What is a blog?

First off, let’s explore what a blog actually is and how it’s part of the bigger picture. A blog, abbreviated for web+log, is typically an informational section of your website that allows for short content for frequent distribution. Meaning, it’s less words than heavy-duty whitepaper and it’s more informative than a Tweet. Blogs are also formatted fairly consistently with ability to filter through them with categories or tags that essential build a library of reference for the website visitors. They are also written in a unique way as people tend to read, or should I say scan, online differently than print. Bullet points, numerical ordering, and short paragraphs are more effective than long prose.

Why do website visitors value blogs?

Depending on the objective of the blog, visitors can get a lot out of it. Some companies use blogs less as a sales tool and more as a personality disseminator. In other words, it’s a way for employees to showcase their quirky attitudes or display their friendly faces. This is sometimes a much-needed human touch, instead of the flat lines, drop shadows, and icons that overtake the online experience. A blog can also be a great continuous stream of education.

The most successful blogs strive to add value, meaning educate or solve a problem, with every blog post that gets published. It’s also beneficial because the post can be released in a timely matter. Getting a press release out into the media can be a much more daunting task then publishing a quick post announcing the release of a new product or the hiring of a new sales person.

Why do search engines value blogs?

Search engines value blogs because they hold content at the center of everything. The search engine ranking algorithms will always select content that adds value to the person doing the search over a stale site that has none. After all, if Google and Big return bad results and irrelevant content, then people will stop using them. Additionally, blogs are a great way to encourage links back to the website. If the blog post is valuable to the visitor, they will in many cases share that link with their social networks. This concept of creating content to be shared by users is called “Link Baiting” and helps dramatically increase a website’s search engine ranking. After all, every link pointing to your website counts as a vote, and like politics the more votes more popular you’ll be perceived.

How does blogging increase sales?

Higher ranking in the search engines directly correlates to more traffic flowing to a website. If that traffic is targeted correctly, then more traffic typically means more leads and more customers. It’s human nature that if you solve a problem for somebody, they will remember you and reciprocate. This applies directly to blogging as the more visitors that get helped; the more they will value helping company’s brand.

In a recent study, the 2012 State of Inbound Marketing by HubSpot, it was discovered that 92% of companies that responded acquired a customer through their blog if they posted multiple times per day. The numbers are still impressive for those that post daily at 78%, 2-3 times per week at 70%, and weekly at 66%. This data along with some other metrics in their report shows a direct correlation between blogging and customer acquisition. Blogging was recorded as the most effective lead generation category as being “Below Average Cost Per Lead.”

Summary and Next Steps

Blogging, or publishing web content on a regular basis, can be an effective tool for adding additional value to prospects and customers. It provides for a strong online foundation that encourages other websites to link to the posts and for visitors to share them on social networks. It’s been found that blogging can increase traffic significantly and be another avenue to generate leads. If you’re looking to get started, then carve out an area of your site today and start writing. Good luck!

Originally posted here on USSCO Speaks blog.

I recently discovered a simple, yet very helpful, infographic by Pure360. Pure360 is an email & SMS marketing provider based in the UK, who specialize in helping businesses get the best results from their campaigns.

Improve Email Deliverability Summary:

• Be transparent in your subject lines and from address.
• Only send to those that have opted in.
• Have clean data, including personalization of their first name.
• Align with sales to ensure your subscribers know the email is communicated and expected.
• Avoid keywords commonly abused by spam.
• Keep images down to a minimum both for a good user experience and junk filters.
• Always have a plain text version of your email.
• Be aware of who is using (and abusing?) your IP address reputation.
• Keep your from address and domain name consistent.
• Ensure links and image paths are from reputable domains.
• Ask your subscribers to add you to their address books and safe senders lists.
• Encourage your subscribers to click through the emails to content you’ve produced.
• Frequently scrub your list of unengaged subscribers. If they never open then remove them.

How to Improve Deliverability Infographic

Infographic by Pure360

A new book by David T. Scott titled The New Rules of Lead Generation – Proven Strategies to Maximize Marketing ROI is a resource that every corporate marketer should own. The New Rules of Lead Generation helps marketers by defining a lead and more importantly defining what kind of lead a business wants. Tacking on some more traditional thinking, he identifies what stage in the buying cycle (attention, interest, decision, and action) the lead could be in and then suggests developing products/services that solve a problem at each particular stage. In his book, Scott walks through what he’s identified as the 7 most successful lead-generation marketing tactics.

The 7 Most Successful Lead-Generation Tactics

1. Search engine marketing
2. Social media advertising (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter)
3. Display advertising (a.k.a. banner ads)
4. Email marketing
5. Direct mail advertising
6. Cold calling
7. Trade shows

Scott provides some valuable best practices and insight well learned from his own personal experience. He talks about how to measure and optimize your campaigns and encourages marketers to embrace a integrated approach, which combines multiples tactics together for the biggest payoff.

The book is an easy read and although may seem a bit obvious to those with many years of experience in direct marketing, it will drastically reduce the learning curve for a new entrant. I could also see it being used as a powerful internal selling tool to provide to senior leadership to explain “why” the strategy is lead generation instead of simply branding.

Why do you need to check it on every device and email client? Seems a little overkill, no?

The reason you need to do so much “checking” is because every combination of device, browser and email clients produces a different result. Meaning, they render the email differently. For example, Outlook supports stylizing the email in the tags, Gmail does not. Gmail supports vertical alignment of content, and Outlook does not. Margin is supported in Outlook in all versions except for their new cloud version Outlook.com. Minimum and maximum widths aren’t supported in Outlook but work great on Apple Mail and the iPhone/iPad. If you’re going to use heavy background images, you’ll get support from Outlook 2000 and 2003 but not Outlook 2007, 2010, or 2013. Click here for a useful chart.

Email Programming Tips and Tricks:

Below are some tips and tricks for coding emails taken from the infographic that Litmus, a leader in email testing and analytics, created for debugging common problems.

• Media gets stripped from email and doesn’t work including: video, flash, rollovers, JavaScript, and forms.
• Background images aren’t supported in Outlook versions 2007 or later. Don’t use.
• Use absolute links over relative links to both images and website URLs.
• Set your image borders to “0″ if you’re seeing a blue border around them.
• Choose a common image format such as GIF or JPG.
• Remove gaps between images with the style tags line-spacing=”0″ and style=”display:block;”.
• Pick a common font that your subscriber will have installed on their computer.
• Hard code the heights and widths of every cell in a table to reflect the space you need it to take up. Redundancy is not a bat thing here.
• Code your emails in table tags instead of div tags.
• Remove spaces if you’ve tried everything else between elements.
• Use align and valign on your tags.

