Optimize Magazine - Winter 2015

WINTER 2015

IDEAS FOR MARKETING AND CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS

(First Name) Make Your Print Campaigns

Remarkable With

Variable Data and Imaging Essential Tips for Blogging Now that Blogging is Essential Data Done Right: Infographics As High Value Marketing Collateral Rand Fishkin Shares SEO Tips in this Special Interview. You’re welcome :)

[FIRST NAME]...

LOOK INSIDE and learn about designing amazing infographics

E

nter today to win your copy of Cool Infographics!

Learn how to create cool infographics!

This innovative book presents the design process and the best software tools for creating infographics that communicate. Including a special section on how to construct the increasingly popular infographic resume, the book offers graphic designers, marketers, and business professionals vital information on the most effective ways to present data.

• Explains why infographics and data visualizations work • Shares the tools and techniques for creating great infographics • Covers online infographics used for marketing, including social media and search engine optimization (SEO) • Explores the many internal business uses of infographics, including board meeting presentations, annual reports, consumer research statistics, marketing strategies, business plans, and visual explanations of products and services to your customers.

About the Author: Randy Krum is founder and president of InfoNewt, an infographic design and data visualization company, and the creator of Cool Infographics (coolinfographics.com).

He designs infographics for both online publications and internal communications, and consults on building infographic landing pages, social sharing links, infographic SEO, reaching key influencers, and tracking results.

www.randykrum.com | Twitter: @rtkrum Facebook: rtkrum | LinkedIn: in/rtkrum

Enter today to win a FREE COPY of Cool Infographics! Register today at: hopkinsprinting.com/cool-infographics

“This book explains how to create infographics that successfully communicate their message.”

Talk Business, January 2014

“Cool Infographics is a mix of inspiration, instruction and education.” ZDNet, January 2014

Capture the QR Code with your smart device and register online now.

WELCOME

Winter 2015

Winter 2015

EXPERT OPINION Read insights from the following contributors in this issue:

Welcome to the Winter Issue 5 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT HOPKINS PRINTING

Roy Waterhouse President, Hopkins Printing

1 Thank You, Central Ohio Each year, Columbus CEO magazine asks its readers to vote for the best places to do business in Central Ohio. This year a record 3,434 people completed the Best of Business poll online. There were 90 categories in which businesses could receive a Best of Business award. Hopkins Printing was proud to be named the 2014 Best of Business award winner for Best Printing Company.

2 Doing What’s Right Recently one of our second-shift bindery operators stopped a job because she didn’t think the project needed a drill hole indicated on the ticket. The next morning she called and told her day-shift counterpart what she thought and it turns out she was right. It’s always encouraging to hear that our people are pushing to do the right thing for the customer.

Ardath Albee A B2B marketing strategist and noted author, Ardath explains how the marketing landscape is changing and how you should change with it.

3 Supporting the BBB Throughout the year at Hopkins, we donate numerous projects to organizations and charities as part of our giving back program. We recently printed a project for the Better Business Bureau and, as a thank you, were invited to a special luncheon featuring Major Dan Rooney talking about his experiences flying an F-16! We think we’ll stick to printing!

Randy Krum President of InfoNewt, an infographic design and visual consulting company, Randy reveals the dos and don’ts of building powerful infographics.

4 New Service Hopkins’ newest wide-format machine recently imaged 103 signs in record time that were 48.5 in. x 70 in. in size. Our client provided rave reviews on the exceptional color.

Hopkins’ Agfa Titan machine puts us in another class of capabilities for our customers.

5

Planning for 2015 We finished our 2015 strategic planning sessions, and, boy, do we have a lot in store for our customers in 2015! Nothing good happens without a solid plan.

Follow us online

facebook.com/HopkinsSolutions

@hopksolutions

Brittany Fenning Professional graphic designers tell us how they manage the challenges of designing for cross media platforms.

linkedin.com/company/hopkins-printing

Optimize is printed on 100# U Velvet Cover/100# U Velvet Text paper

01 Welcome

Discover 5 new things about Hopkins Printing, plus a section of the key contributors writing in this issue.

02 Insights

Ideas, opinions, news, and trends.

06 Rand Fishkin Interview

The SEO forerunner explores ways you can make your website search engine friendly.

10 The New Marketing Frontier

Learn why research should dictate your content marketing and what the future’s marketers will look like.

