Search marketing is one of the great tools in a marketer’s arsenal.  We help our clients with search and find it’s often one of their most effective lead generation vehicles.  That being said, I’m going to take a few minutes and pick on pay per click search here because, in so many cases, businesses are getting sold on paid search as a “full marketing solution” — and they’re believing it.  In these cases the reality is it’s usually being sold by salespeople disguised as marketers who only really look at the media side of marketing (Yeah, you know who you are!), and not all the other facets.

I could have chosen social media, broadcast or a host of other channels – it’s not this specific channel that I have an issue with as much as the focus on any one channel as some sort of magic bullet.  But, for some reason we see this in the search channel far more than any of the others.  Likely this is because the ability to so directly track — spend to searches to clicks to leads/sales to CPA — creates such a clean picture that it’s tough to argue against continuing to feed that success until it’s maxed out.  And once maxed out then, and only then only then, moving on to another channel.

The problem with that single channel focus, however, is it is incredibly risky.  Not Shaun White, Half-Pipe X-Games Cool risky but Russian Roulette Foolish risky.  The reason is simple – all of your eggs are now firmly placed in one basket.  And we all know the rest of that cliché.  And we all also know this – the marketing landscape is constantly changing, and now more rapidly than ever before.

So, maybe paid search is knocking it out of the park for you today, but what happens if Google adjusts the rules of AdWords again?  Or when Yahoo and Bing unify their platform in the near future with their deal now having cleared the biggest regulatory hurdles?  Or with just the fact that the amount of competitors you’ll find in paid search now looks to be far greater than even 2 or 3 years ago with later adopters coming to the table, the growth of automated platforms, locally focused management tools and a host of other reasons.  By now you can certainly see where I’m going with this.  It’s incredibly likely that no matter your industry, there isn’t just one magic bullet but an integrated mix of tactics.

Rather than getting sold on pouring everything you have into paid search, the better move is to diversify your tactics.  As Mike often says, think of your marketing approach like a stock portfolio.  By investing in and testing multiple channels, and adjusting based on which ones succeed and fail, you’ll have multiple sources of leads/sales and not be exposed to the risk of just one channel.  Certainly include paid search in the mix, but don’t make it your only ingredient.  Because that doesn’t make you X-Games Cool, it makes you Russian Roulette Crazy.

Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow @willdavis on Twitter for more commentary like this.

Whether you live in the Baltimore/Washington area like we do, or have only heard about it on the news, everyone knows we’ve been hit here by record snowfalls.  I saw yesterday that Baltimore just passed Syracuse NY for first place as the snowiest city in the U.S. this winter.

While technology has allowed me to continue working on just about everything I would in a normal day, some of the down time “snowed in” got me thinking about how people might use some of that down time to address items on the “marketing list” (you know, that list some people never quite get to).

With that mind, I went back through some of our posts to highlight 5 pretty tangible and actionable items you can think about, evaluate and improve right away.  And while I tried to avoid the “clip show” format — Didn’t you always hate when sitcoms did those episodes that were just recycled material? – It did seem to work best in this format.

So here you go – 5 Marketing Fixes for a Snowy Week.

1). Fix Your Core Messaging:

We all know how important it is to have a clear and consistent message – But do you have a messaging problem?

Your Marketing Message in 30 Seconds

2). Diversify Lead Generation:

In an ideal world, you are managing multiple buckets of leads, each bringing a different volume, a different quality, and a different set of metrics.  But are you putting all your eggs in one basket?

Buckets of Leads

3). Convert More Visitors to Leads:

Make sure you are getting the most from your online visitors.  Tune up your contact forms and landing pages by looking at 5 common problems.

Better Contact Forms = More Prospects

4). Improve Your Search Marketing:

Writing ad copy for pay-per-click ads, particularly for Google AdWords, is an extremely challenging task.  Are you getting the most from your paid search campaigns?

