have ever worked* on has made more money than it cost to create in the first 6 months

My record is a hundred to one ROI

* where the customer followed and implemented my advice

HTML, CMS, HTML, CMS, CRM, JPEG, CRM, JPEG, GIF, AVOVGIF, AVOV

Usability Sales Sales

Conversion rate Transactional Enquiry handling

SEO Complaint handling

PPC Thought leadership

Biggest social media success at venuebirmingham?

Getting our video on the construction of the

Question Time set added to the BBC Question Time

homepage!

Searching Google for “meeting venue birmingham”Paid

adverts

Number 1

Above the listing for the official conference bureau for the city

Large feature in the sidebar due to

Number 1 status – and Google Local listing

Paid adverts

Number 1 and number 2

First listing in map section

Above the convention bureau again…

Searching Google for

“conference venue

birmingham”

How long would it take to create a 20 page site for the Universities day nurseries?

But… - I already had:

However… is anyone here honestly saying that they DON’T have all of this content available right now?

Number 1

… and number 2

Above Wikipedia

… and the Guardian

A summary of what I have learned over 20 years to deliver ROI from online marketing:1.Find out what your customers actually want on your site (not what you think they want)

2.Give it to them

3.Find out what is stopping them getting what they want

4.Remove it

5.Return to point 1 and repeat

How do you know what they want to do?•Ask them!

•In person too – no need to set up an online survey: print a quick questionnaire in Word then bribe people with a coffee if they fill it in; put it in your showroom and take it to tradeshows and exhibitions

What YOU want customers

to do on your site

What your customers ACTUALLY

want to do on your site

Where you can make profit selling them something they actually want

Online and social media marketing

Your marketing strategy!

The key areas to invest in on a website to get return on investment:•Usability•SEO•Calls to action•Conversion rate optimisation•Measure outputs – NOT throughputs•Define success before you start – so you know what you are working towards and when you have got there!•Task analysis – find out what your customers want to do and allow them to do it•Test to see how easy they find the tasks: make them easier to accomplish – then repeat

What is usability?•In simple terms – making a website easy to use•Don’t make me think – I have come to your site with a specific task I want to accomplish: if you make me think too long about how to accomplish it – instead of just getting out of my way and letting me do it – then I will leave your site•Who here ever actually gets in touch with a company to ask for some information that should already be on the site? – like the price!•Who here EVER persists in using a hard to use site?

Usability crime number 1: designers creating fantastically low contrast textA website’s text is there

to be read: do NOT let your designers treat your text as if it was

an illustration!

Google search results page for “stairlifts Birmingham”

Because the visited links have gone purple I do NOT need to think to see where I have already been

Usability crime number 3: opening links in new windows•Why is it such a problem? – it breaks the back button and this is the universal “get out of jail” card for all websites

•“Well Facebook does it” is not acceptable: you can do it too when you are as big as Facebook!

•If you break the back button you WILL annoy people

Usability crime number 4 – putting essential information only in a PDF•In every single usability study I have conducted, no one has EVER said “oh good – a PDF is downloading” when they click on a link•PDFs are an offline, print mindset•They aggregate huge amounts of data in one lump: instead of going to the next page they download 50 meg•They have no navigation interface – the break the web model•They are NEVER named intuitively – so you end up with PDFs called “Sales info 12-8-15” on your desktop•They can have uses – to format content for print – but should never be used as the only way to present important info•They are truly horrible to use on mobile

Choice is infinite: attention is not

Your site competes for the attention of visitors……against everything else on the

web and in their lives

Do you really think people will stay to work out how to use a hard to use site?

Annoyed, bored or frustrated people LEAVE and do not return: that sale is lost forever

Interruption vs permission marketing

Repeat visits are essential•When was the last time that you bought on first visit to a site?

•And that’s the literal first visit – to a site you’ve never bought from before and from a company you’ve never dealt with before?

•You must understand the customer journey and know that they are engaged in a comparison shopping exercise

•Just because your site is the most important component of your marketing strategy doesn’t mean anyone else will ever care about it

•People form an overview of a site in 5 milliseconds: that’s 0.05 seconds

You are NOT your own target audience!

You know more about – and care more about – your company, products and services than

your customers EVER will!

Everyone is a user of the web

• So everyone has an opinion!