12 Create A Brand Blog

Discover how powerful your online content can become through the development of your brand’s blog.

16 Be Remarkable: Variable Data Printing Create the ultimate personalized experience through the use of Variable Data Printing in your next direct marketing campaign.

Executive Editor

Cindy Woods, cmoteam.com Contributing Writers

Carro Ford, Christine Pietryla, Tim Sweeney, Sara Walstead Design

Designlogix ©2015 All Rights Reserved

Printed and distributed by Hopkins Printing www.hopkinsprinting.com

01

Winter 2015

INSIGHTS

NEWS | REVIEWS | IDEAS | OPINION |

TALKING POINTS »

Marketing Arrivals and Departures Four experts across a variety of marketing disciplines tell us what’s coming and going in 2015.

RETAIL MARKETING

CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS

Joe Duncan

Brian Groves

SVP, Group Executive Producer, Retail Production, Leo Burnett

Chief Marketing Officer, U.S. Pfizer

COMING:

COMING:

Digital at retail is the first area to watch.

Mobile ability has been greatly enhanced with near field communication becoming part of the majority of devices. Utilizing that shopper experience is going to greatly alter the in-store promotional experience.

As we work to expand our digital footprint, we see a huge opportunity to generate superior insights going forward. The keys are acquiring the right data and having the internal capability to leverage it. Ninety percent of insight work starts with asking the right questions and knowing where to look for guidance.

GOING: The lines drawn historically over categories competing for retail space are now completely blurred. It’s not as simple as Coke and Pepsi fighting over the same space anymore. Retailers are taking control of their space and the shopper experience.

That’s creating more permanent displays and “store-within-a-store” executions as brands look to become a partner with retailers to mutually grow their businesses.

GOING: Social listening as a broad concept is on the decline. It can still be important for reading brand health, sentiment, and cultural momentum, but it has limitations.

We tend to use it in a supplemental manner.

SOCIAL MEDIA

CONTENT MARKETING

Kevin DeShazo Founder Fieldhouse Media (Provides social media education, monitoring, and strategy for collegiate athletic departments.)

COMING: We should see marketers have a targeted approach on the social platforms that matter most for their organization. Marketers fear missing out, so they jump to every platform in the news, and their content on other platforms suffers from spreading their resources too thin.

GOING: Marketers are realizing they can’t ignore their fans and simply push out terrible content, so if there’s a decline in anything, it’s in jumping on platforms without true goals.

Successful marketers are telling their stories, understanding their audiences, and sharing content that matters.

David Meerman Scott Content Marketing Expert/ Speaker/Author

COMING: I’ve become a big fan of SlideShare as a way to share valuable content, and I think this delivery channel will grow significantly in importance in 2015. As an example, I released a SlideShare and it generated 110,000 views in just one month.

GOING: It’s all about real time now. Get out of campaign mode and start engaging with the market in a real-time way.

Don’t talk about your company and its products. Create content that educates, entertains, and informs.

TAKE ACTION IN THESE 5 AREAS IN 2015 Though many believe marketing has advanced more in the last two years than in the last two decades, 2015 doesn’t figure to be a year of quantum leaps. Marketing leaders are now focused on maximizing the tools at their disposal— though not necessarily all of them—to be quicker to market and more informed. Researching your consumers, then narrowing down the platforms that will help you create meaningful conversations, is smart marketing. Here’s a look at the areas to stay on top of:

Data Combine it, simplify it, test it, and use it.

The tools now at your disposal make missing the target with your marketing nearly inexcusable. Truly knowing your audience through data allows you to deliver valued, relevant content, which leads to sales.

Quality Content, Not Quantity It’s not, “How much?” It’s, “How relevant?”

Video, in-depth blog posts, infographics— which medium do your consumers respond to, and what information do they want? Remember, it’s not always enough to inform without entertaining.

Microtargeting The old goal of finding a message that reaches the masses is passé. Knowing where your audience is—both literally and in the buying cycle—will allow you to optimize content to reach them.

A tip: Many will be on mobile devices.

Mobile See No. 3! A person’s mobile device is always attached to them and can tell you their location. Need more? Sixty percent of people open email for the first timeon their phone. You need to define how mobile marketing fits into your marketing plans.

