Intrist

[intrist-blog]

Why you need to be on Google+

Google+ has been getting a lot of negative press lately. People are saying that there's nobody on there while Google itself is saying that there's over 100 million active users. Is it even close to Facebook's 900 million users? No. Should brands be on it matter to brands how many people are actually using it. Absolutely.

Focusing in on Google+'s user base (let's put it at a conservative 20 million users) sounds to us like a vanity metric. It's a meaningless number - especially when compared to Facebook.

We think that Google+ can help marketers answer two important questions: 

What areas of my digital marketing is Google+ helping with? 

What insights can I gather from Google+ and apply to other parts of my business. 

Let's dig deeper.

Google+ helps round out your digital marketing

There are some really great things baked into Google+ that can help impact your online presence.

Improved SEO

Since you're already making great content that people love, you should share it on Google+ as well. Though there's not any official documentation from Google, sharing your content and being active on G+ will help you rank higher in search results. 

Customer Service and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The Google hangouts feature is a key differentiator and helps G+ stand out from the other social networks. Imagine you just launched a product or there were some user expectations that weren't met. The only thing better than a personal outreach to some customers? Personal outreach to some customers and highlighting the event to the ENTIRE WORLD. Have a customer service person (aka the CEO) take questions from customers on what went wrong and how those are going to be prevented in the future.

On the CRM front, invite select VIP customers for a special product announcement, record the whole thing, and then share it.

Integration with other Google services

KISSmetrics has a great blog post called "25 awesome free Google tools for marketers".

They have not only created a thriving social network, but they have incorporated it into almost every aspect of the Google experience, including Google search results themselves

Incorporating all of the other Google services not only makes sense, but it was inevitable. Linking Google services (Adwords, Analytics, Places, Chrome, etc.) together will help strengthen your iniatives and give you better data and insights. Which leads to...  

How G+ helps other areas of your business

A great feature of Google+ (that nobody knows about) is Ripples. Ripples gives you a visual representation of how your content is being shared and, more importantly, who is sharing it.

To see the ripples click the down arrow next to a public post.

Image via Eli Rose http://www.elirose.com/2012/03/google-ripples/

Then you can see how your post gets shared and who shares it.

Image via Eli Rose http://www.elirose.com/2012/03/google-ripples/

And finally you can add the people who shared your post into your existing circles (if they're not already in there any).

Image via Eli Rose http://www.elirose.com/2012/03/google-ripples/

This is a key feature because it allows you to gather insights about who is interested in your content and your business. If you think that, for example, your target audience is all DIY crafters but the people sharing your content are sewers then you might want to not only change up the content you create, but perhaps make a new product that is sewing specific.

Just because Google+ doesn't have the amount of people that Twitter or Facebook does, doesn't mean that the people who are on there aren't doing anything. It's more likely than not that the G+ users are also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Therefore they are heavy social media users, influencers and the people wh you need to talk to.

How are you using Google+ and what kind of insights have you been gathering from it? Let us know in the comments! 

[intrist-blog]

Quick steps to improve your email effectiveness

Email continues to be one of the most important communication channels you can use to keep in touch, and upsell, your customers. But are you using it to it's full potential? Below are some steps you can implement immediately to increase its effectiveness.

List Segmentation

If you have a list, for example, with 100,000 subscribers chances are that they did not all signup at the same time. This is even more true if signups come through the product registration. A simple way to deliver the most interesting and engaging content to these subscribers is by segmenting the list. You can put subscribers into different buckets such as: 

Registered product type

Interests (offers vs. news vs. industry thought leadership)

Sign-up date

Location 

Content is not one-size-fits-all and the more targeted the content you can deliver you will better results such as: open rate, click-through-rate (CTR) and ROI.

Subject line testing

Taking the same approach that not all content is appropriate for all people, this goes for subject lines. ASubject lines are one of the most important things in doing email marketing, but are also one of the easiest things to test. Some factors you can test in the subject lines are: 

Personalization (i.e. first name)

Subject line type 

General (example: Your June 2012 newsletter)

Offer specific (example: Save $XXX through Friday!)

