Learning About Web Analytics: Part I

If you're a true marketer or a hard-core blogger (or both) you have to be into web analytics. Ok, you don't but you should and I have found some good resources.

Bloggers for the most part write because they want to be heard and your analytics justify the time that you sit at your keyboard (for the most part although my wife still needs convincing and web stats, well they just don't do it).

You may like to monitor your site traffic to see which keywords and referrers are bringing traffic to your blog or who is on your blog right now (hey - I see that you're reading this and I thank you from the bottom of my keyboard). It's also cool to see which countries are reading your blog. I wrote a post about free feed icons and I was receiving traffic from all over the world and was featured on many Asian sites - it was quite interesting but I couldn't understand the comments on those blogs. I also had a pleasant surprise last week when I found out that Brian Carrol over at Start With a Lead was linking to my blog. This caused a bit of a traffic spike and I thought my blog was broken. In this way, my blog is similar to the thinking process that an e-marketer goes through on a daily basis (or should be going through!!) : "What actions that I take will drive traffic to my site and increase conversions." Examining and understanding web analytics is key to this.

As a blogger, one of my goals is help others in marketing (specifically B2B marketing) better understand the e-marketing landscape. A very good newsletter that I subscribe to is the ROI Revolution News that is created by Google to promote its services - specifically Google Analytics. The format of this e-newsletter is interesting as instead of pushing people from an email to a regular web page, it takes people to the ROI Revolution blog. I think you will be seeing more and more of this type of format as blogs maximize the SEO effectiveness of your content (I wrote about this previously). And here's a saying that you should adhere to: If Google is doing it, it's worth trying.

I'm new to Web Analytics, Where do I start?

There are many different places to begin. With web analytics (just like SEO), it's not enough to understand the terminology. You need to jump in with two feet. If you just want to get your feet wet though , you may want to start by subscribing to ROI Revolution News. What I like are some of "Analytics Basics" articles that provide overviews to some of the key areas of web analytics that you need to understand.

For example, some marketers may be worried that their web stats are skewed because of a recent Jupiter report article that says that 58% of their users delete their cookies. This can affect historical data that you may be tracking on a certain person. The article explains the difference between first party and third party cookies as it's mostly third party and not first party cookies that users are deleting. The article of course plugs Google Analytics as it uses only first party cookies.

Google also offers free tutorials on how to use Google Analytics. What I recommend you do is to start up a blog perhaps through blogger and sign up for the tutorial. In this way, you can test out what you learn from the tutorial. One of the keys that you will learn as you get into web analytics is testing is crucial. What offers, content and/or keywords are driving content to your site? Google Analytics is also free so it's definitely worth having a look at. In the real world analytics testing is like testing out different methods to prevent your new puppy from messing up your new carpet. Eventually you will hit pay dirt but things may get a bit messy on the way there.

At the moment, I'm in the process of moving so you may not hear from me for a little while but I plan to write "Learning About Web Analytics: Part II" in which I want to focus on some key metrics that you should be keeping track of on your site. I've just finished reading a book called "3G Marketing" and found some interesting information that I'll share.

In the meantime, please let me know other resources on web analytics that you have found helpful. I've heard that Web Analytics Demystified: A Marketer's Guide to Understanding How Your Web Site Affects Your Business is also a good start.

Until next time,

Chad H.

PS - For web analytics, one of the most important concepts is to understand that a point in time is irrelevant (i.e. number of pages on a particular day). What is crucial are the trends. Are your site visitors going up over time or going down? Why is that? Is it becuase your packing up all of your stuff and moving and don't have time to write? :)

Tags: Google Analytics, e-newsletters, ROI Revolution News, web stats, web analytics for beginners, 3rd party cookies

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Does Your Business do Podcasts? It Should

I'll admit that I don't regularly download podcasts via an RSS feed but I do listen to them the odd time. It looks like I'm not the only one. eMarketer.com reports that in August of 2006, 17 million people had listened to a podcast which is 70% more then the number of people who downloaded a podcast from April 2006. Holy crap batman, it's time to get your recording devices out! But, before you do that you need a podcasting strategy.

Podcast Strategy: It's Time to get one

One of my favourite podcasting sites is by Brian Caroll on the topic of B2B Lead Generation. Yes, his topics focus around his book and his consulting services but he provides amazing content using engaging interviews as part of his podcast. It really works and I come away from the podcast with some better insight into the sales and marketing process. If you have plans to start using podcasts, have a goal in mind as to what you want to achieve. Here are some ideas:

• Create useful content to reinforce image as industry expert. This is sometimes referred to as thought leadership.
• Drive website traffic. Like blogs, podcasts can help you in the search rankings if the content provided contains relevant keywords.
• Educate potential buyers in the sales pipeline or existing customers on new offerings
• Generate new leads via a co-registration process. In this case, the podcast could involve interviews from multiple people representing different companies

There are many other high level goals that you may use podcasts for. Let me know if I've missed any.

"I Need Podcasts Like I Need a Hole in my Head"

I hear the Mr. Busy Marketer saying "OK, we already have those goals and we are achieving them through our existing initiatives. We already have a significant amount of content on our site. What more do we need?" This is typically coming from someone in marketing who has just enough time to complete their existing marketing initiatives let alone this new podcast schmodcast stuff. "What's the point?" is a typical response.

Well if you're into online marketing and you're down with web 2.0. you know that producing new content that is engaging and entertaining is critical to generating increased web traffic and conversions. Podcasts allow you to provide content that is easier to digest for a busy executive who doesn't have time to read a full case study, in a creative format that allows you to generate a more personal experience and all at a relatively low cost.

Think of it as starting a conversation with your customers or prospects. If you allow comments (which you bloody well should) then your listeners can respond and continue the conversation you started. In addition, you don't need a fancy-pants flash developer to engage your audience - you can create the podcast yourself. Take some Tylenol, grab a cup of something that is highly caffeinated and get your marketing team in a room to start brainstorming about what type of content you will be 'casting about.

What do we Podcast About?

