Leverage Blog: How to Exploit the Web.

Net Neutrality: Why it matters

You may have read about the discussions of "Net-Neutrality" in congress recently.  If you've missed the debate (perhaps on purpose) I'll provide a high-level review of the issue and throw-in my .02.

Net-neutrality refers to legislation being debated in Congress that would keep the internet free.  This activity is in response to cable and telephone companies lobbying Washington to create two access-levels to the internet--  large websites that pay large fees would get priority over smaller sites.  The impact?  Small (business) websites would load more slowly and be harder to navigate.

Who does your customer blame when their experience on your website becomes harder and slower?  Comcast?  SBC?

That would be nice, but no.  They form the impression that your business is harder to work-with.

A few companies would make a windfall, like internet service providers and telcoms, but the small-medium enterprise would pay the price.  This issue has joined the left-leaning moveon.org with the conservative Gun Owners of America, as wild as that sounds.  What's more, a Democrat and Republican have teamed-up to draft a net-neutrality bill.  This issue has created strange bedfellows.

I suppose my .02 is clear:  Let's hope the lobbying skills of a small group of companies don't win-over our Representatives in Washington.

Additional ideas in the NY Times here.

Pay-Per-Click online advertising: What is it?

This week clients have asked about our pay-per-click advertising services, and the questions were good ones.  Here are my answers:

Q: What is pay-per-click?

A: Pay-per-click online advertising, or PPC, is paid text advertising in search engine results.  On Google they are called "Sponsored Links" and on Yahoo! "SPONSOR RESULTS."

Businesses with websites purchase keywords-- the terms a customer would use to try and find their product or service-- and only pay when a visitor clicks on the listing.  (It doesn't get much more 'targeted' than that.)  The cost of each click is determined by competitive bidding, and prices range from a dime (.10) to over $13.00.

Small and medium-sized businesses getting started in PPC should budget $750 - $2,500 per month for a 3 month trial campaign, evaluate results and adjust accordingly.

Q:  What does my business need to do to get started?

A:  My experience has shown there are 3 keys to an effective PPC campaign

1. A fantastic website
   • PPC advertising will drive qualified leads to your site.  What will they find when they get there?  A clear, professional design?  Compelling copy?  Testimonials from your elated clients, and an easy way to request a quote?  Driving traffic is half of the equasion, and converting visitors into leads is the other half.
2. The right keywords and ad copy
   
   1. research tools from the PPC advertising platforms are great at helping identify who your competitors are online and seeing how much traffic you might expect-- and at what cost.  You only get 65 characters per line in Google's PPC program so your message better be just right.  Ad copy will make the difference between a prospect clicking on your ad or the other other guy.
3. A resource to manage your campaigns
   1. There is one PPC platform for Google and a second for Yahoo!, MSN and AOL.  Plan on managing your bid prices daily to start and 3 days/week moving forward.

Q:  What's the ROI?

A:  The return on the PPC investment is going to vary, but because it's so targeted it's easy to measure.  You'll know how many clicks you're getting each month, and if the people on the phones (and email) are asking prospects where they heard about you you'll get an idea of ROI.

In the service sector, where a new customer or project could amount to $2,000, $10,000 or more the return is easy to see.  1 new project pays for the campaign for the whole month-- maybe for half-a-year.  If your company sells prodcuts and an average ticket is $350, let's say, then we can easily calculate a break-even point.

The bottom-line:  I like PPC.  Wheel Media is creating PPC campaigns for our clients, training them on the management, and helping evaluate results.  This is the most effecient, not to mention affordable solution for small business.  Is PPC a better choice than search engine optimization?  it depends on your business and where your customers are.

It's worth a serious look

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Wiki's: What are they?

A Wiki is another form of website where users create the content. The most well-known wiki is Wikipedia, essentially an online encyclopedia created by, well, all of us.  Use it like you would use an encyclopedia (not a search engine.)

Is there a marketing opportunity in wiki's?  Yes, but for most businesses I would say there are other online tactics that will drive more revenue, including email marketing,  blogging and word-of-mouth marketing to name a few.

Wiki's and blogs sound similar, and they are.  The main difference is that a wiki will read more like an encyclopedia, and a blog more like an ongoing conversation.  You can now create a "Product Wiki" on Amazon.com, as dozens have done for the book Freakonomics  (scroll down to the bottom.)

