Description
Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling the product or service. It is a critical business function for attracting customers.
Marketing Services
Eight Steps to Optimizing
Integrated Campaign Marketing
Best Practices
By Jim McBurney and Ford Kanzler
Strategic-Reports.com
[email protected] (408) 733-9479
GlobalFluency, Inc.
[email protected] (650) 328-5555
A Best Practices Guide to Strategic Website Optimization™
March 2008
Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................3 First Create a Written Plan and Map your Marketing Processes ........................4 Step 1 – Start the Strategic Website Optimization™ Process.......................4 Step 2 – Build an “Integrated Marketing Campaign” (IMC) Organization ..5 Step 3 – Define AND Execute a Front-end Strategic Plan ...........................6 Step 4 and 5 – Creatively/Technically Balance Your Online Plan ...............7 Step 6 – Balance/Integrate On/Offline Plans and Map Touch Points.........10 Then Execute Decisively and Fine Tune ...........................................................10 Step 7 – Use “Marketing Operations” as the Hub for Strategic Website Optimization™ ..............................................................................................10 Step 8 – Fine Tune and Continue the Process using 6? Tools ....................11 Who can Benefit from the Strategic Website Optimization™ Process?...........11 A “Fresh Set of Eyes” Can Often Pay Big Dividends.......................................12 About the Authors..............................................................................................13 About Global Fluency, Inc. .........................................................................13 About Strategic-Reports.com ......................................................................13
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Introduction
This Best Practices Guide is a companion to our white paper –The Benefits of Implementing a Strategic Website Optimization™ Business Process, which we recommend you, read first. This Guide is not intended to be a detailed process implementation manual but rather more as an index for you to edit to remove inapplicable topics, and in this way start developing your own custom SWO plan. This Guide can help astute marketers implement a proven, project management based, business process management [BPM] approach to Website ROI optimization. Following this process can help avoid suboptimizing Website projects and ensure that the offline/online, sales/marketing and creative/technical/IT strategies are investment-balanced, with a consistent product and corporate communications strategy. The authors and their expert-teams are also available to help you if needed. We offer help anywhere between the following two extremes: 1) High level marketing organization and business process reviews that would provide you with a “fresh set of eyes and fresh ideas” for your existing processes and 2) nuts and bolts marketing planning and execution. Our objective is to help all clients develop and internalize 6? methods to constantly improve Website ROI. We do this using our Strategic Website Optimization™ best practices. We suggest you “do-it-yourself” as much as you want to, and use expert outsourced skills as much as make sense. Figure 1 – The Strategic Website Optimization™ Process Organize ? Plan ? Implement ? Fine Tune
1- Start Process
2 - Design an "Integrated Marketing Campaign" Organization
Cross-functional Multi-disciplinary Project Team Break down department and agency silos Define department "site index" ownership Plan and Implement Skills Matrix
8 - Fine Tune
ROI based rebudgeting Product Road Map Inputs Web analytics / research Manage marketing campaigns
3 - Strategic Planning - (7 Questions)
Strategic Website Optimization™ (SWO) Align Online / Offline Strategic Plans Deconstruct multiple businesses Competitive Web Site Analysis Define demographic & behavioral targets Differentiated positioning by business Inventory primary/secondary KSPs by product Define desired clickstream by product/service
7 - Marketing Operations
Map all on/offline interfaces On/Off line content consistency Intelligent Market Engagement™ Intelligent Customer Engagement™
Product & Corporate Messaging consistency
6 - Offline Marketing Plans 5 - Technical Online Marketing Plan
y y y y y y y y y y y y y y Search Engine Marketing SEM Search Engine Optimization E-mail (Database) Marketing Relationship Marketing Affiliate Marketing Customer reference Marketing Business Units Market Research execution Render site in HTML PHP XML Web Services programming SOA BPM/ECM software integration Dashboard rendering CRM back-end integration/management Social media marketing (Web 2.0) media
4 - Creative Online Marketing Planning
y y y y y y y y y y y y y y Storyboard landing pages by product Map out desired clickstream/links Align look and feel with offline branding Best practices for interactive design Landing pages human factors design Content creation for Web 1.0/2.0 media Storyboard entire site & Dashboards Render site from storyboard Art direction, copywriting for all media Video production if necessary Insure creative continuity with back links Email copywriting, Web 2.0 creative Online research study design 3 Internal/External communications
Balance
First Create a Written Plan and Map your Marketing Processes
Step 1 – Start the Strategic Website Optimization™ Process
1) Go through this list and check items you want to include in your own custom SWO process. a) Either review this outline online deleting sections that don’t apply to you b) Or print it out and mark up the process steps with a highlighter. c) Regardless of how you do it we want you to determine what pieces makes sense for you i) In light of executive expectations of results, your size of business and budget. ii) Larger Websites will have a more detailed SWO process and organization than smaller ones. 2) Starting the Strategic Website Optimization™ (SWO) process [See also Figure 1 Step #1] a) Prepare a written plan and circulate it to executives to gain agreement and budget. i) The plan should use the “Integrated Marketing Campaign” [IMC] organization model. ii) The plan should diagram the business process flow(s) to [graphically] to show how your Website marketing plans as the “hub” of your total on/offline marketing/sales planning. b) Most importantly the process diagrams and plan copy should show and discuss: i) The impact of any shifts from offline to online marketing for your company/industry. ii) The importance of achieving consistent messaging for both on/offline marketing. iii) How online and offline marketing plans interact with one another [with touch points]. iv) How “marketing operations” does/will manage the ongoing process of ROI optimization using consistent six-sigma [6?] tools and an incremental improvement philosophy. v) How to balance all on/offline, creative/technical and marketing/sales variables. 3) Your plan should align your SWO business process with your IT systems [as makes sense]. i) Define and manage the Strategic Website Optimization™ process in your IT software systems [ERP/CRM/BPM/ECM/SRP] as appropriate. ii) HRMS - Use your HRMS systems for links in the “Careers” Section of your Site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HRMS iii) ERP – Integrate any SWO processes with your ERP systems as required http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning iv) CRM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management (1) Make sure the customer/prospect “registrations” feed directly into your company’s Customer Resource Management [CRM] database software and email process notification and enforcement applications software systems for sales follow-up. v) BPM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPMS vi) ECM Ideally integrates your BPM and Compliance software with the SWO business http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Content_Management vii) Integrate ECM/BPM www.strategic-reports.com/IBM/Guide viii) BI – Make sure the finance department is engaged and providing you with meaningful BI metrics or develop new ones with the business analysts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Intelligence ix) Integrate BPM/Compliance software: (1) Insure your e-mail marketing complies with CAN-SPAM act of 2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM (2) Insure your Web analytics research complies with privacy regulations 4) Choose the right set of campaign automation, management and analytics software tools a) Eloqua Express - http://www.eloqua.com/products/Eloqua_Express_-_Email_Marketing.html i) This product can help connecting the dots with disparate point marketing solutions. ii) Eloqua ExpressTM is an integrated email marketing and marketing campaign analytics solution that allows you to plan, execute, and evaluate targeted interactive marketing campaigns. b) Vtrenz - http://www.vtrenz.com/index.cfm i) Vtrenz claims to automate lead generation and ICM to enable clients to plan, execute, automate and analyze integrated marketing campaigns including email, direct mail, landing pages, web forms and more. Using Vtrenz you can: (1) Automate lead generation with marketing campaigns across multiple marketing channels – email, direct mail, form and landing pages (2) Identify prospects ready to buy with automatic lead scoring 4
(3) Route sales-ready leads to your sales team via your CRM system to quickly close sales (4) Grow the value of your existing customers with ongoing marketing campaigns (5) Analyze marketing campaign ROI (6) Repeat marketing campaigns that generate the most revenue c) Market2Lead - http://www.market2lead.com/solutions/ents-campaignautomation.html i) This is an innovative rules based software package that delivers marketing materials [“touches the prospect”] based on rule and click stream behavior. ii) When the need arises to make a change in the campaign flow, Marketers easily change the track sequence by altering a simple numerical value associated with each tactical program. The tactical offers will be rearranged in the new ascending order. d) I Make News - [IMN] - http://www.imakenews.com/imn_site/index.htm i) IMN's solutions claim to be based on patent pending technology that harnesses the power of content to drive sales opportunities and hard ROI business results in B2C and B2B markets. ii) The patent-pending e-communications platform combines content management, publishing/layout and the full array of digital marketing delivery capabilities – email, enewsletters, mini-sites, blogs, mobile and RSS – enabling marketers to keep audience's attention and know when to sell them.
