Working Planet Marketing Group

Working Planet Co-Founder and President Soren Ryherd will be speaking at the 2011 B2B Content Marketing Summit on Wednesday, April 6th, 2011.   Soren will be joining Tim Hurley, Founder & Managing Partner of Think Media Partners, Myles Bristowe, CMO of CommCreative, and Brad Gustavesen, Vice President and Anna Barcelos, Director of Client Solutions at ten24 Web Solutions.

Soren’s talk is focused on “Evaluating Content Effectiveness and Optimizing for Engagement”.  Topics include:

* Concrete ways to evaluate content effectiveness
* KPIs – having the right metrics for your business model
* How to effectively utilize audience segmentation and personality profiles

Attendance is limited and filling quickly!

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Late last week Google rolled out its blue navigational arrow, the latest Google Instant feature. Aimed at providing faster, easier to access results, Google’s Blue Navigational Arrow appears to the left of the first result of every Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Pressing ‘enter’ opens the arrow’s corresponding page allowing users to navigate without ever having to reach for their mouse by using the ‘up’ and ‘down’ arrows on a keyboard. It may seem harmless enough, but this update could prove to have lasting effects on PPC marketing.

Initially, the new feature may simply draw attention to the first result of any given SERP with the result being a dramatic increase in clicks on 1st position ads “featured” by the arrow.  As likely is an increase of reflex and accidental clicks on those ads. Impatient users may repeatedly hit ‘enter’ trying to “encourage” the page to load faster. While not an issue in the past, hitting ‘enter’ just a quarter of a second after the page is fully loaded now results in clicking on that first, most expensive paid ad, making it more important than ever to granularly manage your keywords’ bids and positions.

Initially, advertisers may see an increase in competition for the top 3 positions on the left side of the SERP, which are heavily favored by this new functionality as they are accessible with the arrow. To access the paid ads on the right of the SERP with the arrow, however, one must press the down arrow ~15 times. Whether users adopt the use of keyboard navigation functionality remains to be seen. The one thing we can be sure of is that Holiday season is right around the corner and it’s important to start getting all your Google blue arrows in a row!

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On Wednesday, Google announced Google Instant, a search feature that is going to be a game-changer for long-tail keywords.  With Google Instant, both paid and organic search results change in real-time as queries are actively being typed.  Brilliant and disturbing.

There had been rumors that Google needed to squelch the increasing number of multi-word searches which were being delivered to lower-priced, long-tail keywords.  Will they ever accomplish that with this feature: 1) by design, 1- and 2-word predicted results are displayed first, and 2) the likelihood that users will be distracted by the rotisserie results before completing their intended query will be high.

The net result of all that will be more searches on common terms, higher bid prices, and happy stockholders. Google states that quality score will not be affected, however, the mix of traffic and volume of impressions is unknown.  We will be watching the trends in user behavior and performance closely.

It will be interesting to see whether users, in theory Google’s chief concern, will be equally happy with the new feature or will become  disenchanted.  I know some SEO shops that certainly hope it goes away…instantly.

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eMarketer reports that Marketers are still having trouble tying marketing to Revenue.  Because this is our job, we run directly into many of the reasons why this continues to be a challenge for Marketers and companies engaged in Online Marketing. Here are the Top Five Challenges we often have to overcome in making full-life cycle marketing optimization work:

1. Incomplete Tracking Systems:  The good news is most companies are now tracking something related to their marketing.  The bad news is that they are still very often tracking the wrong things or in the wrong way.  Tracking systems need to show aggregate site performance and individual user behavior.  Hint: most systems are not good at both.  You can use more than one.

2. Tracking Ends on the Web Site:  You need systems that let you feed sales/and revenue data back into the marketing program.  The good news is that most existing systems can be tied together.  You don’t necessarily need to invest in new systems, or expensive ones.

3. The “Bucket” Assumption:  Banish the assumption that every sale should be credited to a single marketing source.  People who believe that SEO, PPC, Display, Remarketing, Offline, PR, and nurturing programs work in isolation will make bad decisions.  Marketers working on multiple pieces of the marketing pie need a holistic view, and some forms of marketing (*cough Display!*) demand it for proper evaluation.

4. One-Way Data Flow:  Most installed systems that tie marketing to revenues have been purchased so that the C-Suite can generate marketing reports.  They are missing the value of these systems.  Data is *not* for reporting.  Data is for *action*.  You have to create feedback loops so that marketing campaigns can be optimized to improve results.  Take baseball.  Measuring a hitter’s swing let’s you evaluate good and bad hitters.  Capitalizing on that data in the training process makes for a whole team that can swing for the fences.

5. Online is Different:  Another challenge is to overcome internal assumptions about how marketing works.  In the old days you “dropped” marketing pieces, typically infrequently, that largely had a fixed cost.  You measured, if you could at all, on lift, and if not, on reach.  If you liked the numbers, wash, rinse, repeat.  Of course, the world has changed.  Online Marketing does not have fixed costs,  it is dynamic, and it requires constant optimization.  Campaigns can be driven by ROI, not evaluated by ROI.  Break the assumptions of old marketing and opportunities are everywhere.

Tying marketing to revenues does require work, but the payoff in reduced risk and increased profitability makes it well worth the effort.

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