Marketers talking to CEO’s about brand awareness, search ranking and keywords hardly help, and end up as unable to break ice. Bang clear on target, and let him know and understand, if money isn’t spent here, there will be lesser products to sell and sales will eventually drop. Explain how search marketing brings in revenue at low costs, and how what you are doing will coincide with the growth of his business prospects. CEO’s are least interested in any kind of jingo, apart from the money if this can make. They need to see that searches are able to increase share holder value and help them make money.

Marketers having a direct marketing background effectively understand the relationship with sales. Search marketers will do better and help people understand and admit that the Web is the biggest direct-marketing opportunity of all time, where every move is traceable and constantly measured so that they can be improvised and optimized. This is e-commerce, you know the value of every new visitor, the conversion rates and revisit.

Most companies look at marketing as printing a brochure or going for a trade show. Make sure to help them understand that the virtual world has a concrete and a solid base, and you can look on how every person interacts on your web-site. Furthermore, make them see where they went next and how they bought from you. Let them have a direct view of this virtual exercise, and you have a perfect tool to justify every cent of the proposed marketing expenditure plan.

What every executive really wants to see is sales, leads and leads expecting to close. He is hoping to catch on the projected revenue targets at any costs, and any talk on brand awareness, positive sentiment, site traffic or ranking on search results will only put him off. If marketers can focus on relating touches that they have made to customers and sales will be the only way to persuade people to allocate funds. Set the map right so they are able to see clearly which route is more economical and valuable as well. After all, your budget level also requires sensible justification.

Web metrics systems, like the free Google Analytics to the expensive ones that help you understand the need to be passionately made use of. Search Marketing would come to be more useful if it were, eighty percent marketing and twenty percent search. If you don’t understand the marketing basis in SEM, it would be very difficult for you to show how effective your campaign would be.

The first successful communication on the internet was implemented on 25 December 1990. In 1992 internet access was made available to the common public and its use exploded. Until recently, websites were a great advertising platform. However, with the introducing of the first social networking site in 1995, and its widespread use today, websites have started to become invisible on the internet.

If you come up with a new website on the internet, then you would probably have to spend a lot of your time and resources to bring your website on the first page of the goggle search engine. However, a simpler way to let people know about your website or your company is through social media.

Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace.com, Twitter, LinkedIn.com, etc. are very popular and so are great sources of promoting your website and products.

Gone are the days of “have a website and advertise”

Today, it is too costly to be noticed on an internet that is already full. Social media is the only way for new websites to get traction. If Darren Rowse, the guy behind ProBlogger, or Brian Clark, the guy who founded Copyblogger, talks about your website, then it’s visible. If your website comes up on the front page of Digg, then it’s visible. Once your website starts getting incoming links and lots of regular traffic, then you can use traditional SEO practices for staying visible.

Some of the companies that benefited from social media are:

Rubbermaid: A survey conducted by BazaarVoice reported that when the company Rubbermaid added customer reviews to their website, their sales increased and returns of their products decreased.

Fog Creek software: This company has achieved great success with no advertising because its founder has built an amazingly popular blog about writing software.

Nike: This company allowed customers to build and order custom shoes on their website. This move was a great hit with people and generated a lot of profit for Nike.

Will social media survive in the long run? Not sure. But today and for the near future, you can’t do without it. You have to jump in even if you do not fully understand it, or you will go the way of print media.

Three European web sites alleged Google of anti-competitive behavior and said that, the Internet search giant was unfairly steering traffic away from them.  The three sites: Foundem, a British retail price comparison site; ejustice.fr, a French legal search engine; and Ciao from Bing, a Microsoft-owned shopping site that operates in Europe, alleges the search engine magnate, Google, of deceitful conduct.

The lines sound interesting and surely demand a pondering. Let us try to uncover the story, where lies the problem, why is the giant being probed?

Google AdWords, PPC, Bidding rates and Click Through activity…

All of us are aware of Google AdWords, it is the PPC Advertising service offered by Google, through which it displays click-able links from advertisers, in exchange for a charge per click.

PPC requires the advertiser to bid on key words in order to buy a top position in the search engine results for a particular keyword. Google determines the placement of the ad based on the bidding price and the ad’s click-through activity. The advertiser pays for each click made by a search engine user, through which advertisers’ web page gets a reckoning and is ranked accordingly.

