BarnRaisers

If there is a commandment in digital marketing, it’s Content is King, with good reason. Relevant content is a brand’s most valuable asset.

But it would be mistake to believe that is all you need. As of May 2012, there are 650 million websites; 203 million are active websites and, according to this chart from Netcraft, they are growing in leaps and bounds.

The good news is your audience, and Google, love quality content and, if you provide it on a regular basis, you will see your search rank rise.

Sure, Content is King but, if you want your kingdom to get found, here are 12 SEO steps to take.

KEYWORDS

• SEE WHAT THE SEARCH ENGINES SEE IN YOU: If you have an analytics tool like Google Analytics, look at the keywords and key phrases people use to find your site. For example, on this site, there are roughly 150 case studies that prove ROI in areas like social media, CRM, social commerce and customer service. “Case studies” is  one of the most often used phrases people use to find this site. We are interested in an audience that is interested in marketing case studies, we’ll keep writing these blogs. It attract both a desirable audience and the search engines.
• KNOW WHO TO ATTRACT: For every business, there a wide disparity between best and worst customers. Google Analytics can tell you, for example, where your audience comes from (e.g. Search, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Direct), how much time each group spends, how many pages each group views so you can write to the people that matter most and attract more of them.
• LOOK AT THE COMPETITION: Competitive analysis tools like Compete and Alexa give you much of the information in the above points for your key competitors. This gives you an understanding as well as ideas on what to write about vis-a-vis key competitors.
• CREATE YOUR “SEED” LIST: Now, you’re ready to look for the single words (short tail) and multi-word phrases (long tail) you want for your business. Using search tools like Keyword Tracker, Google AdWords Keyword Tool  and SEO Book, you can easily create lists that show search volume and competitiveness. You have built a foundation for your content kingdom.

COPYWRITING

• WRITE FOR YOUR AUDIENCE, NOT SEARCH ENGINES: Your audience, not the search engines, is your end user and they expect you to educate and inform them before they buy. So, use keywords and key phrases that are conversational as you would talk to a person, not a search engine.
• RECOGNIZE DIFFERENT TYPES OF READERS: There are three types of readers: 1) Researchers, 2) Shoppers and 3) Buyers. Researchers want general information in laymen’s terms; shoppers want comparisons and buyers want specific terminology and facts. All are important because each plays a role from building outreach to generating revenue. So know who you are talking to and why.
• APPEALS TO NEEDS, ASK QUESTIONS AND INFORM: Although there are different types of readers, they all have in common unmet needs that you can appeal to by asking questions and providing information.
• WRITE DESCRIPTIVE CONTENT IN A NATURAL FLOW: This is a difference between these statements: 1) Look here for the latest ROI cases studies in social media, CRM and social commerce and 2) We show you case studies for a business similar to yours that is proving return on investment (ROI) and growing their bottom line using social media, CRM and social commerce. Both say the same thing and use the same keywords. One talks at you; one talk to you, says what’s in it for you and encourages you to get involved. Which one is more convincing to you?

SITE OPTIMIZATION

• DON’T PUT ALL YOUR CONTENT EGGS IN ONE BASKET: It important to know the keywords and key phrases that drive your audience to your website. It’s equally important not to put them all on your homepage so they don’t compete for your reader’s attention and the search engines.
• PLAN EACH PAGE OF YOUR WEBSITE AROUND A CORE PIECE OF CONTENT: If you plan a page for each piece of core content, you build a kingdom for your content that is far reaching and strong.
• HAVE A PLAN FOR PROMOTING CONTENT: Blog at least once a week, publish content on social networks and optimize your website for mobile. These are “best practices” for sharing content which studies from HubSpot show increase website traffic +30% or more. A good place to see how you are doing is HubSpot’s Website Grader.
• TRACK, REPORT, OPTIMIZE AND REPEAT: Let the same tools that helped you at the start, keep your strategy on track and improve. You’ve created your kingdom. Now, be a kind, compassionate and prolific ruler.

Buy it or build it?

This is a primary question that involves thought for any business. As it relates to marketing, there’s no shortage of ways to buy it from ads to affiliate relationships to list buying.  But with social media, you build it. And it often comes with a better return on investment because you’re taking out the middleman and building a more direct relationships with your customers.

Want proof? Here are 9 case studies where social media took out the middleman.