Code Therapy – Identifying What Went Wrong When Coding Your HTML Email Infographic

Infographic by: Litmus and can be found here.

Your options are quite large, although your budget probably isn’t. Therefore one of the most popular and cost effective tactics is targeting the search engines to position your website higher for a specific keyword phrase. Yes, I’m talking about SEO, or search engine optimization.

SEO is less of a demand creating technique and more a demand capture technique. For example, being ranked #1 in the search engines for the keyword phrase “Blue Dog on Mars” doesn’t mean you’ll get an influx of visitors. Unless of course one was discovered or it becomes a popular Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream flavor.

My point being, you should attempt to optimize your website for keywords that actually get searched. A great tool to help with this is Google Trends. This tool allows for you to enter one or more keyword phrases and it will show you the popularity of that search over time against each other. For example, we’ve created a comparison between the keyword “newspapers” and the keyword “tablets.”

Another tool, called Google’s Keyword Tool allows you to enter the keywords and provide you with a global and local number of searches that specific keyword gets on average. Keep in mind that more searches typically means that your competitors have likely figured it out and are competing for attention there. Taking a step further with the first example, we’ve looked up the metrics on the keyword “newspapers” and the keyword “tablets” to see their search demand.

Take some time to research a broad range of keywords. Compare keywords about products, product categories, industry terms, and your own brand name.

Another option that can advance your learning a bit quicker is getting immediate feedback through Paid Search. Paid Search refers to the sponsored advertisements that appear above and to the right of the organic listings. Those advertisements appear after a company bids for clicks for that particular search term. With a Paid Search campaign, your website for a particular keyword phrase can appear within minutes. Watching for these results allows you to0 quickly gauge the popularity of the keyword and also your conversion rates once they get to your site. Conversion rates are measured by comparing how many people purchased something after clicking those advertisements.

Now that you’ve identified the keywords you’d like to rank for, below are five quick things you can do today that will put you on the fast track to increasing your ranking.

1) Update Your Title Tags – Every single one of your pages should have completely unique copy between and . Just as important, you should have the 1 and only 1 keyword phrase that page is attempting to rank for in the Title Tag. Finally, it should be no longer than 70 characters.

2) Update Your Description Tags – Similar to the Title Tag, every single one of your pages should have completely unique copy between . The description should be your most compelling call-to-action for that page. Meaning, you should explain exactly what the visitor will gain by clicking the link to visit that page. The Description Tag should be no longer than 156 characters.

3) Sign Up for Google Webmaster Tools – There are many advantages to adding your website to Google Webmaster Tools and verifying your ownership of it. Verification normally only takes a few minutes and you have a number of options depending on your website. Methods include adding a Meta Tag, adding a file to your root directory, or creating a DNS (Domain Name System) record.

4) Submit Your Sitemap – A sitemap is typically an XML file that is used to tell the search engine the exact URLs of every page of your website and how often they get updated. Historically search engines only used robots, also known as spiders, to navigate around your website and index every page they find. This is limiting as some pages may get missed if there are no links to those particular pages. After you’ve signed up and verified your website on Google Webmaster Tools, you should navigate to “Optimization” > “Sitemaps” and click “Add/Test Sitemap.” Finally, paste in the name of your sitemap file.

5) Optimize Your Navigation – Your navigation is a very effective way to communicate to search engines which pages should be prioritized. Also, search engines give a lot of weight to the keywords that appear in those links. Therefore there are 2 quick opportunities here. First, link to the most important pages that you’re trying to increase the ranking for in your navigation. Linking to those pages and limiting the number of links to other pages will give these pages more weight and influence. Second, add your most important keywords as the text in these links. If your links are images, make sure to add the keywords in the ALT tags of the images.

The algorithm that determines which websites get ranked higher than other websites looks at hundreds of factors. However, if you’re looking for the low-hanging fruit that can begin to drive your website upward then tackle these five things today!

Take a look around at all the devices that have been released out into the marketplace. Between tablets, WIFI connected music players, and phones, everyone can be connected online 24/7. This means that wherever your customers are, they have the option to do business with you. Believe the data, your customers are exercising that option daily. This year, more people will use their mobile phones to get online, rather than using their PCs (Gartner, 2010). By 2015, there will be more than one mobile device for every person on earth (Cisco, 2011). Still think it’s going away?

What this means for businesses is that if you aren’t optimizing the mobile experience, then you’re likely losing customers. A bad user experience is an outdated website that makes your customers pinch, zoom, and navigate across your site. According to Google in 2012, 61% of your customers say that they will quickly move to another site if they don’t see what they are looking for right away on a mobile site. A good user experience is a fixed mobile stylized site that quickly and easily allows customers to navigate to the right pages with only a few thumb taps. In the same study, 67% of customers say a mobile-friendly site makes them more likely to buy a product or use a service.

Okay, so you agree with the data and believe that you need to take action to take advantage of this opportunity. What’s the next step? It’s important to first understand what makes a great mobile experience. Below is a quick list of mobile site best practices, according to Google…

• Keep it Quick
• Simply Navigation
• Be Thumb-Friendly
• Design for Visibility
• Make it Accessible
• Make it Easy to Convert
• Make it Local
• Make it Seamless
• Use Mobile Site Redirects
• Listen, Learn and Iterate

You can also download Google’s Mobile Site Best Practices PDF here.

Once you’ve outlined your mobile site structure and decided how you want your customers to interact with you, it’s time to build your mobile site. There are both free options and paid options. Free services such as DudaMobile allow you to enter your URL and it pulls information off your website. It’s not perfect so be prepared to spend some time customizing and changing what pages you wish to show up. You might also want to explore bMobilized, a similar service. Of course, you can also work with a mobile developer to build a mobile friendly or responsive website. Responsive website refers to a website that automatically renders to the device and screen resolution.

Regardless of the direction you choose, hopefully you’ve learned about some of the major benefits of being mobile accessible to your customers online..

Every minute there are 70 new website domains registered on the World Wide Web, adding to the millions of websites that already exist. This rate of websites being created makes it impossible for anyone to keep up with all of the information available. Tools like search engines were created to simplify this massive amount of data by using a complex algorithm that rank these millions of websites and consolidate them into a short list on a single page. Search engines fund this service by allowing businesses to purchase advertising on these search engine results pages (SERP). This advertising is known as Paid Search.

Paid Search is a marketing tactic that involves placing an advertisement for when, and only when, a user searches a specific keyword and clicks on the advertisement. That last part is what differentiates this kind of advertising from other forms of advertisements online, such as banner placements on websites. Most other advertising, up until Paid Search, was cost by impression or CPM for short. Paid Search is billed only after a user clicks on the ad. This is known as a cost per click, CPC for short. The distinction, although subtle, means that businesses like yours are only paying if a prospect or customer not only sees your advertisement, but is engaged enough to interact with it by clicking the hyperlink.