Headline specific (example: Learn why [xxxxx] is important to your business)

Every industry and every list is different so the only way to find out which subject line is the best for you is to test. Most email service providers (ESPs) have this functionality built into their platform so you can, and should, start subject line testing today.

Connect with social media

Email and social media are first cousins if not siblings. If people are interested in your email communications (because we've been subject line testing, segmenting our lists and creating engaging content) we can help promote other channels that help drive sales.

Do you have an awesome blog? Great then the click-through on the article should go to the blog. Have a cool promotion starting on Facebook? Have the user click through to Facebook. Also including the icons of other social networks you're on are great so people can go to where they want. 

With email you can direct people to where helps you get conversions from either new or existing customers. If your open rate and CTR aren't 100%, then there's always room to test, learn and then test some more.

What are some techniques that help you improve your email effectiveness?

[intrist-blog]

Facebook ads just got more important. Here's why.

Josh Constantine of TechCrunch pointed out that Facebook Ads Can Now Be Optimized To Drive Any On-Facebook Action, Such As In-App Purchases, Shares, Offer Claims. Which is important because

Marketers don’t actually want clicks, they want the downstream conversions and the return on investment that follow. 

That is absolutely true. Clicks are simply vanity metrics and don't mean much if the person who clicks isn't doing anything on your site/Facebook page after. The same goes for Facebook Likes. Who cares if you have 4,000 Likes if you're not doing anything with them?

Facebook recently updated it tracking so you can see what actions people are taking on Facebook after they click an ad. This is important as it will allow advertisers to more precisely target audiences who will take an action (rather than just click Like).

Why is this important? This gives us more data to understand what is working, what is not working and who is taking action on Facebook (and that is leading to actions in other places such as on our site as well as in store purchases). Knowing all of this info allows us to arm ourselves with solid info rather than just "being on Facebook because everyone is on there."

The full lst of actions advertisers can optimize for is below (Thanks TechCrunch and Josh):

Here’s the full list of actions advertisers can optimize for:

People talking about this

Page likes

Page post likes

Pagepost comments

Page post shares

@ mentions

check-ins

photo tags

offers shared

offers claimed

App installs

App used

Credit spend events (number of times someone uses credits in the app)

Credit spend amount (value of credits that were spent in the app)

Number of RSVPs

PS - You might want to follow us on Twitter. We tweet cool stuff

[intrist-blog]

What we're reading - May 8, 2012

You may see us Tweet (you're following us on Twitter, right?), but we wanted to share some of the most interesting and relevant articles we've read recently. Having everything in one place makes everything easier:

4 Tips to a Successful Link Building Campaign via Unbounce

SMBs to take on mobile to increase sales via Media Post blogs

How to optimize your posts for Google and humans via Mashable

From team player to coach = from entrepreneur to CEO via TechCrunch

Facebook ads just got more important. Here's why via Intrist Blog (we think this is really important if you can't tell)

[intrist-blog]

What we're reading - May 8, 2012

You may see us Tweet (you're following us on Twitter, right?), but we wanted to share some of the most interesting and relevant articles we've read recently. Having everything in one place makes everything easier:

4 Tips to a Successful Link Building Campaign via Unbounce

SMBs to take on mobile to increase sales via Media Post blogs

How to optimize your posts for Google and humans via Mashable

From team player to coach = from entrepreneur to CEO via TechCrunch

Facebook ads just got more important. Here's why via Intrist Blog (we think this is really important if you can't tell)

[intrist-blog]

Content marketing explained

B2B Marketing Insider has a great article on inbound marketing. In it there is a great line that is nicely sums up the approach many, many marketers out there are taking:

So where our prospects are looking for answers to questions, we give them promotions they don’t want.

For us, the key words of that sentence is "looking for answers to questions."  Marketers need to be there to answer questions or PROVIDE SOLUTIONS. Better yet proactively provide answers to questions they didn't know they had.