Step 2 – Build an “Integrated Marketing Campaign” (IMC) Organization
5) Strive for an “Integrated Marketing Campaign” [IMC] organization [Also see Figure 1 – Step #2]. a) Benefits of using an “Integrated campaign marketing” organization: i) Balance technical and creative skills of online and offline marketing ii) Balance sales and marketing skills for online and offline marketing iii) Balance business manager and IT manager skills to optimize IT/business systems alignment as part of the Strategic Website Optimization™ (SWO) process. iv) A great Webinar for applying IMC to direct marketing titled 25 Secrets to Achieving Soaring ROIs for your Integrated Marketing Campaigns can be found at http://www.presentationselect.com/ama/register.asp v) A related topic sharing the same acronym is Integrated Marketing Communications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Marketing_Communications b) Foster creativity and help on/offline campaigns to be consistent, innovative and synergistic. i) Align in-house departments and outside agencies to optimize internal/external strategic content and messaging. (1) Breakdown all marketing department/agency silos and communications barriers. ii) Help the look and feel to the brand to be strategically consistent both offline and online. iii) Help the product and corporate messaging should be consistent both offline and online. c) The Nike "Whatever" campaign was not only consistent [between online and offline], it was groundbreaking--so groundbreaking that major TV networks almost refused to run it: i) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BDW/is_23_41/ai_62918979 d) Use a cross-functional project team [matrix] “integrated marketing campaign” organization i) Select and empower [with budget] senior level Project Manager, or Program Manager who can operate well in a cross-functional environment to: (1) In large companies, the Project Manager will insure involvement and accountability all internal departments and outside agencies in the planning process (2) In smaller companies, the person responsible for marketing usually takes the lead (3) Whether large or small the idea is to break down department and agency communication boundaries [silos] and to encourage everyone to collaborate, participate and fine tune the Website as a single team dedicated to optimizing ROI. e) Designing the Matrix [project ] organization i) Orchestrate the multi-disciplinary skills needed to insure optimum Website ROI (1) Functional and cross-functional (2) Internal and external ii) Written Plans (1) Create and circulate written plans for approval to the project team and executives. (2) The plans should graphically show [with process diagrams] how your Website is going to locate, engage, acquire and retain each type of customer (visitor) to your site. 5
f)
iii) Budget – Determine which department will pay for which portion of the Strategic Website Optimization™ process and what service levels of support are expected. (1) For example, the “Products’ and “Solutions” sections might be serviced to and paid by the Director of Product Marketing, the “Corporate” section by the CFO and the Careers section by HR since each have different types of [Website] customers and sequence of desired [Web page] clickstreams. (2) Map your organization chart to your “site index” [major buttons across the top] to: (a) Improve accountability for content, (b) Budget and to define customer [visitor] service levels (c) Allocate site content creation/approval responsibility to different departments (d) Allocate ongoing maintenance expense to different departments iv) Service Levels (1) Define the service levels in terms of: (a) Data freshness [how frequently changes will be made] e.g. career postings. (b) Protection against site Website hit rate surges – if you have a super-successful TV ad for example. (c) Response time to customers [visitors] in terms of seconds’ wait per desired action. (d) Security and protection from cyber-attacks. (e) Offsite disaster prevention and recovery. Skills Inventory/Matrix i) Define and implement functional and project organizations and orchestrate all the skills to engage/acquire/retain prospects and customers [visitors] who can vary widely: (1) Engage HR to maintain a skills matrix /inventory according to best practices (a) Decide which skills to internalize and which to outsource. (b) Depending on product/service and size of firm. (c) Depending on the different type of Internet business models and advertising models. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensation_methods
Step 3 – Define AND Execute a Front-end Strategic Plan
6) Put a “strategic front-end” on your SWO project [Also see Figure 1 – Step #3] a) Read relevant business plans, strategic plans etc and update/append/amend as necessary. b) Analyze and deconstruct and identified the [multiple] businesses within the company. c) Focus on customer [visitor] segmentation by behavior [psychographics] for online media plan targeting and by demographics for offline media plan targeting. d) Develop strategic positioning and messaging for new products/services by segment. e) Develop strategic positioning and messaging for existing products/services by segment. f) Take your site’s current backlinks into account http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlinks and determine whether the backlinks are optimized to draw traffic to your site. i) Most search engines allow a means to determine the number of “backlinks” they have recorded to a particular web page - such as your site or a competitor’s site. ii) This information is good input to your strategic products/services positioning process. (1) For example, to determine the backlinks to www.panasas.com [the Panasas Inc. Website] on Google for example, you can perform a simple search [on Google] http://www.google.com by entering the search term “link:www.panasas.com” which is Panasas home page 1 . (a) The list on the total number of backlinks is displayed the top right blue area of the search engine results page [SERP] when the special Google “link” search term is used. Results 1 - 10 of about 96 linking to panasas.com (0.12 seconds) (b) The Google Search Engine Results page [SERP] [for this search] will return the first 10 results to the Internet address you query and indicate the total number of sites Google has found [and indexed] that point to the Panasas Inc. home page. (i) “Link:” [read link colon] is a special Google command and can be used to find all links to any Internet address identified and by Google crawlers and indexed to the Google database.
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Or if [as in the case of Panasas, the home page can also be reached as http://panasas.com, [i.e., same as above without the www.] you can perform the Google search with the term “link
anasas.com” and get the same results. 6
(ii) “Link:” followed by any Internet address will report back links for Google. (iii) Similarly Yahoo’s Site Explorer and Microsoft's Live Search are similar methods of obtaining the number of backlinks on a site. (c) To see the number of “backlinks” to your or any other site just use the example above except substitute your Website URL [excluding the www.] for panasas.com. (2) Other good tools for Website analysis [that are free] are: (a) Here is a list of special query tools that only Google supports http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/operators.html#link The query [link:] will list WebPages that have links to the specified WebPages. For instance, [link:www.google.com] will list WebPages that have links pointing to the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "link:" and the web page url. (b) www.sitereportcard.com (c) http://www.seomoz.org/page-strength (d) http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php g) Make sure the messaging [for old and new products] is competitively differentiated 2 . i) The team should first answer the [strategic positioning] Seven Basic Questions. ii) Next make a preliminary list of keywords for each product line or target market segment. (1) Keywords are index word or descriptors that capture the essence of a topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyword_%28Internet_search%29 (2) If you have a unique competitive feature you would want to include keywords related to that on your list. iii) Conduct a search engine search for each word in the preliminary list, visit each competitor’s Website, check his backlinks, and talk to industry analysts and other knowledgeable persons. (1) For smaller firms, this can quickly tell you whether your competitor is actively using online marketing or whether he just has a passive web site and hasn’t caught-on yet to online marketing. (2) This will add potential new and valuable key words to the list not previously thought of. (3) This will give the team a flavor for which keywords will cost the most/least for SEM/PPC. (4) It can also create new ideas that can lead to effective differentiated positioning (5) The competitive review can also uncover good [competitive ideas] that be modified, coopted or otherwise improved upon. (6) Importantly, the competitive review will allow the Website development team to “get a feel” for the Visitor experience, since the above research indicates that visitors visit multiple sites before making a buying decision. (7) This process will also generate ideas as to what types of content the site should use to attract visitors [The above research indicates that white papers and case studies are the most frequently type of [educational] content that leads to “registrations,” and downloads. (8) Map the competitor market segment focus to your own.