An important aspect of online marketing, and Paid Search, is to understand the purchase funnel. There are many versions of this model but it basically breaks down to 1) Awareness, 2) Opinion, 3) Consideration, 4) Preference, and 5) Purchase. Awareness means that users are just researching and seeing if they have a need and Purchase means they’ve made their decision and are ready to buy. When shopping for products online, people consistently use search engines regardless of their stage in the funnel. However, it is believed that users will modify their search queries depending on their stage. For example, if a user is just starting a search to buy a new printer they’ll likely type “printer” into a search engine like Google and click “Search.” Only after some research, and as they move their way down the funnel, do they modify their query to something like “all in one inkjet printers,” and then likely adding a brand name.

Paid Search strategies can now be crafted off of these concepts and understanding of the model. If you want to affect the future purchase decision at the very beginning, and have a large budget, it would be valuable for a business to bid on broad keywords such as “printer,” “printer copier,” “inkjet printer”, “printing,” etc. It’s important to note that these keywords have a large volume of visitors but are highly competitive, very expensive, and likely have a low conversion rate as they are more in the Awareness or Opinion stage. Another strategy would be to target very specific Long Tail keyword phrases that are searched less often, but are further down the purchase funnel. Targeting keywords such as “wireless all in one laser printer for mac” will likely be less expensive, less competitive, and have a higher conversion rate. Targeting many of Long Tail keywords can add up to a significant revenue stream while building an online presence.

Most small and medium size businesses don’t have the budget to pay upwards of $18 per click for keywords such as “printer.” Therefore, a more targeted approach that aims at specific Long Tail keywords would develop into a successful strategy. To further optimize Paid Search, campaigns can be limited down to other factors such as mobile or desktop device, keyword match (broad, phrase, or exact), geography (X miles from Zip Code), time of day and day of week, and languages. Campaigns should also intentionally direct users to the appropriate page based on their keyword. If someone clicks on an ad shown for “laser printer toner cartridge red”, it should go directly to the page related to that keyword. Landing Pages that focus on one call-to-action, encouraging a user to make a phone call, order a product online, or download a whitepaper are a great best practice. Limit the amount of options users have and they’re more likely to complete the designed action.

To get started with Paid Search, businesses can create a small campaign with Google AdWords or Bing Search Advertising. Build a list of a very targeted keywords and add destination URLs to the appropriate product pages. Add some more advanced targeting and set a small budget. All online advertising should be based on a foundation of testing. Try campaigns for a product, a product category, an industry, a brand, etc. Keep testing, keep learning, and you’ll likely find digital campaigns like Paid Search a valuable marketing tactic.

Originally posted here on USSCOSpeaks.com

First off, what do they stand for? That would certainly help. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it refers to the process of increasing your website’s search engine ranking for a specific keyword or set of keywords. Said another way, search engines look for specific things on and off of your website that determines whether or not it’s relevant for a specific query, and SEO is the goal of doing those things.

So then what is SEM? Search engine…? Marketing? Exactly. Search engine marketing is the strategy to increase your traffic and sales through the search engine channel. Search engine marketing includes the tactic SEO and the tactic Paid Search. Paid Search refers to those “sponsored” advertisements you see at the top and right side of Google, Bing, and the rest. Businesses are in a bidding war for every click that drives them to their website. The more relevant your website landing page to the query and the more you pay, the higher you’ll appear on the search engine results page (SERP).

Should you even care? Well, yes, because 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine (Forrester Research, 2006). That means that your customers and prospects are likely finding or not finding you by first visiting sites like Google.com and Bing.com. They type in a search query such as “brown leather office chair” and start visiting the websites that appear. What’s even more important is that you want to appear first. That’s because 97% of searchers never look beyond the first three results. It’s more likely that they’ll change their search query before hitting that “next >” button at the bottom of the page.

A few years ago those top coveted results of the search engines were known as the “Google Golden Triangle” as they get all of the attention and clicks. That triangle has become even more competitive as Google and Bing have introduced other content such as news, images, videos, and social feeds. That and every sixty seconds 70 domain names are registered and 60 new blogs are created, makes it even harder to compete.

The best thing you can do as a company is to get in the game. If you’ve got a website, then you need to understand how people come to it. Take a look at your website analytics. You can set up an account with Google Analytics for free. See how many people are coming from search engines and what they’re searching for. Try out some paid search advertising and follow the SEO best practices [PDF].

Originally posted here on USSCO Speaks blog.

It’s not that face to face interaction with customers is unimportant. I believe that it is still the single best method for building relationships and getting a true understanding of your customers’ needs. The problem is that it takes time and your customers aren’t always willing to give it. With a myriad of choices, customers opt for the quickest and most painless way of learning, providing feedback, complimenting, or complaining.

Avaya, a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, has created the infographic below titled “How Social Media and Mobile Technology Impact the Customer Experience.” This great research identifies and ranks the channels that consumers prefer when interacting with brands.

Preferred Channels to Interact with Businesses (in order of most preferred to least preferred)

• Phone Direct – 84%
• Email – 80%
• Company Website – 72%
• Face to Face – 64%
• Website FAQ – 54%
• Post/direct Mail – 41%
• Phone Call – 37%
• Text/SMS – 34%
• Company Online Forum – 30%
• Web Chat – 29%
• External Online Forum – 25%
• Skype – 22%
• Facebook/Other Social Network – 16%
• Mobile Apps – 12%
• Video Conferencing 11%

If you’re a business owner or brand marketer, it’s important to recognize that your customers have a preference to how they’d like to engage with you. Are you adopting the right channels?

How Social Media and Mobile Technology Impact the Customer Experience Infographic:

Infographic by: Avaya

According research by GetResponse, a complete email marketing solution, emails have the highest open rates and click thru rates within the first hour of being delivered in the subscriber’s inbox. This is important because we know as marketers that the more people who see our email messages, the more will convert to paying customers.

The obvious next question is “How do I maximize that hour by choosing the right time to send it?” According to the infographic below, the top engagement times are 8 a.m to 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sending during these times could increase your open rate by as much as 6%.

That being said, there are other important questions to ask. “What are your competitors doing?” “What happens if everyone sends at 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.?” The research shows that 38.7% of all messages are sent between 6 a.m. and noon. If you want to reach your customers then maybe test out sending it in the afternoon before they head home for the day.

Best Time To Send Email [INFOGRAPHIC]

Infographic by GetResponse

Why are these days important to your business?