1. CLEVELAND CLINIC: Heavily regulated category like healthcare usually shy away from social media but not the Cleveland Clinic. By structuring a cross-functional team to enable education, collaboration, and smart governance, the Cleveland Clinic deepened engagement with its consumers around the globe – both providers and patients. They used Facebook and Twitter for daily wellness tips; LinkedIn for professional recruitment and YouTube for content on diseases and patient stories. Since the Cleveland Clinic established social media as a cross-functional discipline, it has seen a noticeable increase in website traffic, attendance at health lectures and new patients making and keeping appointments.

2.  EDIBLE ARRANGEMENTS. Through their Facebook page, Edible Arrangements offered consumers a voucher for free chocolate dipped strawberries. But to redeem the coupon, fans had to visit an Edible Arrangements store providing Edible Arrangements franchisees the opportunity to promote their store to a slew of new customers. This campaign  generated 170,000 new fans and a double-digit increase in sales versus year ago.

3. FOILED CUPCAKES: Has shown extraordinary growth, strong ROI and built a social community where 95% of their customers come from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. When Foiled Cupcakes had their first Groupon promotion, the promotion went live at midnight and fans bought 800 dozens by 8 am.

4.  HARLEY DAVIDSON: (HDTalking.com): Harley owners created a website and social community of over 3 million Facebook fans and 62,000 Twitter followers that runs entirely on user-generated content.  Here, Harley owners trade photos, jokes, where to find hard to find parts, advice on Harley models and ownership plus there are at least 7 mechanics on-call at all times.  HDtalking.com now has 58,000+ Harley owner participating and cost to Harley for operations is negligible.

5.  H&R BLOCK: Used Facebook and Twitter during the tax season to provide immediate access to a tax professional for Q&A in the “Get It Right” social media campaign.  The effort secured 1,500,000 unique visitors and answered 1,000,000 questions for a 15% lift in business versus the prior year when there was no social media “Get It Right” program. Here’s how Amy Worley explains how the company got it right.

6. IBM: Let employees set up internal blogs to promote collaboration and innovation within the company on a global scale. There was no external blog and no pressure on employee to participate in internal blogs but but there were 17,000 internal blogs, 100,000 employees participating regularly and as many as 500,000 participants involved in company crowd-sourcing “jams.”  Crowd-sourcing identified the 10 best incubator businesses, which IBM funded for $100 million and generated $100 billion in total revenue for a 10-to-1 ROI with a 44.1% gross profit margin.

7. MELROSE JEWELERS: An eRetailer sold high end watches like Rolex and Breitling where the average sales is $5,000. They offered consumers $100 off on their next purchase if they “Like” them on Facebook. They had an app on their Facebook page that functioned as a simple quiz where, after taking the quiz your “watch personality” was revealed at the end (e.g. you are James Bond 200o Breitling man) to engage and secure email addresses of potential customers. You also got $150 off after your purchase if you took a picture of your new watch and posted it on Facebook.  As a result, Facebook fans went from 30,000 to over 180,000 in one quarter and sales went from a few hundred thousand to over $2,000,000.

8. PRETZEL CRISPS: Launched a$1.00 coupon on their Facebook page. Within 36 hours, their fan base grew from 5,000 to 12,000. So, they launched another coupon – Buy One, Get One Free. Only this time they didn’t tell their fans. No matter. Fans found out on their own and the “letting you in on a secret” factor had a viral effect that built the fans from 14,000 and 29,000 and now it’s at over 62,000. But fans just tell one side of the story.  The redemption rate for the fist coupon was 87%; the redemption rate for the second was 95% and annual sales increase was 93%.

8. SETON HALL UNIVERSITY: Was discovering that prospective students went to their Facebook page before their website to find out whether this was the right school for them. So, they engaged on Facebook to increase enrollment and revenue and tagged whether Facebook played a role. Tuitions increased +18% and deposits increased +25% with 2X as many students coming to website from Facebook.

9. TORTILLALAND: Found social media was a great resource for building a database and conducting market research with consumers for their fresh, uncooked tortillas. In the space of a few months, they ran a sweepstakes; then, a free coupon on Facebook that created a database of over 14,000 and insights into target consumers through survey research. They built brand assets that would have cost 100′s for thousands of dollars through suppliers for a very small fraction of that amount.

When developing your brand’s growth strategy, will you buy it or build it and take out the middleman?

Consider these facts:

• 80% of consumers find your website by first writing a query into a box on a search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing)
• 42% chose the first site listed in organic search
• 90% choose a site listed on the first page

These facts suggest, for anyone doing business on the internet, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a first orders of business.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engines via the “natural,” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”), search results, as defined by Wikipedia.