Why does Amazon have forums, customer reviews and a wiki?  Does it sound like overkill?  Yes, there's lots of overlap, but a huge online brand like Amazon understands that they need to give their customers different ways to get involved. Some prefer a wiki, while others would rather write a review. More on how this will shake-out later; things are moving fast.  Wiki's are undoubteldy one more way to leverage the internet.

wiki wiki+marketing small+business smb sme leverage+the+internet

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RSS. Explained in simple terms.

RSS has been explained beautifully by programmers with PhD's from Stanford in terms only Masters-students from Stanford can understand.  I'm going to give it a shot in a learn-by-doing format.

RSS is a way to receive automatic updates from websites and blogs.  The updates are content, like articles from the New York Times. To receive the updates you need a place to read them, and one of the easiest is Google  Reader.

Create an account with Google and you'll be able to search and add feeds from many of the websites you visit during the day, from ESPN to Investors Business Daily to the National Enquirer. Most large sites have RSS feeds.

How does RSS help you?  It brings all your online information into one place where you can read the headlines and click-through if the article interests you.  The content is updated automatically from the sites, often almost instantly.

Recommendation:  Gather together at least 5 sites you normally visit and throw them into your Google Reader.  Now you're pinging one site instead of five.  Entering 1-2 sites is a waste of time-- it makes RSS an extra step.  5+ and you're saving time.  20 or more and it's information-overload and time to get back to work.

FWIW (for what it's worth) you can get Leverage Blog online, or in RSS, or in Email.  You choose.  You're the master of your domain.

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Word of Mouth Marketing: What it is & where to start.

WOMm

Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMm) is giving your customers reasons to talk about your business and giving them the tools to do so.  Why is it important?  Good WOMm empowers your customers to share their experiences with their friends, associates and partners.  It's viral (can we still use that term?), it inspires new products and services, and it minimizes the damage from unsatisfied customers.

Here are a few simple best-practices to start the conversation:

1.  Give them reasons to talk about you:

• Build an amazing product or deliver an amazing service.
  • The lightest hammer
  • The cheapest drainage system
  • The most elegant presentation
  • More

• Listen to what they say.
  
  • What does your customer really want?
    • More features?  Which ones?
    • More live conversations with you (and fewer emails?)
    • Delivery? (doesn't have to be free.)
    • A personalized ________________ ?
    • More

2.  Give them the tools:

• Set-up a blog and invite your customers to comment.
• Invite 5 customers to lunch and ask them (good) questions.
• Create a prototype and ask a few customers to give you feedback.
• Survey your customers (of course everyone already is doing so, right?) and ask questions that will garner objective feedback.
  • Look the surveys
    • Do things differently based on the survey feedback.

Like all mission-critical marketing initiatives, I'm not too hip to the idea of adding a little WOM 'stuff' into the marketing mix. That said, I'm also pretty pragmatic, and I don't think most organizations need 3 months of research before rolling out a WOM campaign.  How about this middle-ground:

1. Define your WOMm objectives based on your customer and business-model.
2. Create a set of tools that can be rolled out quickly, measured and scaled.
3. Execute.
4. Evaluate.
5. Enjoy.

The Long Tail

Simply put, the Long Tail is a look at the company of tomorrow.  Maybe.

It's a theory advanced by Chris Anderson, the Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine, that makes a strong case for specialized business-models. Niche-companies with focused, highly-targeted services can compete with giant companies...and win.  So what does this look like from a 20,000 foot view?

1.  The internet makes it possible to target a very specific customer. (Example:  Pay-per-click advertising on search engines enables a niche business to target the specific words that describe their services...and not spend a dime on the rest.)

2.  And the search engines now make it easy for customers to find a very specialized company. (Example:  A Google search for "Environmental consulting company in Oakland, CA." This person knows just what they are looking for-- in this case a certain-type of company in a specific location.)

3.  The website behaves like a salesforce. (Example: An online tour introduces the firm's service, FAQ's anticipate objections and respond, quote-request form set expectations about pricing,  live-chat makes an instant conversation easy for the prospect...more.)

4.  If product inventory is online, you don't need a warehouse.  And you don't need shelf-space.  The Long Tail theory doesn't suggest that brick and mortar businesses will disappear, only that niche-businesses will spring up-- and do very, very well.

5.  You can listen to your customer like never before.  (Example:  Blogs.  The enable you to demonstrate your expertise, ask questions, gather feedback and refine your offering.)

Keep Long Tail on your radar.  Read more at The Long Tail.

Email Marketing: Where to Start

Email marketing is a big topic and my 'Getting Started' posts aim to be brief, so let me offer some quick, simple ideas on how to begin and save the fine-points for another day.  Note that I'm a fan of permission-based email marketing, AKA, 'opt-in.'

