List of Minnesota Marketing & PR Associations, Organizations, & Groups
Posted on 05. Mar, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Interactive Marketing, MIMA, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Sometimes it feels like I spend more time on the road than in Minnesota, but the Twin Cities has a fine digital marketing community that includes advertising, direct marketing, interactive, B2B, search, PR and communications groups that serve the needs of marketing and communications professionals in the region.
Networking locally can be incredibly important if you’re new to the area, want to connect with other professionals in your field or are in search of professional development and job opportunities. Below are a list of Minnesota (primarily Minneapolis & St. Paul) marketing and communications organizations that offer a range of opportunities for networking, education and industry involvement.
Please check them out and if you’re a member or if you’ve had experience with these organizations, please be sure to share in the comments. We’d like to feature 5 or 6 in the coming months for more in-depth posts about regional associations and the role they play.
BMA Minnesota - Business Marketing Association of Minnesota is the only organization in Minnesota formed exclusively to help business-to-business marketers and communicators stay in touch and keep on top of the latest trends, products and strategies. @bmaminnesota
MIMA - Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association is the oldest Interactive Marketing Association in the U.S., and currently serves and inspires more than 1,300 members from agency, corporate and freelance environments in content development, design, experience design, marketing, media, product development, promotions, publishing and usability. @mimatweet
SMBMSP - Founded by Rick Mahn and Mykl Roventine, Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis St. Paul is a regularly occurring event where like minded social media folks across the Twin Cities of Minneapolis & St. Paul get together to share & learn about social media. Membership in SMBMSP online has grown to over 2,300 professionals from all different disciplines and industries. @smbmsp
MN Search - The Minnesota Search Engine Marketing Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to the progression of search marketing and strives to help businesses and individuals keep a pulse on the latest news, trends, tactics and tools. @mnsearch
Minnesota PRSA - Minnesota Public Relations Society of America is the 10th largest chapter of the PRSA and seeks to advance the profession of Public Relations throughout Minnesota. @minnesotaprsa
MN Women in Marketing Communications - Minnesota Women in Marketing & Communications aims to transforms careers and confirms the power of marketing and communications for members and community by fostering collaborative relationships, offering diverse networking and educational opportunities, promoting marketing and communications’ roles in business growth, and championing women communicators as integral to successful businesses. @mwmcorg
IABC Minnesota - International Association of Business Communicators in Minnesota, named International Chapter of the year in 2011, brings together professionals who want to excel in the communications field. It provides lifelong learning opportunities by giving members the tools and information they need at any stage in their career. @iabcmn
MDMA - Midwest Direct Marketing Association offers members opportunities to keep up with new activities, ideas, trends and techniques and encourages high ethical standards within the industry. @midwestdma
MN AMA - Minnesota American Marketing Association supports the marketing community with events, sponsorships and an in-depth community of members, helping students and professionals alike expand networks, get the latest in marketing communication strategies, and find new opportunities that fit their wants and needs. @mnama
SME Mpls & St Paul - Sales & Marketing Executives of Minnesota is a leadership organization focused on providing a condition for open sharing and learning centered around the issues members face daily and provides opportunities for business and professional growth by the exchange of proven business strategies and methodologies in a peer-to-peer environment. (No Twitter Account Found)
AdFed MN - The Advertising Federation of Minnesota is a non-profit, professional trade association serving the local advertising community offering networking opportunities, seminars and other events. @adfedmn
AIGA Minnesota - The AIGA professional association for design offers education and professional development programs, competitions and shows for those working in design and related fields that promote excellence in design and opportunities for students and professionals to network. The acronym AIGA used to stand for American Institute of Graphic Arts @aigamn
I am very curious about your opinion on these organizations in terms of the value they provide for networking, education and industry involvement? Are you a member of any? What do you like best? Which would you recommend? Which would you like us to profile more specifically?
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List of Minnesota Marketing & PR Associations, Organizations, & Groups | http://www.toprankblog.com
Getting Your Internet Marketing Dream Job: How to Interview & Succeed at a Top Agency
Posted on 31. Jan, 2012 by Ashley Zeckman in Blog, content marketing, Interactive Marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
Picturesque view of Lake Minnetonka from the TopRank Online Marketing office
Today marks my 4 month anniversary at TopRank Online Marketing and almost 5 years in the online marketing industry. It has been a goal of mine to learn as much as I possibly can from those who know the industry best. In this seemingly short amount of time I have received, and continue to receive a top notch education at an unbeatable price.