Although there are plenty of SEO case studies, it can be hard to find case studies that directly prove return on investment (ROI). In the quest for a top rank on Google and increased website traffic, it’s easy to forget the most essential question to ask: What action(s) do you want consumers to take when they get to your website?

To show what’s achievable, here are 10 case studies that prove the ROI of SEO.

1. COMPLETE PLUMBING SOURCE: An e-commerce online source for homeowners and do-it-yourself plumbers who want quality and affordable plumbing supplies and tools from leading brands, completeplumbingsource.com’s number one goal was to drive targeted traffic to their site and generate product sales through a seamless online buying process. Keyword discovery led to an optimization of the top revenue-producing pages and  landing page optimization. Within four months, website traffic increased +169%, conversion increased +202% and sales increased by +300%.

2. DICKIES: An online store for Dickies Work Wear focused on the quality and quantity of organic search traffic. They focused on keywords and phrase for those reaching the DickiesStore website with “Dickies” related phrases as well as more generic phrases such as “workwear” and “safety boots” etc. Within six months,  DickiesStore dominated the SERP’S (Search Engine Results Page) for “Dickies” related keywords; an extremely competitive niche in which many suppliers of the Dickies brand are constantly competing for top rankings. Within a year, the SEO strategy resulted in an increase of 63% in non-branded traffic and 47% increase in sales.

3. DOLLAR DAYS: An online e-commerce wholesaler that helps smaller businesses compete against larger chain, dollardays.com used videos for its eclectic product offering to capture long tail key words. They also video indexed each product video for Google’s search algorithms using a video sitemap. The result was a huge and immediate +75% increase in sales.

4. ENTREPRENEUR: Sought to increase site traffic and downloads of it huge number of articles at entrepreneur.com. That’s because increases in site traffic and involvement increased advertising rates and revenues. They instituted an SEO program in three stages: In Stage 1, they optimized the web page. In Stage 2, they optimized keywords, links and content for descriptions of the articles. In Stage 3, they integrated SEO into the entire business process. The result was an estimated return of over $2 million dollars PER MONTH (calculated by determining the revenue from additional number of click-throughs since they began the SEO program, minus the SEO expenses incurred).

5. MILLENIUM HOTELS:  A prominent hotel chain with over 110 hotels and resorts located in over 60 different destinations in 18 countries, Millenium used SEO to: 1) Achieve higher placements for highly competitive generic search phrase, 2) attract seasonal traffic and 3) promote seasonal offers online. Within a year, Millenium saw increases of: 1) 250,000 visitor per month, 2) 84% in organic traffic and 3) 70% in online reservations bookings.

6. PHILLYDENTIST.COM: Dr. Ken Cirka, DMD, had no relevant keywords on his website in the areas of  title tags, body copy, and headers, some of  the most important factors in search engine rankings for on-site optimization. During this time, he received one new patient per week. However, after making these changes, he rose to the #1 position for the keywords, “Philadelphia dentist,” and  received nine new patients each week. Nine month later, Dr. Cirka hired another dentist and additional staff.

7. ROTTEN TOMATOES: A movie review site that started out as a hobby, rottentomatoes.com was built by SEO. The Rotten Tomatoes team observed that most people searched for movie reviews by searching on the movie name or for actors in a film, not for a movie review itself.  Therefore Rotten Tomatoes architected the site to give each individual movie its own Rotten Tomatoes mini-site to boost natural search rankings. The SEO strategy was so successful that features such as “Tomatometer” are now a high volume keyword and Rotten Tomatoes is one of the top 5 movie review sites in the world.

8. VICTORIA INN:  a resort inn in a unique heritage building on the south shore of Rice Lake at Gore’s Landing, Ontario. Victoria Inn wanted to use its website as a reservation sales tool to attract new bookings for the inn. For the broadest possible sales and bookings, the keyword phrases needed to work with local and regional geographical locator terms. Victoria Inn achieved more than 370 top ten ranking positions and 152 #1 ranking for an 85% increase in reservations bookings.

9. VOICES.COM: One of the leading marketplaces for voice-over talent, voices.com studied competitive sites, keywords, visitor intensions between those looking to hire and those looking to hire voice-over talent. The resulting site overhaul and SEO keyword discovery increased conversions rates on the site by 400%.

10. WATER GALLERY: An internet-only business that offers handcrafted, indoor water fountains that are designed to fit on walls or floors and made with stones, pebbles and marble, watergallery.net did a full site redesign to make it more search engine friendly and added PayPal buttons so people could pay online. Sales increased +500% within 6 months and gross margin increased +300%.