If you're team can't come up with any ideas, here are a few to get them thinking:

• Interview a few of your customers regarding a specific challenge that they faced and how your service/product helped them overcome this. Let your customers do the product plug. What you're creating is a living and breathing case study that is much more enjoyable then reading marketing-speak. For your next case study, consider doing both a written and oral format. If you can't do an interview, consider just having someone record an oral version of it. Have you heard of books on tape? Do a case study on tape! Why not do this for a white paper as well. This was suggested recently by MarketingSherpa.
• Interview a few people in your company regarding a new product that was developed. Besides the obvious announcement and description of a new feature , this type of podcast serves a couple of purposes. Because this podcast gets published on a live website, you're giving one of your team members some recognition for helping to develop a new product. If you're a developer, you typically get zero recognition outside of your department. This type of podcast can create some pride and well needed moral. Who better then to evangelize a new product then someone who actually helped build it (well, this can depend on their communication skills but you know what I mean). Prospects and clients also get some insight into the quality and expertise of the people that are working at your company. It may give them further incentive to work with you. If you didn't realize it, this podcast idea was like a press release but one that makes your company come alive in the minds of your customers and prospects.
• Create testimonial podcasts. If you go to a typical business website, you have a client testimonial section. Instead of having written quotes, why not record sound bites and create a podcast. Nothing sells a message like an actual voice rather then just a written quote. You could also do a conversation type of a format where you're asking your clients questions.
• Transform your existing webcasts. Here's a potentially easy one. If you have done some webcasts already that don't require that the person have access to the power point slides, turn this into a podcast. Why would you do this? If you're doing a real podcast in which you have an RSS feed, new content increases your web traffic. Some companies post an audio file on their site and call it a Podcast. Remember, it's nota true podcast unless it's accessible via RSS.

The first thing you may want to do is ask your team which podcasts they like and why. This gives you an ideas to who is doing their homework on the latest marketing and/or industry trends. You can then ask them to forward on their favourite feed or podcast to the group so that everyone can have a listen. There's also plenty of experts out there who can provide you with podcasts they like (for example, have a look at Pete Lerma's article on ClickZ).

Here's the bottom line: Get you're thinking caps on and think of ways that you can exploit this new format before your competitors do.

Before you go, let me know if there are any podcast feeds that you recommend and why. In addition, are there other ways that you have used podcasts effectively?

Chad H.

PS - Yes, I myself have yet to create a podcast but who knows what will happen in 2007.

Tags: lead generation, creating podcasts, podcast rss feeds, interviews, web 2.0., B2B podcasting, business blogs

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IBM Allows you to Chat With a Sales Representative

If you've been on IBM's site lately, you may have noticed a new feature. OK, you'll probably notice many new features it's Big Blue for goodness sake, they've patented the meaning of life! :)

The feature I'm most interested in is a new little Chat icon on the side of the page. You can see it here. What better way then to interact with potential clients then to allow them to speak with you without having to pick up the phone.

I Hate the Phone - That's Why I'm in IT

Besides those that despise Alexander Graham Bell's (he's Canadian, eh) invention and think the telephone was "so 18th century" and SMS is where it's at, there are other great uses for an online Chat feature. Picture this - you're an IT Systems Architect and you need to buy a new blade server today. The problem is that you're invited to a global conference call with other architects from around the world and attendance is mandatory. How can you use this time productively? If you answered "listen to what's going on in the meeting" you are 200% incorrect. Typically, no one cares what you have to say. Why not multitask to get your real work done and find out more information about the IBM blade server that you had your eye on. With chat, you will be able to get in touch with a Representative right away and still pretend to listen in on the call.

Chat and Customer Support - Better then getting a "Please leave a message"

Here's another scenario - you call customer support from your favourite software vendor and either no one is there or your put on hold for eternity. To avoid all this "fun", you could use online chat to ask for assistance right away. For even more enjoyment, why not call, email and use chat all at the same time? See who responds more quickly and accurately.

Using Chat for Lead Generation

When I clicked on IBM's chat button, I was told that no one was online. Besides having your web visitors initiate the chat session, what if you're sales reps were the ones that started the chatting (hey, it doesn't take much)? You see someone looking at your products, why not start a chat with them? At the very least you can ask for an email address so you can send them some personalized information. What better way to get opt-in email addresses? Perhaps point them to a new resource on your site or to a blog article. The possibilities with chat are endless for B2B lead generation. Hey, if you've invested a ton of resources on building a great website, you have an amazing inside sales team that are just waiting for the phone to ring and a ton of traffic that you helped generate from email and paid search, why not add an additional tool that is relatively inexpensive that will increase conversations and maximize your marketing investments. It's companies like IBM that see this vision and are using this technology to their advantage. You go Blue!

What do you think? Have you ever participated in online chat? What if this technology was added to blogs? Would it be called "Blat" or "Chog"?

Chad H.

Tags: IBM, online chat, lead generation, blade servers, opt-in email, blat, chog

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HP Gets it Right With Their "Change Artists" Lead Generation Campaign

Arguably the whole concept of comments on a blog make blogs authentic and entertaining. On many blogs, a web visitor may find a post with some rich interaction between the original author and some commenters. Typically the item that is being discussed is one that both the author and commenter are passionate about. The new visitor can either be satisfied with just reading the interaction or even add a comment themselves.

How can businesses capture the excitement of blogs?

I was really inspired when I saw a new campaign by HP called "Stories of the Real World: CEOs, CIOs, and change". This consists of a landing page in which a real CEO and another VP from Nestle discussing their challenges and how they solved them. Obviously they will indirectly discuss how HP helped solve their business challenges but what better way to do this then to tell a story via a video conversation with executives just like the target audience that they are going after. This is simply brilliant.

For Nestle, this gives its CEO and VP a little PR as well as making them human while enhancing HP's image immensely with a testimonial that doesn't seem contrived. The excitement of watching an interaction in an area of interest just like on blogs makes this extremely exciting.

Another cool thing is that HP uses the brand "Change Artists" and doesn't overtly advertise. In addition, the conversation doesn't focus on HP. You hear about a real story as to how they made change. This included setting up meetings, who setup the meeting, the feeling at the meeting and even what was happening at lunch. Chris Johnson the Deputy Executive VP even asked his team if they wanted his job - how real is that?

HP goes further - they include related content, a case study and podcast for busy executives who can't watch the whole video and even have a refer a friend function to promote a viral effect.

How can HP make this "Change Artists" concept even better?

This is an easy answer - place these videos on a blog. I'm sitting here watching this great conversation (I personally liked the story about the Chilean Navy) and I'm saying "Hey, I want in on this conversation too!". While they do take questions from "audience members" when the video is shot, this doesn't seem very real. There is no better way to continue the conversation then with blogs. Imagine placing this on a blog (even for a limited time) and allowing people to respond. Just like there is a Q/A following a webinar, blogs can act in a similar way in this situation. Perhaps they could have a scheduled launch date for these videos so people could be the first to watch and comment on the video and only have a limited time to add comments? Putting a time constraint works with selling products, it will definitely work with people accessing information that is informative and entertaining (I kick myself when I don't read each of the MarketingSherpa articles before they expire).

Anyways, great concept HP - keep it up! I would much rather hear a CEO talk about a real life situation then hearing them spew out a list of benefits of their products.

Have you seen any other great B2B lead generation campaigns that really stood out for you?

Chad H

PS - I'm reading Seth Godin's' "All Marketers Are Liars" which discuses how important authentic stories are in marketing.