Remember the Basics If vintage clothing can be cool, why not vintage marketing? Direct mail is back after being shoved aside by digital marketing. Why? The ability to integrate interactive content with state-of-the-art management and analytics has combined the two most powerful marketing platforms—print and digital.

INSIGHTS

Winter 2015

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OPINION » SAVVY SOCIAL MARKETER

WHAT’S ON MY MIND

»

5 WAYS

TO BUILD YOUR BRAND USING VINE You may be thinking that Vine— the smartphone app that lets users make, post, and share six-second looping video clips—is just for kids.

Nothing could be further from the truth. With 1 billion loops played every day, and a whole roster of stars such as Jerome Jarre (a twentysomething entrepreneur with more than seven million followers, whom Adweek recently called “the man who unlocked the secrets of mobile marketing”), Vine is a big deal— and a powerful branding tool.

Promote ownable hashtags

Revine other Vines

One part Instagram, one part

YouTube, and a splash of Twitter, Vines are great for engaging your audience and adding humor to a message. What’s more, they work well across all social media channels.

Here’s how to use them to build your brand: Demonstrate a case study With a little ingenuity, six seconds is long enough to demonstrate the three crucial components of a case study (“before,” “what we did,” “results”) in a highly memorable, visual way. Being able to demonstrate your service in six seconds or less also sends a powerful message about just how effective your brand is.

Like Twitter, Vines lend themselves well to hashtags— the trick is to come up with one that’s catchy and unique.

Charmin toilet tissue, for example, has had success with their #tweetfromtheseat hashtag and toilet-paper-based animations.

Encourage participation with contests Just about everyone with a smartphone can download the Vine app. Ask followers to create and post Vines showing themselves using, unboxing, or doing something funny with your product. Offer prizes for the best ones.

When Taylor Swift inadvertently included a can of Diet Coke in one of her Vines, Diet Coke “revined” it (like “retweeting”)—and ended up with more than 500,000 additional views. Who could ask for better (and free) product placement?

Three graphic designers reveal the challenges of designing for cross media platforms.

Keeping a consistent brand “The biggest challenge is making sure the client’s brand remains consistent. If people can’t instantly recognize the company, whether in print or online, then the entire project has a huge flaw. The tricky part is using the same visual elements over and over without letting the design grow stale.

One of my techniques includes creating patterns or textures to help identify the brand even when used with different colors or in different sizes. I also like to maintain the brand CHANTELLE fonts, only adding other accent fonts for visual variety within CATANIA headlines and callouts. You have to take care that you don’t Designer, GreenMellen Media have too many competing elements or the design becomes too busy and the messaging becomes lost.”

Staying on top of trends “Clients want to be first to show the world that they’re ahead of trends, so designers must be ready to keep up. For example, every time a new smartphone is introduced, a new set of design and production specs are also introduced. In order for me to stay ahead of the curve, I study, subscribe to industry publications, and take online classes when time permits. I’m also active in my advertising community, which allows me to connect with younger designers so that we can share ideas and techniques. I’m never afraid to ask questions, especially in regards to software. Graphic design is a social field, and everyone has a trick or shortcut to share.”

Adapting to new technology

Highlight your people Consumers increasingly gravitate toward brands staffed by people they think are smart, interesting, and “cool.” Vines are a great way to introduce your team members in just such a “cool” context.

Read Jerome Jarre’s Adweek article online at http://bit.ly/jeromejarre

BRITTANY FENNING Creative Director & Graphic Designer, Fenning Marketing Group

VANESSA PARNELL Graphic Designer, Creative Loafing Atlanta

“To be successful, designers must be able to adapt to the changing landscape of technology. Don’t be afraid of new software, new techniques, and new platforms. Try to pick up a coding language or two, and become familiar enough with the system that you can effectively communicate with the IT professionals who will be implementing your designs.

The designer who can bridge the worlds of visual design and information technology will be very formidable and very successful.”

Winter 2015

INSIGHTS

NEWS | REVIEWS | IDEAS | OPINION |

DIGITAL MARKETING »

7 Best Practices for Creating GREAT Infographics nfographics are a hugely popular method for companies to communicate their information. These can be used as advertisements, content marketing, press releases, how-to instructions, presentation handouts, brochures, posters, and much more. Hundreds of thousands of infographics are available online; however, most of them are poor designs that don’t produce the results the company had hoped for.

