Search Advertising is the Most Cost Effective
Marketers and advertisers, ever wonder where you should be investing your marketing or advertising dollars? Search advertising is definitely one that you should put it into your marketing mix and invest heavily as search advertising has been proven to be the most cost effective method of advertising (Piper Jaffray Study). The study shows that the cost per lead from the search engines is a fraction of the cost of email marketing, direct mail, online banners or yellow pages.
PR drives up to 80pc of content: The Australian
A University of Sydney study reported in The Australian’s media section this morning says it’s a myth that journos don’t use PR and press release content to generate their stories - instead, 30-80% of content comes from PR efforts.
The article also reports it’s a myth that PR people don’t spin - or to put it another way, it’s true that PR people spin, when directed to do so by their clients. (You always hope that readers are smart enough to see that, equally, journalists work under the instruction of their editors. They have to espouse the party line they don’t always share and sometimes put a negative spin on stories just to increase their newsworthiness.)
The study’s author, Jim Macnamara, says: “PR is a fact of life. Journalists should recognise it as an important communication channel and not deny it. And if there is PR material being used, it should be open and transparent.” Couldn’t agree more - the more quality PR, the better the relationship with the journalist, the better you become as reliable and trusted a source as any other. Bloggers themselves have become both a source of news and a publishing vehicle for PR - there’s another debate in the making.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25422943-7582,00.html?from=public_rss
Swine Flue impact on Search
Lesson’s from SARS show that Swine Flu needs to be watched carefully by businesses. Reduced international air travel should result in advertisers rethinking marketing and advertising strategies. In Australia tourism operators will focus more on intrastate & interstate sales as consumers rethink overseas travel arrangements. Also history shows that after events like this the market rebounds so a long term view is best.
We will all deal with this latest outbreak and if contained its impact will be short term, but there is and will be impact. For travel, tourism and hospitality businesses in particular, realigning advertising strategies early can soften the commercial impact of such event. Stopping a PPC campaign is not the answer, rethinking your advertising strategy will serve you better and retain market share as many businesses make poor decision during times of uncertain events. Those businesses that put a strategic marketing response in place and continue advertising will rebound faster when it ends. Continuing you PPC campaign will be your best value advertising option. Your brand will remain strong in the market place which will allow you to gain market share against competitors that get it wrong.
My advise is learn the lesson from SARS, be aware, research before reacting and if your business is being affected adjust your advertising strategies and KPI’s. Search agencies that have experienced events like SARS will be better able to recommend PPC options to suit your particular circumstances.
Why I’d rather pay for news than some devious premium text message I didn’t ask for
Google and other companies that aggregate content without paying a fee have been likened to “parasites… in the intestines of the internet” by Wall Street Journal editor Robert Thomson. Talking of parasites, I recently got a phone bill for $50 of ‘premium messages’ that I tracked back to a quiz I answered on Facebook. So I have paid $5 a throw for some total crap I didn’t want. These two might appear unconnected, but I want to draw attention to the irony that we consumers are willing to pay millions and millions of dollars for mobile texts while refusing to pay a few cents for professionally produced online news.
It has always struck me as unfair that media companies pay their journalists to produce content while the aggregators simply swipe it, stick a few ads round it, and reap the rewards. Journalism at its best exposes injustice and produces in depth analysis, but think about the cost, say, of sending journalists into Afghanistan or Timor. Finely crafted writing doesn’t come cheap. But is anyone out there willing to pay for it?
I agree with Google CEO Eric Schmidt that newspapers need to innovate more to turn their news-making machines into profit centres. He suggests mobile as one path, and I’m guessing that means on-phone subscriptions for web-based content. If the price was right and I had the right device (which I don’t because I’m still paying for my last phone, and my kids’ phones), and it was easy to view on the screen, yes, I probably would pay to consume high-quality news on my mobile.
But I don’t want to pay through the nose for spurious, uninvited text messages….. I’d much rather pay News Ltd for some decent reporting than some smutty text-messaging company who hijacked my details through some fineprint on Facebook….