Tags: HP, Change Artists, nestle, business blogs, video blogs, the excitement of blogs, marketing with stories, Seth Godin

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Free Online Marketing Tools for Marketers

Larry Chase at Web Digest for Marketers is an amazing source for marketers looking for tools to assist in email marketing, search marketing, surveys - you name it! Here are a few of my favourite tools from his website:

Paid Search and Organic Search

• Spyfu: Can be used to find out how much a search term is currently going for, how popular a search term is and who (which of your competitors) is currently using the search term and how they are using it. You can also see the copy of the ads they are using and what the organic search results are.
  
  In addition, you can see the additional paid search terms that competitors purchased and how much they are spending on paid search. This stuff is gold! Go there right now and type in the name of your company and see what happens. The data can be a bit out of date so don't use it to look for terms that others may not have purchased just yet. It would be interesting to see how the results compare to Wordtracker
• URL Trends: Use URL Trends to find out how many sites are linked to your site as well as how many sites you link to. You can also see your page rank and how many search results you produce on the major search engines. This is great if you want to keep benchmarks on how your SEO efforts are going.
• Marketleap Link Popularity Check: Compare your site traffic to your competitors. You can also look at benchmark graphs and compare your site to your competition.
• SearchSpell Typo Search: Want to know if people search for your company or your products but make spelling errors? Use this tool and it will let you know what are the top typos for the keywords you enter.
• Keyword Suggestion Tool: Find out how many times each of the keywords & phrases you enter has been searched on so far this month in the major search engines. It allows you to compare a few different search phrases.
• Yahoo Keyword Selector Tool: Tells you how many times a keyword was clicked on. This is not as accurate as Wordtracker as it focuses on paid search only and not organic search
  
• Web Site Keyword Density Tool: This tool tells you if certain keywords appear enough or too little on your website. This seo tool also returns the ratio of your keywords to your body count.
• SE-Tools: Type a web page address and SE-Inspector will check its title, meta tags, text, url, link popularity and keyword density. SE-Spider will allow you to see how the search engine spiders crawl your pages and follow your links.
• Yahoo CPC ROI tool: Calculate the ROI from your cost per clicks vs. sales generated.
• Keyword Difficulty Check: Determine if it's worth it to go after certain keywords. Tool will tell you how difficult it is to get into the top ranked sites for keyword(s).
• Lycos Top 50: Get an idea of which keywords are hot
• Google Keyword Tool: Makes recommendations on additional popular keywords. Shows your competition and search volume. I would trust Wordtracker over this tool.
• Google Conversion Tracking: This is a newer feature that allows you to track your conversion rate (sales or form submissions) for all of your paid search campaigns.
  

RSS Feeds

• Feed Advisor: If you're looking for web feeds to add to your website, newsletter blog or just for your personal research, consider checking this site out. It will tell you how many people have subscribed to the RSS feed. This type of social ranking provides the RSS feed with added credibility and helps you navigate amongst the millions of feeds out there.
  

Survey Tools

• Sample Size Calculator: Tells you how many survey respondents you need to generate a meaningful results.
  
• Question Pro: Allows you to create two free surveys for 100 respondents. This is an ASP model survey tool that has some excellent features. It's advanced tool also integrates with Salesforce.com
• SurveyMonkey.com: SurveyMonkey also provides a free basic survey tool which is limited to a total of 10 questions and 100 responses per survey. You can purchase a more advanced tool on a per month basis.
  

Email Marketing Tools

• Content Checker: This free tool will check the content of your email and provide feedback on how you can reduce the chances that it will hit your receipients spam box. They've incorporated SpamAssassin's™ rules.
• EzineCheck: This tool also provides feedback on any issues with your email that will increase the chances that it will be labled as spam.
  

General Marketing Tools

• Give to Get Marketing Calculators: Includes calculators for small businesses to calculate ROI, marketing results, and website visitor value.
• Calculate marketing ROI with the Marketing Lead Calculator: Calculate marketing ROI with this interactive spreadsheet by B2B sales and marketing expert Mac McIntosh. It is designed to help B2B sales and marketing professionals determine the realistic number of marketing touches, inquiries and qualified sales leads needed in order to meet your company's sales revenue objectives.
• Web Page Analyzer: Track how quickly your page loads and provides recommendations on improving page performance.
• ZoomInfo: Looking for contact information for a company? Before spending xxx number of dollars, try using ZoomInfo. It's a service that has collected data on people from information gathered on the internet
  

I hope you enjoyed these. Thanks again to Larry Chase and I encourage everyone to sign up for his newsletter. Let me know if I've missed any great links that should be added.

Chad H.

Tags: paid search, ppc, internet marketing, seo, search engine optimization, search tools, free marketing tools, organic search, ROI marketing tools, Adwords

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Email Delveriability Tip of the Day: Authentication

Not sure what authentication is when it comes to email marketing and how it relates to email deliverability? Have you seen those Visa commercials where a call centre verifies these heads that come through a computer screen? It's similar to this. How do you prove to your email recipients that the email that you're sending is actually from you? Through email authentication.

Check out this article on ClickZ by Stefan Pollard called "Marketers Still Unclear on Authentication" for a better understanding of this concept. Stefan defines authentication as the following:

Authentication helps you, as an e-mail sender, prove you are who you claim to be and that you have the right to send e-mail from your IP address. It's designed to block fraudulent e-mail that forges its identity or hijacks someone else's server or IP address to send e-mail.

You should ensure that your email provider has taken all of the necessary precautions to ensure that the email you send to your customers and prospects follows the authentication best practices.

Chad H.

Tags: email marketing, email deliverability, email authentication

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Have you Thanked Your Customers Today?

Are you saying to yourself "it's another day and I have so much to do with so little time?". I think we're all saying that so don't worry. Here are two words that you can say that are easy and will go a long way "Thank you!".

We sometimes forget that our customers are the lifeblood of any organization. Al DiGuido is his ClickZ article "The Power of "Thank You" explains that in today's world of technology, there is no reason that you shouldn't be thanking your customers. He sees email as the optimal technology to do this by using transactional emails. If someone buys your product or downloads some information from your website, send them a thank you to show that you value them as a customer or a potential customer.

You can take this concept further. Your sales team should always thank prospect for their time in a follow up email to a prospect meeting. Your customer service team should end each conversation with a "Thanks for calling and feel free to call again with any concern that you have". You can even have them send a quick follow up email with a thanks and here's how to get a hold of me. Why not add their picture to the email and really make it personal? Some companies add their sales rep's pictures to their email, why not customer service?

For all of us bloggers it's imperative that we thank all of those people out there that have either left a comment on your blog or linked to your blog. I regularly try and go out and seek those bloggers that have linked to my blog to see what they are writing about and leave a comment.

Give thanks to those that have helped make you what you are and don't ever forget them.

Chad H.