1. Customers are in the emotional mindset to spend money. Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is now fast approaching. Black Friday is typically the first opportunity to grab some great items before the budget starts to get tight.
2. Customers are engaging with your marketing. You spend the entire year trying to grab the attention of your customers and prospects through with marketing collateral. At this time of year, your customers will come to you. Finding deals and discounts becomes a game and your marketing is useful research material!
3. Customers expect your participation. There is so much participation in this pseudo-holiday that your customers will expect you to offer them something. Use this as an opportunity to show appreciation for their continuous business. A special offer for loyal customers can be a very effective “Thank You.”

5 Black Friday Marketing Tips

1. Start today - Spend some time mapping out what your special offer will be and don’t be afraid to build some buzz before the big day. You’ll have a lot of competition for your customer’s time and attention. Grab them now.
2. Schedule an email – Email marketing is a fantastic marketing tool to deliver your timely Black Friday message. I’m always surprised at how often many small businesses miss this easy opportunity. If you’ve got a list of email addresses that you regularly send to, create a special communication and schedule it to go out on November 23rd.
3. Grow with social – Black Friday is a great opportunity to start or build on your social media. You’ll naturally create content that you can spread across your Facebook Page, Twitter Profile, Pinterest board, and LinkedIn company page. If someone shares your message, take the time to thank them and start a conversation. The worst thing you can do is be purely one-way marketing. Create some relationships.
4. Capture demand digitally – Search engine marketing is not a marketing tool that creates demand, it’s a medium that captures it. You’ll be getting a large number of prospects and customers looking for you as you promote your offers, brand name, and specials. Make sure they can quickly find you by buying up your branded keywords in Google and Bing. You’ll be happy you did.
5. Focus on future sales – Use this opportunity to build a foundation of future sales. Collect phone numbers, email addresses, and information that you can use to target your prospects/customers in a few weeks or months. If you get a lot of new names then use coupons or expiring offers to bring them back.

More Useful Black Friday Marketing Articles

• Black Friday Marketing Ideas for Small Business – View Article
• 9 Small Business Marketing Tips for Black Friday – View Article
• How To Sell More Before, During and After Black Friday – View Article
• Black Friday Marketing Ideas for Non-Retail Businesses – View Article

1. Tell Success Stories – People love stories and are excited to learn if the content is structured like one. Start off by introducing the problem. Mostly likely your audience is in the same boat. Let them put on their detective hats and walk through how you attempted to solve it. Show them your methods and each step along the way. When you get to the end, leave them with the positive results. It’s helpful to bring in your clients, your partners, and experts. The more stories you tell, the better.
2. Bring in the Big Dogs – Not every company has the resources to hire famous celebrities, bands, and entertainers to attend their conference. If you can (ExactTarget Connections featured Michael J. Fox, The Fray, and David Blaine) then you’re surely able to excite your attendees. However, if you can’t afford it then you should at least bring in the thought leaders. No matter what your industry, there are people with deep expertise and knowledge. Bring these keynote speakers up on stage to tell their stories. Some of them might come from your company but it is much more powerful if they don’t. Get some big names in there and you’re on your way to a successful event.
3. Embrace Social Sharing – If you’re going to throw an event or conference then you need to be prepared for people to talk about it online. Embrace the conversations by setting up Twitter hashtags, Facebook pages about the event, or other channels for people to share. Lead the conversation by talking with people online. Let non-attendees participate by following the attendees’ profiles and news feeds. ExactTarget created a “Social Media Lounge” space that automatically posted tagged Tweets, Instagram photos, and Facebook posts.
4. Make Your Guests Comfortable – The last thing you want people to remember about your conference is that they were hungry, or they didn’t get enough breaks, or they they didn’t have access to water. If you’re going to put on an event then be a good host and go overboard in providing the essentials. ExactTarget connections had hundreds of coffee stands (might be exaggerating but it seemed like it), water bottle towers, snack tables, drink carts, and served food. Go above and beyond expectations with the little things because they really do matter.
5. Make Your Pitch – Once you’ve got all your attendees excited, educated, and comfortable then you need to give your pitch. Although the event may be about customer appreciation, you have to remember you are a business that needs to make money. Design your conference so they you can close, up-sell, and cross-sell your products. There is no better time to adding extra value to your customers than on the high of a great event!

Have you been to an event lately? What made it stand out?

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

The reason that this quote is so popular is because it resonates very well with business owners, entrepreneurs, and advertisers. It turns out to be fairly true due to the fact that many people don’t or don’t know how to set up their campaigns efficiently.

Agencies and marketing employees continuously attempt to justify their advertising budgets but they end up using buzz words like “awareness”, “frequency”, and “reach.” Although these are important concepts, the truth is they pop up because of a lack of insight into the true number of conversions. This is especially true for complex industries where a product is sold through multiple third parties or for long purchase cycles with many prospect touch points.

So what do you do?

One idea is leveraging the power of the Campaign ID. By Campaign ID, I’m talking about the “Lead Source” or where the customer, account, or prospect came from. If you have multiple touch points, it may be advantageous to track multiple Campaign IDs or create rules such as first/last Campaign ID attached to that lead wins. The important part is that you know where your customers and prospects are coming from and attributing their transactions with their related marketing campaigns.

The way to accomplish this is to store your Campaign ID inside of your customer relationship database (CRM). At the time of entering that contact, whether via a sales rep or an online registration form, you must pass the “Campaign ID” into a field in the database. It’s easy to accomplish this online but also possible through in-store sales, tracked phone calls, and traditional advertising. You just have to always ask “How did you hear about us?” or “Have you seen any of our marketing lately?” When you get the answer, be consistent and add your Campaign ID to that customer.

What can you track with a campaign ID?

• Paid Search
• Display Advertising
• Social Media
• Webinars
• Phone Calls
• Billboards
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Television

For some of the more traditional advertising such as billboards, magazines, newspapers, and television you’ll need to develop a strong call-to-action (CTA) that drives people either online or to call a phone number. Make the phone number unique for each campaign and measure your conversion rate. How many people called the number and became customers? Compare that with some of your other campaigns and you’ll begin to see where you can spend your advertising dollars the most efficiently.

Brand awareness is import. If your prospects don’t remember your brand or recognize who you are then they likely won’t become customers anytime soon. That being said, it’s also important to be driving towards advertising that is efficient, measurable, and sales centered. Focus less on the impressions/views and more on the engagements that are further down the purchase funnel. That is the goal of utilizing the campaign ID.

The Quality Score is essential for digital marketers to understand because it helps determine how much you have to pay to receive a position in the “sponsored” area of the search engine results page. You can optimize your Quality Score to receive a higher position for a lower bid that your competitors. Said another way, you’ll pay less money for more clicks and visibility. Therefore, it is important to understand and measure.