Here are seven best practices that you can learn from the most successful infographics:

1

TELL A STORY

Infographics can combine charts, data visualizations, images, illustrations, and text into a format that tells a complete story. They are stand-alone content pieces that should not only share data, but also help readers understand what the data means. A good infographic has an introduction as well as a main point, and finishes with a conclusion or call-to-action. You don’t want to just throw all the data you have into one design.

2

STAY FOCUSED

Infographics are supposed to be quick and easy for the audience to understand. Your infographic design should focus on one key message and tell that one story really well.

Only include the information that supports the key message to keep the design clean and straightforward. Too much data will just clutter the design and cause information overload.

3

MINIMIZE TEXT

Nobody wants to read a text article that has been converted into an image file and called an infographic.

Readers expect an infographic to be a visual design that makes information easier to understand than a text explanation. Too much text in an infographic design implies to the readers that the design doesn’t do a good job making the topic simple and easy to understand.

4 VISUALIZE DATA

Whenever you have statistics or data to include in your infographic, visualize that information with some type of chart, illustration, or diagram. One of the biggest mistakes designers make is to display numbers in text alone, usually in a large font size. Big fonts are not data visualizations! A data visualization puts your data into context for the audience, making it easier to understand. And, by making it visual, your readers are more likely to remember that information later.

Randy Krum is Founder and President of InfoNewt, an infographic design and data visualization company.

He launched the coolinfographics.com site and blog in 2007 and now receives more than 8,000 daily visitors and 500,000 monthly page views. Randy is the author of the book Cool Infographics: Effective Communication with Data Visualization and Design, released in 2013.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rtkrum

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rtkrum

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rtkrum

Google+: http://bit.ly/randykrum

INSIGHTS

Winter 2015

05

FIVE-MINUTE EXPERT »

A Mobile Manifesto Bryan Serkin is Warbler Digital’s manager of strategic sales and channel partners for North and South America. He believes personalization, improved geolocation technology, and multimedia messaging will lead the mobile revolution.

5

The mobile browsing experience has improved substantially, and improvements in the technology used to track mobile audiences have resulted in dramatically better targeting options.

INCLUDE DATA SOURCES

To be credible, an infographic should clearly and openly cite the source of data. Credibility plays a huge part in the success of an infographic, and readers won’t share an infographic if they think the information is vague or questionable. The data sources cited should always be the original source of the data, and you should avoid citing data quoted in news articles or Wikipedia.

6

INCLUDE THE LINK

As a company or designer publishing an infographic, you would like readers to visit your website. However, most people that share infographics in social media or blogs fail to include a link back to the original infographic landing page on your website. You can’t hunt them all down and persuade them to add a link back to your website, but you can include the URL of your infographic landing page so that it’s always part of the infographic that gets shared.

7

OPTIMIZE FOR SEO

The key to successfully using an infographic design for SEO is relevance. The title, topic, and words used all need to be related to the website publishing the infographic.

You want the infographic to appear in the search results when people are searching for your brand, products, or services—so it should incorporate the same keywords you are already optimizing for.

Get Inspired!

Register to win Randy Krum’s book Cool Infographics at hopkinsprinting.com/ cool-infographics

In light of this and Bryan’s comments below, consider that in 2013 the mobile market was worth nearly $217 billion to the U.S. economy.

It’s estimated that, in 2015, that amount will nearly double to more than $400 billion. Mobile marketing is no longer a question of if, but when.

Q: What do you hope people understand, or understand better, as they build their mobile strategies?

Q: What are the biggest changes mobile marketers will have to maneuver to get the most out of their plans?

Q: How do you see social media playing a role in the future of mobile marketing?

Bryan Serkin:

BS: Future mobile experiences

BS: Consider this: one in

I hope people take advantage of the technology available to better target individual consumers and/ or website visitors. Currently, more than 65 percent of total mobile ad spend is for searchbased ads—10 percent of this spend is directed at locationenabled ads, and it’s expected this will grow to more than 30 percent by 2017. That means location-based targeting and multimedia messaging should be on every marketer’s radar.

Mobile marketing: not if, but when.

will include GPS, click-to-call, mobile apps, gaming, and refined spending processes that blur the lines between online and in-store shopping. Even now, a brand’s value is determined as good or bad based on its ability to deliver value via a mobile app.