Google AdWords is a powerful advertisement arena, by Google through which it is managing PPC sites. The problem is that, Google is being unfair by promoting its own products on every page it springs out. Google is indexing itself first amongst the PPC sites, whenever any keyword is searched for, here is the catch. Even if the keyword is not related to Google AdWords or Google Maps or some other Google product, Google is systematically favoring its own products, and indexing it foremost on most of the pages delivered by the search engine, irrespective of the keyword.

The service protocol of PPC, assures the advertisers, that their web sites will be delivered to the audience targeting the keywords, and the advertisers have to compete with their adversaries for the ranking through bidding and click through activity.

Let’s view this in affect:

If someone in US wishes to search for ‘SEO Service’, then the resulting page which Google shoots forward is like this:

We all know that “Google.com/AdWords”, is not a SEO Service provider…

What’s fraudulent here…?

No doubt, Google is unfairly steering away the traffic, by ranking the other sites lower to its own site, thus decreasing the click through activity and increasing the bidding rates. Moreover, it is violating its own protocol of delivering the clients’ link to a visitor, appropriate to the keyword being searched, by posing itself as a competitor to most client sites, irrespective of the keyword.

Let’s wait and watch the ramifications…

So now, when the titan is undergoing antitrust scrutiny by U.S. regulators, and is facing the music, let us see how it handles the ramifications of the allegations it has been alleged with.

You got it right, Yahoo has struck a twitter deal. These two have decided to face the Buzz challenge by coming together. Yahoo and Twitter have come to an agreement to share data between their properties. Hope this is no knee jerk reaction to the Google Buzz. This was hardly called for, as Bing is about to take the data aspect for Yahoo, and, which will very likely include the Twitter data as well. Moreover, Yahoo’s front end elements already include Twitter integration including Flickr. How far will it work? This is a million dollar question?

Even if this is all the rest against Google, it would in no way be an easy proposition. Buzz, although is new, has a very strong backing of Gmail, which just cannot be ignored. With a solid Gmail presence on the internet, it is unlikely that no matter how you set the table, Buzz will only get to be a very strong word.

Why read, when you can witness? Last year surely has been the year for video marketing. What with more You Tube views than Google’s searches, video marketing is a more lucrative assignment. Finding ways and means to ensure that your video will not be lost in the crowd is what SEO would now be looking for. You do not expect to put together a video and hope it would generate business for you. You sure can add on a welcome video, a virtual tour, or a helpful tutorial video to your website, and use this as a riveting factor to compliment your content and your attractive web design. Expecting your videos to open up vistas all by themselves will require some innovative, creative and fresh approaches, which will now have to be accepted as a new challenge.

How You Make the Most from Your Video Presentation

There are some things to be kept in mind, and, which will come helpful for optimizing your video content to its’ full potential online. You can always be the first, and that definitely amounts to a very good start. Your competitors may just like to follow.

• Embed your videos and share – You will definitely benefit by sharing your videos with an embeddable feature. Whether you are having viral videos, trailers, or informative video clips, embedded videos is an advanced feature, and will come useful in time.
• Make sure to use the best format – There are a number of video formats available for you to choose from.  You can have FLV, MP4, AVI, and others if you want; but, make sure to use the most popular, as this will help you make it easier while editing and viewing.
• Make use of all available accurate tracking tools – What use are these videos if you cannot find out how they help you? Moreover, how would you be able to effectively optimize without understanding an angle that needs to improve upon? You would only be able to better your access and progress by measuring your performance and the impact each video can  create on your online presence.
• Video SEO will come useful – Your video is 53 times more likely to appear on the first page of a search result in comparison to your text pages. Make sure to utilize tags and keywords because these help you make your videos all the more visible.
• Consistency eventually pays – If you are planning on integrating plenty of videos onto your website, see that when put together, they are able to give a very reliable image. Never confuse the visitors or promise them a moon that is not there.

Multi-media content will enhance your capacity to make some deep impact. As it is, we have been using images since a long time to assist our textual content make more sense, so also videos can integrate into design and generate a better sense if and when properly applied.

