dohertywhite - introduction to digital marketing - profitnet letterkenny july 2010

Digital Marketing and PRGrowing sales through more effective marketing

Michael White July 2010

DohertyWhite

Agenda

Ho w to drive inc re a s e s in s a le s , le a d g e ne ra tio n a nd re ve nue us ing O nline Ma rke ting

Today when people want to buy something the first place they look is the web, whether they’re looking for shoes, a car or a house

Some websites are more easily found than others And some web-sites are better at convincing you to buy

During this presentation I’ll be describing what you can do to make your website more easily found and, once found, to persuade people to buy your products or services

Topics

Introduction – who we are, what we do

First things first - what is Marketing?

Why online marketing for small businesses?

Where do you start?

The tools available

Social networks and your business

Recap of key points

Who we are

• Co-founder and partner at DohertyWhite• Enterprise Ireland Marketing mentor to 20 firms• Ex Head of Marketing at Singularity – helped

double revenue in 2 years, won ISA sales award• Senior Product Manager at Siemens,

Management Consultant with Deloitte, Project Manager with Misys Corporation

• Trinity College Computer Science, Post Grad Diploma in Computing

Michael WhiteMarketingDigital MarketingSoftware product delivery

Annmarie DohertyPR & Online PRSocial mediaAdvertising

Bhavin DoshiWeb developmentWeb strategyDigital marketing

Philip BarrettGraphic designWebsite designBranding

Simon RogalsMarketing strategyProduct managementTech startup advisory

Paul KennedySales strategyMarketing strategyProject Management

We help businesses generate more revenue through more effective sales and marketing

Online marketing, PR, Sales lead generation Recognised expertise – Forrester, Irish Medical Device Association,

Irish Software Association We work fast and deliver value early and often

What we do

Make something people want – your product or service and what

makes you different/better

Sell it to them – understand your potential customers, how they buy

and connect with them

Me

My potential customers

?How do I reach them?

“Make something people want, then sell it to them”

What is marketing?

Use your website to Generate More Sales

Review what you’re selling - so you can articulate it’s features, its benefits, why you’re better

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Review who you’re selling to – your target buyers

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General approach

Why focus on digital marketing?

Because your prospective customers will find you before you them.

The first place people look for products or services is online – primarily Google

The first place someone looks after contact is your web-site. What’s on your site that would encourage them to become a customer?

Will they find you? How do you compare with competing sites?

If you are promoting yourself the same way you did 10 years ago then you’re doing something wrong

Why online marketing?1. Makes business sense

More cost effective – you can see what you get for your money

Greater impact – you can market to 1000s for same price as 100s

Small businesses can look like big businesses

Small businesses can access bigger potential markets

You can ‘Scale up’ – easy to increase results at low cost

2. Recognises changes in Buyer behaviour

People’s buying habits are changing

They start shopping by looking on the web, especially Google

They do research on the web, not at tradeshows

Order online more frequently

Basically, you can generate more sales at less cost

Where do you start?

A step-by-step approach:

What are you trying to promote? (Your product, service?)

Who do you want to target, and where? (Everyone? Particular types of business? Particular types of consumer? Donegal? Ireland? Europe? the US?

Who are your competitors (and why are you better?)

Pick the tools you’ll use to promote your business from the list available

Set out a plan with actions, dates and expected outputs

Get going – implement the activities on your plan and measure how effective they are in producing sales. Experiment, adjust, test again. Start small, then increase efforts where you enjoy success.

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The tools available

PR

‘Offline’ Digital Marketing• Print Ads • Web-site

• Radio Ads • Search Engine Marketing

• Direct Mail • Google Pay-per-click

• Events/Tradeshows • Email marketing

• PR • Online ads

• Telemarketing • Online PR

• In-store merchandising • Social Media

• Flyers • Webinars

• Newsletters / bulletins • eNewsletters

Use a mixture, but emphasise online tools

S

ale s

1. Revise website based on buyer analysis, add landing pages

2. Generate content to attract visitor registrations

3. Launch Google pay-per-click ads

7. Launch Search Engine Optimization activities

5. Generate PR and online PR

4. Start Email Marketing campaigns

6. Post to Corporate Blog and Social Media

8. Hardcopy Mail to selected contacts

9. Telemarketing qualification of warm leads

Digital Demand Generation

A step-by-step approach

Online marketing tools

1. Your Website

2. Google pay-per-click advertising

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

4. Online PR

5. Email Marketing

6. Social media marketing (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook,

blogs etc.)