1.  Decide what you want to say

• Provide information to your readers
• Develop a voice, a message, and a mission

2.  Build your own list

• Start collecting names on your website
• Add your current and past clients to your list (ask permission.)

3.  Send in HTML

• Look smart, sophisticated and professional to your client
• Provide links back to your site

4.  Obey the SPAM laws

• Unsubscribe link
• Physical address
• Etc.

5.  Be consistent

• Send a monthly newsletter out MONTHLY, no less, no more.
• Always have an extra month's worth of content, so you're not scrambling around at the last minute if things get busy at publishing time.

Email marketing is a great way to turn a friend into a customer, and a customer into a salesperson. (For more on this see this post.)

Web 2.0

Why should the small-medium business exec. care about web 2.0?

Because the venture capital firm Draper Fisher will be funding the web 2.0 startup TagWorld?  (Props to Michael Arrington for the news.) Not exactly.  Web 2.0 is important because it will impact the way your customers work with you.

Web 2.0 describes a new generation of websites that are more dynamic. Rather than a solitary experience, like reading a newspaper online or browsing through a catalog, these sites enable visitors to interact with each other.

For example, think about a photo-sharing site where visitors can upload vacation images.  A web 2.0 site enables other visitors to post a comment on each photo.  And each photo can have keywords associated with it (called tags) to make it easy for people to find the photo (i.e., paris, eiffel tower...) And visitors can group together their favorite photos for everyone to see.  And the site will show everyone what is most popular at that moment.

Wow. Visit Flickr.com to experience it.

The more users that add their opinion the more visibility the information will garner.  Communities are forming around special interests, and the trend will continue.

What will the online communities that develop around your companies product or service say about you?

Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing.

Broadly put, viral marketing is the practice of people outside your company to promoting you.  You'll also hear the term WOM, or word-of-mouth marketing, or "buzz" marketing, and the Fortune 1000 has been successfully using this tactic for 6-7 years.

More than a customer referral, a product or service that has gone viral has inspired people to shout from the rooftops, call their friends and email their associates. They are proactive and loyal. And they're your most valuable resource because the people they are talking-to trust their endorsement.

Do things to make your service viral.  Do them now.  Identify the customers that are opinion-leaders and engage them. Ask them to help shape your service, give them a title, provide them with a discount.

Recommendation:  Get started today.

Brand, Branding, Brand Marketing

A client yesterday asked me for my definition of a brand and why they matter. While not specific to internet marketing, I thought I would share part of my response:

Brands are among the most intangible of corporate assets, but if skillfully developed and managed they are capable of delivering enormous profits. At their peak, brands lift products and services sharply over the commodity level. They confer status, inspire emotional connection, and help the consumer identify what they are. Elevate the brand and your customer suddenly becomes less price-conscious and more loyal.

Websites are a great branding opportunity for branding because your clear, persuasive, effective content is available 24/7.

Great long-term benefits.  Invest today.

Welcome

Welcome to the Wheel Media weblog, a internet marketing digest for the small-medium enterprise. My goal is to provide business leaders with some tools to make smart decisions about design and marketing online.  I look forward to educating, inspiring and learning from my clients and peers.

For those who are new to this medium, it's designed to be interactive and open; a free-flowing site of ideas. I'll know I'm succeeding if I stir my visitors and customers to action-- adding their comments to the blog and more importantly, creating internet marketing strategies, funding and staffing them adequately, executing, and evaluating.  Exploit the web!

I'll touch on smart web design, discuss new and evolving tactics like search engine optimization (SEO), tagging, blogging, email marketing, and more.  I've got a long reading list of books and other blogs filled with brilliant ideas, as well as tips on conferences and smart startups. I welcome your comments, your emails and your success.

The SME has so much to gain from the internet:  Let's get to it.

Michael

Internet marketing tactics to exploit: An overview

On an ongoing basis I'll be providing brief definitions and explanations of the marketing strategies and tactics used on the web today.  Many are not new and have been proven by the Fortune 2000 business community, while others will be innovative and evolving, and some are not limited to the label of 'internet marketing,' but classic approaches that leverage the net effectively.

Because my core focus is the executive of the small-medium enterprise (SME) I will keep these posts high-level and brief-- about a 30-second read.  My goal is to give my clients and readers a quick overview of the opportunities; to get you thinking about how these tools might align with your business, and how to evaluate and prioritize.  Questions?  My email address is on the About page.

Some tactics will be newer than others (blog marketing, for example, versus the more-established search engine optimization and permission-email.)

Watch for the 'getting started' posts.