The post continues:

A content strategy that identifies all the content that answers your customers top questions in all the places they search for it, for all stages of the buyer journey, for all the types of buyers you serve

You need a search strategy that effectively places that content in all the places they search for it

You need content that is engaging enough to get shared

You need a conversion or nurture path that maps to the buyer journey by offering the right content to the right person at the right time.

We could not agree anymore. We think of of content marketing in 4 simple steps:

Identify what questions they have (or will have)

Answer those questions

Place the answers where they will get found (i.e. where your customers are)

Stay patient

Kudos to Michael Brenner for saying it so precisely.

PS - You might want to follow us on Twitter. We tweet cool stuff.

[intrist-blog]

Is the new Facebook organ donation feature useful?

Is the new Facebook organ donation feature a good idea? Take 30 seconds and let us know below. We'll publish the results tomorrow (and our thoughts)!

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[intrist-blog]

How to increase your chance of success? The answers are out there, just look for them.

We wrote in our last post about how the proliferation of cloud-based, cost efficient tools can help marketers and entrepreneurs everywhere succeed. Another topic that we have seen in our Twitter feeds and inboxes: how to use freelancers.

This adage article talks about how Madison avenue uses freelance depending on the amount of new business coming in. Not that this is news to anyone - freelance has been around forever. This article from Under30CEO.com  gives advice on how to bootstrap a startup using freelancers. Both really awesome articles from really smart people.

The common thread with these articles isn't that they're ground breaking journalism, but that they are dispensing knowledge. Knowledge that first time entrepreneurs can take advantage of. 

Lean start-ups (no, not these types of lean start-ups) are getting odds that start-ups before them never got. Free storage, free analytics, free access to your ideas from anywhere, getting customers inexpensively. And if you look in the right places (and are on a never ender search for content and knowledge), it's out there. Hell, I even thought I heard some inspiration from a Chrysler commercial yesterday that aired during Mad Men.

So how can marketers and entrepreneurs increase their chance of success? Just look and you may find it.

[intrist-blog]

Marketers and entrepreneurs take note: More options. More tools. More success.

In the past two days there have been two high-profile call outs that entrepreneurs and marketers must notice and use immediately if they are not.

The first one is the launch of Google Drive (finally) which is giving people 5 GB of free cloud storage - which is more than the 2 GB Dropbox gives away for free -and the second is this wired piece on A/B testing (which btw we love).

So what in the world do these two things have in common with each other?

These two things are important because they give entrepreneurs and marketers everywhere more options to go out and create something awesome. It doesn't matter if you use Google Drive or Dropbox for cloud storage or Unbounce or Optimizely for A/B testing. The point is that these are ideas you need to embrace.

5 free GBs is more than enough space to store ideas you have for a company, or at least parts of an idea that you want to explore. It's enough space that will store the business plan. Or the big idea for that upcoming product launch.

It gives you flexibility to work from anywhere (one of my main "offices" is the local Starbucks). Since you can access any of your files and folders from basically anywhere, it will allow you jot down any inspiration or other ideas you have.

You're at a family party and your mom's cousin happens to be a designer? It just so happens you now bring your ideas everywhere.

The second weapon that you have at your disposal is A/B testing. The aforementioned Wired articles doesn't give you an excuse on why you SHOULD'T do it. Google does it. And Amazon. Don't forget about Netflix.

A tool and technique as simple as putting up 2 webpages and see which one works better can be so effective, you'd be crazy not to. Data always wins over opinions. Always. I know that your boss when to Rutger's in the late 80's and is super "creative", but is she right? 

These are only two of many tools that are out there that marketers and entrepreneurs puts the odds of being successful in their favor.

[intrist-blog]

Why Apple and entrepreneurs should have the same marketing department

Today in Mashable there was a great article called "What would it take to beat Apple?" Yesterday Apple posted another monster quarter, so the question out there is: Who can take on Apple? According to John Gruber there is a simple equation to what makes Apple great:

Apple’s success is based on a few obvious factors: a) they make great products; b) they sell them at compelling prices; and c) they explain, through marketing and advertising, what these products do and why people might want them.