• Every assertion by a designer should be backed up by actual real world statistics, and then proved with testing with users

• Just because a designer likes it doesn’t mean your visitors will like it

What is SEO?

SEOSEO: the Dark Art of : the Dark Art of getting your site to number getting your site to number

1 in Google for the search 1 in Google for the search terms your customers terms your customers

actually type in.actually type in.

If Google are able and willing to block BMW from being found for a month, then they are able to do it to your site too

What words and phrases should you expend time and effort trying to get to number 1 in Google for?

•Being number 1 for your exact company name is simultaneously vital and pointless– You SHOULD be number 1 for your own company name!– But – if anyone is typing it in then they already know about you – and

therefore likely know what it is that you do… - and so just need to quickly look you up for a reason other than a product enquiry

•Ideally you need to be found for:

[what it is that you do] + [where it is that you do it]

•This is why I chose “conference venue Birmingham” and “event venue Birmingham” as the phrases to get to number 1 for venuebirmingham

What does Google take into account

when deciding who is At number 1 in the results for a specific

search term?

Summary of SEO factors•Content: Do you use relevant keywords in all of the places Google deems appropriate; is your content frequently updated•Mobile friendly: does your site work well on mobiles?•Architecture: is your site responsive, quick to load and secure•HTML: are your keywords used in all of the relevant places•Trust: are you trustworthy, with a long online history•Links: do you have a lot of high quality links into your site – and no paid or spam ones•Personal: are you on social media; are you in the relevant local area•Social: is your content shared frequently; do you have a good reputation

Google’s entire business model depends on getting people to the page that best answers their search query: more than anything else they care about

relevance.

Is your site relevant to the search term entered? – if so – is it the most relevant page on the entire web

for this search term?

The best advice on SEO•Choose a battle you can win!

•Trying to get to number 1 for “meeting venue”? – give me a budget of a million, a staff of 10 and 3 years.

•Getting to number 1 for “meeting venue birmingham” – just needs myself, and it took 3 months after the site has launched

What is conversion rate marketing?•Measuring the proportion of visitors who come to your site and who then go onto buy (or at least move further along the purchasing journey)•First of all – measure it!•Then – find ways to improve it•There is no point getting vast numbers of people to your site if no one ever buys or enquires or follows you

People on social media

•Facebook: 1.37 billion

•Twitter: 289 million

•LinkedIn: 336 million

•Google+: 347 million

•Instagram: 302 million

•Pinterest: 73.5 million

What is the one type of social media you absolutely can NOT ignore?

Reviews

The other benefit of social media

• It is a source of visits to your site that is NOT under the control of Google

• At venuebirmingham, the best sources of incoming visits were:– Google searches– Links on page on the main University

site– Social media (cumulatively)

The single hardest part of delivering ROI via social media?

Thinking of new and interesting things to say!

…and measuring the ROI meaningfully of course

So – apart from pure sales focused content, what do you post to social media?•Enquiry handling – help people to find the product that best fits their needs

•Complaint handling – turn a complainer into an advocate by making sure their complaint is dealt with to their satisfaction

•Engage in conversation – just talk to people!

•Share the love – share and repost other quality content

•Thought leadership – sharing knowledge and best practice

•News and events

•Just fun stuff – funny (but appropriate) videos and photos

•Sales and special offers

Getting more followers on social media•Identify your competitors or even colleagues and see what they are doing

•Look through their followers and also follow people who are suitable

•Everyone you follow gets a notification: they can follow you back with 1 click

•After a week use a site like Crowd Fire to see who you follow but is not following you back and unfollow them

•Then, search for suitable people to follow, and repeat

And finally… - you MUST have a listing on Google Local!•Because it WILL affect your search engine placement•It is very good local SEO•It will allow you to link virtual tours of your showroom, using the exact same interface as Google Street View tours to Google maps•These are not only able to be embedded on your site but will be accessible by the public from regular Street View•Think about that – you could have people walk into your showroom off the street on Google maps!•These virtual tours do need to be commissioned from an approved Google supplier – but start at around £250 each

Issues around social media

•In certain situations it can deliver massive success – or make a company the centre of a Twitterstorm – are you prepared to handle this? – do you have a policy on what staff can say on social media?

