The RCM Team is taking a new approach to their blogging efforts. We will still continue to update this blog when we really want to rant about something, but will be focusing the majority of our day to day efforts toward our Facebook page. We will leverage this platform to pull in a variety of different media from a variety of different social media channels, including YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and some homegrown FB apps. We hope that this will allow us to be much more active and to also reach out to our friends, collegues and clients in a more effective way.

So visit us over at Facebook and we hope you enjoy the fresh approach.

Visit Rock Coast Media's Facebook Page

Labels: facebook, rock coast media, search engine marketing

Ten landing page tips to turn visitors into customers

There’s something about a ten-item list that makes us want to get all Hestonian on you and break out the archaic pronouns, especially when it comes to something like getting people who visit your site to actually buy from you. After all, you work hard to get clicks. What could be more important than turning those clicks into customers?
But we’re kind of a live-and-let-live bunch here, and we’re not so big on telling people what they have to do. So consider these a set of suggestions about how to help optimize your landing pages. That way, when people get to your site, they’ll be more likely to make a purchase.

1. Tell them why they should buy from you:

Clarity of your value proposition is the most important factor in determining whether a customer buys from you or not. Ask yourself the question: “Why should I buy from this site?”

2. Keep ‘em with you:

Protect your landing pages from the #1 threat to conversions: site flow disruption. After identifying a unique and compelling Value Proposition, you must ensure that you express it throughout your sales process in a clear, consistent and compelling way. Eliminate site flow disruption to help maximize conversions.

3. Don’t try to say too much:

Don’t clutter your landing page with unnecessary details. Instead:
• Clearly state your key message using as few words as possible
• Use summary descriptions, sub-headings, bulleted lists and short paragraphs
• Adopt a standard one-column format for easy reading.

4. Make it simple:

Improve the user experience with a site that is easy to navigate. A simple page layout that employs a clean visual and straightforward design is best. Here’s how:
• Design your site with a clear hierarchy with color and contrast for easily legible text
• Use meaningful and high-quality graphics (don’t clutter with too many)
• Use breadcrumbs to let visitors know where they are on your site
• Employ a clickable logo that takes the visitor to your homepage
• Use color to distinguish between visited and unvisited links.
Just as important, make sure you don’t:
• Employ horizontal scrolling
• Direct links to new browser windows
• Have flash-based content unless required.

5. Call them to action:

Focus on one primary action per screen (don’t stuff too many products onto one screen). Make the call-to-action button clearly visible without having to scroll; don’t bury it under pages of information. Consider using tabs or a pop-up box to consolidate information.

6. Get specific:

Provide product details and a large product image while displaying incentives—such as free shipping and warranty information—high on the page and close to the product. Don’t discourage visitors by requiring registration to your site.

7. Flaunt what you’ve got:

What differentiates you from your competitors? Free shipping (both ways?), discounts, a 365-day warranty, price protection, privacy, customer service, etc.? If you’ve got it, flaunt it!

8. Search yourself:

Make your site easy to navigate by helping potential customers find what they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible. A search feature box should be simple and visible with a type-in field, not a link. To help increase conversions, make sure your search results link to product pages.

9. Rally the believers:

Credibility is a true testament: people don’t buy from websites, people buy from people. Thus, testimonials from devout customers—or even a letter from the CEO/Editor—persuades the unbelieving.

10. Let them make the choice:

“Why should I buy this specific product?” Almost every e-tailer forgets about this, but it’s the question that’s key to Mr. or Ms. Customer’s mind. Prove to him or her why they should buy this over the competitive product by offering reviews, ratings and comparisons.