1. The web-site1. Your web-site The most important marketing tool you have Your best sales-person 24/7/365 if you are B2C A sales lead generation machine if you are B2B Drive visitors to your site Get them to take “Most wanted action” Either ‘Buy Now’ (B2C) or ‘capture contact details’ (B2B)

Home page is the most important page

Structure, text Give visitors plenty of

things to click on Make downloads and

‘buy now’ offers prominent

Look at competitor sites for comparison

Check out Hypertemplates.com, other template sites

1. The web-site Have plenty of “bait” on your site –documents, presentations or other information that

people will want to download e.g. Case studies Ask for their email address and name in return

Your Objective – Generate Sales (B2C) or Generate Leads (B2B)

Web Design Best Practice

Reflect your buyer in the web-page design – use “Buyer Personas”

Make it easy for them to accomplish goals e.g. find information, contact you (put your number on the home page), get you to contact them (call back button), search

Think about your “Most Wanted Actions” – what do you want them to do?

If you want them to do something (go to a section of the site, download content) then make it obvious and easy

Provide ‘bait’ on each page – downloadable content

Great book on this subject: “Don’t make me think” by Steve Krug

1. The Website1. The web-site

1. The Website

Structure

Not too many levels in your site structure – aim for 3

Use URLs that make sense – better for your buyers, better for search engines

Configure 5 or 6 settings per page for Search Engine Optimization (covered later)

Segment your site into key sections, optimize each section individually, rather than having all pages equally ranked per key phrase

When looking at layout, have a look at Hypertemplates and other sites

Most corporate sites follow a particular home-page structure (80% of large B2B and 53% of small firms, as of 2007 report)

1. The web-site

Graphics

Keep graphics down to less than 3rd of home page – see heatmaps

Use images of real people, avoid clichéd stock images

Make the entire graphic clickable

Make sure graphic is ‘tagged’ so you turn up on image searches

Use Clicktale or similar tool to check how visitors move around your pages

1. The Website1. The web-site

1. The Website1. The web-site

Use the list above as a checklist – have you adequately provided this kind of information on your website?

For example, have you clearly described what you do, what sectors you target, do you have case studies etc. etc.

Before you start - Audit

Review web-traffic stats – historic performance, sources of traffic

Set up Google analytics if not set up already

Identify all pages that are indexed, all your inbound links

These are assets and you don’t want to lose them (will use 301 redirects to maintain them)

Competitor comparison – use WebSiteGrader.com, WooRank and other tools

1. The Website1. The web-site

2. Google Pay-per-click

Quick way to get traffic to your site

Tell Google which search terms you want to be found for

E.g. show my ad when someone searches for ‘graphic design donegal’

Only pay if someone clicks on my ad

Create specific ‘landing’ page for the ad

Avg. 50c per click, can set maximum daily/weekly budget

Can lock down by geography, time, day

1 Keyword analysis

2 Ad text

3 Landing page

Campaign set-up – budget, geography

Keyword analysis – what are people searching for

Ad text – variants

Bids and cost-per-click

Bid management

Broadmatch, exact match, negative keywords, keyword insertion

keyword

2. Google Pay-per-click

Set yourself up as an advertiser (2 mins, minimum €15)

Tell Google the words you want to be found for – ‘keywords’

Write the ad that will appear Tell Google how much you’re willing to

spend per day/month Ad only shown when someone searches for

your word Don’t pay unless they click on your ad Can control spend – “pay-as-you-go”

Success factors for Google PPC Keywords you choose – make sure people are looking for them Ad text – does it make people want to click Your ‘landing page’ – make sure it’s matched to the ad, and that there’ some kind of

“call to action”

2. Pay-per-click

2. Landing page design

CONVERT YOUR VISITORS! – Landing Pages Rule #1: Avoid unneccessary distractions – push visitor to your “Most Wanted

Action”

Spell out the benefits and have clear call to action

Remove any unnecessary navigation

Be consistent with the ad or email that brought your visitor here, including keywords, logos and other images

Try to keep registration fields to a minimum e.g. Name and email

Try “A/B” testing of 2 versions of landing page to see what works

Use Google analytics to monitor conversions

2. Google Pay-per-click

Advertising – (Pay-per-click)

Natural or ‘organic’ search

results

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You want to get found without paying Google all the time

‘Organic’ or natural search results

How do you get to the top?

Main element – good ‘content’ – information

A site that people find useful

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Two main tasks in SEO

“On Page” – stuff you put on your web-site pages

“Off Page” – getting other sites to link to you

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

On page Off page

WWW WWW

WWW WWW

WWW

3. Search Engine Optimization

First step – KEYWORD ANALYSIS

Choose words you think people will look for when searching for your

kind of product or servcie

Then for each page . …

1. Page Title

3. Header tags

2. URL

4. Text, internal links, bold

5. Page description text

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A link: www.dohertywhite.com

Links should be from other good sites

To get links, provide information/content that people think is valuable and should be shared

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Next, seek External Links – ask other sites to link to you

Identify a target list of sites you’d like to link to you

Who links to you now?