The first two points - make great products and selling those products at compelling prices - should be obvious, but are easier said than done. The third point is something that companies from Apple to a new startup can start doing TODAY.

Whenever you are trying to drive people to your website or to purchase something online (or offline), your marketing and advertising comes down to answering 2 simple questions: "What?" and "Why?"

What is your value proposition or product (can this be communicated in one sentence or less)?

Why should someone buy this?

Let's take a look at the new iPad page on Apple.com:

What is it?: iPad (Obviously Apple and iPad have A LOT of brand recognition)

Why buy a new iPad (i.e. Why should someone pay $500 for something they paid $500 last year): A revolutionary new screen

Simple. Simple. Simple.

A key takeaway you can implement TODAY

Think about how you describe your company to others (or how you position it in your marketing materials. Can you do it in one sentence? And then ask why someone would purchase from you and not a competitor?

Go out and ask your customers why they purchase (or stopped purchasing) from you to help your formulate the "Why" more concisely. Then be sure to articulate that in all of your communications.

The other 2 things are up to you, but now that you know Apple's secret sauce you can go out and conquer the world with smart marketing.

[intrist-blog]

When social media connects the dots

A recent survey from Accenture shows that 64% of people recall seeing social media "symbols" while watching television and 33% have interacted with social media after seeing a symbol on their screen. The survey also found some other interesting things that people do while watching TV:

20% have Liked the brand on Facebook

11 have scanned a QR coded

7% have searched the hastag on Twitter

5% have used Shazam on the commercial

But the real question is WHY? We know that for a social media campaign to work, it must provide some value (monetary or otherwise). Here's what they found:

Getting coupons and promotional codes (32%)

Entering a contest/sweepstakes (31 %)

Watching another video (26 %)

Interacting about the show or product on social media (26 %)

Connecting with others with similar interests (21 %)

Sharing or recommending video/program to others (20 %)

Making a purchase (16 %)

Ok great, but so what?

The question we always ask ourselves after we see something like this is SO WHAT? What if a brand doesn't do TV because it's expensive and they want to focus on conversions?

The main insight from this is people are using social media to get their information on-demand, especially information on brands. The instant-gratification world that we live in has made people curious about what's in front of them. "Let me see what other people are saying about Brand X. Maybe there's something there for me."

We can apply this insight to other channels as well - not just television. What about putting a QR code on a package that delivers a mobile coupon? Or some behind the scenes video of a cause marketing initiative that is only available on YouTube or a Facebook page?

The lesson here is: provide people something of value and find out WHY someone would share that value. Social media can continue to tell a brand story and connect the dots between channels. Remember, it's about the content, not the platform, that will help drive your business.

[intrist-blog]

Now trending: Self expression

Companies that enhance the quality of emotional connections between them and their customers will continue to benefit greatly in 2012. There is a desire from your customers to see that your company/brand is real and transparent, and they want to be able to show their personal style and flair as well. Content that empowers shoppers together with the expanding smartphone usage and lifestyle sites such as Pinterest and will be setting new standards for self expression.

Self expression websites and applications were the darling of 2011, and come with some pretty staggering numbers. Some of the most popular include Instragram, Pintrest and Tumblr.

Instagram – A mobile application and social networks that allows users to share photos across social platforms

App downloads: 50 million (3)

Voted #1 iPhone app of 2011 by Apple

Purchased by Facebook for $1 Billion (yes, that's a B)

Pinterest – An online pinboard where consumers pin related topics and pertinent photos from any web page

Topics include: Cooking and baking, home décor and fashion amongst others

Monthly page views: 421 million (4)

Unique visitors: 3.3 million

Is now the #3 social network

tumblr – A microblogging platform

Monthly page views: 6.5 billion

Monthly visitors: 15 million+

The main characteristic of these sites is that they rely heavily on visuals, are extremely social in nature and are all based around interest. Iconoculture says this about Pinterest, but can also be applied to any of these sites:

“Pinterest successfully rejiggers social media by giving it a visual and content-centered focuses, providing short-attention span consumers with a new way to seamlessly connect and curate.” (5)

What this means for marketers

The brands that will be successful in 2012 will be the ones that provide personalized content and empower content curation. People want to look at things and have a feeling of interest, desire and intrigue therefore increase their willingness to purchase and evangelize the brand. This will also incent customers to share with their friends and family.