Step 4 and 5 – Creatively/Technically Balance Your Online Plan
7) Develop your first cut online marketing that ties together both the creative/strategic and technical aspects of Website optimization and Internet Marketing [Also see Figure 1 – Steps #4 and 5] a) Make sure you have all the needed technical and creative/strategic skills you need as listed under Steps #4 and 5 of Figure #1 above. b) Recognize that no one person is an expert in all needed disciplines and that you may need to outsource some infrequently required skills as makes sense. c) Be sure you understand the basics of Internet marketing and choose which marketing tools and compensation models you will use. From the links below, a good approach would be to print out the material, put it in a binder and give yourself an Internet marketing tutorial before proceeding Inter i) Basic Internet business models http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_marketing (1) Search engine marketing (including vertical comparison shopping search engines and local search engines) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_marketing (2) Search Advertising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_advertising (3) Display advertising. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_advertising
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Reading Jack Trout’s Differentiate or Die is often useful in this respect. 7
(4) Affiliate marketing, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing (5) Contextual advertising, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contextual_advertising (6) E-mail marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_marketing (a) GlobalFluency partner IME™ http://www.netline.com (b) GlobalFluency partner IME™ http://email.exacttarget.com/ETWeb/solutions.aspx ii) Compensation methods (pricing models) for Internet marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensation_methods (1) PPS and PPL for affiliate marketing, (2) PPC and PPI for contextual advertising (3) PPC and PPA for search engine marketing (SEM), (4) PPI, CPA/PPA, CPM and CPC for display advertising iii) Wikipedia has excellent links describing key terms such as (1) Landing page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_page (2) Conversion rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_rate (3) Click-through rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click-through_rate (4) Cost per click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_Per_Click (5) Bounce rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_Rate (6) Web Analytics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics d) After making sure you understand the topics above and below, next create your “first cut” custom SEO/SEM/PPC Internet marketing plans i) SEO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization ii) SEM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_marketing iii) PPC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_per_click (1) Also known as “paid search” advertising iv) SEO/PPC Vendors (1) SEOP http://www.seop.com/Services/SEO/about-us.htm (2) SEO Design Solutions http://www.seodesignsolutions.com/about-seo-designsolution.html (3) Root Web Tech http://www.rootwebtech.com (4) Customer Magnetism http://www.customermagnetism.com v) SEO or PPC should be planned with an eye toward incremental improvement using Web analytics and ad networks with sound click fraud detection practices. (1) Some tips for an effective SEM strategy include: (2) Maintaining a keyword inventory by segment of behavior (3) Finding high-value low cost search terms to improve conversion economics (4) Develop solid content to bring in traffic (5) Creating and implementing a sound keyword bidding strategy 3 . (a) http://www.coremetrics.com/resources/thankyou.php?id=wpsearch_engine_marketing&cmprod=WPOptimizing_Search_Engine_Marketing&cmcat=WHITE_PAPER (6) As your SWO process matures, you should understand whether you should do anything about click fraud 4 or treat it as a cost of business and trust your ad networks to handle it. (a) Anchor Intelligence is a leader in click fraud detection and prevention and offers a variety of solutions you should consider via ROI analysis. Note that this may not be cost effective for smaller advertisers. http://www.anchorintelligence.net/solutions.html (i) targeting high quality traffic to increase conversions, (ii) improving the quality of publishers on their network, (iii) removing non-billable ad clicks, (iv) adjusting keyword pricing strategies,
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Bidding on keywords in Google, Yahoo and Microsoft “paid search” advertising programs determines your search engine results page [SERP] ranking on the right column and top. 4 According to Anchor Intelligence, “Click fraud has been around as long as CPC marketing was first introduced by GoTo in 1998 (GoTo renamed to Overture and was acquired by Yahoo in 2003 for $1.7 billion). Google and Yahoo generally avoid the subject, but some outsiders estimate that as many as 20 - 25% of clicks are fraudulent - by people either trying to drive up the advertising costs of competitors, or by clicking on the ads displayed on sites they control.” 8
(b) The pros and cons of click fraud are captured in this blog. http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/09/anchor-intelligence-to-audit-click-fraud (c) Click Forensics is the first third-party to partner with Yahoo to improve traffic quality and reduce click fraud http://www.clickforensics.com (i) Click Forensics will provide Yahoo with “side click” and data to help Yahoo meet its objectives of advertiser satisfaction and ROI. vi) Effective Strategic Website Optimization™ can avoid an expensive PPC failure. (1) 12 Common Mistakes to Avoid in PPC marketing http://www.seop.com/Services/PPC/common-mistakesPPC.htm (2) A good article on the keys to customer engagement/conversion/retention using PPC (a) http://www.seop.com/Services/PPC/keys-2-conversionPPC.htm vii) Effective Strategic Website Optimization can insure effective backlink building (1) A great overview of the SEO link building http://vinfosoln.com/content-services.html viii) Use content to attract Visitors to your site and increase your organic [natural] ranking on the Search Engine Results Page [SERP]. (1) SERP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serp (2) Strategically determine what content if any can be leveraged for “registrations” [downloads and leads] on the Website as part of the Intelligent Customer Engagement™ process. (a) There is a major trend in marketing to the use of informative content to drive [qualified] buyers to the Website. Thus it is important that marketers understand the latest buyer behavior and vendor behavior in a major study conducted among technology buyers and vendors by KnowledgeStorm in 2006: http://www.knowledgestorm.com/MainServlet?ksAction=aboutus (i) Issue One: How Technology Marketers are Meeting Buyers' Appetite for Content http://www.knowledgestorm.com/search/viewabstract/87939?pos=1&referer=SE ARCH_RESULTS&trkpg=search_results_abstract (i) Issue Two: Content Distribution – Where Information Intersects With Demand http://www.knowledgestorm.com/search/viewabstract/77699?pos=1&referer=SE ARCH_RESULTS&trkpg=search_results_abstract (ii) Issue Three: Putting it all Together – Driving Content Marketing Program Successes http://www.knowledgestorm.com/search/viewabstract/90153 (3) Develop needed content (a) To attract prospective customers with educational white papers, Solutions Guides, podcasts, webcasts, blogs, webinars and other (b) For traditional product marketing collateral such as data sheets, brochures and Product Guides, case studies, ROI analyses. (c) Vendors providing a full range of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 strategic content creation and delivery services. (i) www.strategic-reports.com (ii) www.globalfluency.com (d) If success stories, white papers or other content doesn’t exist determine which can be created or paid for [analyst studies] so as to have effective incentives to drive registrations. e) Make detailed plans and storyboard all Web pages in order to optimize your Website in terms of: i) Graphic design, ii) page layout iii) keyword usage in the copy iv) SEO/SEM/PPC marketing investments. f) Be sure to arrange for an independent “Proof of Publication” service for all offline and online campaigns. i) These services are traditional to print advertising in which a “tear sheet” is provided as proof of the publication of a print ad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tear_sheet (1) In email marketing campaigns there are a variety of problems that should be “confirmed” by the advertiser such as were the emails sent and delivered, was downloaded content interrupted by unplanned technical glitches that no one thought to check for. (a) One example is the case of a 42-page white paper that was only allowed to be downloaded one page at a time, which in turn led to another problem at the 9
ii)
advertiser site, which did not allow searching by the author’s name. Both these problems diluted the campaign impact to near zero. Similar TV services record commercials to see if they are “truncated” [cut off early] in the actual broadcast or cable transmission so as to form the basis for the advertiser to negotiate discounts or replays of the ad.
Step 6 – Balance/Integrate On/Offline Plans and Map Touch Points
8) Align all Online and Offline Marketing plans [See also see Figure 1 – Step #6] a) Assign a Strategic Content Manager to insure unified strategic content and messaging between product marketing and corporate marketing whether online or offline. b) Implement or closely stagger market engagement [analyst, investor, partner, and affiliate customers] with customer engagement [whether it’s with technical/economic or user buyers]. i) Use Intelligent Market Engagement™ online and/or offline methods as appropriate. ii) Use Intelligent Customer Engagement™ online and/or offline methods as appropriate. c) Insure that online and offline messaging and branding are consistent and not siloed. d) Insure that IT and business managers are aligned in their thinking with the Strategic Website Optimization™ process in terms of supporting software and infrastructure i) This can involve re-architecting and integrating various software application silos (1) Un-integrated software point applications. (2) Use a Service-oriented Architecture [SOA] to develop new SWO in-house custom software applications. (3) Be sure to do ROI for all IT investments using best practices (4) Check references for all new software application purchases e) Map all on/offline messaging and technical interactions i) Do process flow diagrams before finalizing copy, backlinks etc ii) Check for messaging consistency and ask yourself the question – “Is what’s being said in my online message, consistent with my offline message?” (1) Insure that all landing page URLs are correct for each online touch point [affiliate backlink, banner ad link etc], and each offline touch point such as radio, TV or print ad etc (a) A graphic map can help avoid costly mistakes.