• Seek Professional Help

If you really want to make any difference in your landing page conversions, we would need the help of professional experts. Go for specialists contributing to their dedicated area of expertise in order to maximize your landing page exposure, experience and off course conversions.

• Hire an SEM for SEO and PPC.
• A social expert for SMM.
• An expert web copy writer for web writing.
• A proven web page designer for landing page design.
• An experienced designer for additional conversion tips & tricks.
• A qualified web tester to monitor testing

• Choose the Best Possible Content & Design

Check your contents including design from all angles. The copy, size, colors, the placement of buttons, the functionality of your page, headlines must all be effectively managed. Check the copy for length, grammar and formality; images for type, size, color, variations and placement. Visual click heat-maps are great to gain an understanding of paths of interest, and to effectively make changes in layouts and design. Just make sure to give yourself the best possible content and design in order to optimize your own conversion rate.

• Compare Pricing Structures

Make it easy for comparison shoppers. Keep abreast with periodical reviews and check pricing on products and services. You need not be the cheapest to sell. You only need to be the most informative, authoritative and should have maintained a good reputation of delivery and performance. Goodwill is an asset no business can do without. Pass on these positive reviews to R&D. Conversion optimization is a combined process, where all units perform equally well.

• Keep Mandatory Completion Elements at Minimum

If the conversion page includes a form keep the mandatory completion elements at the minimum. Include as much of auto fill wherever possible and make this as easy as you can. Encourage click to subscribe with enticing content, offers and future discounts. Focus on the core objective should no way be lost.

• Target Your Landing Pages

Each target market demographic is distinctly different in many ways. Younger, or older; employed, or unemployed, or retired; attentive or inattentive, busy or bored, and all relevant parameters must be properly evaluated and effectively targeted.

• Pre-test Your Landing Page for Being Effective

Usability is all about how fast the essence and functionality of a page are communicated and how quick and effective this is in engaging. Test this on folks and find out. Just give them 6-8 seconds at the most to tell you what they think this page –

• is about
• if they liked it
• if they felt like leaving
• what stands out
• if they would like to bookmark it.

This will give you a fairly good idea of where exactly you stand.

• Learn & Run With Competition

Although online and offline competitors are different, keeping track of what both engage in will come very useful. You would be also wiser to learn from their experiences as well, so that you can save on both, your money and your time. Take their learning’s and make sure to run with them at the same time.

• Finish With an Attractive “Add to Cart” button

Color has a deeper impact most often than even the size and shape. Your ‘add to cart’ button has a lot to say than just that. Make sure that the shade of the color, shape and size are not only compatible with your business it should also be elegant and most effectively designed.

You are now perfectly placed. So get going – what are you waiting for. There is no one, no one can stop you now.

Make friends with cynicism…

Negatives matter more than on-face approval..

If you have won over your harshest critics, the market is almost yours to be had…

I am not asking you to be defensive against criticism, but rather be extra rational and detail-oriented when responding in a social setup. A genuine and fact-based response will shape the market perception in favor of your brand….

• Positive shock absorption is needed

• Negative feedbacks are more important

• CONSTRUCTION out of chaos

• Absorb the criticism with dignity

• Continue the conversation – Don’t let it be open ended

• The most die-hard fans can be ‘once upon a time critique’

• Its good to have a consistent critique than a neutral \ favorable one-timer

• Critiques should be viewed as assets rather than thorn in the flesh

• Internet Buzz is directly proportional to the number of critiques

• If you have evangelized your critiques, you are on your way to glory.

Be on the lookout for Part 4 of “Creating Brand Ambassadors”

Conversation & Contribution….The 2 Pillars of Internet advertising…which is ignored most often than not. Like SEO, C & C is not only a long-term strategy but the ROI is exponential in most cases – if done in right and consistent manner..

[A] Conversation & not promotion is vital

• Information & promotional overload on the net

• Avoid being in this bracket

• The promoter tag is disastrous for your product \ service

• Initiate & augment the conversation

• Be the facilitator

• You should be good at conflict resolution

• Customers follow conversation not sales pitch

[B] Network contribution

• Contribution has no alternative

• Knowledge sharing is the life line of networks

• Contribution generates interest – and in turn collaboration – personal or professional

• Be unbiased in your opinions & not opinionated

Part 3 of Brand Ambassadors coming in the next post..