Very thought provoking article on marketing: American Express CMO Jon Hayes explains that marketers win not by having best technology or knowing how to talk to consumers the best. He says marketers win when they’re able to best interpret changes in technology to figure out how best to use it. And interpreting changes in society to figure out how to tailor the message to consumers. Like its not about the ads themselves. It’s about figuring out the value of how to use the technology for marketing purposes. And how to custom fit the new process for each individual business. For instance, it’s key to understand with banner ads, the value is not in getting the clicks to produce immediate phone calls. The value is in branding in the area your potential customers are in.
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March 19, 2014
March 19, 2014
By the end of 2015, half of Google’s search advertising money will come from clicks from smartphones. Soon after that, the majority of their money will come from smartphones. And everyday, I see some small business have a website that doesn’t show up properly on a cell phone. Let me make myself clear: how your website shows up for cell phones is more important than how it shows up on a desktop computer : O
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March 9, 2014
When I read the headline from eMarketer, I was stunned. The retail price of an XBOX One is $500 and the Playstation 4 is $400. Yet, teenagers are using these video game consoles more for internet use on their TV more than the video games themselves.
What this tells me is that their is tremendous demand for internet usage on the consumer’s TV. And it presents a tremendous opportunity for internet marketers and small businesses alike.
Back in the early 2000’s not many small businesses had websites. So getting one was a big deal and gave the business with a website a big advantage over the competition. Then around 2006-2008, we were getting to a point where most small businesses had websites, but not many were actively advertising and marketing their websites to get website visitors.
Fast forward to 2014 and virtually every small business desires to be on Google’s search engine in an attempt to market their website and try and get more business. But making money off Google has become more difficult with increased competition and limited real estate on Google’s first page.
I believe the new frontier for small businesses is in local, geo-targeted, banner advertising on websites throughout the internet. Right now, not many small businesses are doing it, but soon they will be.
And not only is there great opportunity because the advertising is inexpensive. Or from the lack of competition.
The opportunity is great because of the coming explosion of website traffic from people using the internet on their TV’s.
In the next 5 years, internet traffic and eyeballs on websites will skyrocket not only from mobile devices like cell phones and tablets, but also from people using the internet to watch their TV content.
And the more traffic there is, the more the cost of the advertising will be driven down due to such a large inventory of eyeballs.
This study from eMarketer illustrates the coming boom of online display, banner advertising.
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January 12, 2014
Back in 2003, Customwave originally started as a web design company where small businesses wanted us to design the nicest looking, fanciest websites. Why? Because the theory was back then that the nicer the website looks, the more likely the potential customer turns into a customer.
But in 2014, things have changed.
What makes a website “good”, depends on the goal of the website. What you want the website to do. Let’s first look at the website where small business owners want to get more phone calls from potential customers.
The goal of the website would then be to get the highest conversion rate between website visitors to phone calls. So whatever changes and tweaks done on the website to increase that conversion rate from 10%-20% is what makes the website “good” in this case.
And a lot of times, the design and fanciness of the website have nothing to do with the conversion rate. I repeat, a nice looking website doesn’t necessarily mean the website converts well.
In my experience, 2 of the biggest factors in high conversion rates is that the website is super simple. Where the navigation is easy. Why is that so important? Because lots of older people, or people not computer savvy might know how to turn the computer on, they might know how to get to Google, but once people get to the website, they still have a hard time finding what they’re looking for. Thus, the more simple the site, the easier it is for everybody to find what they’re looking for. Especially the phone number!
The other most important aspect in 2014 is that the website is mobile friendly, meaning the website operates well on cell phones and tablets like the ipad. A lot of people aren’t aware that if the website isn’t mobile friendly, Google won’t even show it on it’s search engine.
A lot of the older websites, and when I say older I mean like 2008, 2012 that have flash elements, slider graphics, a lot of those don’t show up well on mobile devices. And that could make your conversion rate from mobile website visitors to phone calls really small. Which would make your website “not so good.”
With other websites like shopping carts, it’s all about the conversion rate between website visitors to actual sales. With other websites that just want you to fill out a form, it’s about the conversion rate between website visitors to form fill outs. Get the picture?
A website is only successful when it does what you want it to do. Not because it looks the way you want it to look.
Read MoreToo many internet marketing firms want to have plausible deniability when it comes to a client’s sales. Whether it’s search engine optimization, paying Google per click, too many in our industry want no accountability for the actual results. I actually used to be the same way, back in 2005, 2006, 2007, just learning the ropes.