Then Execute Decisively and Fine Tune
Step 7 – Use “Marketing Operations” as the Hub for Strategic Website Optimization™
9) Set up effective marketing operations as the control center of the entire SWO process [See also Figure 1 - Step #7] a) Engage business analysts from finance or marketing and use BI software measures and dashboards if available to measure key parameters of the SWO process. b) Content Development i) Always storyboard a site process before implementing rendering [including landing sites for each product segment] ii) Always storyboard all on/offline creative before rendering (1) Creative development of a Web page can be as important as that of a TV ad. c) Insure content accuracy before any campaign launch. i) Insure all content is proofread, technically edited and in accord with legal guidelines. (1) Make sure the proofreader is a professional proof reader or at a minimum a colleague with a “fresh set of eyes.” (2) Lack of final – final proofreading is a cause of expensive mistakes – especially for example if an email address or a URL [online link] is wrong in an offline promotional piece. ii) Be sure all content conforms to corporate style guides and or brand guides. iii) Pretest all links using best practices QA, and change management practices. d) Implement appropriate Web analytics and online / offline marketing research teams to measure qualitative/quantitative campaign effectiveness 10
e) f) g) h)
Insure “marketing operations” manages the ongoing process of ROI optimization Insure consistent [six sigma type] improvements Balance all on/offline, creative/technical and marketing/sales variables. Engage all creative professionals as needed i) Full Web content design services www.strategic-reports.com ii) Brand Design Services http://www.standingstonegroup.com i) Plan, negotiate and budget a PPC/SEM marketing plan j) Edit the test site, check all links, and make sure the site is crawable and present to the client for approval before going live. i) Use best practices for change management as you would before deploying changes for global mission critical software systems. k) Make all copy, graphics, HTML changes, implement the SEM marketing plan l) Go live, monitor analytics, monitor CRM databases, measure conversion rate and ROI as appropriate. m) Conduct A/B tests as appropriate to optimize investments.
Step 8 – Fine Tune and Continue the Process using 6? Tools
10) If the company has a Business Process Management IT program – use it to define and enforce the Strategic Website Optimization™ process and keep it going forward [See also Figure 1 - Step #7] a) Your competitors may or may not be doing this but you can gain strategic advantage by building important “process capital” and superior knowledge of your customer groups buying behavior. b) Web analytics and on/offline market research tools i) Use Web analytics and online marketing research to refine your online marketing processes. ii) Use offline marketing research techniques to refine your offline marketing processes. iii) Use both to refine the synergy of your integrated campaign. iv) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_research c) Be sure to use Web analytics software before your competitors do. i) The Web Analytics software market segment’s leader Coremetrics has some excellent white papers to take the mystery out of SEM strategies and in defining important new tools such as context marketing and Web 2.0 media. (1) This paper covers five tips for effective SEM strategies including maintaining a keyword inventory by segment, finding high-value low cost search terms to improve conversion, developing solid content to bring in traffic, and having a sound keyword bidding strategy. (a) http://www.coremetrics.com/resources/thankyou.php?id=wpsearch_engine_marketing&cmprod=WPOptimizing_Search_Engine_Marketing&cmcat=WHITE_PAPER (2) This paper discusses which metrics to collect to analyze and leverage visitor behavior. (a) http://www.coremetrics.com/downloads/Coremetrics_White_Paper_Contextual_Mark eting.pdf (3) This link is a white paper tutorial on Web 2.0 and the trend to personalization marketing. Although this is not appropriate for all marketers, it is important to understand these techniques for down the road use or just to know what Web 2.0 is. (a) http://www.coremetrics.com/downloads/Coremetrics_web2.0_white_paper.pdf
Who can Benefit from the Strategic Website Optimization™ Process?
Based on our experience there are three types of businesses where SWO can have a significant benefit. ? For most marketers in profitable enterprises, SWO has an almost infinite ROI, since sustained market segment leadership is the return [i.e., the net present value of a significant profit-stream perpetuity], AND SWO can usually be achieved for almost $0 in incremental investment. For marketers facing dramatic losses due to their competitors’ use of the Internet, however, SWO may be more appropriately viewed as a disaster-avoidance tool. 11
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For marketers in industries where the majority of the impact of the Internet has yet to impact them, SWO can be likened more as a roadmap for a successful offline to online transition, and our step-bystep as required reading.
We caution our readers however, that implementing SWO may not be as easy as it first looks, since with any state-of-the-art business process, the majority of the advantages come from doing things that your competitors aren’t doing and that are perhaps uncomfortable to your organization and agency staff. So in this regard, SWO implementation may not an easy task. It requires breaking down functional silos and orchestrating a multi-disciplinary multi-functional team to achieve maximum business value from your Website as the “hub” of your marketing cycle.
A “Fresh Set of Eyes” Can Often Pay Big Dividends
Since breaking down functional and agency silos is never easy business, it’s sometimes productive for clients to take a shot at SWO without muddying the water with marketing services firms such as StrategicReports.com or GlobalFluency. So we’ve set forth a do-it-yourself process for the readers consideration. Of course you might conclude that for political or skill reasons that a fresh set of eyes would be the best way for you to go. In this case you can learn more about SWO by visiting www.strategic-reports.com/aboutswo or GlobalFluency's IME Practice at http://www.globalfluency.com/capabilities/ime/index.html or contacting the authors Jim McBurney 408-733-9479 or Ford Kanzler at (650) 328-5555
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About the Authors
The authors and their expert-teams are all seasoned strategic marketing and marketing communications consultants who are available to help you if needed. Our help can vary from high level marketing organization and business process reviews, that provide you with a “fresh set of eyes and fresh ideas” for your existing processes, or we can get help you with “nuts and bolts” marketing planning and execution. Our objective is to help all clients develop and internalize 6? methods to constantly improve Website ROI using our Strategic Website Optimization™ best practices. We suggest you “do-it-yourself” as much as you want to, and use expert outsourced skills as much as make sense.
About Global Fluency, Inc.
GlobalFluency is a worldwide communications services firm offering its clients a distinctive combination of capabilities for shaping perceptions, developing and growing markets, expanding customer relationships, and building valued brands. With offices in over 50 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA and Asia, we provide the right resources to deliver effective, standout marketing campaigns anywhere in the world. The company uses proprietary methodologies to take clients to market faster and with more compelling and sustainable value propositions that separate and differentiates them from their competition. GlobalFluency’s special competency, Intelligent Market Engagement™ (IME), is a powerful new model for building brand authority, shaping market discussion and harvesting new business opportunities.
About Strategic-Reports.com
Strategic-Reports.com is the Website of Sr. Marketing Consultant Jim McBurney and his virtual team of consultants who provide an array of strategic Internet marketing services to help clients beat their competitors. Focused on the customer engagement, acquisition and retention processes, the consultancy has created strategic content with one piece generating 20,000 registrations/downloads with millions in resulting sales. A special competency, Strategic Website Optimization™, (SWO) is a powerful new model to strategically, creatively and technically navigate a marketer’s transition from offline to an online marketing/sales model. Implementing a comprehensive Strategic Website Optimization™ process enables competitive advantage by first helping clients understanding the Internet impact on their product/service/business models, and then help them organize plan, execute and fine-tune a custom SWO process to stay ahead of the competition. Notice: This document is for informational purposes only, and does not set forth any warranty, express or implied, concerning any services offered or to be offered by Jim McBurney and/or GlobalFluency, Inc. This document describes some capabilities that are conditioned on a services agreement and statement of work with Jim McBurney and/or GlobalFluency, Inc. being in effect. Please contact Jim McBurney and/or GlobalFluency, Inc. for information on service offerings from the respective consultancies. ©2008, Jim McBurney All Rights Reserved. BPG 01 March 2008
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doc_129037767.pdf
Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling the product or service. It is a critical business function for attracting customers.