“For hundreds of years we’ve been carefully curating our appearance, clothes, jewelry, cars and houses for visceral impact. 2012 will be the year these emotions come online full scale. They will change the way we interact with each other, the way we buy things and change our online experiences.” (6)

When it comes to social media, it doesn’t matter what the channel is it’s the content. Will the switch be flipped overnight and people will abandon Facebook? Absolutely not. Facebook should still be at the base of any social media plan. A recent report by Nielsen states that “64% of people on Facebook (more female) use it as a creative outlet.”

Regardless of the brand or the channel, 2012 will be seen as the year where self-expression, creativity and individualism cuts through the clutter and will shine. Just ask Instagram.

[intrist-blog]

Three things that help customer acquisition and smart decisions

Please note that post is an article from our content library.

Quick data? Yes. Learnings overnight? Not really.

When running a PPC, SEO or even a content marketing campaign it's always exciting to log on to Google Analytics or into Mail Chimp and see how a particular email performed or how many clickcs a specific ad group received. It's also great when you can even get some free advertising to get metrics.

However, we must remember that data can come quickly, but learnings take time. Data can make it easier to decide on whether which headline works better (i.e. using A/B testing), but to truly understand the "why" of customer behavior, gain a true insight or to recognize a trend it's important to have a little patience. 

Example

Let's say we start with a Google Adwords campaign with a $200 budget over a week. While we can get some learnings in order to optimize or perfect a user experience in a week (or even less), what we can't see in this one week timeframe are three things that can help with customer acquisition and help drive smarter, more strategic decisions. 

Trend - Over the past X weeks we seem to get the most clicks on Thursday

Insight - Here's why we get the most clicks on Thursdays

Strategy - Now that we know the insight and why people click, here's how we're going to optimize and increase clicks on the other days of the week

We believe that small data is the difference between a successful company and company that is not quite there yet. So a little patience, a tiny bit more investment and some smart thinking can make something huge.

[intrist-blog]

Which traffic sources are your most profitable?

We have previously discussed the importance of knowing your customer acquisition costs and how that number is as important to investors and potential investors as it is to you. Knowing your CAC can lead to more strategic decisions.

A key to lowering your CAC is understanding and tracking which sites drive the most conversions. Not the most traffic, but the most conversions. 

Let's say you are spending the same amount of money each week by doing some PR and a Google Adwords PPC campaign. From PR you get 300 visits per week and from the PPC you get 120 vistis. You may think that you're getting the best bang for your buck from PR because you're getting more visits, but make sure you're not looking at the wrong metrics.

You need to go a level deeper and see what the traffic from each site is doing for you. If you're getting 5 conversions from PR, but 25 conversions from the PPC then you should probably re-focus your time, energy and budget on PPC. Here's a great example of see if Pinterest is working for your site or not. 

You must be able to track down to the referral site or campaign level in and determine:

What are the people who are coming from these site doing (i.e. what are their actions?)

What is value of their actions?

Are you tracking down to this level? Do you know what value the traffic of each campaign is bringing you? In order to lower you CAC and be more profitable, you need to be able to answer these vital questions.