Most of the time, when internet marketing companies don’t have proper tracking in place to know what types of results they’re getting, it’s because they’re not confident in their abilities to increase a client’s sales. Therefore, they stick their heads in the sand not wanting to know the actual results. Again, when i was younger, I used to be the same way.
The thing I’ve learned is that it’s not enough to just advertise someone on the internet, specifically on Google. It’s not enough to just get someone phone calls. To really succeed in this industry, you need to help your client’s make more money. At the end of the day, that’s the only thing that matters.
Now someone might say, well, we can’t control whether a website visitor makes a decision to call the client. And that part is true. However, the thing you can control is the quality of the phone calls and email leads. Some months there will be a few more calls, some months there’ll be a few less, but as long as the quality of the calls are good, the client should still be able to get new customers and make more money.
A lot of companies in our industry do a pretty good at client acquisition, landing new small business customers. But many of those same companies do a terrible job at client retention, keeping those small businesses for any longer than a year. The reason why companies like Reach Local and Go Daddy aren’t dominating even more than they are is because they constantly lose clients because they focus on advertising. They don’t focus on making the small business client money.
And how could they? This industry is so new and so young, there’s not enough people that know what they’re doing to take care of all the demand. Colleges are just getting around to starting to teach internet marketing, but because this industry is fluid and changes rapidly every year, their information is often times outdated and obsolete. Most small businesses that work with someone in a call center with limited experience, training, and knowledge have a bad experience. Therefore, the small business cancels after the contract is over.
So as internet marketers, what exactly can we do to help our clients make more money? How do we do that?
You have to focus on the quality of phone calls and sales leads. Decrease the junk leads as much as possible.
Every business is different. And for every business, they will want a specific type of customer. Find out what type of customer they want. Then get really specific on which keywords you target to make sure you get them the right type of call.
Find out the schedule of when they want to be advertised. If the client is getting clicks at 2am in the morning and doesn’t have anyone to pick up the phone at 2am, you don’t want to be advertising them at that time. Only advertise the client when they’re in a position to answer the phone or return email quickly.
Find out which devices they want to advertise on. Some businesses will find it more valuable to be advertised only on cell phones, versus all devices. Or only computers and not cell phones.
There’s a world of opportunity in our industry. The vast majority of internet marketers are not doing that great at their job because what we do is so brand new and we’re still trying to figure it out. But the people that will really succeed in the next 5-10 years will be the internet marketing companies that can RETAIN small business clients. KEEP them. Have them advertise with you for years and years. And the only way to do that is to help them make money from your work.
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To a lot of small business owners, when they think of getting new customers off Google, they think the biggest challenge is just getting on Google. And as soon as that happens, they’re set. And to a lot of internet marketers, they think that all they have to do is get a small business advertised on Google and the client will be happy.
Over the years, I’ve learned it’s not that simple.
When I first started back in 2003, our main focus was on getting people on Google. But after we got people on Google, their concern was they’re not getting phone calls. So the volume of phone calls started to be the focus. But then even still, some clients would say the calls are coming in but they’re not getting customers. But why?
Every small business is different. Even different businesses within the same industry are different. In other words, not every company wants the same type of customer. More specifically, not every company wants the same type of phone call.
Whenever I start working with a new client, the most important question I ask is always what type of customer the client wants. Because it’s the quality of the phone calls and getting the client set up with the right type of potential customer that’s most important.
The number of calls a client will get will always be different. It always fluctuates. But as long as there’s a few quality phone calls that are the types of customers our small business client is looking for, our client should still be making money off of what we do.
So my advice for not only small business owners, but also other internet marketers as well, the biggest value that an internet marketing company can bring to the table is having the knowledge and experience to know what keywords and other aspects to target to get the small business client the type of customer they need.
And that’s why being an industry specialist is so valuable. Because having someone advertise you on Google isn’t enough. They have to know what to target to get you the type of customer you need, for your marketing to be successful.
Read MoreJumptap and comScore recently released data for the past month that said internet usage from a mobile device (cellphones, tablets, etc) was at 51% and internet usage from computers was at 49%. Meaning that when marketing on the internet, their should be a sea change in philosophy and strategy.
For instance, building a fancy, animated website won’t really do too much anymore considering that those types of websites have a hard time showing up on mobile devices. The goal now should be to build ultra simple and easy to use websites that can be easily navigated on any mobile device.
Mobile devices are no longer the future of marketing on the internet. They are now the present.
Read MoreYes, you read that right. And we all know in the small business world how important referrals are. Here’s the full survey from Bright Local.
