Online Marketing Basics - SCORE East Bay

East Bay SCORE

For Local Business Owners

Getting Started with

Online Marketing

Please…• Turn cell phones on “vibrate”, silent or off

• Ask questions! This is meant interactive.

Agenda• 9:00 am  Introduction• 9:15 am Buyer Personas (activity)

• (buyer persona slide & worksheet)• 9:45 am   Effective Website Design

• 6 Essential website design principles• 10:00 am  Generating Leads Online

• Search engine marketing (organic vs. paid)• Successful Keywords

• 10:30 am  Break• 10:40 am Generating Leads Online Continued

• How to attract prospects to your website and convert them into customers

• A strategic approach to social media• Online reputation management• Measuring your marketing ROI

• 11:30 am  Q&A and 1:1

Introduction

Who is WSI?• Founded in 1995 • 1,500 Digital Marketing Consultants• 87 Countries Worldwide• 12 Major Productions Centers Around the

Globe• Est. system-wide revenues in excess of

$100 million in 2014

Who is Luke Middendorf?• WSI Certified Internet Marketing Consultant

located in the San Francisco Bay Area• 17 years in technology and enterprise

software, ranging from technology start-ups to large enterprises

• Prior to WSI Luke lead the Western Region at Smartling, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application devolved to help modernize and simplify the translation and localization process for global businesses and Web 2.0 companies.

• Previous to that Luke was on the leadership team at Vontu, an enterprise software solution focused on Data Loss Prevention (DLP), which was acquired by Symantec in 2007 for $350 million. At Symantec Luke was responsible for leading the DLP expansion into Latin America, completing projects in some of the largest accounts in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and the Dominican Republic.

Introduce Yourselves

• Name• Type of business• What you want to get out of this

workshop.

Buyer Personas

Who Are you Selling to?

• Buyer Personas are:• Semi-fictional representations of your ideal

customer • Based on real data and some educated

speculation about customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals.

Buyer Personas

• “Owner” of business• Started biz w/own

capital• Helps with sales,

finance, marketing, HR• Static company website• No CRM system• Wants to get more

leads and earn more money

• Needs easy to use tools• Wants his life to be

easier

• “Director/VP of Marketing”• 10+ years marketing

experience• Worries about “brand

presence” (colors, logos, fonts)

• Skilled at PR and branding• Website built for $25k with

firm• Uses Salesforce.com• Wants to learn inbound

marketing• Needs reports to show CEO• Doesn’t like to tinker

• CMO/VP of Global Marketing

• Manages high level strategic objectives from the C-Suite

• Biggest hurdles are organizational change rather than software

• Unhealthy relationship w/sales

• Wants software that can conform to the organization's unique needs

• Services and relationship just as important as the software itself

Why create buyer personas?

• Personas help identify where your ideal customers spend time on the internet – so you can be there too.

• Buyer personas guide product & service development.

• Personas help you create the right content.

Create Your Buyer Persona Worksheet• Name (Fictional)

• Title• Roles• Goals• Challenges• Demographics

• Age• Income• Education• Location

• What is their Story?• Job/Demographic,• Typical Day,• Challenges/Pain

Points,• Information Sources,• Common objections

to products/services.

Effective Web Design

6 Key Essential Website Design Elements1. Answer Who, What & How

• Your visitors should be able to tell who you are, what you do and how you can help them.

2. Clear call-to-action• Look at the top left corner. What do your customers see?• Contact information should be easy to find!

3. Content should be “customer” focused not “company”4. Responsive design

• 50% - 80% of traffic is mobile5. Optimized pages and content

• Keywords, meta descriptions, URLs• More on this in the SEO section

6. Clean, professional design• Horizontal navigation bar• Make it easy for information to be found!

Responsive Design - Desktop

Location Pages

Responsive Design - iPhone

Responsive Design - Desktop

Responsive Design - iPhone

Website Testing Tools

• Google Mobile Friendly Test• https://search.google.com/search-console/mo

bile-friendly

• Peek User Testing (test mobile and desktop versions)

• http://peek.usertesting.com/

Generating Leads Online

The Lead Funnel

Search Engine Marketing

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)• Local Search Engine Optimization• Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

3 ways to rank

PPC

Local SEO

Classic SEO

Keyword

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

• Ads created using Google AdWords• Bid on specific keywords• Good keywords have buying intent

Bad Keyword – TermitesGood Keyword – “Termite Inspection”

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

• Advantages:• Can target specific geographic areas• Get to the top quickly• Can turn on or up or down or off any time

• Disadvantages• Costs money for each click• Easy to waste money

WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)?• SEO is the process of improving your

website so that it attracts more visitors from search engines.

• Search engines need to find the most relevant, useful, trustworthy answers.

• They send “spiders” to crawl through the web searching for that content.

What Google cares about

Relevance• Relevant Content• Organized Around

Keywords• Findable by the engines

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Popularity• Quantity of In-links• Quality of In-links• Social Sharing

Signals

On-Page Optimization

Off-Page Optimization

SEO STRATEGY

• Do keyword research.• Create content around your keywords.• Optimize content around a primary

keyword. • Build Local Directory Listings

Google AdWords Keyword Planner

SEO Optimized Page

Top Local Directories

• Google Places (aka Google+ Local)• Facebook• LinkedIn• Yellowpages.com• Yelp• Local.com• WhitePages.com• Manta• SuperPages• CitySearch

Google Listing Example

Break

www.wsi-connect.com

Generating Leads Onlinecontinued

The Lead Funnel

The Buyers Journey

AwarenessStage

Consideration

StageDecision

Stage

• Analyst reports• Research reports• eBooks• Editorial content• Expert content• Whitepapers• Educational

Content

Prospect is experiencing and expressing symptoms of a problem or opportunity.