– Amy Borowicz; Yahoo! Blog

Labels: blogs, clicks, conversion rates, ctr, landing pages, Yahoo

Last night’s MITX (Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange; www.mitx.org ) titled, The 2008 Digital State - Social Media: the Opportunities and Implications for Marketers, was packed. This is not surprising given the incredible buzz that surrounds “social media”. The speaking panel included:

• Tom Arrix, Vice President of Sales, East, Facebook; www.facebook.com
• Pauline Ores, Senior Marketing Manager, Community & Collaboration, Global SMB Marketing, IBM Corporation; www.ibm.com
• Juan Fernando Santos, Chief Creative Officer, StudioCom;
• Suzanne Skop, Director of Sales, MySpace;
• Jeffrey C. Taylor, Chief Executive Officer, Eons

I enjoyed the panel and it was great to hear the enthusiasm although some of it should be taken with a grain of salt. It is always great to hear people passionate about what they do and what they sell, but that is one of the tenets of a good sales person. It they told you the challenges and the road blocks they faced, you might not be quite as impressed.

The most poignant question was brought up by the moderator, Larry Webber (W2 Group Inc., www.w2groupinc.com ), “What is the new ad model for these social networks?” I did not hear a straight answer. There were statistics on how many people are joining up, that they are connecting and creating content, and how display is the “old” model. There was, however, no real discussion of how to use these new contributors as effective marketing tools. So the question remains, what is the ad model for these networks? How marketers are are going to purchase and assess effectiveness of this new consortium of content contributors is the question we all want to know…

Labels: eons, facebook, ibm, larry webber, mitx, myspace, social media, studiocom

I was in my accountant's office the other day and as we were wrapping up our meeting, he started asking questions about SEO. Apparently his site had suddenly dropped into oblivion for no apparent reason. After further investigation, I quickly found that there were about 2000 keywords hidden at the bottom of each page and that he had 5-6 domains all mirroring the same content. Over the next week we were able to get the spam cleaned up and submitted a reconsideration request to Google. In less than a week, he back up in the top three for his core keywords.

I don't think that this is a rare situation for small business owners as it there is a lot of information flowing around in forums and from eager web designers looking for quick and easy ways to confirm that "Yes, they do build optimized websites". Now in this case, my accountant had read a couple of forums and this seemed like a fine idea; Search engines look for keywords, so if there are keywords at the bottom of my page, it should help my search rankings.

I think that very often it is not understanding the big picture of SEO that can be a problem. No one technique or approach to SEO will yield long-term consistent results. When your SEO strategy is based on one single technique, you leave yourself vulnerable, at best to constant fluctuations, and at worst to penalties and even blacklisting.

When planning your SEO strategy, understand all factors that search engines look at and address many of them. Like a financial portfolio, this will hedge against short term fluctuations and will yield strong, consistent results over the long term.

Labels: reconsideration request, search engine optimization, SEO

I came across a MediaPost Insider article this afternoon called "Holiday Shopping Season 2007: All About the Blogs", by Tessa Rudd. The article talks about how online shoppers, and advertisers and marketers trying to reach them see blogs as helping out with "guided shopping".

Rudd writes, "The blogosphere offers unbiased, third-party voice for consumers, while simultaneously empowering advertisers with the valuable opportunity to capitolize on the trust that has developed between bloggers and consumers. Numerous reports from the Internet advertising industry and market researchers suggest that advertising is working on blogs. This is creating a dynamic environment where branding meets direct marketing."

The article then goes on talking about "online e-fluencers": "The success of advertising in the blogosophere is manifested through the relationship between the consumer and online e-fluencers. E-fluencers are often bloggers who have become experts, through research and knowledge, in a specific area of interest, such as MP3 players or GPS systems. E-fluencers become an influential and guiding player in the traditional concept of consumer-to-consumer marketing."

In reading this article, I quickly came to realize that at least 2 items on my Christmas list this year came from specific items that were recommended on blogs. One item is a handbag a friend had recommended on her blog around fashion. If I hadn't asked for it for christmas, I would have purchased it right from her blog - as she often posts pictures of items, linking to the product's website to purchase.

