Earlier in February, DaBrian Marketing Group hosted a Google Partners Event that showcased the capabilities of Google AdWords and online marketing. The infographic summarizes the top 5 small business online marketing tips to leverage Google to improve your business’ online presence and marketing efforts. Any questions and comments should be directed to DaBrian Marketing Group, and if you are interested the full Google presentation is available on YouTube.
Kevin Systrom has certainly gotten where he wanted to be in four short years (or 104 in social media years) since founding Instagram. The domination of visual content platforms has forced the re-visitation of many a social media strategy for marketers. Now the only question is: what’s Kevin got up his Prada-conceived sleeve?
It was the biggest social headline of 2014: “It’s Official: Instagram Is Bigger Than Twitter”. We all read it, we all did a double-take, and we all had the same reaction: “Wow – well, actually… I guess I could see it”. Of course we could all see it. Instant user gratification (following Twitter’s recipe) mixed with virtually 100% visual presentation (with maybe 1% left for the hashtag game) – Instagram couldn’t have any more #swag if they tried.
But (unfortunately for the English language) swag WORKS in the social space, and it works well. Appealing to the masses is the name of the game, and Instagram has a stiff leg up on the competition. In the past nine months alone, Instagram has doubled its monthly active users to 300 million. That’s right – Instagram has gained nearly 150 million active users since Samsung launched current flagship Galaxy S5 in the U.S. “Really?”…yeah, really.
C’mon, everybody who’s ANYBODY is doing it. Facebook in 2012, Twitter in 2013, even Snapchat and Pinterest are joining the party with expected IPO’s in the coming year. It certainly makes sense – as going public has hardly put holes in the pockets of social’s biggest players to date. It’s only a matter of time until that conversation surfaces. The question is: what cash-flowing, business-driving, investor-enticing feature do these platforms have (yes, even Snapchat) that Instagram is still lacking? Advertising. Should Instagram decide to test the public waters in 2015, we can most definitely expect to see a more robust (and accepting) advertising platform. Speaking of which…
Okay, fine, Instagram has “advertising” – that is, if you’re a top-1% advertiser who’s willing to spend egregious amounts of time and resources working with Instagram to meet the toughest ad regulations in the industry. But for the rest of our brands, Instagram Ads are about as useful as the local Classifieds.
Instagram Ads don’t appear to be getting any more accessible any time soon, either. According to Instagram’s Director/Market Operations, Jim Squires, the platform is being “very methodical and deliberate” about the process. It’s a benchmarking phase. Their sloth-friendly pace is most likely a reactive approach due to parent company Facebook’s regular user meltdowns that come with platform alterations. Bottom line: don’t expect your average client’s brand to be advertising on Instagram anytime soon.
In the meantime, Instagram has yet to give us any diminishing algorithms to contend with, so paid advertising isn’t a necessary evil to maintain our reach and visibility (italics means it’s emphasized, people). As long as creativity is emphasized, a proper advertisement is as simple as the tap of a thumb.
We’ve been begging Instagram for an analytics platform for a while now. Sure, we have access to services like Iconosquare or TOTEMS, and even the big boys like Hootsuite pretend to have what we need from a reporting perspective. But metrics like “engagement rate” lack the context of what we need to prove that our content is really resonating with the end user.
Instagram has been buzzing about a new “time spent” metric for a while now. In fact, in a recent interview with Recode, it was announced that the average mobile user spends 21 minutes per day in the application. If Instagram is really as art-sy as they claim to be, they should know of this metric’s importance to us. Think of a fine art museum. How can you tell what pieces are TRULY appealing to an audience? They stop and stare at it for a while. Soon, a crowd gathers, and before you know it you’ve got what social media is all about: attention. When will Instagram actually grant us access to a “time spent” metric? Who knows. For now, “engagement rate” and a properly tagged link in your bio are going to have to do.
Here’s the thing, though – for everything Instagram is lacking, they make up for ten-fold. They still have the highest user “engagement” (if you’re into that sort of thing), they still have more active monthly users than Twitter, and they still maintain among the highest growth rates of any platform out there. Seriously, Instagram could give us all or none of the things in this report, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. We’re all still suckers for swag.
A search starts with a problem or question. As a business, your goal is to begin to resolve their problem/question with your paid search ad. Before you can accomplish this goal, you must uncover the person/personality of these users and the intent of their searches. While knowing each individual user who searches and their personal intent is impossible, it is practical to create a persona to represent each group/segment of your target audience in order to better reach and begin resolve their problems/questions.
Creating personas to represent segments of your target audience can greatly benefit your paid search marketing tactics. Although the process of dividing your target audience into segments and then creating representative personas for each segment will be time consuming, the effectiveness of your paid search marketing campaigns will prove that the time was well spent. Instead of building a list of keywords including how your entire target market should, could and would search for your product/search, you can focus your attention on how a single persona thinks and searches for your product or service. Being able to focus your attention will streamline the keyword list building process and make it more efficient. Also, this allows you to tailor your ad copy to the needs/wants of that single persona to compel them to take action and interact with your ads.