Marketing Services
Eight Steps to Optimizing
Integrated Campaign Marketing
Best Practices
By Jim McBurney and Ford Kanzler
Strategic-Reports.com
[email protected] (408) 733-9479
GlobalFluency, Inc.
[email protected] (650) 328-5555
A Best Practices Guide to Strategic Website Optimization™
March 2008
Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................3 First Create a Written Plan and Map your Marketing Processes ........................4 Step 1 – Start the Strategic Website Optimization™ Process.......................4 Step 2 – Build an “Integrated Marketing Campaign” (IMC) Organization ..5 Step 3 – Define AND Execute a Front-end Strategic Plan ...........................6 Step 4 and 5 – Creatively/Technically Balance Your Online Plan ...............7 Step 6 – Balance/Integrate On/Offline Plans and Map Touch Points.........10 Then Execute Decisively and Fine Tune ...........................................................10 Step 7 – Use “Marketing Operations” as the Hub for Strategic Website Optimization™ ..............................................................................................10 Step 8 – Fine Tune and Continue the Process using 6? Tools ....................11 Who can Benefit from the Strategic Website Optimization™ Process?...........11 A “Fresh Set of Eyes” Can Often Pay Big Dividends.......................................12 About the Authors..............................................................................................13 About Global Fluency, Inc. .........................................................................13 About Strategic-Reports.com ......................................................................13
2
Introduction
This Best Practices Guide is a companion to our white paper –The Benefits of Implementing a Strategic Website Optimization™ Business Process, which we recommend you, read first. This Guide is not intended to be a detailed process implementation manual but rather more as an index for you to edit to remove inapplicable topics, and in this way start developing your own custom SWO plan. This Guide can help astute marketers implement a proven, project management based, business process management [BPM] approach to Website ROI optimization. Following this process can help avoid suboptimizing Website projects and ensure that the offline/online, sales/marketing and creative/technical/IT strategies are investment-balanced, with a consistent product and corporate communications strategy. The authors and their expert-teams are also available to help you if needed. We offer help anywhere between the following two extremes: 1) High level marketing organization and business process reviews that would provide you with a “fresh set of eyes and fresh ideas” for your existing processes and 2) nuts and bolts marketing planning and execution. Our objective is to help all clients develop and internalize 6? methods to constantly improve Website ROI. We do this using our Strategic Website Optimization™ best practices. We suggest you “do-it-yourself” as much as you want to, and use expert outsourced skills as much as make sense. Figure 1 – The Strategic Website Optimization™ Process Organize ? Plan ? Implement ? Fine Tune
1- Start Process
2 - Design an "Integrated Marketing Campaign" Organization
Cross-functional Multi-disciplinary Project Team Break down department and agency silos Define department "site index" ownership Plan and Implement Skills Matrix
8 - Fine Tune
ROI based rebudgeting Product Road Map Inputs Web analytics / research Manage marketing campaigns
3 - Strategic Planning - (7 Questions)
Strategic Website Optimization™ (SWO) Align Online / Offline Strategic Plans Deconstruct multiple businesses Competitive Web Site Analysis Define demographic & behavioral targets Differentiated positioning by business Inventory primary/secondary KSPs by product Define desired clickstream by product/service
7 - Marketing Operations
Map all on/offline interfaces On/Off line content consistency Intelligent Market Engagement™ Intelligent Customer Engagement™
Product & Corporate Messaging consistency
6 - Offline Marketing Plans 5 - Technical Online Marketing Plan
y y y y y y y y y y y y y y Search Engine Marketing SEM Search Engine Optimization E-mail (Database) Marketing Relationship Marketing Affiliate Marketing Customer reference Marketing Business Units Market Research execution Render site in HTML PHP XML Web Services programming SOA BPM/ECM software integration Dashboard rendering CRM back-end integration/management Social media marketing (Web 2.0) media
4 - Creative Online Marketing Planning
y y y y y y y y y y y y y y Storyboard landing pages by product Map out desired clickstream/links Align look and feel with offline branding Best practices for interactive design Landing pages human factors design Content creation for Web 1.0/2.0 media Storyboard entire site & Dashboards Render site from storyboard Art direction, copywriting for all media Video production if necessary Insure creative continuity with back links Email copywriting, Web 2.0 creative Online research study design 3 Internal/External communications
Balance
First Create a Written Plan and Map your Marketing Processes
Step 1 – Start the Strategic Website Optimization™ Process
1) Go through this list and check items you want to include in your own custom SWO process. a) Either review this outline online deleting sections that don’t apply to you b) Or print it out and mark up the process steps with a highlighter. c) Regardless of how you do it we want you to determine what pieces makes sense for you i) In light of executive expectations of results, your size of business and budget. ii) Larger Websites will have a more detailed SWO process and organization than smaller ones. 2) Starting the Strategic Website Optimization™ (SWO) process [See also Figure 1 Step #1] a) Prepare a written plan and circulate it to executives to gain agreement and budget. i) The plan should use the “Integrated Marketing Campaign” [IMC] organization model. ii) The plan should diagram the business process flow(s) to [graphically] to show how your Website marketing plans as the “hub” of your total on/offline marketing/sales planning. b) Most importantly the process diagrams and plan copy should show and discuss: i) The impact of any shifts from offline to online marketing for your company/industry. ii) The importance of achieving consistent messaging for both on/offline marketing. iii) How online and offline marketing plans interact with one another [with touch points]. iv) How “marketing operations” does/will manage the ongoing process of ROI optimization using consistent six-sigma [6?] tools and an incremental improvement philosophy. v) How to balance all on/offline, creative/technical and marketing/sales variables. 3) Your plan should align your SWO business process with your IT systems [as makes sense]. i) Define and manage the Strategic Website Optimization™ process in your IT software systems [ERP/CRM/BPM/ECM/SRP] as appropriate. ii) HRMS - Use your HRMS systems for links in the “Careers” Section of your Site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HRMS iii) ERP – Integrate any SWO processes with your ERP systems as required http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning iv) CRM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management (1) Make sure the customer/prospect “registrations” feed directly into your company’s Customer Resource Management [CRM] database software and email process notification and enforcement applications software systems for sales follow-up. v) BPM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPMS vi) ECM Ideally integrates your BPM and Compliance software with the SWO business http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Content_Management vii) Integrate ECM/BPM www.strategic-reports.com/IBM/Guide viii) BI – Make sure the finance department is engaged and providing you with meaningful BI metrics or develop new ones with the business analysts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Intelligence ix) Integrate BPM/Compliance software: (1) Insure your e-mail marketing complies with CAN-SPAM act of 2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM (2) Insure your Web analytics research complies with privacy regulations 4) Choose the right set of campaign automation, management and analytics software tools a) Eloqua Express - http://www.eloqua.com/products/Eloqua_Express_-_Email_Marketing.html i) This product can help connecting the dots with disparate point marketing solutions. ii) Eloqua ExpressTM is an integrated email marketing and marketing campaign analytics solution that allows you to plan, execute, and evaluate targeted interactive marketing campaigns. b) Vtrenz - http://www.vtrenz.com/index.cfm i) Vtrenz claims to automate lead generation and ICM to enable clients to plan, execute, automate and analyze integrated marketing campaigns including email, direct mail, landing pages, web forms and more. Using Vtrenz you can: (1) Automate lead generation with marketing campaigns across multiple marketing channels – email, direct mail, form and landing pages (2) Identify prospects ready to buy with automatic lead scoring 4
(3) Route sales-ready leads to your sales team via your CRM system to quickly close sales (4) Grow the value of your existing customers with ongoing marketing campaigns (5) Analyze marketing campaign ROI (6) Repeat marketing campaigns that generate the most revenue c) Market2Lead - http://www.market2lead.com/solutions/ents-campaignautomation.html i) This is an innovative rules based software package that delivers marketing materials [“touches the prospect”] based on rule and click stream behavior. ii) When the need arises to make a change in the campaign flow, Marketers easily change the track sequence by altering a simple numerical value associated with each tactical program. The tactical offers will be rearranged in the new ascending order. d) I Make News - [IMN] - http://www.imakenews.com/imn_site/index.htm i) IMN's solutions claim to be based on patent pending technology that harnesses the power of content to drive sales opportunities and hard ROI business results in B2C and B2B markets. ii) The patent-pending e-communications platform combines content management, publishing/layout and the full array of digital marketing delivery capabilities – email, enewsletters, mini-sites, blogs, mobile and RSS – enabling marketers to keep audience's attention and know when to sell them.