If its wasn't for these e-fluencers, my christmas list may have been much more barren this year (and maybe would have even saved Santa Claus some money!)

Labels: blogs, e-fluencers, holiday shopping season, online shopping

On Tuesday, Merriam-Webster announced their word of the year for 2007. And the winner was… w00t! Of course. I use this word ALL the time. For those of you out there who, like me, don’t find this word entering their daily vocabulary, let me give you a little background on the word. Webster’s online Open Dictionary defines it like this:

1. w00t (interjection)

Expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word “yay.”

w00t! I won the contest!

And while there is plenty of disagreement as to the origins of the word, one popular theory as defined by Urban Dictionary is that the term was derived from online gamers as an acronym for “we own the other team.” In other words, it was a victory cry of sorts. And now… well, now it seems to have worked its way into mainstream language, or at least into “leetspeak,” or l33t.

As a “word of the year,” w00t joins the ranks of other “word of the year winners” such as ruthiness, integrity, blog, and democracy. These are all words that are chosen by Webster’s based on their wide usage, and are then voted on by the internet public. So, the question is, will w00t become as wide-spread as “blog.” Will we all be crying “w00t!” as we ring in the New Year? Ten years from now, will we all look back and laugh that I’m blogging about the term “w00t” - a term that has become as mainstream as “internet,” “telephone,” or “HDTV?” I’m obviously just a n00bi3 at all this l33t stuff, and at this point I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I may just never be k3wl.

Labels: l33t, leetspeak, Merriam-Webster, w00t, word of the year

According to Google’s software engineer, Matt Cutts – Google plans to shortly roll out a new filter that will treat sub-folders and sub-domains of a site equally. According to SE Roundtable (http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/015621.html), at a recent PubCon conference in Las Vegas, Matt stated that very soon things will change and a domain will be limited to 2 total URL’s within any set of search results.

So what does this mean for webmasters? Since sub-domains up until this point have been treated as individual domains, site owners had the ability to easily game the system and index an endless amount of sub-domains in Google to dominate a bunch of rankings. Google’s latest effort to put an end to this, will most likely have a significant impact on websites using these tactics. In addition though, some legit sites are likely to hurt from this change, as certain sites who let’s say had 3-4 of their own listings within top 10 search results will now be limited to just 2, therefore losing some of the traffic.

Whether or not this new algorithm will cause relevancy issues is under question, but the filter should surely put an end to black hat SEO’s taking advantage of the current situation, especially those in the more competitive areas of the business.

Labels: google, search engine optimization, SEO, sub-domains

In a meeting with our Google team this week, one of our contacts introduced us to iGoogle. Although I was aware of it, I never really went as far as to try it out. However, out of curiosity today, I went to check it out quickly, and before I knew it 15 minutes went by with me playing around with my page, as well as some of the 'gadgets' I can add to it.

iGoogle allows you to personalize your Google homepage, spicing it up from just the plain white background. It allows you to customize your page with news, local weather, YouTube clips, and lets you 'add stuff'; gadgets that you may want to interact with when visiting the page. Our rep let us know one of his favorite gadgets was Pacman - and much to my surprise, you can play Frogger and Duck Hunt too!

Much to my surprise, some of these gadgets are being used as ad units - which Google is currently calling 'gadget ads'. These gadgets are being described as 'websites within websites'; users can post and share gadgets anywhere, engaging users around your brand. Gadget ads are comprised of 'applications incorporating data feeds, maps, images, audio, video, flash, HTML, or JavaScript in a single creative'.

Now that I've actually seen these gadgets and interacted with some of them myself, I'm curious to see how they work in an ad campaign!

Labels: gadget ads, google, igoogle, search engine marketing

Yesterday, the popular social content site, Digg, made some pretty drastic changes to its taxonomy. This change certainly softened the corners of the traditionally tech driven social site, providing a greater diversity of content options. There is a new Lifestyle category and greater prominence for Sports and Entertainment categories. Additionally, Offbeat, which has historically served as the catch all for stories that didn't fit elsewhere, has been broken out into its own category with a variety of subcats.