I would like to share some of my experience to give other marketers interested in breaking into Internet marketing or continuing their online marketing education an idea of what it looks like from one person’s perspective.
The Interview Process
Do Your Homework
Walking into an interview with no base knowledge of who the company is, what they stand for, and how they operate is a huge mistake. Especially if you are an Internet marketer. I would recommend reviewing the following information pre-interview:
- Company Website: This should give you a sense of the services they offer and who some of their clients are.
- Management: If you can find information about the management team be sure to do some additional research on them as well to get a sense of their background and accomplishments.
- Content & Social Profiles: At the bare minimum I would recommend looking at the company blog (if they have one), Twitter profile, Facebook page, and Google+ page.
- News & Press Releases: Do a Google search to see if the company has released any exciting news over the past few months.
If you are working with a recruiter be sure to ask as many questions about the companies services, their culture, and preferences as possible. The recruiter will typically have spoken with contacts at the company and with other interviewees post interview. This is a great opportunity to gain some inside knowledge before you step in the door. These are all great ways to educated yourself before walking in the door and will allow you to have an intelligent conversation about the company during your interview.
Demonstrate Value
Depending on what position you are applying for take some time to identify what you believe to be areas of need or improvement for the company. You should walk in knowing you may not be 100% correct but it will be appreciated that you made the effort. If applying for a social media position I would take some time to analyze what they are doing currently, what the results appear to be, as well as some recommendations for increased customer engagement.
Spending some additional time to identify what you believe to be their competitors will also be a great source for gather information. Perhaps you notice a competitors blog or social profile that has a lot of readers or followers. Try to identify what they are doing and how the company you are interviewing with could do that better.
Asking questions is also a great way to demonstrate value. If you can think quickly on your feet then this will allow you demonstrate immediate value. Some questions you might consider asking are:
- What do you believe is your biggest area of need?
- What would you like/need to focus on but don’t have enough time to do?
- What personality traits are you looking for in a candidate?
- What does the typical day look like for this position?
- Are there any other areas of your business that you would like to grow?
Consider Each Interview a Learning Experience
Whether it is your dream job or not I believe that you should walk into each interview hoping to learn as much as you possibly can. In addition to being a great networking opportunity it can give you a sense of what companies in the industry are looking for in a candidate, industry buzz words, and a chance to learn more from someone else in the industry.
Even If You Didn’t Get the Job, Ask For Feedback
As disappointing as it may be you will not get every job you interview for. If you receive word that they have decided not to hire you don’t be afraid to ask why. I recommend sending out a brief and polite email asking for feedback. Thank the interviewer for the opportunity and ask if they have any recommendations on skills that would make you more attractive to a company like theirs because you are interested in constantly evolving your skill set.
Working for an Internet Marketing Company
There Will Always Be Other People Who Know More Than You
No matter how long you have been in the industry there will be other online marketers who know things that you don’t. Instead of foolishly refusing to learn from these other influentials I would recommend keeping tabs on what they’re teaching and apply information that you find useful to your own strategy. There may be tactics that you do not agree with but if anything it will give you a sense of what other respected members of the community are recommending to your potential clients.
Welcome Constructive Criticism
I for one thrive on feedback. If I don’t know what I am doing wrong or how to fix it how will I get better? I have a tendency to take some feedback personally because I put so much of myself into my work. However, I’ve learned that you can’t consider it a personal attack but instead an opportunity to learn more. Take the feedback that you’ve been given, add it into your process, and work to avoid the same mistakes next time. Say perhaps that you don’t agree with the feedback provided? I’ve learned that there is nothing wrong with having an opinion as long as you have data to back it up. So, until you have that information do not present an argument. An educated opinion is worth so much more than an emotional response.
The Best Internet Marketers are Passionate About What They Do
In a field like Internet Marketing I think it is essential that you care about your work. Care not in the sense that you like the paycheck, but that you actually have a interest in what you are doing. Companies and clients can tell if you are not invested in marketing their product and getting results. Social media engagement is a full time job. You must be willing to connect even when it may not be convenient to answer the questions and address concerns of your customers and potential customers.
Adaptability & Process Are Extremely Valuable
In an industry that changes from one day to the next those that are not adaptable will be left behind. Once you find tactics that work be sure to document them and make them part of your process. This process will clearly evolve over time but it will help maintain order for yourself and the rest of your team. If each team member is taking a wildly different approach to online marketing you will not be able to truly measure the success of your efforts or provide a best practice approach.