Quick summary of Google Adwords Quality Score factors:

• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Relative (CTR)
• Landing-page quality
• Keyword/search relevance
• Ad/site Performance
• Display URLs past CTR
• Account history
• Keyword/ad relevance
• Geographic performance
• Targeted devices

Focus on your “kewords, ads, and landing-page relevancy” and you can improve your Google Adwords Quality Score.

How to Improve Google Adwords Quality Scores Infographic:

Source: DigitalNetAgency.com

1. Thank You For Your Order
It doesn’t matter if your company provides products vs. services or is B2C vs. B2B, you should be sending your customers a “Thank You” any time you receive their businesses. This should go out at the appropriate time, consistently, and inform them that everything is on track.

2. Weekly/Monthly Newsletter
Help make your company more personal by sending out a regular newsletter email. Take content from your site or partner’s sites to ease the content creation burden. Let them know all of the changes you’re making to your company and how you’re doing. A little transparency can go a long way in deepening the relationship with them.

3. Special Discounts / Promotions Email
Everybody likes a great deal and many companies can leverage their engaged audience by throwing a great promotion out there. Target former customers or cross-sell your current customers in an attempt to drive up business and help them save some money. Note: Don’t abuse this media channel. Email recipients have a low tolerance for anything resembling a “spam” email. Make sure your promotions are highly valuable to the recipients.

If you’re not doing any email marketing today then it’s probably time to start. Throw a registration/contact form up on your website and start pulling together every email you have. Look into some cheap email service providers that connect to your CRM. In many cases you can automate some of these emails with a little configuration in the beginning. Start now, because you can assume that even if you’re not contacting your customers, your competitors probably are.

Bonus Email Ideas:

• You Might Also Like (Other Products/Services)
• We Haven’t Heard From You In a While
• Happy Birthday
• It’s Renewal Time
• Please Update Your Contact Information
• Last Chance – We’re Taking You Off Our List

Original Ginger, a “Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC”, created an infographic that quickly communicates the image sizes of each of the popular social media companies. Use this to work with your agency or have your design team prepare your creative so that you can have one look and feel to your brand across them all.

Quick Summary:

• Facebook Cover: 851 x 315
• Facebook Profile: 200 x 200
• Facebook App Boxes: 111 x 74
• Twitter Background: 2000 x 1200
• Twitter Profile: 128 x 128
• LinkedIn Profile: 200 x 200
• LinkedIn Company Banner: 640 x 220
• YouTube Avatar: 1600 x 1600
• YouTube Channel Background: 1500 x 2000 or 1200 x 2500
• Pinterest Avatar: 180 x 180
• Pinterest Image Max Width & Height: 554 & 5000
• Google+ Banner: 940 x 180
• Google+ Profile: 250 x 250
• Google+ Company Banner: 110 x 110

Social Media Image Sizing Guide Infographic:

Infographic by OriginalGinger.com

Please come back as this is a constantly evolving list.

The Marketing Power Reading List

On leadership…

Entreleadership by Dave Ramsey

If you’re looking for a rock solid playbook on how to build your culture, team, and processes from a reputable financial advisory, then look no further than Dave Ramsey’s book Entreleadership. He walks through the trials and tribulations of starting his business from the ground up. Great insight on how to manage people and how to let them leave when necessary.

Click here to listen to the Entreleadership podcasts

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

This book is a leadership fable about a young CEO who is thrown into a technology company and has to win the hearts and respect of her fellow executives. It’s an easy read with a built-in model for how to overcome universal team dysfunctions. The five steps from bottom to top are: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results.

Click here to learn more about this book and download the Five Dysfunctions model.

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

Successful people are the hardest to convince that they need to change because they are, well successful. Marshall Goldsmith, through his great experience coaching executives, has developed a killer list of behavior traits that hold people back from achieving even more success. Whether you’re a new manager or a rising CEO, following these “20 habits that hold you back from the top” might be your answer to achieving your goals.

Click here to learn more about this book and others on the author’s website

On modern marketing…

The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk

The best companies and brands that are rising to the top have a special focus on the customer experience and delivering great service. Gary Vaynerchuk identifies some of the best and pin-points what they’ve done to achieve their success. This book is a strong advocate for using social media to scale your 1-on-1 interactions with customers and creating a relationship with them.

Click here to read the first chapter for free
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Whether you’re in a small startup or a large corporation, the principles of The Lean Startup can help you achieve product innovation and growth. Many companies struggle with developing new products because they don’t create a continually process for testing and receiving customer feedback. By closing the loop, delivering a product faster, and focusing the right measurements then one could achieve great success through this model.

Click here to read some of the methodology on the book

Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch

Some great back-to-basics marketing strategies for small or large companies with a tight budget. Partly focused on strategy and stories and much about culture, this book provides a great perspective from a highly experienced marketer. Duct Tape Marketing starts with truly knowing your customer, giving them the simple solution they need, and building marketing into your company’s DNA.

Click here to read some free content on the Duct Tape Marketing blog

On ideas…

Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

This is a great and easy read if you’re looking to understand the best way to get your ideas adopted. What are the characteristics of ideas that seem to have a life of their own? Chip and Dan Heath develop a framework based on the great ideas of the past. Does your idea explore the framework: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credential, Emotional, Story.

Click here to read the first chapter for free

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

If you’ve ever wondered how you can be more productive and take control of your life then this book is for you. Timothy Ferris is a comedic and informative entrepreneur who tells the story of how he automated his online business and manages it remotely from dozens of countries around the world. This is a great resource for tools and solutions that will help you remain focused on setting your goals and empowering you to accomplish them.

Click here to read some of the content from his free blog

On negotiation…

Getting More by Stuart Diamond

Getting more out of your life isn’t about getting everything you’ve ever wanted, and neither does it mean that anyone else gets less. Stuart Diamond teaches you specifically how to use invisible negotiation tips to get more from companies you buy from, your kids/family members, or your employer. This book is about expanding the pie and coming to a mutual arrangement. This is not your typical “win win” negotiation book.

Click here to learn more about the book on the author’s website

On networking…

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi

If you’re looking for a book on networking, then look no farther than Never Eat Alone. Keith Ferrazzi provides his rich life story of how he put developing relationships first and foremost. By taking the time to actually add value to other people’s lives, while expecting nothing in return ironically provides you with an abundance of opportunity. Learn how the great leaders and politicians instantly create an intimate and genuine relationship through this insightful book.