These case studies prove, whether  company is large or small, selling something that is familiar or new, SEO is foundational for business building.

But the #1 priority is focus on the desired business because SEO strategies and tactics vary based on a business’s goals. If you’re clear about who you want to attract and the action(s) you want them to take on your once they get to your site, you’ll see the results and ROI a lot faster.

What do these 10 case studies on the ROI of SEO prove to you?

The image above is of one hand clapping. Perhaps it’s coming from the marketing plan that relies on only one type of media.

It makes sense social and traditional media would work better together but, as with any new form of marketing, social media has more to prove so the two are sometimes compared as if they were in competition.

Here are 12 case studies that prove social and traditional media were meant to work together.

1. CLEVELAND CLINIC: Was not the first in healthcare to experiment in social media, but it achieved success where others failed. By structuring a cross-functional team to enable education, collaboration, and smart governance, Cleveland Clinic deepened engagement with its consumers around the globe – both providers and patients. They used Facebook and Twitter for daily wellness tips; LinkedIn for professional recruitment and YouTube for content on diseases and patient stories. Since the Cleveland Clinic established social media as a cross-functional discipline, it has seen a noticeable increase in website traffic, attendance at health lectures and new patients making and keeping appointments.

2. CLOROX: Used traditional media to communicate the many uses for bleach in the home but supplemented with social media to encourage usage in places outside the house. Clorox launched an online community, CloroxClassrooms.com, with blog and Twitter effort on Labor Day weekend at the beginning of the school year.  The Twitter page was among the Top 10 trending topics over Labor Day weekend and the blog was recognized by the Marketing to Mom Coalition and mommy bloggers for excellence in terms of delivering sharable information.

2. COCA-COLA: Used social media strategically and achieved the strongest global marketing integration ever with Expedition 206, a social media promotion where a small group of travel ambassadors went to 206 countries over 365 days to “generate happiness” and published on social networks.  It enabled global promotion execution and integration among 3,500 Coca-Cola marketers around the world.

4. COLGATE WISP: Changed the target for the launch of a new, disposable toothbrush, from the traditional Moms to young, urban men and women 18-25 who were active daters. They supplemented the traditional media plan with 8 ”Be More Kissable” viral videos. They created a Facebook App called “Spin the Wisp” and partnered with 8 online publishers. The videos received over 4.1 million views and the App was downloaded over 40,000+ times. Colgate learned the value of engagement because Colgate’s U.S. market share in the toothbrush category increased 5.6 points to a record 35.6% driven largely by the Wisp.

5. FORD FIESTA: Gave 100 consumers a car for six months and asked them to complete a different mission every month. At the direction of Ford and their own imagination, “agents” used their Fiestas to deliver Meals On Wheels. They used them to take Harry And David treats to the National Guard. They went looking for adventure, some to wrestle alligators, others actually to elope. All of these stories were then lovingly documented on YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter. Fiesta got 6.5 million YouTube views and 50,000 requests for information about the car—virtually none from people who already had a Ford in the garage. Ford sold 10,000 units in the first six days of sales. The results came at a relatively small cost. The Fiesta Movement is reputed to have cost a small fraction of the typical national TV campaign.

6. FRITO-LAY: Launched “What’s You Flavor” contest, as part of an integrated campaign, where social media was used as the vehicle for consumers to capture the diverse flavors and the diversity of people’s imagination in India. It leveraged the Frito Lays brand as a household name in India in a way that connected emotionally. The campaign attracted more than 500 press coverage worth 54 crores, the biggest in Frito Lay India’s history.

7. H&R BLOCK: Has learned in the weeks prior to April 15th, every question that is not answered immediately is a lost sales.  Tax preparation is a highly seasonal business.  H&R used Facebook and Twitter to provide immediate access to a tax professional for Q&A in the “Get It Right” social media campaign.  The effort secured 1,500,000 unique visitors and answered 1,000,000 questions for a 15% lift in business versus the prior year when there was no social media in the marketing mix.

8. HARLEY DAVIDSON: (HDTalking.com): Harley owners created a website and social community totally funded by users and user-generated content.  Here, Harley owners trades photos, jokes, where to find hard to find parts, advice on Harley models and ownership plus there are at least 7 mechanics on-call at all times.  HDtalking.com now has 56,000+ and cost to Harley is negligible.

