Online Marketing Blog

95% of decisions are considered preconscious.  In fact, the majority of decisions we, as humans, make are automatic or based on “gut feel”, rather than conscious decision making.

So then why are so many businesses building websites for consumers who view and act based on their rational brain? This is the question Tim Ash (@tim_ash) posits during his SES Chicago session “Beyond the Click: Conversion in the Social World.”

The human brain, shaped by thousands of years of evolution, is highly influential on our online decision making. So marketers must look for opportunities to make the conversion process as intuitive, consistent and automatic as possible.

Taking the evolutionary approach, here are five strategies for increasing conversions in a social world, from Tim Ash.

It’s day 2 of SES Chicago, and the online marketing education is flowing full force.  I saw an excellent presentation about building a killer B2B social media strategy with Adriel Sanchez (@Adriel_S) of SAP.  With the sea of platforms, tactics, and schools of thought around B2B social media, it can be difficult to put together an actionable strategy that gets real results.

Follow the steps below to get your B2B social media strategy working for your business.

1. Forget Social Media, Think Content Marketing

Social media works best as a component of an overall content strategy.  The key is to think like a publisher, not a marketer.  This means avoiding the common pitfalls of being overly self-promotional or too sales oriented.

Panda, Penguin and other Google updates are part of  search marketing. The frequency of updates has continued to garner attention over the last 6 months.

The only sure thing; it’s likely to continue as Google stays its course in refining standards for quality content.

And in a post-Panda and Penguin world, smarter more meaningful link building is not only recommended but a requirement.

Understanding this is only the tip of the iceberg. What lies below the surface is the real opportunity and from SES Chicago, here’s what you should be thinking about.

7 Link Building Philosophies to create value and remain Penguin-friendly. Shared with the audience by Jon Ball of  PageOnePower.  

1. In a World without Google
Imagine if Google didn’t exist, where would you spend link building efforts? What would you do and not do?

Live from SES Chicago, I had a fantastic opportunity to learn about the ultra-hot online marketing area of remarketing / retargeting from Christopher Hansen and Marty Weintraub.  Remarketing can be extremely powerful, but is easy to get wrong, and the consequences can be costly both in terms of budget and brand image.

Below are 3 tips to make retargeting campaigns work for you, and 3 potential mistakes.

Retargeting Done Right

#1:  Identify Your Best Content

The key to effective retargeting is finding what is already working in your marketing strategy. Retargeting can be very effective at increasing the success of your content, but the content must be effective on its own in order to see a benefit from retargeting.

Did you know that 42% of business executives have made a purchasing decision based on an online video? In fact, 60% of execs will watch a video, before the ever read the text on the screen. Wow!

In the last session on the first day of SES, I was pretty excited to learn the secrets to B2B video success from Peter La Motte from GeniusRocket (@geniusrocket).  You see, I hear from clients all the time reasons why video isn’t a larger part of their marketing mix.

Top 3 Reasons B2Bs Give for Why They  Can’t (or Won’t) Do Video

1. Video is too much work!
2. B2B is too boring for video
3. Video doesn’t drive sales

Today’s consumer is connected every where and in every way. Additionally, we are no longer subject to the agenda of businesses when it comes to when and where we consume content, shop or view ads.  As marketers is our job to take advantage of what Geoff Tam-Scott describes as the infinite loop.

The infinite loops refer to the ongoing cycle of touch points marketers with consumer across devices such as smartphone, tablets, TV, PCs, etc.

On the first day of SES Chicago, Tam-Scott and Gagan Kanwar from Marin Software (@MarinSoftware) offer tips for marketers to optimize marketing for mobile and exploit the potential which mobile unlocks.

Online Marketing Magic blankets the Midwest as SES Chicago kicks off this morning. Audience members packed the room and gulped coffee anxiously awaiting to know what Avinash knows.

Curious to know what makes Avinash Kaushik (Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google) roll out of bed each morning? Surprisingly, it’s not data.

3 Simple Ideas Keeping Avinash’s Finger Off Snooze

1. Influence: The ability to find people and brainwash them that they need our products or services.
2. Experience: Most websites suck according to Avinash. And he’s on a one-man mission to fix them.
3. Value: If we solve the 2 problems above and can’t make money doing it, we’re doing it wrong. And that’s no fun at all.

How do you reach the intersection of influence, experience and value and find Online Marketing Magic?  Start with 14 online marketing Wake-Up Calls spanning from Analytics to Social to Mobile.

Think back to a time when you created a piece of content marketing awesomeness.  Visually it was appealing, you were very confident about the content, and you were sure that it was going to be a hit.  Unfortunately, it fell flat.  And it left you wondering, how did this happen?

Your first instinct may be to assume the online audience just didn’t understand how good the content really was.  But here’s the gig, it’s time that we as marketers understand “why” we’re creating content and “who” it is for.  This will allow us to make better marketing decisions and project what type of content will resonate best with our audience, and meet business objectives.

We’ve always considered our online marketing agency “search plus” and by that I mean search is central and important, but accomplishing client marketing objectives requires a broader view than just optimizing web pages and digital assets. Of course if you follow us here or you’ve read Optimize, you know that.

As social and search technologies evolve along with changes in consumer behaviors, there’s a trend towards a convergence of disciplines. Mature, data driven digital marketers see where search fits in the scheme of things but many brand marketers and traditional search agencies are still a bit lost. I’ve seen brands view SEO solely as an afterthought and SEO agencies think search is the only way to market online.  These polarized perspectives are often driven more by self interest or limits in capabilities than knowing what will make the most impact for a business.

24 Hours in the Google Economy

This recent infographic from WordStream takes a deep dive into just how much revenue is generated on Google in 24 hours.  The infographic covers the following industries:

• Finance
• Travel
• Shopping
• Jobs & Education
• Internet & Telecom
• Computers & Electronics
• Business & Industrial
• Home & Garden
• Autos & Vehicles
• Beauty & Fitness

Confirmed: Google Moving Search Options Above Results
The time for testing has passed.  Google  has just confirmed that searchers will soon be viewing the new interface which shows Google search options above results instead of on the left of the browser window.  This article also provides a preview of how these results will display in Google.  Via Search Engine Land.

As the popularity of content marketing increases, companies are getting more creative to stand out. The notion of infotainment has begun to enter the realm of otherwise boring and routine marketing communications.

I recently received a heads up on a very clever content marketing object called “The Stalking Dead: A Zombified Infographic-Novel on Cyber Security” from a company called Hostway.

This infographic presents a story of internet security. And zombies.  Hover over skull and cross-bone icons and a red splat will appear including survey results. It’s brilliant execution of content in my opinion and I can’t wait to implement our own infographic novel.

As the number of infographics and other media types become more common, a creative effort like this really stands out. There’s just one question: is it optimized?

When I make new connections on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn I get excited because 9 times out of 10 I have either made a new friend with a similar interest or have found someone that I can either learn from, or help guide.

All too often we forget that the connections we make online are very similar to those we make offline.  If you are introduced to “Tim CEO”  in a business meeting and you can recognize that he doesn’t offer information freely and needs to be drawn out, then you’lllikely optimize your approach in a way that makes him at ease and gets him talking. Similarly, social media users with different personalities and proficiencies will require that little extra optimization to interact.