Trial by social media: Hanson et al
In response to the call last month by Victorian police to stop internet blogging about the alleged Victorian bushfire arsonist:
When the alleged Victorian bushfire arsonist was outed with his photograph published on Facebook and numerous blog posts, did the social network and possibly the self-publishers breach a court order that prevents media discussing the case? Should social networks be subject to the same conditions as other media publishers and broadcasters?
By revealing the accused’s identity, the Facebook posts could jeopardise his right to a fair hearing. The reason the law binds traditional media is that prejudice could result in a guilty man walking free, or an innocent being found guilty.
Some social network operators claim speaking freely is the right of their members and equate it to catching up with a mate in the street. The reality is that social networks are as public as your local newspaper.
Take another recent high-profile case: when purported pictures of Pauline Hanson turned out to be fakes, people asked, ‘have the media gone too far?’ This highlighted two issues:
1. The individual’s moral right to privacy: were these tacky 30-year-old images in the public interest?
2. What are Pauline’s legal rights? If the pictures were published on a social network, what would be her legal rights then?
These two cases open us all to the possibility of being victimised for a crime we did not commit, or being subjected to embarrassment or harassment if inaccurate or sensitive information is published, either online or offline. Proving false accusers are wrong in court is costly and, sadly, even if you win, mud sticks.
Without regulation, social networks can become a great playground for bullies - and they already are to a degree. Just ask Jodie Melbourne of CQR Consulting, a white hat hacker who is crusading against cyber-bullying.
Even if you lead a pristine existence, would you want your entire private live opened up for all to see, from birth to grave, whether by writing, image, video or sound, without your permission? The whole issue of privacy, online and offline, reminds me of the Ben Elton book Blind Faith, which paints an ugly picture of a world where it’s illegal NOT to expose every moment of your life publicly.
Whereas smaller social forums have tended to be self-policed by their members, the mega-networks have much bigger challenges. I believe that if they can’t control malicious or illicit content, they will eventually implode. There will be more and more cases of inaccurate opinions and indiscreet pictures taken in private circumstances — leading to legal challenges and a mass turnoff by people who want to keep their private lives private. The Twitter network has some precedents - there already are laws governing harassment by text message.
The “Wild West” feel of social networks is exhilarating; suddenly we don’t need to rely on third party media channeling our opinions. But both advocates and owners of social networks who feel they have a right to freedom of speech at any cost are heading down a slippery slope.
COPYRIGHT© 2009
Spreading sunshine with search-engine friendly PR
Hi - I’m new to e-Channel’s blog so first a bit about me: I’m a journalist with a background that covers everything from Australian Women’s Weekly to The Australian newspaper’s Tuesday IT section, Vacations Magazine (travel writing - those were the days:-)) to Cosmopolitan to the Toronto Star. I founded a service called NewsMaker last year to help marketers and PR dudes give their clients added value with every PR campaign - Google News Indexing, SEO, social media as well as traditional media distribution services. Here are my favourite tips to help you get started in maximising every word in every press release while increasing your Google quality ranking:
Top Ten Tips for Successful Online Publicity
The following tips for writing online press releases will help generate buzz about your products and services across the web, driving traffic back to your website and creating a direct channel to journalists, media outlets and customers.
- Use major keywords in your heading and first paragraph - these are often all that will be picked up by Google and other News Indexing services
- Proactively share your news using the share and RSS buttons on press release websites
- Don’t use “you” and “your” or “I”, “we” or “our”, unless it’s within a quote - your press release should be written in the third person so it doesn’t sound like an advertisement
- Make your headline meaningful to media and search engines - don’t be too clever
- Keep it short - Google will not index news item that are too long
- Make your press release relevant to news or trends - get the message across succintly in headline and first par
- Make sure you have good landing pages on your website relevant to your press release - otherwise you are missing an opportunity
- Proofread your release and make sure it’s of a press-ready standard; your release could end up anywhere and you don’t want to spread an unprofessional image of your company (or yourself)
- Use free online press release services tagged with relevant keywords to make it easy for people looking for your products/services to find them - this is the cheapest, easiest free publicity you will find
- If you’re new to online press releases, post older material first then work your way up to the present so you have a good history online, driving incremental (long tail) traffic back to your website.