PS - I'm going to go thank my wife for allowing me to buy a 40' plasma.
PPS - Thanks for reading this blog and all of your comments
PPPS - Thanks www.caror.org for that great image above

Tags: clickz, email marketing, transactional emails, customer appreciation, Thanking your wife

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Is Your CRM Naked?

Are all of your sales reps exceeding their quota for this quarter? Ok, that's a stupid question. Maybe teh reason they aren't is because your CRM (customer relationship management) tool is naked. Ardath Albee has written a great e-book called Why Naked CRM Doesn't Work on how to "dress up" your CRM by providing better tools for sales and an improved process for sales and marketing. This focuses on the B2B sales process which is much longer then B2C.

Here are some of the items I really liked:

• In my industry, we sometimes preach to hold off on passing leads (inquiries) to sales until they are "qualified"(I don't even want to get into a definition of this). Andrath feels that sales should be aware of all potential leads. They may have inside information that could help the lead along in the sales process. It also ensures greater buy in from sales.
• Andrath stresses that you really need to arm sales with the materials they need to follow up with the prospect. She states that the salesperson should be able to plug in the profile of the person (industry, title etc...) as well as the type of information needed (quotes, value propositions) and all related information will be returned. You could take this even further by being able to gather all of this data and have an email that will assess all of the customer data and compile an email for you that can be customized by sales and sent from Outlook.
  
• Shes states that there is typically no central database that tracks of the core research on a company. This can come from all aspects of your organization: engineering, support, operations, marketing and sales. This is sooo true. You need to ensure that all company touchpoints are recorded in your CRM. You should know which email was sent to the prospect, when and by whom. You should know if there any outstanding technical support issues. You should even see comments from your developers on how a new feature has enhanced a customer's use of your product.
  
  While Ardath stresses the need of a sales portal, I think your CRM can be used for your sales portal, what you need is buy in from all departments and incentives to ensure that your whole company is recording all relevant data and has a proper method to record this data that is measurable.

Thanks again Ardath for a great article that gave me some food for thought.

Chad H.

Tags: CRM, sales process, Marketing Interactions

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Email Still Kicks Conversion Ass

What was the best conversion marketing channel for a financial publisher? Was it Adwords? Organic Search? Nope - it was email! Check out this study on emarketer.com: E-Mail Is Top Conversion Channel for Financial Publisher.

What is interesting is that if you combine organic and paid search, it still doesn't add up to the conversion rate of email according to the chart that is provided. It would be interesting to better understand the details of this study but what it does show is how important email still is. While you start experimenting with web 2.0. strategies like blogging, don't forget about using email to support your other marketing channels. Remember to maximize your email marketing. Check out Email Marketing 101: Tips and Best Practices for some tips.

Those of you who use email as part of their marketing efforts (most of you I assume), I hope this post gives you a little lift.

Chad H.

Tags: email marketing, emakerter.com, financial publisher

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Improve how you use White Papers for Lead Generation - Part II

Have you created a white paper for your organization in order to generate leads? If you have, there are some great tips that Michael Stelzner has just written about in an article Getting The Most From Your White Paper Marketing.

His big tip is that you should consider providing a large chunk of the white paper for free before you ask for a web visitor to register for it. He uses the gaming industry as an example. There are some sites out there like EA Sports (one of my favourites) that will let you download a sample of the game before actually purchasing it. What Michael failed to mention was that you typically have to register for the sample but you get his point.

Here are some of his other tips that I liked:

• Keep the registration form out of sight. People are scared when they see it. Warm them up to the idea of registration with some "meat" from the white paper.
• Keep the registration form questions to a minimum. Only ask what you need. For example, why ask for zip code if all you need is state for your lead distribution processes.
• Provide some quotes on those that liked the white paper (like mini book reviews). Those quotes could be from industry big wigs or industry analysts (my tip).
• Send an auto-responder email letting the person know about other resources that are available. Michael suggests a slight delay in sending the white paper but I disagree. Nobody likes to wait around for anything these days and if there is a delay, they'll go to your competitors site and/or they'll forget why they registered in the first place.

One tip that I'll add is that it's always great if you have an industry analyst like Gartner or Forrester write a white paper about your company (assuming it's a positive one!!). This gives your company and products the credibility it needs to get people to consider you.

Do you have any tips that have increased your lead generation using white papers?

If you're interested in creating your own white paper or want some tips in writing a new one, see my post called Writing a White Paper? Read The Following Book in which I review Michael's book.


Chad H.

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Improve Your Email Copy, Improve Your Conversion Rate

If you're a typical online marketer, you're extremely busy, had way too much caffeine and have two many tasks that were due yesterday. When it comes to preparing an email to promote an upcoming event, all you can think about is the date of the event that is looming and your eager boss that has not seen the invite go out yet. Have you been here before?

When it comes to writing your email copy, you sometimes forget some of the key elements that will get you the conversion rates (event registrations) that you need to demonstrate for your established marketing metrics. John Murphy has written an excellent article called How to design your e-mail copy to maximize response. In this article he states:

The key to developing an effective e-mail campaign is to remember that everything about your e-mail copy should be focused on one objective – getting the recipient to click through to your landing page. Everything else, including branding, product details and awareness, is secondary.

This obviously depends on the nature of your email but this is typically a major objective for marketers. It's easy to forget this basic point when your pulling your copy together and your designer has created these cool pictures. Focus on conversions.

Besides some of the obvious tips such as keeping your email body text brief and keeping the subject line below 35 characters, I found it interesting that he recommends not using typical words like "unsubscribe" or "remove me" as part of your opt-out process. Words like these will typically be picked up anti-spam software. He suggests something like "If you don’t want to hear from us...”. This is an immediate take away and something I will experiment with.

For timing of B2B emails, he recommends sending them between 10-2 EST and weekends for B2B emails.

Julian Scott has added another great tip in his article "Fast and easy creative best practices for e-mail". He claims that while you should have a strong call to action in the preview pane, also have it at the end of a content section or at the bottom of your email. Email recipients will tend to not want to scroll back up to the top.

I hope you enjoyed these tips.

Chad H.

Tags: email marketing, DM news, online marketing, B2B marketers

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Email Delveriability Tips of the Day

If you're into testing and deliverability tips for your email marketing campaigns, here are two things that you can try right now:

• If you use one of those "Click here to view the email as a web page" in the top of your email, try removing it. In fact, remove all of that extra text in the email header. This should help your email recipients see your email message better. Remember to move up links and call to actions so they can be seen in the email preview pane.
  

• Copy and paste your email HTML into the following free tool: http://www.ezinecheck.com/check.html and see what kind of score it gets. You may need to adjust your copy slightly to reduce the risk of your email being tagged as spam.

Have fun and good luck!

