Optimize Book | Small Business Marketing & Business Acceleration

Holistic Optimization Across the Sales Cycle: Optimize Speaking Events May & June

Posted on 10. May, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, conferences, content marketing optimization, Marketing PR Conferences, Presentations, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

sales cycle optimizastion

When you have a business that relies on attracting new business online the sheer volume of options can be confusing. Should offline advertising efforts transfer to online? Maybe email marketing? What about SEO or the hot topic, social media? So much focus is placed on tactics and channels, that a lot of misplaced digital marketing budget gets wasted or spent inefficiently.

To bring some clarity to the myriad online marketing options available, I think it’s worth marketers taking a holistic approach that starts with an essential understanding of goals and customers. Who are your best customers? Who are your worst? What do your best customers care about? What are their pain points and goals? While you’re answering those key questions, think about how your solutions meet the needs of your target audience and what stories you can tell to bring align those interests to a common goal.

To be an effective online marketer in today’s fast changing environment, it’s important to understand the customer journey though the sales cycle. That empathy helps internet marketers adapt to any changes in consumer behaviors. Curiosity about technology and trends will help marketers become smarter regardless of what changes occur in the industry, with specific channels or applications.

If you want to learn more about how a more customer centric and content focused internet marketing approach could work for your business, please give us a call or come to one of the events listed below. Over the next month or so, I will be speaking at a number of events drilling down into the strategy and mechanics of such an approach. Of course, a great complement to these events would be the book that Joe Pulizzi says will, “help take your online and content marketing to the next level”.

May 16, 1:00 pm Central
Webinar: Optimize & Socialize for Better Content Marketing
Online Marketing Institute: Register Here (free)

The answer to better content marketing isn’t simply adding more content. Designing content that’s meaningful vs. mechanical for customers that inspires engagement and business outcomes enables brands to reach more people ready to buy, refer or share. This webinar will provide a framework for an Optimize and Socialize approach to content marketing that attracts, engages and inspires community and sales.

Key Takeaways:

3 Key consumer trends that spell opportunity for Social SEO
A Framework for an optimized and socialized content marketing program
How to plan search and social content across the sales cycle
Essential KPIs and business outcomes for Social SEO and content marketing

May 23rd, 4:45 pm Pacific
Solo Presentation: Sales Cycle Optimization With Content, SEO & Social Media
Marketo Users Conference (Client), San Francisco: Register Here

While Google.com handles over 11 billion queries a month, competition for attention on the search and social web is at an all time high. There are over 65,743,590 blog posts published each month and more video is uploaded to YouTube in that time than the 3 major US networks created in 60 years. Content flows in every direction throughout a variety of platforms, formats and devices. The mass adoption of the social and mobile web has facilitated a revolution of information access, sharing and publishing.

Guiding customers on their journey through the sales cycle in that environment requires an integrated approach to content, optimization and social media marketing. Optimizing the sales funnel is essential to attract, engage and inspiring customers to buy and this presentation will provide attendees with a framework and tactics to develop their own Optimize and Socialize approach to sales cycle optimization.

June 1st, 8:00 am Central
Presentation: Optimize – How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing
Social Media Club, Redwood Falls MN: Register Here (free copy of Optimize for all attendees!)

How can small businesses approach their online marketing to achieve better visibility where customers are looking and socializing online? This presentation on Optimize will provide attendees a framework for organizing their content marketing that leverages both search and social media to attract more customers, shorten sales cycles and retain existing customers. Some of the key presentation topics to be covered:

Major shifts in consumer search and social trends
Key opportunities to improve online marketing strategy and performance
How to integrate customer-centric SEO with social media and content marketing
Using this knowledge to attract, engage, and inspire more sales online

June 7th, 9:00 am Eastern
Track Keynote: Optimize and Socialize for Better Content Marketing
BlogWorld New Media & Expo, New York: Register Here

Search, social media and content marketing are converging, and consumers are using numerous ways to discover, consume and act on content. In this session, you’ll learn how to use content marketing best practices to design information that inspires audiences to share, buy and recommend your brand.