Cheers,
Little Miss Sunshine
SEM and SEO: Agency Vs In-House
In almost 10 years of working in advertising and marketing there is only one aspect that has caused the most arguments in the industry and that is the trade off between In-House and Agency for SEM and SEO. Every company has their own thoughts on the subject and all of them can hold forth with a reasonable argument for their choice. However no matter how effective their reasoning is all of them boil down to four simple points: Time, Cost, Results and Control.
Most companies feel that these four key points will determine the direction that they go when it comes to how they manage SEM and SEO and it is quite obvious why. Combined they will decide how effective the campaigns are and what the bottom line return will be at the end of the day.
More often than not a business that decides to manage their SEM or SEO themselves will have a simple reason for doing so and it will use a combination of all of the above points or the ones that are most important to them. But if you look into them a little deeper it simply does not make financial or rational sense to attempt to self manage an effective SEM campaign In-House if the business has a large number of keywords active in their campaigns.
Aside from the obvious fact that all Agency fees are a tax deduction as a Marketing Expense we need to look at the hidden costs of doing SEM and SEO In-House. Firstly you need to find an expert who is willing to manage it on your behalf and these do not come cheap, if you decide to manage the campaigns without a specialist in SEM or SEO then the person assigned to manage the campaign will have no time to do anything but monitor the campaigns therefore there is a loss of productivity from 1 staff member who is in effect learning on the job. Following on from this is the fact that an active campaign needs to be constantly checked, modified and updated to ensure that there is no wastage and that you are achieving the best possible results. Lastly if you are running a campaign with any number of Keywords over a thousand you need to maintain your quality score through effective Landing Page Management and multiple Creative’s for each keyword as consumers want to be hooked to click on the link rather than just see the same generic Creative for every search term.
When you add all of the above aspects together then it seems obvious that of the four key points highlighted at the start there is only one that stands up as to why a company would manage their SEM and SEO In-House, and that is Control. There is a demonstrated loss of staff time as they try to manage campaigns while doing their core role, results suffer as the Quality Score for the campaign will not be at an optimal level and the costs (both of the campaign and the staff costs) spiral as there is not going to be an effective system of management on what keywords are working and how to alter the Creatives to enhance Click Through Rates.
A good SEM and SEO Agency will manage all of the above on your behalf and consult with the client to ensure that they maintain complete control and understanding of what is going on, once a company has found the best Agency for them then the upfront cost of setting up the campaign and the ongoing Agency fees are actually going to save them money in the long term as a result of better campaign management, higher traffic levels, greater conversion rates and a better understanding of what is working for them now and will work for them in the future.
In short if you are running campaigns with more than a couple of thousand keywords then you are costing yourself money by attempting to manage your SEM and SEO campaigns In-House.
Search “Boot Camp” - time to work hard for those extra customers
I always find it interesting that just because we know what’s good for us doesn’t mean we do it. I know I should go to the gym 3 times a week, but do I? No. I sit here whinging about how I want to look better, but don’t actually do the one action that will make this happen.
This seems to be Marketers’ approach to Search (and yes I am generalising). Everyone seems to be in agreement that search is a great advertising tool, but only a small number of companies are using it to any great effect. The question is what is stopping those companies that aren’t involve in search from engaging? Fear?Risk? Complacency?For me with the gym it’s because I know I have to go through pain to get any gain and sometimes it is just easier to take the “do nothing” path. I’m lazy effectively :)From a marketing perspective I think we fall into the same “lazy” trap and take the path of least resistance. I mean who wants to spend all that time and energy convincing your CEO or your Board to give you money to advertsing in Google when it’s so much easier and less confronting to pitch the same (previously approved) marketing plan.I think it’s time we had a Search Aadvertising “Boot Camp” to force marketers off the traditional media couch and into search activity! Yes there will be pain, BUT there will also be massive gains if we just commit. No biggest losers in the Search Boot Camp – Just the biggest winners! Both for companies and customers.To get you motivated to join the “Search Boot Camp” here is an article that all retailers should read where surprise surprise they are predicting Online shopping to grow at almost double the rate of in-store shopping despite the economic downturn!So who’s with me and ready to join the Search Boot Camp and get those extra customers we all so badly want?