When you then consider the powerful ability to deliver timely messages in a consumer’s individual context, the personal nature of mobile engagement becomes a divinable force. It’s a very influential marketing tool —even if you don’t manage a shopping cart on your mobile site. Too many people rely on mobile technology for you to ignore your mobile presence.

THE TRUTH ABOUT MOBILE MARKETING Mobile ads perform four to five times better than online ads. (iMedia Connection) Marketers spent $4.4 billion on mobile advertising in the U.S. in 2012.

That figure doubled to $8.5 million in 2013; and that figure is projected to quadruple to $31.1 billion by 2017.

Search advertising accounts for about half of the total. (Heidi Cohen) Forget branded apps, though; 93% of consumers say branded apps don’t contribute to their brand loyalty. (iMedia Connection) “99% of apps only get used once.

Unless your app does something amazing that no one else’s does,

then the reality is that it will get downloaded, opened and forgotten about.”

(The Social Media Hat) On desktop searches, roughly one-third of clicks go to the top organic result.

Average CTR on mobile devices tends to skew even more towards the first position, as smaller screens offer fewer listings at any one time. (Brent Carnduff) Nearly half of consumers won’t return to a website if it doesn’t load properly on their mobile devices.

(The Social Media Hat)

five Facebook users access the site via phone only. One in four Americans uses a mobile device to access the Internet—probably to check one or more of their social sites.

Marketers need to humanize their content and tap into the more effective native advertising opportunities available via social media. Social is always going to live in the same house as mobile. n

06

Winter 2015

COVER STORY

INTERVIEW

RAND FISHKIN

SEO and CEO/Founder of Moz.com (Formerly SEOmoz.com)

Unlocking the Secrets of Search There’s no way around it. Search Engine

Page (SERP) placements, and that leads to

involved in SEO in 2002 when the industry was

Optimization (SEO) is complicated. The

more interested, qualified visitors to your site.

young, and he eventually founded Moz.com

practice ranges from using strategic words

It’s a balancing act of making a website easy

(formerly SEOmoz.com). Along the way, Rand

on a web page to creating reciprocal

to understand both by people and by search

spread the SEO gospel to groups around the world,

links with authoritative sites. It involves

engine robots. “SEO isn’t just about engines.

ranging from Google and Microsoft to NPR and

researching keywords that will generate

It’s about making your site better for people,

the United Nations. He also coauthored The Art of

traffic and using those keywords to make a

too,” says SEO leader Rand Fishkin.

SEO. Today, moz.com is one of the most respected

website search-engine friendly. When it all

players in the complicated, fluid business of SEO.

comes together, your optimized pages get

right-time, right-attitude tales destined to

Rand recently shared with us some of his ideas and

rewarded with good Search Engine Results

become digital marketing legend. He got

tips for managing the evolving challenge of SEO.

Rand’s story is one of those right-place,

Winter 2015

Q: Most marketers have some notion of SEO, but to start us off, what are the basics we should consider in our SEO practice?

Rand Fishkin: First, make your site accessible to

search engine crawlers, meaning build your website with a logical link structure and make each page reachable from at least one static link. For the human side of optimization, use the terms and phrases your audience uses when searching. Provide highquality content, especially on your homepage, to attract visitors and entice webmasters to link to you.

Install free tools like Google Analytics to track your performance and visibility in search, to measure against the competition, to find missed opportunities, and to identify tactics to close those gaps. Develop relationships online and offline, and if someone endorses you, make sure they actually link to your website, because links are still important for SEO and ranking. Remember, these natural links are the most beneficial for the indexing and ranking of your website.

Q: One of the beauties of SEO is that any business can practice it and be successful.

If your company had $100,000 to spend on SEO, what would you do? What if you just had $1,000 to spend?

RF: For $100,000, I would almost certainly

spend it on people. I’d employ one or two experienced SEO folks who could help me with the basics of the optimization process, as well as create content that resonates with my audience and influencers. This will help me earn links and awareness that will drive rankings, and those rankings will drive traffic for a long time.

If I had $1,000, I’m not sure I would spend it at all, at least not on SEO. I know that sounds weird, but I would most likely use it to learn SEO if I was doing most of the work but didn’t know the practice well.

I might buy or subscribe to one or two tools, and there are lots of good ones. It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

Q: SEO can impact searches for answers not just across the vast and infinite Internet, but also right in our own physical communities.