Key Points
1. Learn the framework for an optimize and socialize approach to content marketing
2. Understand the framework for optimizing across the customer lifecycle
3. Know the difference between KPIs and business outcomes for web and social measurement

June 8th, 9:00 am Eastern
Keynote: Attract & Engage More Customers With An Optimized State of Mind
Vocus Users Conference (Client), Baltimore: Register Here

The worlds of Marketing and Public Relations are converging and now, more than ever, communications professionals need to accelerate their internet marketing skill sets to create a competitive advantage. This presentation provides an integrated approach to using content for optimizing awareness, engagement and action.

June 11, 10:30 am & 3:30 pm
Enterprise SEO
Content Marketing Optimization
SES Toronto: Register Here

Enterprise SEO: This session will also include a proven model of organization for your enterprise-level SEO campaign as well as a summary of key metrics that you should be measuring to drive ongoing SEO strategy.

Content Marketing Optimization: Pandas and Penguins and Zebras Oh My! If your SEO is all about chasing tricks and shortcuts with content and links, then this session isn’t for you. If you are interested in building a competitive advantage focusing on customer centric content marketing that works with or without search engines, then make sure you have a front row seat.

It will be a busy 30 days but there’s been so much interest in a more integrated approach and with Optimize, that it’s been a real pleasure meeting and exchanging ideas with marketers looking for a more holistic perspective to marketing on the web. I hope to see you at one of these events. To get a tase of these types of presentations, take a look at this deck from the Fusion Marketing Experience conference that I presented last week in Antwerp. It’s currently featured on the home page of Slideshare.

For anyone that liveblogs these events, please be sure to email me the link to your post and I’ll send you a copy of Optimize. If you have one, I’ll send you one to give away to your readers. lee at toprank dot org

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Holistic Optimization Across the Sales Cycle: Optimize Speaking Events May & June | http://www.toprankblog.com

Is Your Optimization Meaningful or Mechanical?

Posted on 07. May, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

optimization meaningful or mechanical While I’ve been to Belgium the past week for the fine Fusion Marketing Experience, I decided to take a day trip to Paris yesterday since it was only 2 hours away by train. As you may know, I do a bit of traveling.

The quality of the experience, memories and the stories you get to tell after visiting other countries are usually the most meaningful. Sure “stuff” is fun to get, but how often do you think “I met too many cool people” vs. “I bought too many souvenirs”?

As I talk to other people about traveling (and online marketing), the spectrum of perspectives is pretty amazing. It’s just like the wide variety of perceptions towards optimization and social networking. For some people, both are simplified as checklists. Keyword list? Check. Take a picture of the Eiffel Tower? Check. But what did it mean?

The purpose of my day-trip to Paris (my first) was all mechanical. I was there mostly to get Flat Stanley photos for my 8 year old princess and to get lightly familiar with the Metro, navigating the city. I will make no claims whatsoever about having “seen” Paris. I didn’t “really” see, or more importantly, experience much of anything significant. As there is infinitely more to Paris than photos of the Louvre Museum, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, there is much, much more to SEO than keywords, Pandas, Pengiuns and links. There’s certainly a lot more to social networking than fans, friends and followers.

So the question is, why do you settle? Why do you let your company settle? Why are so many companies still siloing their SEO and social media marketing and counting success through KPIs? Even those companies that have developed their appreciation towards what SEO can do, get caught up in Google update drama or link counts and rankings vs. focusing on what’s important.

The same goes for companies that have some experience in the social media realm. Blog? Check. Fans, friends and followers? Check. Ooh look! Shiny object Pinterest. Check!

KPIs are not business outcomes. At least not for most companies. Rankings, organic non-branded search traffic, Google+ circle counts, video views, comments and retweets are KPIs. Last time I checked, none of them carry a wallet.

Optimize for experiences. Any content or media that a company publishes digitally can create an experience for prospects, customers, investors, employees, journalists, potential employees and industry peers. It’s important to monitor key performance indicators as it relates to search and social media attracting visitors. Engagement KPIs are important too. But I think there’s opportunity to look beyond the fan, friend, follower and ranking metrics to attempt to understand what progress in those areas actually means for the business.