What Next?
I don’t consider what I do a job. It is a journey and an education that I am extremely thankful for. Through my experience I have learned what should be done, as well as what not to do. I know that I have shared some of my personal experience but I am curious to know what helpful tips other readers in the industry might have. If you could tell everyone one thing that you’ve learned while working in this industry, what would it be?
Are you interested in working for a company like TopRank Online Marketing? If you would like the opportunity to work with us we would love to hear from you. We are currently looking for Account Managers, as well as Search and Social Strategists to join our team. Our Careers page on our website provides some more detailed information on our current openings.
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Getting Your Internet Marketing Dream Job: How to Interview & Succeed at a Top Agency | http://www.toprankblog.com
7 Principles for User Generated Content: Michael DeHaven SES Chicago 2011
Posted on 16. Nov, 2011 by Ashely Zeckman in Blog, content marketing, Interactive Marketing, Search Engine Strategies, Search Engines, ses chicago, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, ugc, user-generated content
Michael DeHaven’s presentation at SES Chicago on “User Generated SEO” started with some actual user generated content from the audience. Before the session DeHaven gave 5 volunteers a bite sized Ghirardelli chocolate bar. In exchange for the treat he asked that each of the volunteers write a review of the chocolate and then share it with the rest of the audience.
What Was the Response?
The chocolate was called everything from waxy, to too sweet, messy, and melt in your mouth goodness. In contrast the packaging created by the Ghirardelli marketers was quite different, “take time to slow down and feel yourself melt with each bite.” As you can see the professional marketers took a much different approach than the consumers.
The Marketer vs. the Consumer
According to DeHaven 80-90% of total content on many major ecommerce sites is written by end users who come to the site and give their opinions or post reviews. He then proceeded to provide a few examples of what companies believed the best keywords for their product or services were and the actual keywords consumers used to describe the business. In both of the examples listed below the keyword lists were not at all aligned.
Restaurants
Marketing Keywords: romance, fine dining, gourmet food
User Generated Keywords: great drinks, partying, view
Cosmetics
Marketing Keywords: cleanser, gentle, healthy looking
User Generated Keywords: soap, younger, looking great
7 Principles of User Generated SEO
#1: Don’t Forget SEO Fundamentals
While user generated content can be extremely powerful it is important not to forget the basics such as link building, optimization, and proper tagging.
#2: Search Engines Get Bored
When Google bots are crawling your website they are looking for fresh and relevant content. If the bots return week after week and the content has not changed they become “bored” and will be less likely to return. In order to remain competitive in the online marketplace frequent updates are a must.
#3: The Primanti Principle
A Primanti sandwich is unique because of the French fries inside the sandwich. If you add too many fries to the Primanti it can become overwhelming for the user. Similarly as a marketer you want to make sure that you aren’t overwhelming Google with too many “French fries” but a reasonable combination of foundational information and user generated content.
#4: Beware of Dilution
Typical product descriptions are optimized and written by professional marketers, user reviews are not. While user generated content is important it has it’s place. Beware of what too much user generated content can do for your SEO.
#5: Unlock the Long-Tail Vault
Marketers are constantly working to determine what keywords users are typing and which ones will drive the highest ROI. An additional challenge is determining which content should be housed on the top-level domain and which ones are better suited for microsites.
#6: Ask For Content at Relevant Times
Spending time to determine when your audience will be most willing to write a review and determining their level of qualification for submitting a review is key. If you’re promoting a concert emailing attendees the morning before the concert and asking them to share their photos on the site is a great way to entice user generated content.
#7: Convert Reviewers into Advocates
It is important that marketers set next steps for reviewers. An example provided was that of a user that wrote a laptop review and then spent the next hour (in the middle of the work day) answering over 130 laptop questions asked by other users. If that user had a great experience using the laptop think of the number of people they are reaching and advocating to on behalf of the company selling the laptop.
I really enjoyed that DeHaven’s presentation covered the ways that content can be generated by users but also what we must do as marketers to facilitate, moderate, and encourage user generated content.
I’m curious to know how much of your content you believe is generated by users? If the number is low, do you have a plan for increasing interaction? If the number is high, what have you done well that encourages users to generate content on your behalf?