Click here to learn more about the book on the author’s website

Do you monitor your bounce rate, number of page views, sites referring your traffic, views on mobile, inbound links, outbound links, page rank? Well yes, but not necessarily every day. There are just too many numbers to consistently watch if you’re only one person. Even a team can have trouble distinguishing the nice-to-have from the need-to-have.

What’s important about these metrics is that they aren’t the end game. I don’t look at them and say “Oh, that’s nice.” They are a starting point and are worthless if you don’t use them to take a step deeper by asking questions. What was this number yesterday? Why is it so much higher or lower? What caused the spike or drop? Was their one or many causes?

The purpose of watching these numbers allows you to dive deeper and gain some real learnings. These metrics below allow you to do that.

Below are 3 key website metrics that I watch every day:

1. Daily Visits (Google Analytics) – Although you’re thinking this is an obvious choice, you’d be surprised at how it’s overlooked. This metric will tell you a lot about the trends of the people visiting your site. You’ll see what days your visitors primarily focus on. Some retail sites tend to see an uptick on the weekends. B2B companies have a skew towards the workdays. Dive in deeper to see what hours of your most popular days cause the most transactions or leads. Use this information to target your content to people on specific days or focus your advertising during those core purchase hours. Longer term, are your daily visits going up or down? If you’re consistently publishing new content and your visits are going down then you may be losing traction. Figure out which of these visits are new versus returning and gauge whether you’re being successful.
2. Search Queries (Google Webmaster Tools) – If you’re making an effort to increase your search engine rank in Google, Bing, or any other major search engine then you need to pay attention to your “Search Queries”. This metric showcases the most common search queries pointing to your site, as identified by Google. It allows you to see how many times your site is being found, being clicked on, and your average position. You can compare the queries driving to your site with the list of keywords you’re actually trying to rank against. This is a quick and easy way to judge the success of your SEO efforts.
3. Links to Your Site (Google Webmaster Tools) – The currency on the web is valuable outbound links to websites you value. With that in mind, you should be measuring how many websites are “voting” for you. Quality is much more important than quantity but this number should continuously be going up nevertheless. You should consistently be creating and promoting your content on relevant blogs, partner websites, and associations. Leverage your industry expertise in news articles and press releases. Promote your deals and discounts on social media sites like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Always link back to your site. Even better, link back to specific pages and deeper URLs.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of metrics that should be analyzed when optimizing a website and a business. Spend time to quarterly or yearly pull together a full analysis and competitive review of how you’re doing. Look into the path your visitors are taking, the pages that cause the biggest bounce rates, and the browsers most used by your local customers. But don’t get overwhelmed and ignore the key metrics that you should be focusing on daily. Keep yourself informed quickly and easily by only looking a few.

What are your most important metrics?

Bolt Insurance Agency compiled an interesting infographic that compiles research and data from Constant Contact, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, e-Dialog, ExactTarget, and the U.S. Postal Service. This infographic outlines some of the tactics and observations that help small businesses advertise.

What are the most used marketing tactics used by small businesses?

1. Website Marketing
2. Email Marketing
3. Print Advertising
4. Social Media
5. Online Advertising
6. Event Marketing

What are the most used social media sites used by small businesses?

1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. Twitter & LinkedIn (Tie)

Other interesting facts pulled from the infographic:

• 67% of customers give their email addresses to companies to receive discounts and promotions.
• 57% of customers say they are more apt to buy a product in a store after receiving an email.
• 52% of small businesses are challenged to get current customers to refer new business.
• 80% of small businesses are challenged to attract new customers.
• 36% of small businesses think consumers value direct mail.
• 65% of Millennials prefer to read something on paper.

View the Small Business, Big Impact marketing infographic below:

Via: Bolt Insurance

Quick summary:

It’s amazing to see how marketing has transformed over the years and even more impressive is the rate in which a single message is distributed instantly to millions or billions of people. Starting with mass printing, the infographic moves you through the different mediums of posters, magazines, newspapers, and billboards. In 1922 radio advertising kicks in, followed a few decades later by television commercials in 1941. With the rise of telephones in most American’s homes, telemarketing becomes a common tactic. New technologies give rise to new means of communications with the personal computers and mobile phones but older mediums such as newspaper advertising still dominates. It’s not until 1990s that television overtakes newspapers as the largest ad spend. SMS messaging on mobile phones gets introduced in 1992 and twenty years later is still at it’s infancy. Internet advertising spikes in 1995-2002 as the dot-com bubble grows. Search engines jump onto the scene in 1995 and 1997. Do you remember AltaVista? Anyone? Search engine optimization (SEO) naturally follows, mostly defined by keyword stuffing and other on-page tweaks. Google launches in 1998 and launches paid search marketing through Adwords. Blogging comes onto the scene in 1998 just before the bubble bursts in 2000. Email marketing becomes heavily abused by spammers and in 2003 the CAN-SPAM act is passed into law. Social media spreads in 2003 and 2004 with Myspace, LinkedIn, and Facebook. SEO becomes a common key-phrase claimed by every webmaster and developer in 2005 and on. Twitter launches in 2007 and doesn’t stop growing. Email marketing struggles to push through the spam filters and text message marketing begins to take shape. The shift starts to happen from batch blasts to creating valuable content that drives people to your business. Google launches G+ and continues to adjust it’s algorithm in 2011. Mobile, tablets, and hand-held devices are skyrocketing as computer towers and laptops sales drop. E-commerce becomes more personalized and marketers are able to target smarter and faster. According to the infographic online shoppers will reach 184.3 million, up 3.3% from 2011. What do you think will come next?

The History of Marketing

From: HubSpot Marketing Software

If you’re like many companies, you employ a marketing individual or team to collect your contacts information and execute campaigns in somewhat of a batch and blast situation. You may even be sophisticated enough to break down your list by sales group, product, region, or industry. What you probably don’t do is automatically trigger your selective content to send out when a customer is on your website, when a prospect has downloaded your sales whitepaper, or when the system has identified a customer within their annual buying period.

Marketing automation, what is it?