London? Been there, done that. A while back, a peer in the online marketing world mentioned to me having been to London for a day. The summation was, “I’ve done London” check. I see the same assessments from online marketers about their SEO and social media efforts. They have a blog, they’re getting data on links, visits, retweets, likes and comments. Check. But that’s where it stops for them.

In the way that there’s more to Paris, London and the city where you live than seeing a few tourist spots, there’s more to your online marketing than measuring KPIs. They can indicate progress, but they are not the end goal when it comes to customer acquisition and engagement (the business my agency TopRank Online Marketing) is in. It’s also a big focus for my new book, Optimize.

My 30 min of internet at the Antwerp airport is about to expire. I wish I could finish this post, but maybe you can share your thoughts? Do you think most online marketers are practicing meaningful or more mechanical SEO and social media marketing?

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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Is Your Optimization Meaningful or Mechanical? | http://www.toprankblog.com

Integrated SEO, Social Media & Content Marketing at Fusion Marketing Experience 2012

Posted on 02. May, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

optimized integrated online marketing The new book on internet marketing we’ve recently published, “Optimize“, has been very well received and I’ve been doing a number of interviews and speaking engagements (as you do) around it. One of the most common questions I hear concerns the challenges of implementing an integrated “optimized and socialized content marketing” approach within an organization.

This is a reasonable question, because while it makes sense that content, SEO and social media (as well as email, online PR and advertising) should work together, the challenge for many corporate marketers and communications professionals is how. That’s where a good approach and plan come in to play and Optimize is a blueprint for such a plan – in particular, when it comes to optimizing and socializing content. Here are a few key considerations for integrating these high impact online marketing tactics:

The challenge of optimized integration. When SEO is owned by marketing and public relations runs social media and content creation is shared across multiple departments, integration of those tactics across a company’s content efforts can be a challenge. What brings things together are:

Leadership support through common goals
Identification of how an integrated approach will help each individual group as well as the company overall
Training, process and tools/technology to enable integration of tactics

Find the low hanging fruit for an integration project and share the results upstream and horizontally. Make sure that as different departments work together to integrate Social, SEO and content (as well as other online marketing tactics where appropriate) that there is a feedback mechanism in place for those involved to see that they are having an impact. Even if it’s not specific to them, showing a trend line of how something like website traffic, or share of voice or leads and sales have improved during the time integration best practices are in place can be very motivating.

Make sense?

This week I’m in Belgium on my continued travels to spread the good word about an “Optimized State of Mind” and integrated online marketing. On May 3rd I’m giving a keynote presentation at Fusion Marketing Experience “Digital Marketing Integration: the Mix of Social, Search and Content“. Details on this keynote:

The sheer volume of content produced and shared by connected consumers is overwhelming. With independent search, social media and content marketing efforts, brands are hard pressed to find an effective model for integration.

The search and social web are reliant on content and it is through more effective content marketing that brands can cut through the noise to meaningful customer engagement and sales.

This keynote will outline key trends in the relationship between consumers and content by understanding Discovery, Consumption and Sharing preferences and how a content marketing strategy that integrates the best of SEO and Social Media can boost Digital Marketing effectiveness.

On May 4th I’ll be doing a workshop at Fusion Marketing to put those key integrated concepts into action: “Setting up a Winning Customer-Centric Content Marketing Strategy”. Details on this workshop:

Who are your customers? What do they care about? What content do you need to create in order to guide customers through the sales process from attention to purchase to advocacy? Get answers to these questions and more with a customer-centric content marketing strategy.

Improving content marketing isn’t about creating more content. It’s about content that’s meaningful vs. mechanical for customers that also inspires engagement and business outcomes. Effective content marketing helps brands reach more people ready to buy, refer and share. This workshop will provide the framework for an Optimize and Socialize approach to content marketing to attract and engage customers across the buying cycle.