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7 Principles for User Generated Content: Michael DeHaven SES Chicago 2011 | http://www.toprankblog.com
ad:tech New York Search Marketing Masters
Posted on 07. Nov, 2011 by Lee Odden in adtech, Blog, Interactive Marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
As part of my November cross country efforts to share search, social media and content marketing insights, I’ve switched from BlogWorld Los Angeles last week to ad:tech New York this week. I’m really looking forward to a great group of Search Marketing sessions at one of the the largest Interactive Marketing conferences in the world. In the past year I’ve been to London, San Francisco, Barcelona and many other great cities (even Cleveland!) but New York is by far one of my favorite places for a conference.
Earlier this year the amazing Melanie Mitchell, SVP of Search at Digitas, was serving as a conference Marketing Master for the Search Engine Marketing track and she asked me to speak at my first ad:tech in San Francisco. When I was asked to perform those same SEM track programming duties for the ad:tech New York show, I had to say yes!
ad:tech New York features some very impressive keynote presentations including: Christian Oestlien, Head of Social Advertising Products at Google; David Fischer,VP Advertising & Global Operations at Facebook; Wendy Clark, Sr. VP of Integrated MarketingCommunications & Capabilities at The Coca-Cola Company and many others. Our roundup of pay per click and search engine optimization expertise is also impressive. You can check out two of the planned sessions below that I’ll be introducing and moderating:
Search Marketing: Integrating Search with the Rest of Your Marketing
Thursday, Nov 10 at 10:15 AM
Lauren Vaccarello – Director of Search, Display and Social Advertising, Salesforce.com
Title: Better Event Marketing With Integrated Search & Social Media
Presentation: Online marketing can be used for more than driving online demand. See how you can use search and social media marketing in every phase of offline event marketing from pre event registration to post event follow up.
Sara Devine – Manager Digital Media Integration, VW Marketing, Volkswagen of America, Inc
Title: Utilizing Search in Integrated Product Launch Campaigns
Presentation: As the announcement to launch journey unfolds, search is instrumental in capturing hand raisers and prospects leading up to the actual product launch where search maximizes the reach of what is often a large advertiser presence. At this point, search is not only utilized as the “catcher’s mitt” for the other advertising efforts, but also becomes a barometer of those efforts – measuring in real time consumer awareness and interest in the product.
Matt Lawson - VP Marketing, Marin Software
Title: Taking Paid Search to the Next Level, Tips for Advanced Marketers
Presentation: As paid search advertising becomes increasingly competitive and complex, search marketers are constantly looking for the next trick to squeeze additional volume and ROI out of their campaigns. In this informative session, Marin Software will reveal new professional tips to help sophisticated marketers improve the financial performance of their paid search programs.
After our first session that focuses on paid search, we’ll transition to a session that’s more focused on Search Engine Optimization:
Search Marketing: Cases and Best Practices for Maximizing SEO
Thursday, NOV 10 at 11:30 AM
Corey Carrillo - Global Media Worldwide Search & Online Programs, Intel Corporation
Title: One is the Loneliest Number: SEM, SEO, Social Integration and Insights
Presentation: The role of Search Engine Marketing at Intel with specific examples, consumer and business about applied best practices/insights and programs for SEM campaigns/data to help bolster results in SEO, Social and PPC Social.
Jonathon Colman – Internet Marketing Program Manager, REI
Title: A Case Study on How to Increase Search Engine Crawling and Online Conversion
Presentation: A discussion of the “silver bullet” when it comes to SEO and user experience (UX): Site speed and performance. A faster site reduces the costs of both infrastructure and releases by 50% or more. Efficient sites simply cost less to run and provide for a better user experience. This presentation provides 4 site speed optimization steps and a case study on how REI saw a significant increase in site speed and overall conversions after optimization was implemented.
Michael DeHaven - Bazaarvoice
Title: Social SEO: Strategic Optimization of User Reviews
Presentation: For many top online retailers, user-generated review content comprises 80 to 90% their site’s total rich content. Michael DeHaven of Bazaarvoice will outline a proven strategy to organize and leverage review content to drive substantial increases in traffic from search. This talk will open your eyes to a valuable, new segment of search traffic that often goes unnoticed when developing a search optimization strategy.
As you can see, this is going to be a fantastic set of sessions and a great group of speakers. I’ll also be moderating an Exhibit Hall session of several speakers from Local.com, ideaLaunch, Brafton and a few other companies serving the search marketing industry. If you’re attending ad:tech New York, I hope you’ll stop by Room 13, Hall 1E, Level 1 at the Javits Center.