Marketing automation combines technology, typically hosted, with business processes that score leads based on fixed criteria like title and size of company, as well as dynamic criteria, such as which web pages the person viewed, whether the individual attended a webinar or clicked through to an offer. Ultimately this information allows the marketer to better target messages and promotions to individuals based on their stated and implied interests. That process is generally called “lead nurturing,” which is a popular buzzword in the industry. – Joe Chernov, Eloqua (in an interview with Venturebeat.com)

3 Advantages to building a marketing automation system at your company:

1. You can “set it and forget it”. Once you do the work up front to create your content and your set of rules, your program will run with little oversight. Your programs will also be able to run outside of your companies work hours. With the expansion of mobile devices and tablets many people continue to work after they get home or into late hours. Turn your marketing into a 24/7 sales generating machine.
2. You can scale your processes. It’s very demanding to send a personalized “Thank you” note to every one of your customers on the same day they make a sale. This business requirement would require monitoring, notification, editing, proofing, and executing for every item. Automate processes like these and scale the number of touch points, leads generated, and sales routed.
3. You can eliminate human errors. How many of you have seen those “sorry, our mistake” emails from well-intended marketing teams who mixed up their data or their content? Probably everyone. This type of thing happens all the time because human touches are heavily involved. Errors and mistakes can be eliminated, or at least mitigated, by creating a rigid step-by-step program or process. Do the work up front to build, test, and approve then let the computer do the thinking.

10 best practices that utilize marketing automation:

1. Contact Registration – Capture your customer or prospect’s information at every chance you get. Offer them something of value in exchange. Can you solve a quick problem of theirs with a whitepaper demonstrating your expertise?
2. Welcome Email – Trigger and email that expresses gratitude that your customer or prospect has taken the time to interact with your brand. This is a great opportunity to provide additional resources or guide them to your call-to-action. Also, this eliminates the confusion when they get an email from you later and ask “Why am I receiving this?”
3. Identify Customer Intent – Some marketing automation solutions can integrate with analytics tools so you can see exactly what content they care about. It sounds a bit Big Brother, but your sales team would love to know if one of their top customers just browsed the new product page and downloaded the demo video. Great way to identify a potential easy cross-sell.
4. Lead Scoring – Not all prospects or customers are the same so they certainly shouldn’t be treated the same. Identify your triggers for contacts with the highest propensity to buy and jump on them first. You only have a limited number of resources in a day so prioritize accordingly. Segment customers by title, location, sales history, advertising referral source, website content browsed, or any other data point that is important to you.
5. Assign to Sales Representative – Automatically notify one of your sales reps to take action and update your CRM reflecting it. Build rules that remind them via email or text message after a certain number of days of no activity. Create a backup rule in case a sales rep is on vacation or out of the office. A list of 1,000 leads in Excel handed over to a sales team seems like a “job well done” from a marketing perspective, but is overwhelming if you’re the one making the calls. Instead, trickle the leads automatically as they come in. Much more manageable.
6. Nurture Email – You’re spending all this time and money to get valuable information into your system. Make sure you don’t forget to continuously communicate with them on a regular basis. Send a newsletter, product updates, and thought leadership material on a schedule that your customers feel is appropriate. Measure how effective you are with engagement metrics such as open rate, click thru rate, and additional actions on your website.
7. Engaged / Unengaged Survey – Segment your audience by how engaged they are with your website, content, and emails. Similar to lead scoring except you’re looking at their actions, not their demographics or company information. Take the time to craft a short survey and get a feel for how you’re doing. Ask them “How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?” and begin measuring your Net Promoter Score.
8. Upcoming Renewal Date Email – If you’re a B2B company, you’ll sometimes have annual renewals or a period of time when your customer is evaluating their options. Use this date field as a trigger to get out and front of their questions and concerns. Emphasis your additional value and why they went with you in the first place. This is also a great trigger to ping sales reps or customer relationships managers. You have a mass communication solution, might as well use it for internal messages as well.
9. SMS Communication – There has been a boom of success stories relating to SMS marketing campaigns. It’s a very personal medium that consumers tend to guard unless they initiate the opt-in. Once you get that opt-in permission however, you’ll get their full attention as 98% of all SMS are read. This is a great way to get timely and promotional messages directly into your customers hands. Use your marketing automation system to trigger alerts when they’ve reached a certain threshold or when their eligible for a special deal.
10. Social Media – Not really in the same bucket of a usual marketing automation solutions, but I still put it in the same category because some of it can be automated. Utilize tools such as TwitterFeed.com or Ifttt.comto automatically tweet or share your latest blog post. Although I like to screen who I follow, you can automate following someone that follows you or unfollowing someone that unfollows you on Twitter. Again, I like to make my responses personal but if you don’t have time for it you can automatically thank a person that mentions you.

Have you looked into how marketing automation can help you?

For the London 2012 Olympics, the IOC created a website to become the hub of all digital media. Named appropriately, the website is HUB.OLYMPIC.ORG. It automatically pulls in Olympic Twitter posts and allows you to connect with Facebook. It also shows interesting facts such as the “Top Followed Athletes”, led by LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

Social media has been a great success so far as viewers, athletes, and countries fully engage with each other throughout the games. You have the opportunity to follow most of the popular athletes or a particular event of your interest. The primary Twitter account is @London2012 but you can also follow every event.

Each event has it’s own Twitter account:
@L2012Archery, @L2012Athletics, @L2012Badminton, @L2012Basketball, @L2012BeachVball, @L2012Boxing, @L2012CanoeSLA, @L2012CanoeSPR, @L2012BMX, @L2012MTB, @L2012RdCycling, @L2012TrkCycling, @L2012Diving, @L2012Equestrian, @L2012Fencing, @L2012Football, @L2012ArtGym, @L2012RhyGym, @L2012Trampoline, @L2012Handball, @L2012Hockey, @L2012Judo, @L2012ModPent, @L2012Rowing, @L2012Sailing, @L2012Shooting, @L2012Swimming, @L2012Synchro, @L2012TT, @L2012Taekwondo, @L2012Tennis, @L2012Triathlon, @L2012Volleyball, @L2012WaterPolo, @L2012Weightlift, @L2012Wrestling

Below are some interesting infographics that also show social media rocking at the London 2012 Olympic games.

INFOGRAPHIC #1 – The Olympics: Following the world’s most prestigious sporting event, from TV to Twitter

Quick stats:

• Over 1,000 athletes joined the Olympic Hub
• From 2008 to 2012, Twitter increased from 6 million to 140 million users
• From 2008 to 2012, Facebook increased from 100 million to 845 million users
• 4.3 billion viewers tuned into the 2008 Olympic games

INFOGRAPHIC #2 – Socialympics and the Twitter Games

This infographic by ExactTarget, a global Software as a Service leader was shared in a blog post titled “Facts and Figures Behind Social Media and the Olympics #Infographic“.

Quick stats:

• Equestrian, Swimming, and Volleyball have the most followers leading up to the games.
• LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are the most popular athletes, measured on Twitter and Facebook.
• Not all athletes are embracing social media when you compare followers to medals won.
• Twitter was banned in China in 2008, so it played a little role. That has changed with London hosting the games and embracing it by creating an account for every event.

This infographic is brought to you by ExactTarget, a leader in social media marketing.

Bonus Infographics:

INFOGRAPHIC #3 – Which Olympic Event is Winning on Social Media?