Granted, I’m looking forward to a weekend in Antwerp and Brugge but I’m also excited to give these strategic and tactical presentations that exemplify the key messages of Optimize. Since the vast majority of our readers are not in Belgium this week, please be sure to check out future speaking events in the right sidebar of this site.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Integrated SEO, Social Media & Content Marketing at Fusion Marketing Experience 2012 | http://www.toprankblog.com

Integrated SEO, Social Media & Content Marketing at Fusion Marketing Experience 2012

Posted on 02. May, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

optimized integrated online marketing The new book on internet marketing we’ve recently published, “Optimize“, has been very well received and I’ve been doing a number of interviews and speaking engagements (as you do) around it. One of the most common questions I hear concerns the challenges of implementing an integrated “optimized and socialized content marketing” approach within an organization.

This is a reasonable question, because while it makes sense that content, SEO and social media (as well as email, online PR and advertising) should work together, the challenge for many corporate marketers and communications professionals is how. That’s where a good approach and plan come in to play and Optimize is a blueprint for such a plan – in particular, when it comes to optimizing and socializing content. Here are a few key considerations for integrating these high impact online marketing tactics:

The challenge of optimized integration. When SEO is owned by marketing and public relations runs social media and content creation is shared across multiple departments, integration of those tactics across a company’s content efforts can be a challenge. What brings things together are:

Leadership support through common goals
Identification of how an integrated approach will help each individual group as well as the company overall
Training, process and tools/technology to enable integration of tactics

Find the low hanging fruit for an integration project and share the results upstream and horizontally. Make sure that as different departments work together to integrate Social, SEO and content (as well as other online marketing tactics where appropriate) that there is a feedback mechanism in place for those involved to see that they are having an impact. Even if it’s not specific to them, showing a trend line of how something like website traffic, or share of voice or leads and sales have improved during the time integration best practices are in place can be very motivating.

Make sense?

This week I’m in Belgium on my continued travels to spread the good word about an “Optimized State of Mind” and integrated online marketing. On May 3rd I’m giving a keynote presentation at Fusion Marketing Experience “Digital Marketing Integration: the Mix of Social, Search and Content“. Details on this keynote:

The sheer volume of content produced and shared by connected consumers is overwhelming. With independent search, social media and content marketing efforts, brands are hard pressed to find an effective model for integration.

The search and social web are reliant on content and it is through more effective content marketing that brands can cut through the noise to meaningful customer engagement and sales.

This keynote will outline key trends in the relationship between consumers and content by understanding Discovery, Consumption and Sharing preferences and how a content marketing strategy that integrates the best of SEO and Social Media can boost Digital Marketing effectiveness.

On May 4th I’ll be doing a workshop at Fusion Marketing to put those key integrated concepts into action: “Setting up a Winning Customer-Centric Content Marketing Strategy”. Details on this workshop:

Who are your customers? What do they care about? What content do you need to create in order to guide customers through the sales process from attention to purchase to advocacy? Get answers to these questions and more with a customer-centric content marketing strategy.

Improving content marketing isn’t about creating more content. It’s about content that’s meaningful vs. mechanical for customers that also inspires engagement and business outcomes. Effective content marketing helps brands reach more people ready to buy, refer and share. This workshop will provide the framework for an Optimize and Socialize approach to content marketing to attract and engage customers across the buying cycle.

Granted, I’m looking forward to a weekend in Antwerp and Brugge but I’m also excited to give these strategic and tactical presentations that exemplify the key messages of Optimize. Since the vast majority of our readers are not in Belgium this week, please be sure to check out future speaking events in the right sidebar of this site.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Integrated SEO, Social Media & Content Marketing at Fusion Marketing Experience 2012 | http://www.toprankblog.com

Optimize – How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing

Posted on 16. Apr, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

Optimize - Discover, Consume, Engage By now you may have heard that I’ve written a book called “Optimize“. After months of writing and editing, it’s now the real deal and online orders just started shipping a few days ago. I haven’t done a formal post talking about the book and so here are a few highlights.

Essentially, Optimize it’s a more holistic view of content and social media optimization than what you’ll often hear at events, read in other books and online. So many optimization efforts are focused on chasing exploits and loopholes only to be shut down be search engine quality efforts. Why not focus on quality in the first place?