Chad H

Tags: email marketing tips, email deliverability

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My Ask.com Search Engine Optimization Success

How can blogs affect marketing campaigns? Very easily actually. I wrote a blog post about a Nissan Sentra ad campaign called "7 Days in a Sentra" that I didn't think was all that great. My blog post was called 7 Days in a Crapbox (Nissan Sentra). I've actually received a tremendous amount of traffic from all of the major search engines except for Yahoo.


My biggest success so far has been from Ask.com. If you type in the name of the Nissan Campaign "7 days in a Nissan Sentra" my blog post appears first (see image)! I'm #4 if you search on "7 days in a sentra". You will also see a number of other blogs that come back in the search results.

Remember: Blogs do make a difference and are highly optimized for search engines so keep blogging and people will find you and listen!

Chad H.

Tags: SEO, search marketing, search engine optimization, 7 days in a nissan sentra, ask.com

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Screw ROI - Think LOI (Loyal Opt-Ins)

Someone signs up to receive your blog feed or email updates from you - what do you do? If you're answer is "nothing" or "We send them an email when the next campaign rolls around" then you should read this post.

Generate Loyal Opt-Ins or LOI

There is an article by Stefan Pollard on ClickZ called A Good First Impression Equals Stronger Opt-In Relationship in which he provides some easy tips on how to respond to those people who have signed up for updates from you. You can do any one of the following things (and some of my own):

• Send a special offer for new subscribers
  
• Send a request for additional contact information for a mail-in offer
• Ask for additional lead qualification questions - eg: age, sex, purchase time frame, annual revenue (depends on whether it's B2B or B2C).
  
• Links to the most recent newsletter, products, press releases, white papers, webcasts, events etc...
• Customer support information
• Instructions on how to add your email address to their protected list
• Information on what type of emails they can expect and when. You can also include ways for them to select the emails they want to receive
  
• Survey/Feedback forms soliciting data from them - For example: what interests you the most?

Here's the most important tip: Send this initial email out right away! Don't wait a few weeks. If someone has opt-ed in, show then value right away. Don't just think about ROI but also LOI (loyal opt-ins).

Bloggers Can Make New Subscribers Feel Special Too

Sending a quick follow up to opt-ins may seem easy for organizations to do this with their regular corporate websites but how can blogs take advantage of this? Many bloggers such as Darren Rowse and Yaro Starak allow you to sign up to receive email updates. Therefore you not only have the option to sign up for their RSS blog feed but you can get an email update as well. For those new subscribers, send them a quick follow up email with some of the tips I've outlined above. Obviously not all of these apply but even a quick "Thanks for subscribing, here are some of my better posts may really build your LOI.

For RSS subscribers, this is more difficult as it's tough to tell who the people are that have subscribed to you (unless you have more sophisticated tracking - hey, am I right here?). One thing that you can try is including a standard footer in your blog post that is directed to new subscribers. It could be something like the following:

New to Anything Goes Marketing? Thanks for subscribing! Have a look at the following posts that may interest you:

• How to Start a Business Blog or Corporate Blog
• Email Marketing 101: Tips and Best Practices
• Feed Icon Library: Add a funky feed icon to your blog
• How to lose traffic on your blog in 10 days: A good laugh if you want to tank your blog
  

If you're looking for some additional information, have a suggestion for a new post, looking for an interview or to do a podcast or would like to exchange some content, give me a shout at aquachad@gmail.com. I'm also available to do book reviews!

Try this out and see how it works. Let me know if it drives higher blog traffic. I'll let you know as well!

Until next time,

Chad H.

PS - my wife and I just bought a place in Toronto so we've been busy with that. We'll need to do some serious packing in the next few weeks and hence the lower number of posts.

Tags: email marketing, blogging, email opt-ins, LOI, problogger, yaro starak, ROI, clickZ

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Where do Your Email Newsletters go? Email Heaven?

Does your company have an email newsletter? If you do, then you've decided that your company has something to say and is committed to producing high quality content that is valuable to your customers and potential customers. Typically this content is great stuff and includes tips, industry news, offers and other useful bits of information. What typically happens to these email newsletters after you hit the "send" button? If you've answered "they float out to email heaven" then you need to read this post.

For Heavens Sake Don't Waste Your Great Content

Your marketing team has worked hard on your email newsletter. They've come up with great headlines, well crafted content and loyal readers. Why would you waste this content once you send out the email? All of that great content could actually drive people to your website and generate new leads as people will be searching for content contained within your newsletters. Newsletters are full of search friendly keywords that people search for on a daily basis. Your newsletters should not only be used as awareness tools to keep current customers informed as well as nurture potential prospects. They can also play a central role in your SEO (search engine optimization) plan (If you don't have an SEO plan, start here). Your newsletters should contain your targeted keywords that support your overall SEO goals. Are you uploading a PDF version of your newsletter to your site? Think again - PDFs are not search friendly.

Consider Combining Email Newsletters and Blogs = A Blogletter

How can you take your email newsletters to the next level to maximize their SEO effectiveness? Why combine it with your email newsletter with your blog of course! Blogs are highly optimized for search engines as they are updated frequently and built with well formatted code. Consider publishing your newsletter articles to a blog. Blogs also allow web visitors to leave comments which even furthers the lead generation component of your email newsletter. In the end you have created a Blogletter! I hope these tips help you and if you have implemented something like this, please let me know!

Chad H.

Related Posts:

• Linking blogs and newsletters together
• Linking blogs and newsletters together Part II (Lead Nurturing)
• Online Marketing is Being Dominated by Search Marketing. What is Your Strategy?

Tags: email marketing, lead generation, SEO, search engine optimization, e-mail newsletter, blogletter

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Writing a White Paper? Read The Following Book

Perhaps you're looking to position your business as the industry expert or convince C-level executives that you understand their business issues and can provide solutions they need. Whichever the case, creating a white paper will help your organization generate new leads and help close out sales. The next question is - How do I create a white paper? You may think it's quite easy but when you sit down and you're in front of your monitor with your Starbucks grande latte you realize that writing a white paper is a tremendous task.

Writing a White Paper - Where do I Start?

After reading Michael Stelzner's new book "Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged" I would highly recommend that you start with this book. Michael is one of the leading authorities on the topic of writing and marketing white papers and has written a simple easy to read book on the topic. Why should I have any idea on this subject? I provide advice to my clients on a daily basis on how to improve their online marketing tactics so I know a bit about white papers and lead generation. I also have a writing background with a Masters' in history (I know history! Thank goodness I went back to school in technology!).

Why "Writing White Papers"

Why did I like this book? Michael clearly lays out what the purpose of white papers are, what you should be trying to achieve, how to research your given topic, how to structure your white paper, what to avoid (really important!) and how to market your white paper once you have completed your masterpiece.

Some of the specific items that I liked were:

• Great tips such as interviewing subject matter experts for your white paper as well as some excellent marketing ideas such as strategies in displaying your white papers on your website. For example: Provide quotations on what people thought about your white paper.
  