Step 2 – Build an “Integrated Marketing Campaign” (IMC) Organization
5) Strive for an “Integrated Marketing Campaign” [IMC] organization [Also see Figure 1 – Step #2]. a) Benefits of using an “Integrated campaign marketing” organization: i) Balance technical and creative skills of online and offline marketing ii) Balance sales and marketing skills for online and offline marketing iii) Balance business manager and IT manager skills to optimize IT/business systems alignment as part of the Strategic Website Optimization™ (SWO) process. iv) A great Webinar for applying IMC to direct marketing titled 25 Secrets to Achieving Soaring ROIs for your Integrated Marketing Campaigns can be found at http://www.presentationselect.com/ama/register.asp v) A related topic sharing the same acronym is Integrated Marketing Communications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Marketing_Communications b) Foster creativity and help on/offline campaigns to be consistent, innovative and synergistic. i) Align in-house departments and outside agencies to optimize internal/external strategic content and messaging. (1) Breakdown all marketing department/agency silos and communications barriers. ii) Help the look and feel to the brand to be strategically consistent both offline and online. iii) Help the product and corporate messaging should be consistent both offline and online. c) The Nike "Whatever" campaign was not only consistent [between online and offline], it was groundbreaking--so groundbreaking that major TV networks almost refused to run it: i) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BDW/is_23_41/ai_62918979 d) Use a cross-functional project team [matrix] “integrated marketing campaign” organization i) Select and empower [with budget] senior level Project Manager, or Program Manager who can operate well in a cross-functional environment to: (1) In large companies, the Project Manager will insure involvement and accountability all internal departments and outside agencies in the planning process (2) In smaller companies, the person responsible for marketing usually takes the lead (3) Whether large or small the idea is to break down department and agency communication boundaries [silos] and to encourage everyone to collaborate, participate and fine tune the Website as a single team dedicated to optimizing ROI. e) Designing the Matrix [project ] organization i) Orchestrate the multi-disciplinary skills needed to insure optimum Website ROI (1) Functional and cross-functional (2) Internal and external ii) Written Plans (1) Create and circulate written plans for approval to the project team and executives. (2) The plans should graphically show [with process diagrams] how your Website is going to locate, engage, acquire and retain each type of customer (visitor) to your site. 5
f)
iii) Budget – Determine which department will pay for which portion of the Strategic Website Optimization™ process and what service levels of support are expected. (1) For example, the “Products’ and “Solutions” sections might be serviced to and paid by the Director of Product Marketing, the “Corporate” section by the CFO and the Careers section by HR since each have different types of [Website] customers and sequence of desired [Web page] clickstreams. (2) Map your organization chart to your “site index” [major buttons across the top] to: (a) Improve accountability for content, (b) Budget and to define customer [visitor] service levels (c) Allocate site content creation/approval responsibility to different departments (d) Allocate ongoing maintenance expense to different departments iv) Service Levels (1) Define the service levels in terms of: (a) Data freshness [how frequently changes will be made] e.g. career postings. (b) Protection against site Website hit rate surges – if you have a super-successful TV ad for example. (c) Response time to customers [visitors] in terms of seconds’ wait per desired action. (d) Security and protection from cyber-attacks. (e) Offsite disaster prevention and recovery. Skills Inventory/Matrix i) Define and implement functional and project organizations and orchestrate all the skills to engage/acquire/retain prospects and customers [visitors] who can vary widely: (1) Engage HR to maintain a skills matrix /inventory according to best practices (a) Decide which skills to internalize and which to outsource. (b) Depending on product/service and size of firm. (c) Depending on the different type of Internet business models and advertising models. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensation_methods
Step 3 – Define AND Execute a Front-end Strategic Plan
6) Put a “strategic front-end” on your SWO project [Also see Figure 1 – Step #3] a) Read relevant business plans, strategic plans etc and update/append/amend as necessary. b) Analyze and deconstruct and identified the [multiple] businesses within the company. c) Focus on customer [visitor] segmentation by behavior [psychographics] for online media plan targeting and by demographics for offline media plan targeting. d) Develop strategic positioning and messaging for new products/services by segment. e) Develop strategic positioning and messaging for existing products/services by segment. f) Take your site’s current backlinks into account http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlinks and determine whether the backlinks are optimized to draw traffic to your site. i) Most search engines allow a means to determine the number of “backlinks” they have recorded to a particular web page - such as your site or a competitor’s site. ii) This information is good input to your strategic products/services positioning process. (1) For example, to determine the backlinks to www.panasas.com [the Panasas Inc. Website] on Google for example, you can perform a simple search [on Google] http://www.google.com by entering the search term “link:www.panasas.com” which is Panasas home page 1 . (a) The list on the total number of backlinks is displayed the top right blue area of the search engine results page [SERP] when the special Google “link” search term is used. Results 1 - 10 of about 96 linking to panasas.com (0.12 seconds) (b) The Google Search Engine Results page [SERP] [for this search] will return the first 10 results to the Internet address you query and indicate the total number of sites Google has found [and indexed] that point to the Panasas Inc. home page. (i) “Link:” [read link colon] is a special Google command and can be used to find all links to any Internet address identified and by Google crawlers and indexed to the Google database.
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Or if [as in the case of Panasas, the home page can also be reached as http://panasas.com, [i.e., same as above without the www.] you can perform the Google search with the term “link
anasas.com” and get the same results. 6(ii) “Link:” followed by any Internet address will report back links for Google. (iii) Similarly Yahoo’s Site Explorer and Microsoft's Live Search are similar methods of obtaining the number of backlinks on a site. (c) To see the number of “backlinks” to your or any other site just use the example above except substitute your Website URL [excluding the www.] for panasas.com. (2) Other good tools for Website analysis [that are free] are: (a) Here is a list of special query tools that only Google supports http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/operators.html#link The query [link:] will list WebPages that have links to the specified WebPages. For instance, [link:www.google.com] will list WebPages that have links pointing to the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "link:" and the web page url. (b) www.sitereportcard.com (c) http://www.seomoz.org/page-strength (d) http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php g) Make sure the messaging [for old and new products] is competitively differentiated 2 . i) The team should first answer the [strategic positioning] Seven Basic Questions. ii) Next make a preliminary list of keywords for each product line or target market segment. (1) Keywords are index word or descriptors that capture the essence of a topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyword_%28Internet_search%29 (2) If you have a unique competitive feature you would want to include keywords related to that on your list. iii) Conduct a search engine search for each word in the preliminary list, visit each competitor’s Website, check his backlinks, and talk to industry analysts and other knowledgeable persons. (1) For smaller firms, this can quickly tell you whether your competitor is actively using online marketing or whether he just has a passive web site and hasn’t caught-on yet to online marketing. (2) This will add potential new and valuable key words to the list not previously thought of. (3) This will give the team a flavor for which keywords will cost the most/least for SEM/PPC. (4) It can also create new ideas that can lead to effective differentiated positioning (5) The competitive review can also uncover good [competitive ideas] that be modified, coopted or otherwise improved upon. (6) Importantly, the competitive review will allow the Website development team to “get a feel” for the Visitor experience, since the above research indicates that visitors visit multiple sites before making a buying decision. (7) This process will also generate ideas as to what types of content the site should use to attract visitors [The above research indicates that white papers and case studies are the most frequently type of [educational] content that leads to “registrations,” and downloads. (8) Map the competitor market segment focus to your own.