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ad:tech New York Search Marketing Masters | http://www.toprankblog.com
Social Media 101 For Business – WCCO & MIMA
Posted on 29. Sep, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, Interactive Marketing, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
A social media panel at a bowling alley? Yes, that’s how I started my Thursday morning this week, thanks to WCCO Radio (Minneapolis/St, Paul) which was host to a panel on Social Media for Business at Pinstripes in Edina.
Esteemed panelists included several familiar faces and brands including MIMA Board members: Brent Shiely (@brentshiely), Technology Director at General Mills; Ryan Arnholt (@arbenangstrom), Director of Interactive Marketing at OptumHealth; Jill Gutterman (@gigutterman), Director of Interactive Marketing at Rasmussen College; Tim Brunelle (@tbrunelle), CEO of Hello Viking. Bryan C. Del Monte of the Del Monte Agency (a sponsor) was also on the panel.
An informal poll of the audience revealed that just about everyone in the audience of 250 or so was on Facebook and LinkedIn had even better participation. There were far fewer people on Twitter and only a handful had “checked in” on Foursquare.
Tim Brunelle opened things up saying MIMA got tired of programming Social Media in their events 2 years ago (ouch to the audience Tim!) as a measure of how long it can take for new trends to emerge within the general population. The MIMA Summit is coming up soon and Tim highlighted two impressive keynote speakers, Avinash Kaushik of Google and Chris Anderson of Wired. Those are indeed, two very impressive speakers right here in our back yard.
What’s a good definition of social media?
Tim: On the MIMA.org site, the jobs page is the most popular area of the site. “Social Media” has begun to appear frequently in many job titles for Fortune 500 companies. That’s a reflection of companies viewing social media more seriously.
Why should I care about social media?
Jill: Social media is everywhere, prevalent in our user groups. You think a welder can’t do it? Welders are on Facebook. It’s about engagement and conversations and that’s what social media is about.
Bryan: Why do you do any kind of marketing? Much of the technology called social media helps lower costs of doing things you’re already doing. Why wouldn’t you do it?
How does a large company justify expenditures in social media?
Brent: Here’s how General Mills has brought value through social. Salesfoce.com bought Radian 6. Radian 6 measures sentiment. Radian 6 measures Tweets and comments. BTW a free tool is socialmention.com We’re in the food business. Sometimes there are events outside of our control. Example: Food borne illness. A situation might be confined to a competitor or extended to an entire category. While some of the food borne illnesses are confined to a competitor, social media helps General Mills understand whether the marketplace sees it that way or not.
Ryan: Within a large organization you can see in marketing and research that it’s a fantastic opportunity. On the listening side it gives companies an opportunity to understand what a market place is talking about. On the engagement side, it provides opportunities to directly connect with customers on their terms.
In the last 5 years it’s gone from a way for people to share to a way for an entire company to share.
When a client comes to you with interns running a Facebook Page and Twitter, where do you start? What are the building blocks?
Bryan: I ask about previous successes. What is their affinity for communications and customers. Companies are usually not interested in change. I look for ways to associate what a company is already doing with social media opportunities. Social media is not broadcast. Look at Starbucks. They make one or two posts a day and get thousands of comments from fans talking to the brand. Another example: Carnival Cruises, the “fun cruise”. Their content is about “fun”. Carnival has polled their Facebook fans and acted by changing what they offer as a result. Social media building blocks: great content, engage and action based on customers feedback.
What are the building blocks of listening for social media?
Jill: For monitoring, what are you going to monitor? Our focus is on standard operation procedures for monitoring. We deal with students and we have a process for dispositioning how to engage what we find when monitoring. It’s important to establish guidelines and a strategy. How are you going to monitor and what are you going to do about what you find? Pay attention to the experience that you’re after when your brand engages with customers and prospects. Define a process and your approach and then identify the technology.
How would you define the basics of the telling side vs. the listening side?
Ryan: There are different ways to respond according to a situation. Some things like what consultants and analysts say might be logged as insight. What your audience is looking for is another situation.
What are the core technology tools for social media?
Brent: Keep it simple. If you don’t have a website, use Google to find low cost templates. If you do have a website add Google Analytics. To find keywords, use Google Analytics. Twitter is free. Take those keywords from Google Analytics and leverage that for Twitter content. Facebook is the same story – although Facebook is more about friends. Use Google Analytics information to inform editorial on Facebook as well. When you put up a website, Google may or may not find it. Use Google Webmaster tools to help make that happen.