Optimization using keywords and links is making room for a new set of signals and tactics resulting in the need for a more customer centric approach. Many online marketers “get” the value of SEO, social media and even content independently, but working them together in a way that makes sense is often a challenge.

“Optimize” is organized in 3 phases (here’s a preview) and starts by answering why it makes sense to integrate search, social and content as well as practical examples for B2B, B2C, small business, a Fortune 50 and use case examples within organizations for marketing, public relations, customer service and recruiting. There’s guidance on conducting audits for SEO, Content and Social Media for benchmarking and ongoing performance.

The second phase is by far the largest part of the book covering tactics and implementation ranging from customer segmentation and persona development to search and social keyword research, developing a content plan, on-page web page and social media optimization, social network development, promotion for links and measurement.

The third phase provides examples of bringing it all together and assessment for training and processes to scale an “Optimized State of Mind” to the rest of the organization.

Optimize is designed to be useful as a end to end guide for anyone that creates digital content in an organization that wants to extend the reach and usefulness of that content. That includes marketing, PR, customer service and other departments. The customer centric approach works as well for B2B as it does for consumer focused companies.

Optimize is also a great reference tool for experts. At the same time, Optimize can be used as a reference for those marketers and communications professionals that are experienced in a particular area and not others. They get the “why”, they need the “how”.

At the moment, there are a handful of reviews, webinars and interviews about Optimize but more are coming. So far, I’ve had several speaking events specific to Optimize in Minneapolis, New York and Chicago with another coming up this week in Leeds, UK and then Antwerp Belgium. In between I’ll be visiting a number of regional events.

I owe a ton of thanks to the TopRank Online Marketing team for chipping in and helping out in a variety of ways. We’re really building something special at our agency and the real growth is just beginning now in 2012. Thank you too, to Mike Grehan, Vice President & Global Content Director for Search Engine Watch, ClickZ and Search Engine Strategies for writing an awesome introduction.

A HUGE thanks goes to the following search, social media and content marketing smarties for giving early endorsements of Optimize (many are best selling authors):

Chris Brogan - Human Business Works, Author, Speaker
Ann Handley - Chief Cupcake Officer, (Oops, I mean Chief Content Officer) MarketingProfs, Author, Speaker
John Jantsch - Duct Tape Marketing, Author, Speaker
Melanie Mitchell - SVP Search Marketing Strategy, Digitas, Author, Speaker
Scott Monty - Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager at Ford Motor Company, Speaker
Brian Clark - Copyblogger Media, Recovering Attorney, Entrepreneur, Speaker
Joe Pulizzi - Junta42, Content Marketing Institute, Author, Speaker
Mel Carson - Digital Marketing Evangelist, Community & Social Media Manager, Speaker & Blogger at Microsoft Advertising, Speaker
Bill Hunt - BackAzimuth, SEO God, Author, Speaker
Jay Baer - Convince & Convert, Author, Speaker
Michael Stelzner - Social Media Examiner, Author, Speaker
Amy Lamparske - Director, Digital Communications at Walmart
David Alston - CMO Radian6, Speaker

I couldn’t imagine a more impressive group of people to give their approval for a book on this topic.

So many people have reached out to me, unsolicited to offer help to promote the book through speaking, interviews and social shares. I really, really appreciate that! After sharing insights with our readers for over 8 years it’s great to see that kind of appreciation to help get the word out about Optimize.

If you’d like a practical content marketing book that does a deep dive into both why and how, especially when it comes to SEO and Social Media Marketing, then I hope you’ll check out Optimize: Amazon – Barnes & Noble.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Optimize – How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com

Optimize – How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing

Posted on 16. Apr, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing

Optimize - Discover, Consume, Engage By now you may have heard that I’ve written a book called “Optimize“. After months of writing and editing, it’s now the real deal and online orders just started shipping a few days ago. I haven’t done a formal post talking about the book and so here are a few highlights.

Essentially, Optimize it’s a more holistic view of content and social media optimization than what you’ll often hear at events, read in other books and online. So many optimization efforts are focused on chasing exploits and loopholes only to be shut down by search engine quality efforts. Why not focus on quality in the first place?