Mashable also released a pretty cool infographic in their post titled Which Olympic Event is Winning on Social Media? [INFOGRAPHIC]. Including stats revealing the top 10 Olympic sports being discussed. Here they are in order of most popular to least popular: basketball, soccer, aquatics, gymnastics, track & field, tennis, cycling, equestrian, volleyball, and field hockey.

INFOGRAPHIC #4 – Econolympics: The Economic Impact of Hosting the Olympic Games (Infographic)

Although it’s not directly related to marketing, I thought I’d share this interesting infographic by Credit Season. They’re a UK financial solutions provider Credit Season and they put together an infographic showing the rising cost and economic growth resulting from hosting the games. They dub the infographic “ECONOLYMPICS”.

Narrowcasting is the sharing of information directly to it’s intended recipient, thereby breaking through all of the clutter. Broadcasting is the mass public sharing, such as a post or tweet. The infographic supports that you’re not only more likely to reach your audience but they’ll be more apt to respond when you do it. This conclusion is drawn from some very interesting statistics.

What does this mean for marketers?

SMS and MMS are powerful marketing tactics that can get your message directly to your audience and more importantly, they’ll see it. What is the average click rate of your last email? It’s unlikely it was above 15%. If it was, you’re part of the lucky minority. How many people viewed your Facebook page? Yes, you can see that now. Tweets go by even faster. How many of those get a mention or retweet? According to the infographic, 98% of all SMS and MMS messages are opened. That’s a remarkable percentage and clearly demonstrates how much this medium is valued.

Build an Personal Touch-point with Your Loyal Customers

Recently I was talking with the owner of a small family restaurant in my area and they were experimenting with SMS messaging. At first, it was slow going collecting their customer’s information but after a while of asking nicely, displaying signs, and not abusing those already in the program, they started to get a good base of numbers. The owner has had great success with using this channel in a number of ways. In fact, it has become their primary means of communication that trumps email, social, and traditional advertising.

Here’ show they are using SMS messaging.

• Timely deals – Restaurants have predictable, and sometimes non-predictable, slow times that sack profit. Instead of making employees go home early, they send out a promotion offering a discount within the next few hours.
• Upcoming events – If you’re a local business then you know how valuable it is to be involved in the community. They announce where they’ll be and what they’ll be promoting. This is also a great way to include your partners and benefit from each others audiences.
• Special Announcements – Nobody can predict the future and sometimes weather or other events cause a change in regular business. They use the SMS channel to instantly inform their customers if they are closing early, not open on particular day, or a change in staff.

Below is the infographic titled “Is Bigger Always Better?”

Infographic by Mogreet

The answers can be determined by asking two questions about a particular task.

1. Is it important?

2. Is it urgent?

This concept can also be diagrammed into a four quadrant square focusing on the factors importance and urgency.

NOT URGENT & IMPORTANTURGENT & IMPORTANTNOT URGENT & NOT IMPORTANTURGENT & NOT IMPORTANT

Most people spend their time focused on the two right quadrants URGENT & IMPORTANT and URGENT & NOT IMPORTANT. The reason being that the urgency grabs our attention even if the task at hand is known to be unimportant. We logically wouldn’t waste time on a task that we deem not worth our time, but because of Parkinson’s Law the fact that it is urgent increases (in appearance) it’s importance.

What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important – President Dwight D. Eisenhower

I’d like to focus on one quadrant in particular. The often neglected but most useful of the four quadrants is the NOT URGENT & IMPORTANT. These items are the things we haven’t checked off on our To Do lists in the last 12 months, yet we keep putting them on there. These items are the core discussion of our team meetings, yet action is never taken. We know they need to get done but often are so busy that they keep getting pushed below all of our fire drills. The NOT URGENT & IMPORTANT quadrant is essential because it’s what we know will be good for our organization or team in the long run.

This quadrant will move the needle.

This quadrant will improve you product.

This quadrant will make you a star.

Make Time for the Not Urgent

1. Schedule it.

Carve out 1 hour out of your week to focus on the NOT URGENT & IMPORTANT. Don’t let anyone interrupt this time. Go offline if need be. Use this time to turn off the water hose on all those fire drills. Ask yourself, “What have I been neglecting that I know needs to get done?” Make a priority list and take action on some of those items.

2. Take time from the URGENT & NOT IMPORTANT quadrant.

By asking if your spending your time in the best way you’ll start to identify those tasks that come up with intensity but aren’t accomplishing anything. These are the fire drills that keep coming up with no long term solution. These are the tasks that occur because of lack of planning. These are the opposite of thoughtful and carefully constructed ideas. Identify them and divert your focus onto something more important.

3. Pick up the slack and get your hands dirty.

The NOT URGENT & IMPORTANT tasks/projects are often the things that nobody else wants to do because of their complexity, time consumption, or difficulty. Step up and accomplish something your colleagues aren’t willing to do and you’ll instantly shine. Differentiate yourself as someone who goes the extra mile and always asks “Why are we doing this?”

The infographic cleverly relates content marketing to warfare, focusing on different strategies and tactics pre/post Panda and Penguin. Before these major Google algorithm updates, a website could get high rankings by applying the “weapons” blog spamming, blog networks, linkwheel, mass paid linking, article, marketing, and web 2.0. These tactics allowed for scalable and noticeable affects on search engine rankings. The alternative “weapons”, as presented in the infographic, are quality blogging, unique guest posts, interactive content, infographics, linkbaiting, and asset building. The latter is considerably more time consuming but obviously of more value to the end-user.

What have been the results of the Google Panda and Penguin updates?

• 12% of search results were affected by Panda, as it focused on “spam factors”, “keyword stuffing”, and “over-optimization.”
• 3.1% of search results were affected by Penguin, as it focused on quality over quantity.

How should you react to these changes?

If you’ve subscribed to the quality over quantity mindset on your website and have been doing what’s best for the user first then you’ve probably noticed minimal changes in your rankings. You’re the SEO marketer who has been doing things right from day 1. The truth is Google, Bing, and whatever other search engines pops up are going to continuously tweak their algorithms to “better” their results.

If you’re applying gray hat or black hat tactics that “chase the algorithm” then you’re at risk of changes such as these destroying your rankings. Does your website really deserve to be number one? Are you the biggest? Do your customers naturally generate the most buzz for your company over your competitors? If the answers to any of these questions are “no” then you’ve likely resorted to tweaking your site up the results page. Step back, focus on creating some real value and stop building thousands of irrelevant links. Focus on adding value to your customer and you won’t have to worry about these changes or any future ones.

View this great content marketing infographic below:

Infographic by Quaturo