(Note to readers: To find new keywords people are actually searching for on Google that are relevant to your website, use the free Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion tool.)
Aside from actions and policies, how should businesses address human resources for social media?
Jill: I’m lucky because my VP and Chairman “get” social media. We have a dedicated Social Media Manager, but with 22 campuses, we’re all partially involved with social. I also have a full time blogger and a SEO Specialist. That team is the hub of a hub and spoke model that functions as a center of expertise and excellence for the organization and our community.
How do you coach and advise the balance of an organization on social media as a vendor?
Bryan: I believe that everyone needs to live the brand. You might have a social media department and an agency, but you should also be living your brand. As a vendor, I can “help you”, I can’t “be you”. There are ways to make the process more efficient. There should be controls in place but the brand needs to be engaged.
How does General Mills think about staffing? There are so many communities and how do you staff?
Brent: Every brand is it’s own business. Every brand manager has the autonomy to grow their brand as they see fit. Brand Managers work with their agencies and there’s also internal social media expertise.
How do you establish success metrics, budgets and success metrics for social media versus other forms of marketing?
Ryan: You can’t always tie social activity to increased revenue, but you can associate it with increased productivity, increased performance and also lower costs. Social media can affect brand opportunities that can lead to revenue opportunities.
Jill: Activity and results. We stated 2 years ago and started measuring. Establish benchmarks, then look at that data to see what’s interesting. Don’t try to measure everything, but focus on activity and results. Spends some time understanding what you’re going to do with that data and focus on what’s happening and outcomes.
Social operates 24/7, should businesses staff accordingly?
Ryan: No. Whatever happens overnight we can deal with in the morning. There are situations that call for off hours engagement, just don’t set that expectation.
Jill: It depends on your business. If you run a global organization, you need to staff accordingly.
Bryan: It depends. If you’re regional, probably no. If you’re a global brand yes.
Brent: Our business is global and there’s someone on our staff on 24/7.
Should every firm articulate a social media policy outside work?
Brent: It’s part of the on boarding process, one of the documents reviewed with new employees. Let employees know that if they have a bad day, tell their supervisor. Help them understand that posting publicly can have an impact on the brand.
Jill: Rasmussen has a code of conduct for employees and students. Imagine what your posting is being said on national TV.
Ryan: Social media policy is covered in our employee guidelines. We’re looking at policies that will help us provide employees with guidelines on how they can be proactive socially.
Is the future of marketing actually customer service through social media?
Bryan: Who has heard of Twelpforce? (few audience members raise their hands) There was a thing called Twelpforce from Best Buy and it didn’t work out so well.
(Twelpforce not successful? Not sure about that. Check out Fast Company’s coverage of Twelpforce: Marketing that Isn’t Marketing: “Twelpforce has responded to near 28,000 customer inquiries via Twitter, enlisted 2600 employees to share their knowledge, and paid for itself many times over via extensive PR coverage, enhanced brand perceptions, and potential savings to the call center.”)
My question for the panel:
Where are you getting the rationale and budget for dedicated social media resources?
Ryan: From an interest in better engaging with customers, listening to our market and for marketing. We’re also looking at how social helps our SEO and search visibility as a reason to further invest in social media resources.
Jill: Our competition has made mistakes, led leadership to support the argument to apply resources to not make those mistakes. Also the drive to scale, SEO impact and culture of the organization.
A comment from the audience pretty much sums up Google Plus for people outside of the early adopters:
“I keep getting invites from this new Google thing and I don’t have time to figure it out.”
The Q&A was pretty good covering everything from mobile to blogging. Overall I thought this was an excellent way for people to get insights into a broad range of topics about social media from practitioners and agencies. Tim Brunelle did a great job of keeping things moving and relevant and the speakers were pretty good about giving practical advice without pontificating.
The entire session was recorded and will be available soon at: http://www.wcco.com/breakfast
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SES San Francisco Keynote Interview: Susan Bratton on Persuasion Marketing
Posted on 01. Aug, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, Interactive Marketing, Marketing PR Conferences, Search Engine Strategies, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
SES San Francisco is coming up fast and when I discovered that Susan Bratton was giving the opening keynote presentation and on a topic that I have been interested in for years, I wanted to make sure we did a pre-conference interview. For backstory, I met Susan the first time at an ad:tech conference in Chicago while she was the conference chair. That was the same conference where I first met Frank Gruber and David Berkowitz so it was a great networking experience. Since then Susan and I have crossed paths a number of times at events like SXSW and online.