Step 4 and 5 – Creatively/Technically Balance Your Online Plan
7) Develop your first cut online marketing that ties together both the creative/strategic and technical aspects of Website optimization and Internet Marketing [Also see Figure 1 – Steps #4 and 5] a) Make sure you have all the needed technical and creative/strategic skills you need as listed under Steps #4 and 5 of Figure #1 above. b) Recognize that no one person is an expert in all needed disciplines and that you may need to outsource some infrequently required skills as makes sense. c) Be sure you understand the basics of Internet marketing and choose which marketing tools and compensation models you will use. From the links below, a good approach would be to print out the material, put it in a binder and give yourself an Internet marketing tutorial before proceeding Inter i) Basic Internet business models http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_marketing (1) Search engine marketing (including vertical comparison shopping search engines and local search engines) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_marketing (2) Search Advertising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_advertising (3) Display advertising. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_advertising
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Reading Jack Trout’s Differentiate or Die is often useful in this respect. 7
(4) Affiliate marketing, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing (5) Contextual advertising, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contextual_advertising (6) E-mail marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_marketing (a) GlobalFluency partner IME™ http://www.netline.com (b) GlobalFluency partner IME™ http://email.exacttarget.com/ETWeb/solutions.aspx ii) Compensation methods (pricing models) for Internet marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensation_methods (1) PPS and PPL for affiliate marketing, (2) PPC and PPI for contextual advertising (3) PPC and PPA for search engine marketing (SEM), (4) PPI, CPA/PPA, CPM and CPC for display advertising iii) Wikipedia has excellent links describing key terms such as (1) Landing page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_page (2) Conversion rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_rate (3) Click-through rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click-through_rate (4) Cost per click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_Per_Click (5) Bounce rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_Rate (6) Web Analytics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics d) After making sure you understand the topics above and below, next create your “first cut” custom SEO/SEM/PPC Internet marketing plans i) SEO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization ii) SEM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_marketing iii) PPC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_per_click (1) Also known as “paid search” advertising iv) SEO/PPC Vendors (1) SEOP http://www.seop.com/Services/SEO/about-us.htm (2) SEO Design Solutions http://www.seodesignsolutions.com/about-seo-designsolution.html (3) Root Web Tech http://www.rootwebtech.com (4) Customer Magnetism http://www.customermagnetism.com v) SEO or PPC should be planned with an eye toward incremental improvement using Web analytics and ad networks with sound click fraud detection practices. (1) Some tips for an effective SEM strategy include: (2) Maintaining a keyword inventory by segment of behavior (3) Finding high-value low cost search terms to improve conversion economics (4) Develop solid content to bring in traffic (5) Creating and implementing a sound keyword bidding strategy 3 . (a) http://www.coremetrics.com/resources/thankyou.php?id=wpsearch_engine_marketing&cmprod=WPOptimizing_Search_Engine_Marketing&cmcat=WHITE_PAPER (6) As your SWO process matures, you should understand whether you should do anything about click fraud 4 or treat it as a cost of business and trust your ad networks to handle it. (a) Anchor Intelligence is a leader in click fraud detection and prevention and offers a variety of solutions you should consider via ROI analysis. Note that this may not be cost effective for smaller advertisers. http://www.anchorintelligence.net/solutions.html (i) targeting high quality traffic to increase conversions, (ii) improving the quality of publishers on their network, (iii) removing non-billable ad clicks, (iv) adjusting keyword pricing strategies,
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Bidding on keywords in Google, Yahoo and Microsoft “paid search” advertising programs determines your search engine results page [SERP] ranking on the right column and top. 4 According to Anchor Intelligence, “Click fraud has been around as long as CPC marketing was first introduced by GoTo in 1998 (GoTo renamed to Overture and was acquired by Yahoo in 2003 for $1.7 billion). Google and Yahoo generally avoid the subject, but some outsiders estimate that as many as 20 - 25% of clicks are fraudulent - by people either trying to drive up the advertising costs of competitors, or by clicking on the ads displayed on sites they control.” 8
(b) The pros and cons of click fraud are captured in this blog. http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/09/anchor-intelligence-to-audit-click-fraud (c) Click Forensics is the first third-party to partner with Yahoo to improve traffic quality and reduce click fraud http://www.clickforensics.com (i) Click Forensics will provide Yahoo with “side click” and data to help Yahoo meet its objectives of advertiser satisfaction and ROI. vi) Effective Strategic Website Optimization™ can avoid an expensive PPC failure. (1) 12 Common Mistakes to Avoid in PPC marketing http://www.seop.com/Services/PPC/common-mistakesPPC.htm (2) A good article on the keys to customer engagement/conversion/retention using PPC (a) http://www.seop.com/Services/PPC/keys-2-conversionPPC.htm vii) Effective Strategic Website Optimization can insure effective backlink building (1) A great overview of the SEO link building http://vinfosoln.com/content-services.html viii) Use content to attract Visitors to your site and increase your organic [natural] ranking on the Search Engine Results Page [SERP]. (1) SERP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serp (2) Strategically determine what content if any can be leveraged for “registrations” [downloads and leads] on the Website as part of the Intelligent Customer Engagement™ process. (a) There is a major trend in marketing to the use of informative content to drive [qualified] buyers to the Website. Thus it is important that marketers understand the latest buyer behavior and vendor behavior in a major study conducted among technology buyers and vendors by KnowledgeStorm in 2006: http://www.knowledgestorm.com/MainServlet?ksAction=aboutus (i) Issue One: How Technology Marketers are Meeting Buyers' Appetite for Content http://www.knowledgestorm.com/search/viewabstract/87939?pos=1&referer=SE ARCH_RESULTS&trkpg=search_results_abstract (i) Issue Two: Content Distribution – Where Information Intersects With Demand http://www.knowledgestorm.com/search/viewabstract/77699?pos=1&referer=SE ARCH_RESULTS&trkpg=search_results_abstract (ii) Issue Three: Putting it all Together – Driving Content Marketing Program Successes http://www.knowledgestorm.com/search/viewabstract/90153 (3) Develop needed content (a) To attract prospective customers with educational white papers, Solutions Guides, podcasts, webcasts, blogs, webinars and other (b) For traditional product marketing collateral such as data sheets, brochures and Product Guides, case studies, ROI analyses. (c) Vendors providing a full range of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 strategic content creation and delivery services. (i) www.strategic-reports.com (ii) www.globalfluency.com (d) If success stories, white papers or other content doesn’t exist determine which can be created or paid for [analyst studies] so as to have effective incentives to drive registrations. e) Make detailed plans and storyboard all Web pages in order to optimize your Website in terms of: i) Graphic design, ii) page layout iii) keyword usage in the copy iv) SEO/SEM/PPC marketing investments. f) Be sure to arrange for an independent “Proof of Publication” service for all offline and online campaigns. i) These services are traditional to print advertising in which a “tear sheet” is provided as proof of the publication of a print ad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tear_sheet (1) In email marketing campaigns there are a variety of problems that should be “confirmed” by the advertiser such as were the emails sent and delivered, was downloaded content interrupted by unplanned technical glitches that no one thought to check for. (a) One example is the case of a 42-page white paper that was only allowed to be downloaded one page at a time, which in turn led to another problem at the 9
ii)
advertiser site, which did not allow searching by the author’s name. Both these problems diluted the campaign impact to near zero. Similar TV services record commercials to see if they are “truncated” [cut off early] in the actual broadcast or cable transmission so as to form the basis for the advertiser to negotiate discounts or replays of the ad.
Step 6 – Balance/Integrate On/Offline Plans and Map Touch Points
8) Align all Online and Offline Marketing plans [See also see Figure 1 – Step #6] a) Assign a Strategic Content Manager to insure unified strategic content and messaging between product marketing and corporate marketing whether online or offline. b) Implement or closely stagger market engagement [analyst, investor, partner, and affiliate customers] with customer engagement [whether it’s with technical/economic or user buyers]. i) Use Intelligent Market Engagement™ online and/or offline methods as appropriate. ii) Use Intelligent Customer Engagement™ online and/or offline methods as appropriate. c) Insure that online and offline messaging and branding are consistent and not siloed. d) Insure that IT and business managers are aligned in their thinking with the Strategic Website Optimization™ process in terms of supporting software and infrastructure i) This can involve re-architecting and integrating various software application silos (1) Un-integrated software point applications. (2) Use a Service-oriented Architecture [SOA] to develop new SWO in-house custom software applications. (3) Be sure to do ROI for all IT investments using best practices (4) Check references for all new software application purchases e) Map all on/offline messaging and technical interactions i) Do process flow diagrams before finalizing copy, backlinks etc ii) Check for messaging consistency and ask yourself the question – “Is what’s being said in my online message, consistent with my offline message?” (1) Insure that all landing page URLs are correct for each online touch point [affiliate backlink, banner ad link etc], and each offline touch point such as radio, TV or print ad etc (a) A graphic map can help avoid costly mistakes.
