Digital Marketing and Web Strategy by Bob Hazlett | One Half Amazing!

I’m currently away at the Online Marketing Summit in beautiful San Diego. Just wrapped up the education portion of Day 1 and I’d give it about a 7 on a 1-10 scale. The day started out real strong with a presentation by Catfish on SEO. The guy is brilliant and the education I picked up from him more than paid for the entire conference.

In all, there are about 400 online marketers in attendance so lots of great networking opportunities. During the Q&A session for an advanced paid-search presentation (advanced was a very loose term at this particular presentation) I was speaking to the lady who happened to sit next to me. She pointed out something very interesting trends in the questions coming from the audience. Everyone wanted the magic pill. They wanted actionable and measurable things that they could do right now in order to be successful. The waters are so murky in the online marketing world that these people are in over there heads and don’t know who to trust. They read one thing, but the data tells them another thing. They’re on short budgets and need results fast. The sad thing I realized is that things are better than they used to be, but I don’t see them clearing up anytime soon.

Hopefully next week, I’ll be able to share with you my findings and give you some great insight that you can actually use right now in your day-to-day business. Stay tuned.

As the internet becomes more and more ingrained in our everyday lives, a new breed of consumer has emerged – Consumer 2.0. Who is this person? What makes them tick? How can you improve your social media and search engine marketing efforts to build your brand around their needs?

Who is Consumer 2.0?

• Addicted to Leisure – They work hard, but they also expect a certain amount of work/life balance. They expect products and brands to conform to both aspects of their day. They want their phone to sync with Outlook while also keeping tabs of their Facebook profile.
• Create and share content – In their own eyes, they’re a rockstar. They twitter, pownce, blog and YouTube everything in their life. If they like it, they share it.
• Always connected and love information – They subscribe to hundreds of RSS feeds, have thousands of friends online, never leave home without their iPod or their web-enabled phone. These consumers can find what they’re looking for in a drop of hat (and expect it as well).
• Hypertaskers – Forget David Allen, these consumers chat online, play games, stream music and send text messages all while watching TV. In a survey produced by Yahoo!, 60% of 18-34 year olds said they surfed the web while watching TV.
• Love to be part of communities – They have multiple social network accounts and use them all on a regular basis.

As I’ve blogged about before, there are many things you can do to conform and mold your brand to meet Consumer 2.0′s expectations. It’s important to treat them with respect and dignity as they can make or break a good portion of your business.

• Listen to them. – They are more than willing to tell you what they think of your product, if you simply ask. Use them as your guinea pigs for new ideas and improvements on old ones.
• Collaborate with them. Just as Stromhoek, a small vineyard who collaborated with bloggers to create a grass roots initiative, so should you. Respond to their online posts and comments, answer their emails one at a time and take the initiative to create ‘wow’ experiences in your store. If you scratch their back, they’ll scratch yours as well.
• Give them the tools to share. Create an online toolbox in which users can remix your brand to meet their style. Include RSS feeds, pictures, videos, music, Facebook applications, custom t-shirts and everything else they could use to evangelize your product.

So how does Search Engine Marketing tie back to Consumer 2.0? Well, because Consumer 2.0 is so intrenched and dialed in on a regular basis, they’ve developed a small case of ADD. Nearly 72% of people answered that they cannot recall URL’s that appeared on TV spots. Therefore, not only should you do the things I’ve mentioned above to gain attention online, but you should also work to control those things you do have power over.

Your search engine marketing must include using appropriate keywords so Consumer 2.0 can find your brand, creating lots of relevant content, making sure your pages are user-friendly and have appropriate titles and descriptions just to name a few. Consumers expect brand leaders to consistently be in the top results of search and I can guarantee that many will look at a site because it was one of the first results regardless if it was what they were looking for or not. Great search engine marketing increases your brand familiarity, pumps up your brand consideration, improves customer satisfaction and results in a better brand experience.

Integrating Consumer 2.0 into your marketing plans and tweaking your search engine marketing will allow you to close the loop on your customers and engage advocates. I guarantee that if you implement the above to a tee, you will see much success online and off.

Additional Resources:
CASH courtesy of *mgwinc

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I’m sure by now these clips have made there way around the net and have been played countless times. Five years ago only a handful of people would have seen these flubs live and only a few would have told someone about it. The Internet and online media has changed everything. New and ever-evolving technology allows anyone to record, upload, stream and share their best clips with 10, 20, 50, 300 of their closest ‘friends’ in nearly real time. In the past users would never have been able to record live on their computer, edit it down into a :60 second clip, post it to YouTube, place it on their FaceBook account, Twitter it, write a blog post and Dugg it with a few clicks of the mouse (or on their cell phone while waiting in line at Starbucks). Heck, not one of these technologies I just mentioned was even around 5 years ago. The game is changing and if you or your business are not ready to address it, then you could end up being the one without a map.