Susan is a real pioneer when it comes to Online Marketing and media. She’s the CEO at Personal Life Media and hosted the famous DishyMix podcast since 2005 interviewing numerous digital marketing industry leaders. Besides serving on the board of several technology companies, Susan is the founder of two industry associations, the IAB and the ADM. At SES San Francisco, Susan will be talking about Conversion Triggers and Persuasion Strategies for Digital Marketers.
The power of persuasion and the role it takes within online content marketing is really a key aspect of online marketing and something that has had a lot more play in the advertising world than SEO or PPC. In this excerpt of our recent interview, Susan gives a preview of her SES keynote and talks about how she’s learned from experience the value and best practices of “getting into the psyche of your customer” to improve online marketing results.
Lee: Coming up very quickly is SES San Francisco. It’s probably one of the largest Search Marketing conferences in the world. You’ll be doing the opening keynote Tuesday, Aug 16th at 9am. The topic, Conversion Triggers: Persuasion Strategies for Digital Marketers is a really engaging, intersting and compelling topic to me because a lot of what we talk about on our blog and in our consultancy is about empathizing with customers and understanding what their pain points are, what is it that they need and what will inspire them to do what you want them to do.
I’d like to talk about the role of Persuasion Marketing. What is it? What might it mean to an audience of a couple of thousand people who are accustomed to a world of keywords, SEO and link building.
Susan: I can’t think of a better audience to present the concept of Persuasion Marketing to than a group of SESers because everybody in that audience lives and dies by choosing the right keyword phrases and reaching an audience that way. They already have a solid foundation of understanding of how important it is to “get the words right”. So, I feel really lucky to be able to do a keynote for them.
I’ll tell you what I’m really doing: Lee, you know you’re like me. Before we got on the interview today, you said “I’m a constant, a lifelong learner” and I’m with you., We’re both like that and so many of the people who follow us are. They want to know what we’re doing, because they’re lifelong learners too. Since I started the Personal Life Media business and started creating information products, all of my products are sold direct to consumers online.
In my keynote I’m actually going to be presenting a case study. I’m going to tell you what Persuasion Marketing is and then I’m going to show you how I used it. I’m literally today, right in the middle of a 4 day product launch for a brand new product. You’re going to laugh when you hear the name of it: It’s called “Revive Her Drive”. Pretty much every man who’s been in a relationship for more than a couple years is interested in taking the intimate life of his woman to the next level. And a lot of times it goes down instead of getting better. You’d think the more we do stuff the better we get, but a lot of times, life gets in the way.
So, I’ve written over 30 websites in the last 2 1/2 years of my business, selling these online information products. And they weren’t converting. I didn’t know what I was doing. But I really studied the information product marketers. Those guys know how to get someone to land on their page and make a purchase, better than anyone else that I’m aware of. Rememer how we used to say the Adult world were the leaders of information technology and if anyone could figure it out, they could? I don’t think that’s true anymore. It think it’s the information product marketers.
So, I’ve been studying how they do landing page conversion and with Google constantly changing what they want, tier one traffic sources are difficult to get, you can’t do squeeze pages and long form sales letters anymore, it’s a constantly changing landscape. These guys know how to speak to their customers. No matter what the landing page looks like, or no matter what Google’s making you do today to buy traffic from them, they know how to speak to their customer in a way that’s riveting. That connects, that grabs them by the guts and says, “I need this thing.” And that’s what I wanted to learn. That’s what I wasn’t getting right.
For the last 2 1/2 years I’ve been going to school. I’ve found my mentors and I’ve said, “Please gurus, tell me what I need to know. What should I be reading? What should I be learning?” And over the last 2 1/2 years I’ve read a ton of material, I’ve taken a ton of online training. What I did for SES, I pulled it all together and now that I look back and see all that I’ve learned, here are the 10-12 big things that I’d recommend you put your attention on, in order.
What I realized in looking back at all the things that I learned is that Persuasion Marketing is really 4 key elements. I’ve been a tech marketing chick for 30 years now, and I never knew this, I never figured this out until now. And that is, if you understand these 4 basic areas, I think this can have more impact on your conversion rate than anything else you can do. Because everything else is a short term tactic. Whether you’re learning to make Facebook pages convert, or learning the latest in search marketing strategies or whatever it is. Those are tactics that come and go. I’ve learned that from programming so many sessions at so many conferences for so many years. This year it’s search, next year it’s email, next year it’s video. It’s always something new. It’s an arms race for marketers in the technology arena.