[intrist-blog]

Why customer acquisition metrics are important to more than just you

  We all know how important a low customer acquisition cost (CAC) can have a huge impact on your business. The cheaper you can get new customers to pay you, the more profitable you are. But did you realize that having a low CAC is important to others as well? Other people who are interested in a vital metric like the CAC can include:

Current investors

Potential investors and partners

Other entrepreneurs

Once you have pivoted (or pivoted a few times) and are going down the right path with your product, you're going to need more paying customers, and you have to pay for those customers. Can you fill in the blanks:

My customer acquisition cost is ___________________

My customer lifetime value is ___________________

My customer retention rate is ___________________

These are the questions potential investors, partners and even other entrepreneurs will ask you these questions so it's important these numbers are at the tip of your tongue and you are constantly working to improve them. 

[intrist-blog]

Not meeting user expectations [Example]

In our last blog post we showed a great example of how an ad transitioned fairly seamlessly into a landing page. At its most basic level, that's what we refer to as meeting a user's expectation (UE).

Today we'll focus on a paid search ad and a landing page combo that does not have the best UE.

Step 1: The ad

We did a quick Google search for "iOS developers." As you would imagine there was a lot of results which makes sense given the time that we're living in. The ad was short and concise and gave a decent call-to-action.

They also put their credibility within the ad by referring to their clients.

So it looks as if their ad strategy is to put forth their credibility and focus on people who are farther down their sales cycle. Other ads on the results page talked about the hourly rate or low cost, which some people may equate to low quality.

Step 2: The landing page

In order to have a good UE, the page the user should see next should reinforce the message they just saw. It should talk about their credibility and have the same call-to-action. However, we were sent to their homepage.

This is one of the deadly sins, and frankly a waste of money, when it comes to online advertising. You need to a) tell them what you're going to tell b) tell them in more length and c) provide them an opportunity to take action.

Where is the action that I can take on this page? More importantly, how many people are coming to this page and then dropping off immediately (otherwise known as the Bounce Rate). However, for all we know, this may be the control of an A/B test that they are conducting.

Key takeaways

When you have a strong ad, make sure the landing page reinforces what the user just saw and clicked on. Something got their attention, so stick with that same messaging

The homepage should not the place where you send people. If you're paying for an action you need to make that action count. This is especially true if you have a small budget and can not afford to waste dollars/clicks.

If you aren't optimizing your clicks, your customer acquisition costs (CAC) are going to increase dramatically. You can pay hundreds of dollars with a result of zero conversions. Constantly trying to figure out how to lower your CAC is good for your bottom line, but is also a key metric for current or potential partners and investors.

Contact [email protected] if you would like to further explore this example or want to know how you can optimize conversions and accelerate the growth of your business.

[intrist-blog]

Meeting user expectations [Case Study]

We'll be posting good, bad and questionable examples of companies that are (or aren't) meeting user expectations.

Let's step back and define what we call user expectations (UE). Meeting UE is as simple as providing the user the information you promised. It's making sure there's a seamless transition from an ad, blog post, tweet or email  to the landing page or website you send them to (Google refers to this as their 'Quality Score').

For example, imagine you sell TVs and in you put an ad out there that say "Save 50% on TVs." A user will click on that ad and expect to get more information on the 50% savings. But if the user clicks on the ad and is then sent to your homepage where you talk about TVs, cameras, computers and DVRs do you think that's a good experience for the user? Us either.

Today we're going to look at an example from Bank of America (for the record we are not affiliated with Bank of America).

The traffic driver

Here is an Adwords unit we found online:

The placement was good since we found this while reading an article on the new Pay Pal Here mobile card reader. We also think the value proposition and the reason to click is very strong: a household name (Bank of America) means that it's trustworthy; $500 could be more persuasive than free quotes, but maybe less than the benefit of $0 to start; and the URL that displayed looks a lot safer than the other 2 URLs that are displayed.

The landing page

Right away the offer is displayed, and the UE is met. They highlight the offer in the ad and then they put it so you can't miss it on the landing page.

The CTA on the page could get a little lost on the right hand side. Did they think about putting the online form directly on this page, or having a button that takes them to the next step?

In terms of meeting the UE, this is an example of it done right. I do wonder how many versions of the landing page they have up (they are testing this, right?!), and what variables they are testing.

What variables would you test?