How will you address your flubs? How will you promote your successes?

What technology will come around in the next 5 years that you can take advantage of? How will you anticipate and prepare for it now?

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In a recent survey, 56% of U.S. and U.K. online retailers indicated that their overall sales conversion rates increased over the past year simply by adding product reviews to their site. Giving customers a voice can really pay dividends. 77% indicated that their site traffic increased (along with better search engine optimization) and 42% found that average order value increased because of the reviews.

How do you improve customer retention and loyalty? Do you customers have a voice? If that’s hard for you to answer, go to Google and search for terms such as “I love”, “I hate”, “I like”, “I didn’t like” including your brand in the query (i.e. ” I love One Half Amazing”). If they’re not venting on your site, then it’s probably coming out in public.

Additional Resources:
eMarketer – Customer Reviews Increase Web Sales
Church of the Customer Blog

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Placing an online video on any of a number of sites gives your clients and customers the idea that you know a little more than the next guy. Not that you’re not already talented as it is, but when a potential customer sees a video entry on your site it moves the scales in your favor. To the customer they are getting a sense of the type of service you offer and the knowledge you have without even having to take out their checkbook.

For example, lets say you are a local landscaper. By creating just a simple video about planting a tree or maintaining your lawn you are now looked upon as an expert in their mind. Therefore, when they decide to buy, you are the one they choose because it’s comfortable and they know what to expect.

So, before you can become the “go to guy (or girl)”, you must know how these new web technologies function. There are numerous services, but I’m going to keep with YouTube in this example simply out of simplicity sake. YouTube is probably one of the easiest video sites to use out of the bunch in my opinion and their recent acquisition by Google makes they even more of a powerhouse.

Step 1: Know what type of video to create
YouTube accepts video files from most digitial cameras, camcorders and cell phones in .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG file formats. Have no fear if you are unaware, these are standard outputs on most equipment. If you are familiar with video details, YouTube recommends a resolution of 320×240, MP3 Audio and a speed of 30 frames per second.

Step 2: Create you video / Create your YouTube account
Create your video and transfer to your computer. Most cameras and camcorders have USB or Firewire output. A simple plug and play should do the job.

If you don’t have a YouTube account yet, go to YouTube.com and create your unique username and password. It takes less than a minute and they won’t spam you.

Step 3: Upload video to YouTube site
While logged in, click “Upload Video” in the upper-right-hand corner of just about any page within YouTube.

Step 4: Enter your video information
Input as much information as possible, include Title, Description, Tags (one-word descriptors such as tree, landscape, lawn) and Category. The more info you supply, the easier it will be for users to find your videos

Step 5: Find that file
In the next window, click the ‘Browse” button to find the video located on your computer. YouTube takes your file and converts it to a flash file so it can be shown in all web browsers without any special equipment.

Step 6: Determine Public or Private
If you want everyone to be able to see your video (which I’m sure you do in this example), make sure to click Public.

Step 7: You become an online video star!
Click “Upload Video” and your video is magically taken to YouTube wonderland.

After you have created your video and uploaded to your site, YouTube supplies two pieces of information that allows you to easily pass your video on to your customers.

A good idea for the URL tag would be to place it in your e-mail signature or as a link to your customers in their monthly e-mail or newsletter. Once typed in, the URL will take the user to the exact page within YouTube where the video is placed.

If you want to get a little more fancy, you can copy the Embed code and insert it within your web site or on any electronic communication. This feature will pull the video right out of YouTube and integrate it within your site.

Additional Resources:
Making and Optimizing your Videos
Adding YouTube videos to your web site or blog
Policy on Copyright information

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As most of the known world moves and integrates their data online, I suppose Google’s search spiders would eventually add your business to their directory without your effort. But as every smart entrepreneur knows, you must be proactive in advertising your small business to prevent any dollars (or customers for that matter) passing by. With the recent release of Apple’s iPhone, consumers today have an even easier time of searching and connecting to nearby places of interest with a single click of a button. It only makes sense that you, in turn, make it just as easy for those consumers to find you.

To add your business to Google Maps, simply visit Google’s Local Business Center. The process is straight forward and literally takes 2 minutes to complete if you have a Google account. If not, don’t worry, they are free of charge and can provide your small business with other invaluable tools such as Google Documents, GMail, Google Reader, Adsense/Adwords along with the lovely Google Website Analytics.

While you’re online, check out your competition. Are they listed on Google Maps? How do they attract new business through their online strategy? What could you be doing better with yours?

Additional Resources:
Adding your business to SuperPages.com
Seth Godin’s free e-book: Bootstraper’s Bible

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