The Most Challenging Copywriting Job in the World

5). Update Your Website:

Your company may have all kinds of exciting things going on – new customers, partners, upcoming events, etc.  But if from the viewpoint of the random website visitor, you’re not doing much lately it may not be worth taking the next step to get in touch.

Keeping the Newsroom Fresh

Implementing these 5 fixes will help you to upgrade your marketing — And give you a reason to avoid that snow shovel.

Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow@willdavis on Twitter for more commentary like this.

I was speaking with a few colleagues the other day about the different benefits of social media as a whole, and blogging in particular.  The folks in the room had varying levels of social media involvement, from no involvement at all to heavy involvement.  Each of us discussed what we hope to get out of social media, why we blog or might consider it, and how businesses can benefit from blogging.  The discussion went on for some time, covering the wide ranging benefits from SEO opportunities to more frequent customer touch points and everything in between.  After a while, it quieted down a bit and somebody asked me if they had missed anything on the list.

Skip the First Meeting

While our blog serves many purposes, one of them I hadn’t heard mentioned by the group was one of the things that I find most useful.  Having a well planned blog and social media presence, with what we hope is interesting and insightful content, allows us to Skip the First Meeting.

So what do I mean when I say Skip the First Meeting?  Unfortunately, despite how well you may try to vet things ahead of time, inevitably in our business you run into an opportunity that 5 minutes into that first meeting, after you’ve sniffed each other and gotten a bit more of a sense of your businesses –  you both know isn’t a fit.  You don’t think alike, you don’t value the same things, really whatever those components may be.  Of course generally by this time somebody has ordered food, or driven out of their way, or fired up a PowerPoint or laser lights show, or something else entirely, and it’s too late to do anything but spend the next 45-60 minutes or more there despite you each knowing this isn’t going to work out.

Now, we often head this meeting off at the pass.  We’ll send a contact or prospect a link to our blog ahead of time, and also encourage them to connect with and follow us on social networks, and ask them to read through these pieces ahead of time before scheduling that first get together.  By doing this, we make much more efficient use of their time and ours.  We try to convey the idea here that we want to be involved in strategy and planning and believe in taking a holistic view of marketing, and that shines through in our posts.

When we discover the poor fit, we each save ourselves the time of an unproductive meeting where we just won’t be a fit for each other (although sometimes we do miss those laser light shows).  And just as importantly, for those that could be a fit, we’ve fast forwarded over the glossy part of the first meeting and are digging right into the important and meaningful parts that are usually saved for a second meeting.

So while there are probably 100s of reasons to blog and to get involved in social media, if it works for your business you may want to try to Skip the First Meeting.

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow @willdavis on Twitter for more commentary like this.

Whenever a conversation starts around the topic of social media, inevitably I find a number of people that immediately question the value and want to see some ROI numbers before getting involved.  We’ve talked about both sides of this discussion before in many posts, most notably Businesses: Stay Away From Social Media If You Meet The Following Criteria and Social Media: Justify Your Love With the Right ROI Approach.

Just today I came across this research in B to B magazine, which seems to once again prove some value to social media activity, particular as it relates to search

Social media searchers seek out ‘lower funnel’ terms

Internet users exposed to brands via social networks subsequently search for “lower funnel” terms associated with those brands, indicating a higher propensity to convert, according to new study.

The study, “The Influenced: Social Media, Search and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumption”-conducted by digital marketing company comScore and social media agency M80-found Internet users exposed to a brand in a social media setting were 1.7 times more likely to later search for that brand using keywords associated with a high level of loyalty and propensity to buy, compared with searchers not engaged with social media.

The study also showed a 50% increase in paid search click-through rates when Internet users were exposed first to social media mentioning a brand. The online survey, which drew 2,000 respondents, was conducted from May through July.

One of the basic tenets of branding is to build recognition and loyalty.  And, whether online or off, we’ve known for a long time now that building a strong brand can feed search engine success.  Social media is just one more place where that can happen, and as the study above proves, the payoff can be big.