But the fundamentals of understanding how to viscerally, emotionally connect with your customers so that they think to themselves, “This brand gets me.” That is a fundamental skill. I looked back at everything I did and it seemed that there are four key areas of knowledge that you need to know, that all fit together, that are “synergistic”, yes I’m using that word again. I’ve decided it’s a good word. I’m not back on “paradigm” yet, but I’m starting to use synergistic.
The four realms of Persuasion Marketing:
The first is Neuro-Marketing – The psychological triggers of influence, persuasion and action that we can get people to take, in a good way, to serve them, help them and not waste their time. We want them to find us and if they’re our person, we want them to know they’re our person and we want to create a relationship with them and support them with whatever it is that we do.
The second piece is Copywriting – This is where search marketers have a massive competitive advantage over any other kinds of marketers because they understand how important words are. They understand semantics, the value of all of that.
The third is Storytelling – This is where you go from, “These are features and benefits” to “Here’s a person who used my product or service and how it changed their life.” We tell a good story in dialog because you know, we all love a good story. When someone tells you, “Let me tell you a story”, your ears perk up.
Last is the notion of Structured Communication – You can think of this as a sales funnel, but it goes a lot beyond that to a series of emotions a customer goes through before they make a commitment to you. What do you need to tell them, in general order, before they’re going to be a “yes” to what you have to offer.
These four areas work together beautifully and each has their own disciplines and logic. When a customer experiences it, it’s compelling.
Lee: And it’s compelling what you just said in terms of what you just said. In terms of the model to go by, my interest is really piqued here. When you talk about storytelling, that’s something that’s been a meme, increasingly and reminds me of something I learned a long time ago: Facts Tell, Stories Sell. I really appreciate you talking about that.
And also the notion of having empathy and understanding of customers and the emotions they need to go through before they can make a commitment. That’s powerful stuff.
Susan: You have to feel your person.
Lee: In the world of SEO or search marketing at large, the ways in which those online marketers are trying to understand consumers, besides collecting data from web analytics or other data sources as part of the buying cycle, is the notion of keyword research. What words are in the mind of the searcher. What does your customer care about? Then that manifests as an action, such as a search. It’s an interesting thing to think of how powerful it would be for a search marketer to tap into the neural marketing aspect of what your talking about, copywriting and storytelling while still being keyword relevant, I think is very compelling.
Susan: What Garth (One of Susan’s Guru’s) taught me was, is that you should enter into the conversation that your prospect is having in their own mind. So when you’re writing to them, the words you should be using, would be the same words they have in their head. Using keywords is a really great start, but there are a lot of other strategies, that I’ll outline at SES. I’m going to show how I used those strategies to create Revive Her Drive.
Lee: SES San Francisco is coming up pretty quickly, August 15th-19th and actually, SES is part of Connected Marketing Week, a Mecca of learning for online marketers. I’m really looking forward to your keynote in the morning on the 16th. Any party advice or tips that you’d like to share?
Susan: The way to think about neuro marketing is to think about a human body and brain being an operating system and that it responds in certain ways to certain influences and triggers. Robert Cialdini teaches you standard sequences of human behavior. He teaches principles, like the principle of contrast: “Normally this sells for $17.95, but today and today only we’re offering it for only $7.95 and here’s why.” So it sounds like an expensive thing for cheap. Or the rule of reciprocity, or the rule of obligation, or the power of consistency which goes to trustworthiness. These are principles that you can learn that are ways humans typically behave when given these conditions. Those principles are really important to understand.
Also, Joel Sugarman’s psychological triggers like, humans’ desire to belong or to collect things. Also, objection raising or objection handling. You can’t start by overcoming people’s objections when you first connect with them, that comes later in the structured communication. You start to understand what we respond to as humans, but where it goes in the funnel of their emotional evolvement. As the relationship is evolving, you’re going to need to deal with as a marketer, these different components. Those are a few things that are important to learn. It makes sense that you start at the core understanding with neuro pshychology, then think about the pictures and the words, then tell stories instead of just bullets, and put it in a proper order. I hope that clarifies, that there’s a way to learn this and way to lay it into your work.
Lee: Yes it does. Thank you Susan!
Be sure to check out Susan Bratton’s keynote at SES San Francisco on Tuesday, August 16th ant 9am. You can also visit her deep library of podcasts on DishyMix.
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