That makes it a powerful tool for local businesspeople. What can small and midsized businesses do to have favorable results in local search?

RF: A local algorithm is very different from a

Web algorithm, and it’s critical to understand those nuances. My best suggestion is to check out Moz Local, a tool created to make Google Local more transparent and understandable. It has a free tool to show sources such as Google Places, Bing Business Portal, Yelp, and Yahoo Local that serve your data to Google Maps. You see a list of which ones are correct and which ones don’t have your data listed. From there, you go to each of these sources and modify, improve, or fix your listings. Many small businesses don’t have those listings done correctly, and if they sort them out, it makes a world of difference in their local rankings and visibility.

Q: Keyword research has been essential to SEO from the beginning, and as SEO has evolved, so have keywords. It seems that, just when we think we’ve got it figured out, it changes.

What’s the big news with keywords today?

RF: For the first 15 years of Google’s business,

when they sent you a visitor, they’d tell you what that person had searched for when they found you.

That gave you a great way of measuring ROI on achieving visibility or ranking on keywords. Now that data is gone.

Now, when they send you a visitor, about 87 percent of Google referrals say, “Keyword not provided.” If you’re a massive site getting millions of visitors a month from Google, that’s fine. You can use that 13 percent and extrapolate what’s going on. If you’re getting 10,000 to 50,000 visits a month from search, that data sample won’t be very helpful.

SEO professionals have had to shift reporting and ROI measurement to the pages receiving traffic from search engines instead of the keywords driving the traffic. You won’t know exactly what drove people to those landing pages, but you can see how the pages performed, what content is paying

07

off, and where to invest more. It also means if you’re investing at all in SEO, you need some form of rank tracking. You can do this manually or use an automated tool set such as Moz, STAT, or Serps.com.

Another thing that’s important to know about keyword research is that, for the last decade, the AdWords keyword tool has been the go-to place for researching what keywords send you traffic.

That’s still the case, but AdWords is hiding more and more keyword data. Many keywords have a lot of traffic and opportunity that you can’t find through AdWords. That means you have to expand the way you do keyword research.

Here are two of my big recommendations for doing that. First, use Google Autocomplete. Start typing in your Google search bar, but don’t hit enter. As you type, Google Autocomplete shows a list of keywords and phrases that people who started to search that topic used. If you take those exact keywords and phrases and plug them into AdWords, it gives volumes of alternative keywords that would not otherwise have been displayed in your original AdWords suggestions. You can use a free tool, such as the one found at keywordtool.io, to automate that Autocomplete function. Keyword Tool automatically generates Google’s auto suggestions to help you discover many new long tail keywords related to your topic.

Q: Some of us might decide this is all just too much and start looking for some help.

When do you recommend using an SEO agency vs. an in-house team? How do I know if an outside SEO agency is qualified?

RF: If you believe your customer acquisition costs

and the ability to reach prospects and influencers is so powerful through search that it can’t be ignored, then I urge you to build that competence in-house.

Provide high-quality content, especially on your homepage, to attract visitors and entice webmasters to link to you.

08

Winter 2015

COVER STORY

That said, even if you gain competence, many still use an agency for specific tasks or to assist in scaling what the in-house person is doing.

On the other hand, maybe search is a onetime activity, or you don’t need that competitive advantage. If it’s just an experimental channel, then using an agency or consultant without building in-house expertise is okay. In that case, you need to ask great questions of those SEO agencies to figure out who’s good and who’s not. Unfortunately, there are bad actors in the SEO space. It’s partly Google’s fault, and they know it. Because they’re not transparent in how the engine works, it creates room for spammers, scammers, and manipulators. If Google were more transparent, that would be harder to pull off.

I would ask these questions before hiring a search consultant: How does a search engine rank web pages, and what elements are involved?

How does SEO fit into the marketing strategy

overall? What other channels would you suggest we invest in? How can the channels we currently use help with SEO?

A great SEO practitioner should give compelling, comprehensive answers. Never, “Oh, that’s our secret sauce. We don’t talk about that.”

If you hear that, run away. If someone says they’re going to do link building for you, that can be okay, but look at all those links and see why they linked to you. If those links aren’t editorial—meaning the website owner isn’t giving them to you because they know you, but because you paid them or did something for them, or because they were privately controlled by the SEO firm—run away!