• Excellent research resources at the end of the book
• Clearly laid out plan on how to write white papers. Michael even discusses the setting and frame of mind you want to be in when starting to write a white paper. All he needs to do is write the white paper for you (which I'm sure he would gladly do for a cost!)
  

While I found the book a bit repetitive, this was effective in reinforcing the key points of the book. Michael also recommended that when someone fills out a form to download a white paper, you should delay the sending of the white paper for 30 minutes. I'm not sure I would recommend that as typically web visitors expect things right away and may not want to wait around for this.
However, this is something that you may want to test out for yourself.

After reading this book (which only took me about 3 hours to plow through) I was even inspired to think about a white paper that would be specific to blogs. Michael believes that white papers really should be without humour and personality but blogs as we know are much different and are all about being informal. How about something called a "Blog Paper"? :)

Any other good books that you've read to help generate leads for your business? I wish you all the success at this!

Chad H.

Tags: Writing white papers, online marketing, lead generation, starbucks

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Microsites, Blogging and Business Blogshit

It's no wonder that a JupiterKagan study has reported that "promotional microsites will become more popular with larger advertisers during the next year." Microsites allow companies, especially large ones, to post content that doesn't have the same guidelines and red-tape that the main corporate websites have. This gives marketers the flexibility to focus on promoting a single product/service or product line while allowing for new features that may seem risky for the main website. It can also be combined with other marketing channels such as paid search and direct mail to name a few for a controlled integrated marketing approach.

Hypersites - Affordable Microsites that Increase the Hype

I was a bit surprised that only 30% of companies over $500 million in the past year use microsites according to this same study. I know that many of my own clients who are much much smaller (I know an association that uses one) use these for such things as product promotions, product launches, event promotions, email list builders (combined with direct mail), knowledge libraries and customer retention (customer surveys) to name a few off the top of my head. One of the main advantages of microsites that I see (we call them hyperistes) is the ability to personalize the experience using dynamic content substitution. Therefore based on a person's behaviour and/or attributes (eg: industry or product interest) different content is served up. While this is a great user experience that is customized on a 1 to 1 basis, it's still only one side of the conversation - the marketer telling the prospect about a new product or service.

Web 2.0 - Microsites on Crack

In terms of web 2.0, it was interesting that the study sees a "movement toward consumer-generated content" which it sees "will be an important component of microsites". This includes the use of blogs as well as other web 2.0 tools such as RSS, podcasts, video and more. The sky is the limit. This is the other half of the conversation which allows the user to have their own say and contribute to the conversation.

Business Blogshit Revealed

Blogs have a lot of potential but already we are seeing it being abused with fake blogs such as Wal-Mart's Wal-Marting Across America which was written by an "old couple" that were paid to spew happy praises about Walmart. What a bunch of crap. It was probably written by a couple of pro-bloggers or the Walmart marketing team. Marketers beware - if you're trying to establish a brand that people can trust, don't ruin it by lying to your existing or potential customers. We see right through it.

Remember: the Internet is a highway that goes both ways - your message can be spread out to the masses in a split second but the masses will also turn on you just as quickly if you try to dupe them. In addition, some of these blogs like the Wal-mart blog and the new Nissan Sentra blog don't even allow you to leave comments! So much for the "conversation" approach.

Lets hope that as we further adapt to the new tools of web 2.0 that we keep things real - the way that blogging was meant to be.

Chad H.

PS - I don't consider a blog a blog unless I can leave a comment. What do you think?
PPS - check out the comments for my post called 7 Days in a Crapbox (Nissan Sentra)
Who do you think really left that comment? :)

Tags: Nissan Sentra, Wal-Mart, corporate blogging, microsites, web 2.0.

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Email Marketing 101: Tips and Best Practices

If you're new to the world of email marketing then I have a few good resources for you!

Are you moving from a B2C company to B2B? For a basic overview of some of the differences between B2B and B2C email marketing, check out check out Tricia Robinson's article called "B2B vs. B2C Email Marketing".

Email Marketing Best Practices

Looking for some up to date best practices? DM News has published their "Essential Guide to Email Marketing". This is definitely worth a read as there are some great articles from industry experts regarding email design, copy, best practices and strategies. There's also a lot of fluff and advertising BS but its worth having a look at.

There were a few articles that stuck out for me:

• Key Elements of a Winning Opt-in Offer: Provides some good copy tips to entice prospects from providing you their email address. For example, if you're providing a free white paper, show the implied value "This Special Free Report is $19 value" and let them know how easy it is to just fill out a form and how fast they'll receive the information once they sign up.
• Writing Subject Lines that get Your Email Opened: Here are some great ideas for the copy of your subject line. For example - Make an announcement, make the intended receiver curious, create a sense of urgency or emphasize how the reader will benefit from your email.
• Reputation not Content Affects Whether Consumers Receive Your Email: This article explains how reputation (your IP address that you send emails from) affects your deliverability rates.
  

UPDATE: Here's another good article on BtoBOnline that provides some additional design and copy tips for B2B email marketing:

• Open rates increase when you have your corporate name in the subject line (on a side note it would be interesting to know if the "from address" contained the company name as well).
• Post card style (one large image and single offer) and varied-cell (uses different boxes of text area images) emails had higher clickthrough rates. From my own experience I've seen a fantastic postcard email that just had two words as a call to action. Open and clickthroughs were some of the best I've ever seen.
  
• 3 links in an email is optimal number of a high clickthrough rate and text links fared better then image links (makes sense with more images being blocked these days)
• The top offers were a price discount or a free gift (hey, free Ipods still seem to work!)
  

Update Nov 19, 2006: I've included some additional tips from the Silverpop study called "Email Creative that Works". Here are the key findings as they relate to B2B email marketing:

• Placing the call to action above the fold is crucial
  
• Text style links averaged 3% more clicks then images
• A person's name rather then a company or product produced better open rates
  

Update Nov 21, 2006: I found a great white paper by MailerMailer called "Email Marketing Metrics Report". It has email marketing benchmarks that include open and clickthrough rates across industries, advantages of personalization, HTML vs. Text emails and much more.
Hope you enjoy these!

Chad H.

Related Posts:

• "Email 2.0": Email Marketing is thriving
• Email marketing tip - break out your lists
• Writing for the Reader: Preview Pane and Blog Feeds
• "Email 2.0": Email Marketing is thriving

Tags: email marketing, e-mail marketing, DMNews, high clickthrough rate, email best practices, email benchmarks

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Winner of the One Million Blog Award

Anything Goes Marketing has been selected as a "Better Blog" according to One Million Blog. I'm not really sure what that means but I'm allowed to put this award logo on my blog and that's pretty cool. Yay me!

Chad H.