How a user responds to your ads will vary depending on the purpose of their search. Fortunately, users often give marketers a glimpse into their motives through the search terms used. For instance, someone looking for “reviews for …” or “best…” is currently comparative shopping. While searchers who include “cost” or “price” are closer to making a purchase. Another indicator is the specificity of the search. A comparative shopper still researching will use general terms like “shoes”, “sneakers” or “runners.” On the other hand someone that is ready to make a decision will use brand names like “Nike” or “Reebok” or even specific product lines “Adidas Springblades.” Determining how personas search for your product or service at different stages of the purchasing cycle will help you finalize your paid search keyword list. The biggest benefit from knowing the user intent is being able to direct them to a landing page with content that answers their questions and pushes them into the next stage of the purchasing cycle.
A perfect example of this is if a user is searching for reviews, you might want to direct them to a landing page with customer reviews and testimonials. From there, offer links to showcase additional features, make a purchase, or contact a sales representative. Allow the user to discover the answers to the questions that initiated their search while guiding them through your sales/conversion funnel. This customer nurturing process all starts with the Pay per Click (PPC) keyword list building.
When using both personas and intent breakdowns your keyword lists should form a matrix structure similar to the one depicted below.
The more personas with different intent will multiply out the number of column and rows of your chart, but it will also allow you to get more personal with real searchers. By combining persona segments with user intent, you will be able to connect with more of the real searches within your target market through you paid search marketing efforts. This personal connection will result in higher performing keywords, ad copy, landing pages, and ultimately more conversions (leads or sales.) Setting aside the time to fully work out personas and their intent could greatly boost your Pay per Click advertising ROI, proving that it was time very well spent.
If you have not created personas or leveraged user’s intent, we highly recommend that you set aside the time to give it a try. If you have done it previously, let us know what your experience has been in creating and using personas to represent your paid search target audience! In addition, if you have split your keywords into user intent segments, has it made an impact on your Pay per Click efforts?
This week, DMG’s Principal Owner Daniel Laws was featured as a Web Analytics World guest contributor with his “Mobile Analytics Guide for Mobile Websites.”
Daniel walks you through the necessary steps to capturing the meaningful data you need to
make informed decisions surrounding your mobile website. Check out the featured blog in full at:
http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2015/02/mobile-analytics-guide-for-mobile-websites.html
This is Daniel’s second featured blog for Web Analytics World. We’d love to hear your feedback, so connect with us (or Daniel) on Twitter!
On February 11, 2015, DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC, a full service digital marketing agency located in Reading, PA, will host an exclusive digital marketing event sponsored by Google.
DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC is an official Google Partner. This status allows the agency to access research, advertising promotions, and exclusive events from Google. The Google Partners Connect event on February 11 will give local marketing professionals and business owners the opportunity to see how digital marketing can drive success for their businesses.
Content marketing is at the top of every marketer’s mind. How to plan it, how to execute it, and—most importantly—how to dive in and pull with the most value from it. The problem is, since content marketing is becoming such a blanket term that encompasses social media, email, video, and everything else, it can be difficult to dial in to the combination of tactics that generates maximum ROI.
A big issue we’re seeing in the space isn’t around content development processes, best practices, or even how to go about measuring content marketing’s effectiveness. For a lot of businesses, the problem lies in getting the right message in front of the right people. We know that operating different areas of the content marketing machine in isolation is a recipe for disaster, so we’ll have to tackle this hurdle at the source—building awareness around the content being produced.
Paid content distribution (sometimes called “content syndication”) is the practice of paying to distribute content to users via a third-party site. If you’ve ever read a blog post and seen a “Sponsored from around the web” section near the bottom of the page, that’s one way that content syndication works. As with anything digital, platforms vary in both price and functionality. Let’s start by covering why you may want to consider incorporating paid placements into your content strategy.
Gain Exposure – Generally, the value of paid content syndication comes from the quality of the message itself; not how much you spend or how enticing your ad copy is. This value is perceived as more genuine and, thus, more likely to drive business results.
Streamlined Process – In order to get started syndicating content, you often don’t need anything more than a budget and a URL. If you already blog as part of your content mix, it’s just a matter of selecting a choice few to get started.
Customization – In order to make sure the right people see your content, solutions are available that allow you to control targeting settings, whether by location, age, or interests. This ensures you’re not wasting your budget on uninterested users.
Easy Measurement – Nearly every content syndication solution has built-in analytics that are no-nonsense and allow for simple CSV exports. For the more advanced marketer, custom URL tagging is supported as well.
You’re probably thinking that you’re completely sold on paid content marketing. We’d advise taking a quick cautionary step before you head down that path, though. Some drawbacks of taking your content marketing to this level include:
It’s not a silver bullet – Paying for this kind of visibility isn’t the end-all be-all content marketing tactic. That means it may work in conjunction with more proactive outreach, or it may not work at all. In other words, your mileage may vary.
Potentially high costs – Our research shows that this type of approach warrants a more substantial monetary investment (Between $300 and $500/month at the low end). For small or medium-sized businesses, this may be problematic when it comes time to divvy up the annual marketing budget.
The time investment – Put simply, if your content doesn’t provide value in some way, it won’t be worthwhile to pay for its distribution. As your budget dwindles, it won’t take long to determine whether the content you’re pouring money into is sub-par.
So is paid content syndication right for your business? Unfortunately, it depends. As noncommittal of a response as that is, the decision to invest in this type of marketing should not be made without answering some fundamental questions:
Whether you’d like to get your brand name out there, showcase your expertise, or generate more buzz around your message, paid content syndication can be a great way to start building those relationships. So long as you’ve got something meaningful to say and a way to measure success, it’ll be well within your reach.