• Expert guides• Live interactions• Webcase• Podcast• Video• Comparison

whitepapers

Prospect has now clearly defined and given a name to their problem or opportunity.

• Vendor comparison• Product comparison• Case studies• Trial download• Product Literature• Live demo

Prospect has now decided on their solution strategy, method, or approach.

Content Creation Map

Boring Industry Example 1

Boring Industry Example 2

Utilize the Power of Blogging

• The average company that blogs generates:

• 55% more website visitors.• 97% more inbound links.• 434% more indexed pages.

COMPANIES THAT BLOG GENERATE 126% MORE LEADS THAN THOSE THAT DO NOT

Survey N = 2,300 Source: HubSpot

The Social Media Big Five• Yelp

• 100 million+ monthly visitors• Facebook

• 1.23+ billion users• 757 million active every day (as of 12/2013)

• Twitter• 232+ million active users

• LinkedIn• 332+ million users (as of 11/2014)

• Google+• 540+ million active users

Managing Your Online Reputation

Social Media• Facebook• Twitter• YouTube• Google+• Pinterest• Etc.

Review/Business Listing• Yelp• Google Places/Maps• Yahoo! and Bing Listings

Managing Your Online Reputation• YOU have to manage it all before a bad

review happens.• You must claim and own all your review

and social media sites now, before someone creates or takes over your identity

Managing Your Online Reputation

Managing Your Online Reputation

Yelp Profile

Yelp for Businesshttps://biz.yelp.com

Opening & Operating a Restaurant

Custom Post• 143 Link Clicks• 4,842 Reached• $0.14 Per Link Click• $20.00/$20.00

Budget/Spent• Four Days – Ad

Duration

LinkedIn

Linked continued…

Linked continued…

Measuring Marketing ROI

“Oh, it’s just on autopilot. We never look at it.”

“My Yellow Pages ad is $600/month. Should I renew my ad this year?”

“I spend $3,000 per month on PPC, but I don’t know if I need to spend that much.”

Measuring Marketing ROI• Install Google Analytics

• Originating Traffic• Underperforming Pages

• Bounce Rate• Content Performance

• Entrances and time on page• PPC Traffic

• Number of visitors are direct from paid Ads• Geographic Location

• Are you attracting visitors from your target locations or are they coming from Timbuktu?

Measuring Marketing ROI

Organic Traffic

PPC Traffic

Determine where your leads come from.• Ask your prospects where they heard

about your business.• Track contact form conversions.• Use call tracking number for specific

campaigns.

Q&A

Q&A

www.wsi-connect.com

62

Luke MiddendorfDigital Marketing Consultant

WSI Connect

Mobile: (415) 518-1533lmiddendorf@wsi-connect.com

www.wsi-connect.com

Questions?

63

Appendix

Keywords

• Add the keyword to the page title and URL.

• Add the keyword to the body, headers and image alt-text.

• Place the primary keyword in the meta description.

Social Media Do’s & Do Not’s• Build your brand• Build your

reputation• Engage in

conversations• Educate your

customers, clients• Offer free stuff or

advice

• Lead generation• Generating sales• Promoting your

sales, specials, discounts

“People buy into you before they buy from you!”

Social Media 80/20 Rule

“People buy into you, before they buy from you!”

Promote Oth-ers, Interesting

Information

Self Promote and Offers

Approaching Social Media

• Online conversations• Your customers are already talking about

you, whether you know it or not• You have 2 choices:

• Engage and Participate• Ignore it

Social Media Content• Create a content calendar:

• Blog posts• Press releases• YouTube or Vimeo videos• Any other content

• Create 5 tweets, and post them once a day on Twitter.

• Post articles, videos, PR to FB, LinkedIn, wherever else you’re connected.

Social Media Business PagesFacebook• Use a

business page• Not a

personal page

• Once you have 25 “likes” lock in your web address

• Promote articles, blogs, videos, press, etc.

Twitter• Follow people

who you want to connect with

• Promote other people• Re-tweet them• Tweet their

articles• Have online

conversations• Click-through

rate is very low

LinkedIn• Connect to

other business people

• Complete your online resume

• Get recommendations

• Join groups. Participate.

Your Competitor’s Digital Strategy• What audience are they

targeting?• Do they have compelling

content?• Read their services pages and

blog posts.• Do they have whitepapers or

eBooks available on-site?• Do they engage in video

marketing? Videos on-site?• Analyze their marketing

strategies• What are their focus keywords?

• Spyfu http://www.spyfu.com/• Keyword Spy

http://www.keywordspy.com/• What is the traffic volume for

those keywords?• Google Keyword Planner

• https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner

• How well is their site ranked on search engines?

• moz.com/researchtools/ose

• Is their Google My Business page optimized?

• http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/8-tips-for-optimizing-your-google-page-posts-to-boost-seo

• Is their site compatible with mobile devices?

• Google’s Mobile Friendly Test https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

• Do they utilize email marketing?

• Is there a way to join their mailing list on their site?

• Analyze Social Media Engagement

• How many followers/fans/etc?• Facebook• Twitter• Pinterest• LinkedIn• Instagram