It will be interesting to see how the fork-tongued Digg hard corps react to this invitation to art and puppy lovers to join their ranks. My guess is that it could go one of two ways:

1) They leave and find the next best thing. This is a tech savvy crowd that knows it and prides themselves on being hip to the coolest new thing out there. It is possible that this process was already underway.

2) They go the way of Phish fans following the break up of the Greatful Dead in the mid 90's. Before I go on, while I enjoy the music of both bands, I am by no means a die-hard fan of either. which I think gave me a more neutral take on the situation. When the The Dead broke up and all these people flooded over to start going to Phish concerts, it seemed that Phish fans felt the needed to super-charge their fan-dom and fight the yuppie-posers (ie Me) who were encroaching on their thing. While hateful comments are already the norm, it's possible that veteran Diggers may lash out and bury posts in the new categories.

I guess a third option is that veterans actually like the new categories because the new outlets will stop people from posting stories in categories that aren't a good fit.

I any case, Digg's reasoning has to be in-part motivated by the need to grow their audience, most likely to make the site more appealing for advertisers or potential buyers. Only time will tell if their approach will achieve that goal or if it will drive away the people that made the site what it is.

Labels: digg, smo, social media optimization

As the paid search industry has evolved from the days of goto.com to Overture to Yahoo and the rise of Google Adwords all sorts of search engine marketing strategies have been suggested and debated. Bid management, writing effective ad copy and day parting are just a few worthy of mention. Yet among all of these tactics the one most fundamental of concepts is time and again overlooked, conversion tracking. Let this then be just a friendly reminder to track your campaign's target conversions and more specifically, all conversions.

A great example of the importance of tracking all available actions (and not just the most desired) is in one of Rock Coast Media's present campaigns. After a substantial period of time working through numerous technical challenges we were finally able to track call center sales in addition to just search driven online sales. All along we had some theories about the value of these calls but we were never sure...the result, over 40% of our sales were still over the phone. Clearly these numbers have substantially impacted the campaign's bottom line and our overall strategy.

Yes, the holidays are coming soon, 2008 planning is in crunch time and things in general are crazy. Hence, just this friendly reminder to review all of the available actions in your campaign and make sure they are properly tracked.

Labels: paid listings, paid search, PPC, rock coast media, search engine marketing, tracking online advertising

It is no surprise that more ad dollars are being invested in pull media, such as search, as the alternative is down right annoying. This became very clear to me today when I received no less than 7 calls from the same telemarketer about these great "free" gifts that I have been randomly chosen to receive, but of course didn't request.

This situation was both annoying and a little scary, as they knew the last 4 digits of my credit card and claimed to be affiliated with my credit card. The seven calls gave me a chance to do some probing and I quickly learned that they were not with my credit card company at all. As usual, I declined their "free" offer because to be honest, I know these things are never free and I don't think my wife would be all that excited if I started to build a collection of "Girls Gone Wild" videos at the house.

Had the conversation ended there, I would have been more than happy to chalk this up as another mildly annoying telemarketing call. But each caller said that I had to go through a recorded description of the offer during which I was to respond OK twice and at the end I would be given the opportunity to decline the offer. The problem was, that I never made it to the end because their statements were worded in such a way that an "OK" response would have resulted in a recording of me agreeing to receive the offer. After explaining why I had a problem with this I was hung up on by a couple of the callers and the others said that I absolutely couldn't be removed from the list without going through the process as the system was automated. So I guess I just have to keep an eye on my credit card statement and keep fielding these calls.

While I filed a complaint with the BBB, I doubt anything will come of it. The only way to stop this is for the budgets to dry up. Hopefully advertisers will become more aware that there are better options, where you can draw your customers in by giving them what they want, rather than jamming what you want them to have down their throat.