•Your customers are on it now: can you afford to not be a part of the conversation?

•It is pushed by agencies who are staffed by geeks – and therefore always addicted to the new and shiny over the boring and established

•Therefore agencies can charge clients for something new

Issues around social media (2)•Social media is run by named and branded companies – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on – that all have large PR budgets and marketing departments of their own, tasked with getting the company name pushed into your face as often as possible

•Email is generic: it has no brand, or single company pushing it, it is ubiquitous – but it always delivers more ROI than social media

•And agencies do not get to look cool or fling buzzwords around by talking about it

Issues around social media (3)

•Agencies push social media too because it is so new… - and because they make much more money from it

•Which are you most likely to need an ongoing contract to deliver? – social media or email?

•Email to online marketing agencies is passé, old fashioned, unglamorous… - and most of all: NON CHARGEABLE!

Issues around social media (4)•Be honest – do you ever honestly “like” a company? – or do you just want the special offer?

•Since Facebook floated it is increasingly difficult to reach your own followers that you spent time and money gaining in the first place!

•Facebook now recommends you pay for adverts to get to them!

•Twitters recent financial worries and senior execs leaving shows there can always be problems

•Do not depend on social media alone to deliver ROI

Online marketing is a process – never an event.

Think of it like fish…

…if you leave it, then it WILL start to smell!

Remember: people buy online as a result of the text that they read

•The best that the information architecture of the site can do is get them to the page with a call to action on it

•The worst that the information architecture can do is annoy them by failing to get them to the product page they were interested in

This is why the buzzword of “content marketing”is a not always a good thing in my opinion•Getting your content on other peoples sites? – very good! – other people sharing your images and news is very valuable

•Endlessly creating new content on your own site that simply makes the product page harder to find by diluting your own on-site search engine? – not good!

•Unless you:– Always link to the product page from any page that

mentions the product– Actually place a buy now or call to action button on the

other pages that mention the product

Making your site and emails responsive

•That is – working perfectly on any size screen

•This is now essential:– 53% of all email is now read on a mobile device– That is up from 8% in 2011– Over half of web traffic is now on mobiles

•Responsive sites and emails must now be the standard

When asked, what do online marketing people say are the best channels to deliver return on investment?

https://econsultancy.com/blog/64614-email-remains-the-best-digital-channel-for-roi

Interactive moment!How many people here already use email marketing?

Is it delivering ROI for you?

Starting with email marketing

•Email marketing can be very low cost to set up

•Sites like Campaign Monitor and Mail Chimp are good – lots of templates and guidance through the process

•You already have your customers email addresses – just get permission

•Always create a dedicated method to follow up your email marketing: do not just send people to the homepage of your site!

A word on web design, online marketing and social media marketing agencies…•I have often said that web design agencies are only interested in designing sites that impress other web design agencies•This is an acknowledged deliberate exaggeration to get peoples attention… - but it has the core of truth that people recognise•Web design agencies are definitely interested in new work all the time though•As such they tend to lose interest once the site has been created and handed over•However this is the most important part of the process

It is very easy to create a site – it is much harder to get it to number 1 in Google, deliver ROI, etc.

Key questions to ask any agency pitching for your business

• Who will populate the site with the initial content? – or: who will transfer over the existing content from the old to the new site?

• How will we decide what specific search terms we are going to expend time and effort on?

• What SEO work is included in the final price?• How will the site be updated after handover? – will we

have to pay for every update – or is there a CMS?• Is CMS training included in the final cost?• Is there a maintenance agreement?• What social media accounts will be created? – will they

be linked to from every page on the site?• Will you also create email marketing templates in the

same design style as the website?

The hardest question for you to answer:•Should you do all of your online and social media marketing in-house, or use an external agency•It will depend on each individual circumstance•The kind of question a social media consultant should be able to answer for you very quickly!

Some key learning points•You are not your own target audience

•Online marketing is a process, not an event

•Choice is infinite: attention is not – annoyed people leave websites and never return

•Nobody ever buys on first visit

•If your investment is zero, then your ROI will also be zero

Further reading•Online marketing expert: www.onlinemarketingexpert.co.uk

•Econsultancy: www.econsultancy.com

•Gerry McGovern: www.gerrymcgovern.com

Thank you for listening