So, what should you do about it?  I think there are 2 key takeaways:

1). If you have waited to develop a social media strategy until you have had the justification, this might just be it.

Note: Throwing it to the intern to figure out is not a strategy.  While that person may help you to execute on a strategy, the strategy itself shouldn’t come from someone rental companies don’t trust enough to rent a car to for four more years.  Social media should have a  role consistent with your overall marketing plan.

2). If your social media activities are generating more highly qualified searches, make sure you are maximizing your ability to be found there.

Do everything you can from a Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing perspective to ensure those highly qualified searchers will find you.  We know they will be out there looking and you need to maximize your opportunities to capture these high value searchers.

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow Will on Twitter for more commentary like this.

A colleague of mine often says “Your website should be as good as your best salesperson” – which for many organizations is easier said than done.  Those of you who read this blog regularly know we always advocate looking at your overall marketing strategy, your web marketing strategy as a set of that, and your website itself as a piece of that.

In addition to looking at the big picture, sometimes it helps to slice off a few clear and actionable improvements you can take.  Some organizations have never done all 3 of the steps outlined below, while for others this is a chance to get back to basics and make sure you haven’t lost site of these 3 keys.  Here’s 3 key steps you can do to make your web presence work harder.

1). Take an Honest Look at Your Search Presence

We all know that search engines play a huge role in the web — In fact, 80% of online session start with a search  engine (via  PC Magazine).  So, even if you are doing everything you can to get the word out on your brand and website in other media, if you don’t have a significant presence in search you may be sunk.  Since search is where people go first when they go online, you need an effective search strategy — both paid and organic — to make sure that you will be found.  So take an honest look at your search presence, look with a keen eye and really re-evaluate everything.  Once you ahve done that and reformulated your strategy (or confirmed it was right all along), start working on keyword testing in paid search and SEO (learn more in a  previous post The Obvious Yet Underused Way to Build an SEO Program) and continue to monitor and adjust as you go, utilizing your analytics systems as a guide for what’s working and what isn’t.

2). Segment Your Audiences and Match Their Expectations

Too often we see campaigns where all visitors are sent to the same generic homepage, which may not speak to a segment’s particular needs.  One of the things we love about the web as marketers is it is trackable and customizable. So, for example, if you are a bank and know you have a prospect looking for CD rates, make sure you take them to a page about CDs.  If they are looking for mortgage refinancing make sure you take them to a page about refinancing, not new loans.  Utilize targeted landing pages and microsites in order to better match the prospect’s expectations and you’ll see much better results (see our previous post Microsite or Landing Page? to learn more on when to use landing pages and microsite ).  While these examples seem obvious, I’m constantly amazed by how many organizations aren’t doing them.  This feeds right back into #1, if you match your customers expectations when they come to your site, your campaigns — whether search, social media, print, or anything else — are just about guaranteed to perform better.

3). Optimize your Conversion Opportunities

So you’ve knocked down items 1 and 2 – what’s next?  Well, some people still think getting traffic to your website and getting a few leads is doing the whole job.  Getting visitors to your website is really just the first step, what we really want to do is convert those visitors by making them take your key actions.  That generally means converting them to leads by an activity such as filling out a form, converting them to customers by an activity such as an online purchase, or sometimes by an activity such as viewers of key information like using a retail locator to the nearest store.  By reviewing your analytics, you can develop a baseline for your conversion activity.  Then, begin to test different variables against this baseline, including copy approaches, offers, calls to action, imagery, landing pages, form fields and other variables.  By understanding and continually optimizing your conversion opportunities you’ll get much more value out of your marketing activities.

Whether you are new to online marketing or a seasoned veteran just circling back to make sure you are still doing the basics right, these 3 steps will make your web presence work harder.

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow Will on Twitter for more commentary like this.