Then Execute Decisively and Fine Tune
Step 7 – Use “Marketing Operations” as the Hub for Strategic Website Optimization™
9) Set up effective marketing operations as the control center of the entire SWO process [See also Figure 1 - Step #7] a) Engage business analysts from finance or marketing and use BI software measures and dashboards if available to measure key parameters of the SWO process. b) Content Development i) Always storyboard a site process before implementing rendering [including landing sites for each product segment] ii) Always storyboard all on/offline creative before rendering (1) Creative development of a Web page can be as important as that of a TV ad. c) Insure content accuracy before any campaign launch. i) Insure all content is proofread, technically edited and in accord with legal guidelines. (1) Make sure the proofreader is a professional proof reader or at a minimum a colleague with a “fresh set of eyes.” (2) Lack of final – final proofreading is a cause of expensive mistakes – especially for example if an email address or a URL [online link] is wrong in an offline promotional piece. ii) Be sure all content conforms to corporate style guides and or brand guides. iii) Pretest all links using best practices QA, and change management practices. d) Implement appropriate Web analytics and online / offline marketing research teams to measure qualitative/quantitative campaign effectiveness 10
e) f) g) h)
Insure “marketing operations” manages the ongoing process of ROI optimization Insure consistent [six sigma type] improvements Balance all on/offline, creative/technical and marketing/sales variables. Engage all creative professionals as needed i) Full Web content design services www.strategic-reports.com ii) Brand Design Services http://www.standingstonegroup.com i) Plan, negotiate and budget a PPC/SEM marketing plan j) Edit the test site, check all links, and make sure the site is crawable and present to the client for approval before going live. i) Use best practices for change management as you would before deploying changes for global mission critical software systems. k) Make all copy, graphics, HTML changes, implement the SEM marketing plan l) Go live, monitor analytics, monitor CRM databases, measure conversion rate and ROI as appropriate. m) Conduct A/B tests as appropriate to optimize investments.
Step 8 – Fine Tune and Continue the Process using 6? Tools
10) If the company has a Business Process Management IT program – use it to define and enforce the Strategic Website Optimization™ process and keep it going forward [See also Figure 1 - Step #7] a) Your competitors may or may not be doing this but you can gain strategic advantage by building important “process capital” and superior knowledge of your customer groups buying behavior. b) Web analytics and on/offline market research tools i) Use Web analytics and online marketing research to refine your online marketing processes. ii) Use offline marketing research techniques to refine your offline marketing processes. iii) Use both to refine the synergy of your integrated campaign. iv) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_research c) Be sure to use Web analytics software before your competitors do. i) The Web Analytics software market segment’s leader Coremetrics has some excellent white papers to take the mystery out of SEM strategies and in defining important new tools such as context marketing and Web 2.0 media. (1) This paper covers five tips for effective SEM strategies including maintaining a keyword inventory by segment, finding high-value low cost search terms to improve conversion, developing solid content to bring in traffic, and having a sound keyword bidding strategy. (a) http://www.coremetrics.com/resources/thankyou.php?id=wpsearch_engine_marketing&cmprod=WPOptimizing_Search_Engine_Marketing&cmcat=WHITE_PAPER (2) This paper discusses which metrics to collect to analyze and leverage visitor behavior. (a) http://www.coremetrics.com/downloads/Coremetrics_White_Paper_Contextual_Mark eting.pdf (3) This link is a white paper tutorial on Web 2.0 and the trend to personalization marketing. Although this is not appropriate for all marketers, it is important to understand these techniques for down the road use or just to know what Web 2.0 is. (a) http://www.coremetrics.com/downloads/Coremetrics_web2.0_white_paper.pdf
Who can Benefit from the Strategic Website Optimization™ Process?
Based on our experience there are three types of businesses where SWO can have a significant benefit. ? For most marketers in profitable enterprises, SWO has an almost infinite ROI, since sustained market segment leadership is the return [i.e., the net present value of a significant profit-stream perpetuity], AND SWO can usually be achieved for almost $0 in incremental investment. For marketers facing dramatic losses due to their competitors’ use of the Internet, however, SWO may be more appropriately viewed as a disaster-avoidance tool. 11
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For marketers in industries where the majority of the impact of the Internet has yet to impact them, SWO can be likened more as a roadmap for a successful offline to online transition, and our step-bystep as required reading.
We caution our readers however, that implementing SWO may not be as easy as it first looks, since with any state-of-the-art business process, the majority of the advantages come from doing things that your competitors aren’t doing and that are perhaps uncomfortable to your organization and agency staff. So in this regard, SWO implementation may not an easy task. It requires breaking down functional silos and orchestrating a multi-disciplinary multi-functional team to achieve maximum business value from your Website as the “hub” of your marketing cycle.
A “Fresh Set of Eyes” Can Often Pay Big Dividends
Since breaking down functional and agency silos is never easy business, it’s sometimes productive for clients to take a shot at SWO without muddying the water with marketing services firms such as StrategicReports.com or GlobalFluency. So we’ve set forth a do-it-yourself process for the readers consideration. Of course you might conclude that for political or skill reasons that a fresh set of eyes would be the best way for you to go. In this case you can learn more about SWO by visiting www.strategic-reports.com/aboutswo or GlobalFluency's IME Practice at http://www.globalfluency.com/capabilities/ime/index.html or contacting the authors Jim McBurney 408-733-9479 or Ford Kanzler at (650) 328-5555
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About the Authors
The authors and their expert-teams are all seasoned strategic marketing and marketing communications consultants who are available to help you if needed. Our help can vary from high level marketing organization and business process reviews, that provide you with a “fresh set of eyes and fresh ideas” for your existing processes, or we can get help you with “nuts and bolts” marketing planning and execution. Our objective is to help all clients develop and internalize 6? methods to constantly improve Website ROI using our Strategic Website Optimization™ best practices. We suggest you “do-it-yourself” as much as you want to, and use expert outsourced skills as much as make sense.
About Global Fluency, Inc.
GlobalFluency is a worldwide communications services firm offering its clients a distinctive combination of capabilities for shaping perceptions, developing and growing markets, expanding customer relationships, and building valued brands. With offices in over 50 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA and Asia, we provide the right resources to deliver effective, standout marketing campaigns anywhere in the world. The company uses proprietary methodologies to take clients to market faster and with more compelling and sustainable value propositions that separate and differentiates them from their competition. GlobalFluency’s special competency, Intelligent Market Engagement™ (IME), is a powerful new model for building brand authority, shaping market discussion and harvesting new business opportunities.
About Strategic-Reports.com
Strategic-Reports.com is the Website of Sr. Marketing Consultant Jim McBurney and his virtual team of consultants who provide an array of strategic Internet marketing services to help clients beat their competitors. Focused on the customer engagement, acquisition and retention processes, the consultancy has created strategic content with one piece generating 20,000 registrations/downloads with millions in resulting sales. A special competency, Strategic Website Optimization™, (SWO) is a powerful new model to strategically, creatively and technically navigate a marketer’s transition from offline to an online marketing/sales model. Implementing a comprehensive Strategic Website Optimization™ process enables competitive advantage by first helping clients understanding the Internet impact on their product/service/business models, and then help them organize plan, execute and fine-tune a custom SWO process to stay ahead of the competition. Notice: This document is for informational purposes only, and does not set forth any warranty, express or implied, concerning any services offered or to be offered by Jim McBurney and/or GlobalFluency, Inc. This document describes some capabilities that are conditioned on a services agreement and statement of work with Jim McBurney and/or GlobalFluency, Inc. being in effect. Please contact Jim McBurney and/or GlobalFluency, Inc. for information on service offerings from the respective consultancies. ©2008, Jim McBurney All Rights Reserved. BPG 01 March 2008
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