9. HOULIHAN’S: Showed that social media drives ROI for small businesses. The restaurant showed that social technologies can be used in different ways to drive customers. Houlihan’s in the U.S.has around 100 restaurants, compared to their main competitor Applebees, which has over 2,000. With a small marketing budget, their marketing manager managed to drive sales directly from a private social network, run via Ning. The network was called ‘HQ’ and was launched in early 2008. By combining their social media campaign with email marketing, they managed to quickly build up 10,000 members and estimated that “7,000 to 13,000 people heard about our newest promotion because of an HQ member”. This shows the strength in running your own social network and how sometimes a private network may be the way to go, to offer people exclusivity and also encourage word of mouth.

10. JETBLUE: Started a Twitter account to have more direct relationship with customers and to listen and respond how they could serve them better and deal directly with any complaints.  They now have over 1.6 million followers.

11. MTV: Premiered Skins — an Americanized version of the acclaimed British teen drama. In addition to traditional media and Skins.tv, a central community regularly updated with content (including trailers and sneak peeks), a Tumblr blog – we are skins, Twitter handle –@skinsTV and a Facebook Fan Page, MTV used a number of innovative social apps to develop awareness and brand affinity for the show: Skins drew 3.26 million total viewers, outperforming the launches of competitive scripted shows across both cable and network in its core demo (12-34), including CW’s “Gossip Girl” and ABC Family’s “Pretty Little Liars.”

12. OLD SPICE: Managed to gather some pretty impressive stats that show the money where the buzz is. The reach of the Old Spice campaign is not in doubt, but did it actually impact sales? Since the original campaign launched with ‘Mustafa’, sales increased by 27% year on year. But in the 3 months after the height of the campaign, sales were up by 55%, reaching 107% in the final month of the social media campaign. And of course, Old Spice is now the #1 body wash brand for men. However you choose to look at the campaign, these figures stand up to show that a social media campaign, well executed and combined with traditional media, can drive significant ROI.

Do these case studies prove social and traditional media work better together to you?

In 1899, the first edition of Who’s Who in America was published.  Its’ purpose: To profile leaders influencing the nation’s development. For a long time, we’ve accepted third-party authorities to tell us who influences and who matters.

When Klout was launched in 2009, it quickly became the authority for Who’s Who in social media. It used data from Twitter and Facebook, then LinkedIn, Foursquare and YouTube, to measure a person’s influence across their social network. Authority is better if it’s earned rather than assumed. Does Klout deserve to be the authority?

Here are 6 foundational faults with Klout.

1. A ROLE NOT CLEARLY DEFINED: Klout assumed, not earned, the position of “Standard of Influence” (in social media). They said they “measure influence based on your ability to drive action.” What action? Unlike Who’s Who that says it looked for actions that prove influence on our nation’s development, the action Klout drives is not clear, nor does it result in real positive change.

2. SELLING OUT: A benefit to Klout is you can get Klout Perks. They get “distributed to select influencers based on their topics of authority, location and score.”  Isn’t that discriminatory and doesn’t it encourage people to sell out?

3. NO CASE STUDIES: On this blog, we promote the business value of social media to brands. You can find close to 100 case studies that prove social media ROI (see related posts at the bottom) based on hard sales measurements across every business sector (e.g. B2C, B2B, profit, non-profit) and social network (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs). After two years, we can’t find one substantial case study from Klout. Hmm.

4. GAMING AND MANIPULATING, NOT INFLUENCING: But, with very little searching, we can find plenty of anecdotal stories from people who have gamed the system like this one from a researcher who set out one week to drive up her Klout score and, with very little effort, did.

5. UNEXPLAINED GLITCHES: In late October, Klout launched a new algorithm. To many of us, it not clear why except it caused a dramatic and unexpected decrease in the Klout scores to most users. At about the same time, Google announced it reworked its algorithm to give greater importance to recency of content because so many people now look to social networks for the most recent news. We all got it and it made perfect sense. Can anyone explain the new or old, for that matter, Klout algorithm?

6. SOCIAL MEDIA SHOULDN’T BE ABOUT KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES: Do we need a status symbol for participating in social media? Shouldn’t we just do it because we enjoy it.

This week, the Pew Study came out with findings about how we use social media:

• 67 percent said the major reason they use social networks is to stay in touch with current friends
• 64 percent to stay in touch with family members and 50 percent to connect with old friends they had lost touch with.

Pew didn’t mention the percentage that was checking their Klout scores. What does this say to you?

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