Tags: blog awards, one million blog

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Simplify Your Landing Page, Increase Your Conversions

It's really tempting to dump all sorts of tidbits of info on your landing pages to try to convince web visitors to fill out your web forms. However, I test by MarketingExperiments.com demonstrated that a more simplified landing page had a better success rate in their article on ImediaConnection called: Use Single-Column Format and Up Revenue. Not convinced? Check out the stats:



What about blogs? Do you think they have too much garbage content besides the main blog posts? This content is obviously there for a different purpose but does it really add to the blog?

Chad H.

Here are some related posts:

• Why B2B websites fail
• Sealing the Deal: Your Landing Page

Tags: marketingexperiments.com, lead conversion methods, Imedia Connection

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B2B Case Study: Integrated Marketing Works for Revivio

Trying to justify the costs of an expensive integrated marketing campaign in which you use multiple marketing channels to generate leads? Check out this article on BtoBOnline called: Revivio uses integrated e-mail campaign to boost lead generation.

Revivio sent multiple emails with the call to action being a sales meeting and the chance to receive a free stereo. Muliple emails that reinforced each other were backed up by direct mail and telephone calls. The campaign had a 60% response rate and most of it came from email because supposedly they "were short, concise and punchy" (according to Revivio). They used a combination of in-house and purchased lists. Revivio also concluded that they're work in establishing their brand through online and offline ads (eg: Forbes.com), paid search and newsletters aided the success of this campaign. The other interesting item is that the free stereo wasn't the winner - it was the persistent marketing effort from all different angles that typically won the prospect over.

Conclusion: Don't use a single marketing channel for a campaign - think integrated marketing and see better results.

Chad H.

PS - Hey Revivio - if you see this, I'll take a free stereo (Let's see how well Google works!).
PPS - While were at it Revivio (assuming that you happen on my wee little blog), why not add a blog to your marketing mix?

Tags: btobonline, revivio, integrated marketing, b2b marketing, btob marketing

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7 Days in a Crapbox (Nissan Sentra)

After I blogged about a great campaign to advertise the Honda Element, I saw another car campaign by Nissan that had a good idea but will probably fail miserably. It's called "7 Days in a Sentra" and the idea is that comedian Marc Horowitz will actually be living in this Sentra for 7 days under some really strict rules. They have a film crew that is filming his day to day activities of what real life is all about living in a Sentra. What a load of crap!

7 Days of BS

There are a few things that I didn't like about this campaign:

• They're trying too hard - Reality TV should have some resemblance of being real. This had none of that. It was pure fake drivel. If you're trying to go the route of "keeping things real" then it should actually be real. His date, card game and other adventures were all staged.
  
• They spent too much $$ - I think this will be a big waste of 40-50 million dollars.
• It wasn't even funny! - I saw the video and didn't laugh and I am the target audience!
  
• Live like a homeless person - Is it just me or does it seem like a commercial depicting the life of a homeless person with a car? This is not the kind of car that I would want or life I would strive for. What was the point of this campaign? To be funny!? See my last point.
  
• 7 Days in a Crapbox - I didn't really think much of this car before I saw the commercial and didn't think much of it after I saw the commercial. Still seems like a small crapbox.
  

This is also supposed to be an integrated marketing campaign but we'll see how long it lasts before Nissan gets smart and pulls it. For example, I would have recommended creating a campaign site rather then just advertising on the main Nissan website and would have created an easier way to send the video to a friend. All they've done is placed a "mailto" link on the page with detailed instructions on how to send this to friends. This is basically saying we want to spend the least amount of money possible as we're already way too much on a crappy campaign. Well, good luck Nissan!

What do you think?

Chad H.

Tags: integrated marketing campaign, Nissan Sentra

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How to Improve Paid Search for B2B Lead Generation

Do you feel like you're wasting your marketing dollars on paid search and not getting the ROI you were expecting? Are people not hitting "Contact Sales" once they get to your site from a search ad? What do you do?

Here's a great article by Chris Marriott over at iMedia Connection called: 3 Steps to Email Marketing with Search. It basically explains that when people are at the beginning of the sales cycle, they're just looking for information so provide people a way to sign up for your newsletter or a link to a whitepaper. Don't expect them to sign up for a free consultation. The main purpose of paid search is to get the basic info and to get opt-in so that you can market to them in the future and find out if your company and the prospect are a good fit. As Chris says, don't use this as an "opportunity to propose marriage to prospective customers". Start small and build your way up.

Chad H.

PS: Here are some other useful posts on search marketing:

• Online Marketing is Being Dominated by Search Marketing. What is Your Strategy?
• If you're driving paid ads to blogs (interesting idea): Using Blogs as a Lead Generation Tool
• Sealing the Deal: Your Landing Page
• Why B2B websites fail

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Top 10 List on the Positives of Corporate Blogging:

In a recent article, I read that executives still aren't getting the concept of corporate blogging which I think is BS. One of the questions that I keep hearing is: How do I drive more traffic to my website and keep them there? One way is to give out free IPods but this doesn't work anymore becuase everyone already and their dog has an IPod (PS - a future bloggy post will depict the sorry state of our nations hearing). Ok - so, how do you get more people to your site? Blogs of course silly rabbit! Why blogs? Good question.

Here is my top 10 list on the fly of some of the positives of corporate blogging:

1. It gives a CEO something to do when they're stuck in an airport
2. It gives your customers' and prospects' CEOs something to read when they're stuck in an airport. If they get really inspired (which they may), you may even see a few comments from them on your blog. I recommend making comments about people's moms - that really breaks the ice.
3. Employees know that their CEO is not just drinking cocktails in the business lounge when they're stuck in an airport.
4. It allows you to post content about your company that doesn't make a lot of sense but contains many links and keywords that will drive traffic to your site.
5. It makes the CEO look a lot smarter then they actually may be as they can post the odd insightful comment (depending on how long the airport delay is).
6. It gives marketers something (else) to do and can make them look really good.
7. It's cheaper then Google AdWords. I think we all have given enough to Google!
8. It's fun and different! It heightens the online experience for boring company websites. Instead of seeing these same top level web nav. buttons for B2B sites: about us, products, case studies, customers, resource, and contact us pages, you can put a real voice behind your company. Mix in podcasts and video blogs and you've got yourself a multi-media party! You can show everyone that you are different from your competition and that being stuck in an airport can be the greatest thing ever!
9. Show me the $$$$!! Lets face it, it all comes down to the bling bling, ching ching. Blogs lead to further awareness about your company, which leads to people hitting your site, opting in to either email or RSS updates and eventually becoming your customer. You need to get into a conversation with them and blogging can help you get things started as it provides an interactive medium.
10. I almost forgot this one. Besides the CEO, blogs give the Joe Schmo in your organization a voice as well. Jimmy in Development and Tammy in Support can be given the chance to either blog on the corporate blog, get their own corporate blog (Microsoft does this), or leave comments on other people's blogs. Are you sick of only reading articles about what a VP has to say? I know I am. Blogs let the rest of us "take back the night". Hey, if you don't let the little people blog on the corpoarte site, we're going to find a way to do it ourselves. With a corporate blog, you can moderate it and put some policies around it. It also allows companies to keep their ears to the ground so that they can listen to what their employees have to say as well as their customers (the actual users and not just the people that sign the cheques).
    