If you are someone that is reading this right now, run a small business, are spending money advertising on Google or other places on the internet, it is essential that you don’t have any negative reviews floating around. Litterally, by the definition of the word, essential. The last thing you probably want is an increased amount of people looking your company name up on Google because they saw your ad and have an interest in what you do and then find the bad review.
The survey also shows that an increased number of people in 2013 are looking at online reviews, but they’re reading less reviews when forming their opinion on the business. In other words, every small business should be concentrating the vast majority of their time on the review websites that are on the top half of the first page of Google when you search your business name. Those reviews in that real estate will make or break you.
It’s one thing to advertise your business. Get people to your website. Get phone calls from those people. But after that point comes the most important part where the potential customer decides if they’re going to give you their money or not. For a lot of people online reviews can be something that will help decide that.
Read MoreT-Mobile and MetroPCS completed their merger today to become the 4th largest cell phone company in the country.
But the numbers that really stood out to me are the following:
-AT&T has 105 million subscribers, Verizon 99 million, Sprint 54 million and T-Mobile / MetroPCS has 43 million. That makes 301 wireless accounts in the US, not counting the smaller carriers.
-Some of the accounts are secondary accounts for some people so comScore and Nielsen, it looks like the number is around 250 million people with cell phones in the United States.
-According to comScore and Nielsen, 57%-60% of cell phone users now have smartphones that access the internet.
-So that would mean around 150 million people in America with cell phones that have internet access.
-Both research firms believe that as even more people get smartphones, that within 24-36 months, there will be more people that access the internet with a mobile device than a regular desktop computer or laptop. Stunning!
-According to IAB, in the total digital advertising and marketing spend in the county, only 9% of the money is dedicated to mobile internet marketing.
-In other words, advertising and marketing targeted for mobile internet use will be absolutely booming in the next 3-5 years.
Read MoreSearch Engine Optimization is The New Pyramid Scheme.
I am so sick and tired of search engine optimization. Mostly because I’m sick of clients coming to me saying that someone solicited their business and told them all these wonderful tales that if they do x, y, and z, they’ll be on the first page of Google for sure without having to pay for any of the clicks. Below is an email that a client sent to me this afternoon:
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Hi,
My name is Deborah and I am an Online Marketing Representative.
The reason for my email is I have come across your site and decided to run an analysis on your competition and your current search rankings. I also tried to look for your business on various social media sites and really couldn’t find much else about you.
Over the last 12 months GOOGLE has placed so much importance on Content Creation & Social Media Performance that if your business isn’t creating valuable content or even visible across social media platforms you have basically no chance of being seen on any search engine for keywords your customers are using to find businesses like you.
With a solid plan and strategy I honestly believe I can help get your website ranking higher on GOOGLE and getting customers to interact with your business on Social Media to really build your brand.
Can I call you and run some ideas I have to help your business grow?
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Let Me break this down:
There is no such thing as a blueprint to have success in search engine optimization. If you apply the same practuces to 10 websites, you will have at least half of them fail to get on the 1st page. At least. Probably more than half will fail. Deborah is making guesses and selling them as a guaranteed result.
Google makes sure that there’s no one size fits all approach to getting any one website on the 1st page. Google is in the business of making money and they make ranking on the 1st page difficult because they want you to pay for website visitors. They don’t want you to get all these clicks for free.
Small businesses don’t need their brand built by social media. They need new customers and increased sales. Period. Next.
All this search engine gobbledygook to small businesses is a pure waste of time. It’s been proven over and over by companies like mine at Customwave and others, that the best approach is to pay Google to be on the 1st page. Then skip over this whole giant “getting on the 1st page of Google without paying for clicks” mess.
You skip that whole entire thing and move onto more important steps like, are the website visitors converting into phone calls and sales leads. Are the phone calls equaling new customers? Do I need to target different keywords to get better quality sales leads? Those are the things a small business needs to concentrate on.
But someone like Deborah won’t talk about making sure that the website traffic or “social media” presence turns into phone calls. Or if the phone calls will equal new customers. She only talks about getting you on Google. Why? Because I bet most of the time, she never gets to the phone call part. Probably because she can’t even deliver on getting someone on the 1st page of Google.
And if you’ve already seen my client on the 1st page of Google, than I have obviously already done something that you can only claim you can do.
I’m so sick of people like Deborah because they get my client’s hopes up and then waste my time because I have to bring the client back to reality and inform them that people like Deborah are a fraud and scam.
I wish these people would just go away back to the pyramid scheme they came from.
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