Labels: pull marketing, push marketing

When thinking about the concept of Facebook and the overall ability it gives a user to put whatever details about the going-ons in their life right out there for everyone else on Facebook to see, one could convince that it might not be a big deal if recent online purchases began showing up in user profiles. After all, if Janie Teenager bought two tickets to see Fantastic Four with her main squeeze and wanted people to know about it, what harm could be done in Facebook displaying that Janie actually bought the tickets to said movie on Fandango, one of the participating companies in Facebook's Beacon program? In many cases users may see it as confirmation that another likes or uses certain products, however, after last weeks national news story about the intern-bust http://valleywag.com/tech/your-privacy-is-an-illusion/bank-intern-busted-by-facebook-321802.php users of Facebook and MySpace should think twice about what they put in their profiles as well as their privacy settings. Moreover, users need to be aware of what Facebook may slyly be placing on your profile.

Now this was not a case related to online purchases, but say that our friend Kevin here had purchased a plane ticket and 2 seats for a game at Madison Square Garden through Beacon participating companies on Facebook? While the fairy outfit scenario was likely far more amusing to his boss than the above would have been, there is something to be said for privacy and that goes for online purchases as well. Should this information be shared with other users of Facebook unless you were given a reasonable notice? Probably not. While Facebook's sneeky 20 second opt-out feature http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20071121/tc_nf/56860 is rather bogus, users should be aware of it and for goodness sake, if you're going to tell your employer or anyone else a white lie, don't post the truth for everyone to see!

Labels: facebook, online purchase, privacy

With all the buzz lately about Facebook’s new advertising platform, another social media ad platform may have been overlooked. While LinkedIn’s ad platform (http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=advertising_info) may not have all the bells and whistles of Facebook’s (http://www.facebook.com/ads), it does enable advertisers to reach a different audience.

LinkedIn, a social media site dedicated to helping professionals stay in touch with past colleagues and classmates, or explore new career opportunities, is a great way for advertisers to reach a more mature, professional audience. Advertisers have access to over 16 million professionals on LinkedIn, and can target them by industry, seniority, job function, company size, geography, number of connections, and gender. Banner and text links are available to display advertising messages.

LinkedIn is great option for advertisers in industries like finance, business technology, health, travel and more. For a financial company offering Rollover IRAs, the business professionals on LinkedIn might be a better audience than the demographic that uses Facebook. That’s not to say there isn’t an audience for Rollover IRA’s on Facebook. But with almost 21 million Facebook users ranging from high school students to retirees, versus the over 16 million professionals with an average of fifteen years business experience, you might get a better bang for your buck on LinkedIn!

Labels: display advertising, facebook, linkedin, social media

A colleague of mine and I were in New York for Ad Tech last week and had the pleasure to schedule time with a few of the leading ad serving and tracking providers. Our core focus for the meetings was to ultimately unlock that holy grail of advertising - closing the loop from customer awareness to purchase. This concept goes far beyond just direct awareness to conversion it also includes identifying the multiple touch points a consumer experiences with a brand. From hearing a radio spot to viewing a banner to finding that brand via a search engine. There are many steps to this process and many funnels to how these conversions may take place.

Fortunately, solving this challenge is at the forefront of these vendors' minds and they are making some strong steps to get there. One vendor for example will soon provide a report illustrating the relationship between media spend, impact on brand name searches and whether these brand searches converted. Another report shows the most frequent searches clicked on for a keyword prior to a conversion on that keyword. Reports such as these are a solid step toward a far deeper understanding of customer behavior.

We must remember however, that while this is a step in the right direction, it is still a baby step. 3rd party cookie limitations and the inability to track organic placements are just a few of the challenges that are still to be faced...and oh yeah, what about those offline campaigns? The good news is, we're getting there.

Labels: 3rd party cookie, paid listings, search engine marketing, tracking online advertising