Who links to your competitors?

What sites are top for the search terms related to you?

PR is the most cost-effective form of marketing Generate €1000s worth of coverage Seen to be more credible than standard ads

Some basic rules – try to be interesting: e.g.‘Man bites dog’; ‘who, what, when, where and why’, include a photo etc.

But … now also has an online element Should ‘optimize’ each press release so that (a) it highlights

particular keywords and (b) has embedded links that link back to your web-site

Should also issue to Twitter, RSS feeds, blog, other sites etc. as part of your PR release process (more later …)

Test using graphics, video embedded in releases

4. Online PR

Do not spam But do regularly email contacts

who have ‘opted in’ to communications

91% of internet users use email Cost effective, broad reach First, build your list Next, draft your email Keep it short “Call to action” Test every element From & Subject – determine

whether email is deleted or opened

Certain words will attract spam filters e.g. ‘Free’

SPAM Download Download Inbound Inbound

Marketing Marketing Guide NOW!Guide NOW!

Reply

Visit

Email

5. Email Marketing

Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Yammer, blogging, video….

Generate interesting stuff people want to see, read, hear

Publish it everywhere, with links back to you

Share intersting stuff you find on the web

Connect with people you’ve worked with or who you find informativve

Interactive rather than one way communication

Now everyone can contribute, write, edit, shoot video, record audio

People/customers can talk back, engage, ask questions

You’ll get more web traffic, visitors, business

6. Social Media

Monitor what’s published – Google alerts, Google blog search, Twitter follower, Monitter

Blogs

Why? Draws more traffic to your web-site, leads, sales

Like online diaries, now being used for business

Type of web-site where you can easily post comments, information

Allows readers to provide feedback

Can paste in YouTube videos, SlideShare slides Tips

Decide who you’re targeting

Mix of entries – news, opinion, video, photos, informative

Basic, medium and rich posts, light & heavy

Strong headlines

Pick a posting schedule

6. Social Media

6. Social Media

Video Video yourself, a colleague, a

customer Home-made is good Relate to your business – e.g.

“how I design wedding cards” Post it on YouTube Link to YouTube from your

website, blog, Twitter ….

6. Social Media

Twitter

What: Listen, Tweet, Respond

Why?: Traffic to your website, inbound links, leads, sales

How: 140 character “tweets”

E.g. press release headline

Can also insert links to stuff you like/find interesting

Follow others e.g. customers, influencers

Make your tweets useful e.g. links to web-site, video, news item

Tweet about good stuff your business is doing

Customer service

6. Social Media

Fast Food – Kogi Korean BBQ

Gourmet fast food aimed at night-club audience

How to let customers know when/where vans will be near?

Twitter updates, forwarded by SMS to followers

Queues now form before trucks arrive

Dublin bus – special ticket discounts

Running last minute promotional discounts

Twitter followers receive offers via mobile phone

6. Social Media

LinkedIn

Business or private

Use your network to promote what you do

Search for contacts at particular companies

Join new groups with shared interest

Create a group and encourage people to join

LinkedIn ads – very targeted (role, location)

Tip: build out your profile info

6. Social Media

Facebook

Why do you care? -over 450 million active users

Lots of your customers

3rd most trafficked website

Get found, promote your stuff, connect with others

Get started: Set up a personal profile first

Join networks

Set up a business page second

Put links to your facebook pages on emails, web-site, ….

Facebook ads

6. Social Media

Facebook Try Facebook ads 11 targeting factors Includes location, age, birthday, sex,

workplace, education and interests So, could run ads to women only in 30 to

40 age bracket in your area to test the results

http://www.facebook.com/marketing

6. Social Media

Recap6 step process – 1. what, 2. who, 3. competitors, 4. tools, 5. plan, 6. execute

Tools – Offline and Online

Should use a mixture, emphasizing online tools

1. Web-site first – the key element

2. Google Pay-per-click

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

4. Email

5. Social media – blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, video, YouTube, Facebook, …

Create and publish stuff (video, voice, written) that will interest your audience

Network with potential influencers, customers, colleagues

Measure the results regularly

Repeat your successes

Resources

www.dohertywhite.com

www.hubspot.com

www.marketingprofs.com

www.raintoday.com

www.marketingsherpa.com

www.forrester.com

Email michael.white@dohertywhite.comSlides slideshare.net/dohertywhite

Twitter @MichaelGWhite

Mobile +353 86 383 8981

www.dohertywhite.com

Thank You

DohertyWhite