Online Marketing Blog

The average consumer goes through more than five touch points with an ecommerce business before they convert. This number is trending upward, as companies and customers continue to interact across a greater number of platforms. B2B companies, with often greater price points and a longer buying cycle, may find the number of interactions with prospects prior to conversion even higher.

Good content marketers know that integrated, consistent messaging is critical across multiple digital platforms.  It allows us to connect with our customers how – and when – they expect to connect with us.

With so many touch points between first contact and conversion, how are companies able to break through all of the data within analytics? We need to determine not only which channels are most effective, but also how to customize marketing activities to the behavior and preferences of the audience in that channel, at that point in their decision.

On Wednesday evening in downtown Minneapolis, marketers gathered to hear the answer to a burning question: #whatthefoc? (AKA what is the future of content?)

The Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) hosted the sold-out Future of Content event, with speaker Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing CEO and the author of Optimize, aiming to point attendees in the right direction.

Marketers know content is important; in fact, 78% of CMOs think custom media represents the future of marketing. How has content changed how we view marketing today and more importantly, how can we prepare for the future? These highlights from The Future of Content with Lee Odden should shed some light on the issue:

Ask yourself 3 questions about your existing content strategy.

Odden instructed the audience to ask themselves three questions about their business:

Valentines Day is a holiday that some people look forward to, while others dread it’s very existence.  Let’s face it; no one likes to be alone on Valentine’s Day. Much like personal relationships, business relationships take effort. What are you doing this year to ensure you’re spending time with someone special and keeping your conversion funnel full?

The typical B2B buying cycle is anywhere from 3 to 12 months.  It can be challenging to maintain appropriate touch points throughout a longer sales cycle in a way that will encourage a potential customer to convert, rather than slipping out of the funnel.

Utilizing analytics is a great way for companies to gain insight into customer and prospect behavior and make adjustments to their marketing strategy based on that insight. However, a long sales cycle requires analytics be used beyond simply connecting purchase to channel and adjusting the marketing mix accordingly.

On a gray and snowy morning marketers from the healthcare, finance and government sectors headed to the Swedish American Institute in downtown Minneapolis for a MIMA event titled Interactive Innovation in Highly Regulated Industries.

Moderated by Melissa Berggren of Allina Health, the panel of experts included Marti Nyman, Director of Innovation and Strategy at UnitedHealth Group, Ward Tongen, Principal Digital Marketing Strategist at Medtronic and Kelli Carlson-Jagersma, Collaboration-Strategist VP, Wholesale Social Strategy at Wells Fargo.

Gaining approval on marketing strategies, content and tactics within highly regulated industries can be rife with challenges. Including regulation from governing bodies and documents (like HIPPA, the FDA and the SEC), resistance from your compliance and legal departments, and a ‘we can’t do that’ attitude when it comes to innovation.

After an amazing three days at a recent conference, it was time to head back to Minneapolis.

One crucial pre-flight ritual: downloading enough new content to my Kindle Fire to stay entertained during the 3+ hours of flying and airport time.

As I flipped to the Kindle book store, the first place I started was my recommended list. I will say that, overall, I am always pretty impressed by how well Amazon “gets” me.

In less than two minutes I had made my purchase.  Without personalization, faced with the  1 million+ books which are part of the Kindle library, there is a 75% chance I would have never made a purchase at all.

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.

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.

On Tuesday November 14^th  we will be heading south for SES Chicago.  This will be my second SES event and I am looking forward to attending sessions to continue to educate myself in online marketing, and share it with our readers, all while hanging out in the city of Chicago.  I will be live blogging along with fellow TopRank-ers – Jolina Pettice, Evan Prokop, Thom Craver and Miranda Miller.

When planning any trip, one of the first things I do is map out the stops which are a MUST SEE. Conferences are no different.  We follow online marketing best practices, and always have a game plan to ensure we can get the most out of the time spent at conferences.

In the 1989, Greg LeMond overcame a 50 second deficit in the final stage to win the Tour de France by 8 seconds.  He clocked the second fastest time trial ever recorded in the Tour de France.  So how did LeMond secure a stunning victor after 3 weeks and 2025 miles?

Optimization.  The optimization of his equipment, including aerodynamic handle bars and helmet, allowed LeMond to shave crucial seconds from his time and ride to victory in front of his less well optimized competitors.

Optimization results had a big impact on this race and they can have a big impact on business as well. I recently attended a session by Mikel Chertudi, Senior Director of Marketing of Adobe on Conversion Optimization: From Strategy to Execution. He offered strategies for businesses to optimize their digital marketing, in order to move ahead of the pack and secure a victory.

On the second day of SES San Francisco, I headed to Lee Odden’s session Optimize B2B Content Across the Sales Cycle. Lee kicked off the presentation by polling the audience on how engaged they were in SEO, social media and content marketing. Hands raised all over the room.  When he asked how many were focused on content marketing across the sales cycle, it was striking that there relatively few hands raised.  As focused as we all are on conversions and purchases, we are not all capitalizing on the opportunity to attract and engage with our customer at every point in the buying cycle, and as a result, customers can slip away.

Keywords are the core of your search engine marketing strategy. Most of us know the basics when it comes to brainstorming, generating and finalizing a list, but how can your company get beyond the basics and focus on advanced keyword analytics. The main focus of the presentation by Bill Hunt (@billhunt) at SES San Francisco focused on moving beyond data and focusing on consumer intent.

When we type in a specific inquiry we expect to find what we are looking for, but often paid search results fail us. In order to capture the user who may be disappointed by search results, marketers can better use keywords leveraging advanced keyword modeling.

Advanced Keyword Modeling

1. Understand the ‘voice of the customer’
2. Effectively map your content with query and query intent