SEM Holiday Seasonality
Search Seasonality
Talk about a fickle search market! What is happening when great keywords get a sudden spike in impressions ? We usually put it down to an event or publicity driving interest in a subject that increases the number of people researching using related terms.What about when your CTR drops likes like a stone all of a sudden. Check those Ads !What about if CPA suddenly takes a jump even though CPC remains consistent ? Have we screwed up the Ad or something. Ah perhaps it’s those new competitors again ? Ahh, the joys of Search Marketing. We constantly Worry about each little blip on the trend lines and wonder what evil force is at work ! But what about when Impressions jump, CTR drops, CPA jumps (too much), CPC is flat and nothing has changed ? Simple really. HOLIDAY season !!! Did anybody notice this in some of the consumer goods sectors Post-Christmas ? Amazing. What is it about holidays that defies standard trends and then returns to normal only after you have blown a bunch of time trying to understand what’s happening ? Are people just too lazy to click that mouse button too many times when they are holidays ? Why do they search and yet not buy ? Well nobody will probably ever know for sure but I do have some thoughts. I suspect a least two things are at work here.
ONE - I think the holiday period provides a lot of non-traditional web customers with the time to “play”. Time to scan around and find that non-critical item that they usually de-prioritise because of a perception that it will take too much time. If this hypothesis has any truth, then this is a great thing for Online Marketing. It indicates growth on the edges of our traditional market.Those that haven’t been buyers in the past are beginning to learn how to use online services and will most likely be back. If they have found what they were looking for quickly and easily, they will look for their next buy online.
TWO - I think the holiday season removes the urgency for traditional online consumers. Whilst on their holiday break they have the time to “shop around” and there is no pressure to buy on the first visit. It may even be that bricks & mortar vendors are now more competitive with their Post Christmas sales and our typical online buyer having the time to check them out. Suddenly the online convenience factor is not such an advantage.
Not sure how to prove or disprove either of these hypotheses but one thing seems certain. Holidays can change the mid-set of the average online researcher. Whether that is because there are more searchers overall or because there is unusual competition it will pay us to remember to remain competitive for the benefit of the new searchers (that are always coming online) even if we don’t feel we want to compete with holiday laziness or bricks and mortar desperation sales. Best of all, it is suggesting to me that there is significant online growth just around the corner when even AFTER the Christmas rush, there are more people searching than normal.
Free Search Engine Marketing Training Video
When a Search Agency shares it’s IP and methodologies it demonstrates a number of great corporate qualities - Transparency, leadership, confidence and a team setting the standards and agenda in search. Great to see the latest initiative by e-Channel Search in launching the first in a series of Search Engine Marketing Training Videos. Thought I’d share the news… see link below to press release. This initiative highlighted to me that there are many interesting & informative videos on search, particularly on YouTube. This one from e-Channel is different concentrating on how to design great creatives, giving it a point of difference. The fact that it is a proven method in an agency environment and assists with the very difficult task of designing a large number of ads (with less brain strain) for clients is fantastic!
http://www.e-channel.com.au/press-releases/ Check out the actual training video here: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=i9rKwFA9sqE
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About the Authors
The world does not need another search engine marketing blog to tell us when Matt Cutts has a haircut or to regurgitate news that has just been posted on searchengineland.com. We will attempt to provide genuine commentary and opinion on how we see search today and where it is going in the future. I am the CEO of e-channel and my team and I will cover SEO and paid search and try to explore the marketing aspects of search rather than the technical. Please post your comments freely.
Frank Grasso, CEO