Until next time,

Chad H.

Technorati tags: corporate blogging, business blogging, bloggy post,IPod, airport

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Blogtipping for October on Anything Goes

Here are my blogs that I want to give a shout out to for October as part of Easton's Blogtipping:

• Realty Blogging - Besides being a great resource for real estate agents, this provides some great tips for bloggers and all marketers. I like the design and layout as well as the pictures of the bloggers - this adds a personal touch. Keep up the great work!
• Creating Passionate Users - Great content and ideas. I work with users of our product daily and found some great tips - thanks! I also like the use of images within the posts. These made the posts more approachable. I didn't like the "Scoble" image at the top left of the blog. Some people may not know what this is and this is a waste of space. I also thought that their is a lot of wasted space at the top center of the blog.
• The Australian Small Business Blog - Another good blog to help small business owners in Australia. I liked the content and simplicity of this blog. Perhaps use more bolding and bullets to break up the content in your posts! Hopefully you'll start to attract more readers.

That's it for now!

Chad

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Using Blogs as a Lead Generation Tool

Business blogs have many different objectives. They can be used to allow a company CEO communicate directly and more personally to the masses, demonstrate industry expertise, promote product/service launches etc... etc... This post focuses on using blogs for lead generation. As a disclaimer, my blog's purpose is NOT for lead generation. If it was, it would be a HUGE failure. :) It's purpose is to educate both myself and everyone else who is interested in the topics I write about.

By lead generation I mean very simply: "generating new prospects that will buy your products or services". How can you use your blogs for this purpose? The obvious way to do this is to create great content that your potential readers will read as well as ensuring that you promote your blog so that those potential readers will find it and possible subscribe to it or read it on a regular basis. This is all obvious stuff that many people have written about. The question is: "How do you translate your regular readers into real leads?"

Engage Your Blog Visitors

What does this mean? Blogs provide you with the unique opportunity to not only see what people may be visiting your blog but also to see what comments they may have left as well as potentially read posts that may have been written about your blog on on other blogs.

How do you engage your blog visitors? If potential prospects leave you comments or provide feedback on your blog, don't just respond by saying "Thanks for your comment!" or even worse, not responding at all. Engage you blog reader and by asking them well thought out questions. Don't just say "If you have any additional questions, please let me know". Try and find out why they were interested in your blog post and what problems they may be experiencing that led to them landing on your blog.

This requires you to do some work. If you have a good web analytics tool, you should be able to find out which search query they used to get on your site or which website they came from. If they left their company name, do some research on the company and find out what is going on with that company. This is extremely powerful information that you can use to start up a real conversation. Here are some possible responses to blog comments when you're attempting to foster lead generation:

• You can say something like "I'm glad that you liked my post, it seems that you're interested in the following.... Here is some additional information that you may find useful (point the person to a whitepaper, archived webinar etc...)."
  

• You can also ask engaging questions that will encourage additional comments "You mentioned X, but have you considered Y?" or "What issues are you facing that would have led you to that conclusion?" or "Thanks for mentioning that you liked my post, is there something that you particularly liked that stroke a cord with what you are facing?"
  
  
• If they have a blog, consider going to their blog and leaving a comment.
  
  
• Ask them if they would like to write a post on a problem they may be experiencing
  
  
• After you have done your research, you may determine that this may be somebody worth meeting in person. If they're in your area, perhaps ask them if they would like to do lunch. This may be something to do after you've established more of a relationship. In addition, you may be attending an upcoming conference (this should be advertised on your blog). Ask them if they are attending this conference or if someone from their company is and request an informal meeting or a "see ya at my booth".
  
  
• Help them get in touch with the right people. We all know it's about "who you know". If you are someone with contacts in the field they're in, help this person out by suggesting they get in touch with so and so.
  

The other thing that you can do is engage your subscribers. Perhaps fire out an email to those people that have signed up for email updates and ask them straight up "Why are you reading my blog?" "What problems are you facing that you need help with?" "Are you facing the following problems....". One solution in particular that I know of allows you to understand exactly what pages your prospects have visited which will help you craft your messages. This helps when crafting these messages. Also look at the search query that led to them landing on your blog as recommended above.

What is the end result? If your goal is lead generation then these tips should get you there. At the least your readers will respect you for responding to them and engaging them. This further demonstrates your expertise and should lead to loyal blog readers (again, I wouldn't know). Remember - don't spam your readers - be respectful.

Do you have any additional ideas for using blogs as lead generation tools?

Chad H.

Tags: lead generation, corporate blog, business blogging, lead generation tools

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Honda Gets its Elements in Order With Fun Game

Here's an award winning integrated campaign by Honda to promote it's sporty Element. It combined, TV spots, search marketing and even YouTube videos!! The agency that designed the campaign ended up winning an award which isn't too surprising.

Why is this campaign so good?

• It's a great product. Start off with a great product and you're off to a good start

• It's fun. It's game that allows you to test drive the car above ground and below. This represents the car as it seems like a fun car.
  
  
• It's funny! You're interacting with rabbits and other animals. At one point the car tells a rabbit that its feet are huge and that it must get great traction. The Element that informs the rabbit that it has 4 wheel drive.
  
  
• It hits its target market. I think I'm part of this market as I've noticed this car and may consider it if/when we purchase a new vehicle.
  
  
• Its integrated. a. you have TV commercials that kicked this off. b. you have a website that directly relates to the commercial. How do I know this? Check out the META tag description the campaign site: <meta name="description" content="So you like that funny Honda Element TV commercial, huh? Well, then, come play a game or two with the Element and friends on an adventure-filled island. The Element is definitely a different animal.">. c. you have a site that's finely tuned for search (try searching Honda Element TV commercial) d. It's even advertised on frickin' Wikipedia and Youtube. They've got the bases covered.
  

Here's the YouTube video:



The only thing they may have missed was including a link from the main Element profile page on the Honda site (Duh??). That happens sometimes when the left hand can't speak to the right.

Have a great weekend!

Chad H.

PS - If your recall, Honda has done some other great commercials - remember the Cog Commercial?
PPS - What if Honda had included a blog for this camaign so we could keep the buzz going about this great car and great campaign?? Blogging still has a ways to go before it breaks into B2C full force.

Tags: Honda Element, online marketing, integrated marketing, youtube, B2C marketing

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