RF: You don’t necessarily need a separate mobile

website, but consider building your website with a responsive or progressive design that performs well across all devices. That’s less about search and more about good user experience, which is more likely to earn amplification and customer engagement, and increases the website’s potential to perform well.

In terms of SEO specifically, responsive design is important, because you don’t want different URLs and pages each targeting mobile, tablet, and desktop.

When you create separate pages, you split your ranking potential. You can confuse the engines by creating what’s called “duplicate content.” If you have multiple URLs with the same content, it’s hard for an engine to figure

Q:

You can hardly read anything about marketing these days without coming across mobile marketing. What effect has mobile had on SEO? Does mobile content optimize differently?

RESOURCES TO JUMPSTART YOUR SEO Use these Randrecommended resources to improve your SEO knowledge and practice.

CONTENT MARKETING Moz http://moz.com/ A rich suite of tools to improve all aspects of SEO, including rankings, links, social, brand, traffic, and content, plus tons of educational resources.

BuzzSumo http://buzzsumo.com/ Analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor.

SEO TRAINING INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL REPORTING Raven Tools http://raventools.com/ Over thirty tools to manage and report on online campaigns COMPETITIVE LINK ACTIVITY Open Site Explorer http://moz.com/researchtools/ose) Analyze link activity and discover new link opportunities.

Majestic https://majestic.com/ The planet’s largest link index database helps SEO pros analyze link relationships in all sorts of ways.

“Whiteboard Friday”

http://moz.com/blog/category/whiteboard-friday

A new SEO topic each week, explained in terms anyone can understand.

KEYWORD RESEARCH FOR YOUR AUDIENCES AND COMPETITORS SEMrush http://www.semrush.com/ SERP data for more than 106 million keywords and 96 million domains.

Keyword Tool http://keywordtool.io/ A free tool that generates up to 750 suggestions for each keyword.

RANK TRACKING AND SEARCH ANALYTIC STAT http://getstat.com/ Unlimited SERP and keyword tracking from local to global.

Serps.com https://serps.com/ Test and monitor SEO experiments with real-time data and tracking.

ON-SITE VIDEO HOSTING Wistia http://wistia.com/ Professional video hosting on your site with analytics and marketing tools.

SEO NEWS AND KNOWLEDGE Search Engine Land and Expo http://searchengineland.com/ The latest trends and tips all in one place, plus the world’s largest search marketing conference.

Distilled https://www.distilled.net/ A multiservice SEO agency with free monthly training videos.

Winter 2015

out which one it should rank. A responsive design eliminates the need to have duplicate content, as it takes your existing web page and displays it seamlessly across all devices.

Another big change is that mobile has pushed Google into providing more instant answers. Mobile users have such a dependency on quick answers that Google is now biased to do this for all types of searches. If you search NFL scores or weather in your ZIP code, Google serves up one answer of its choosing above the rest of the results, and usually without any source citation. That removes a lot of traffic opportunities. My recommendation is be aware of when instant answers appear in search results, and make sure you’re not targeting your content and search efforts at places where Google gives an instant answer.

Focus your efforts where you’ll be a main source for information and not passed over by an instant answer.

Q: We’ve talked about how SEO has evolved.

Let’s wrap up by looking at how Rand Fishkin has evolved. You made a dramatic change at Moz when you stepped down as CEO so you could focus more on your passions.

What are those passions?

RF: My passions are around product and

marketing. I’m into making the world of marketing more transparent, and Google, too. Google says transparency is a core value, but they make their operations really opaque. My personal mission is to make Google more transparent.

Good SEO can do wonders. Bad SEO can tank you.

There are many horror stories of businesses that lost a huge portion of their customer acquisition funnel due to being penalized or banned by Google, because they unknowingly hired bad SEO consultants or their in-house SEO person did manipulative spam things. I want to improve the quality of the data, tools, and content we produce to help people learn and engage in valuable SEO and marketing practices to grow their opportunities. n

09

Optimizing Popular Content Types A well-rounded inbound marketing

Blogs

practical advice for improving

If your site domain is ABC.com, don’t post your blog at ABCblog.com. Google considers these two different sites, and all the valuable ranking signals and links coming to ABCblog. com won’t help ABC.com one bit. The ideal location for your blog would be ABC.com/blog.

SEO for popular content formats.

SlideShare

strategy includes a variety of content types. Here’s Rand’s

Video

Video has become a content marketing “must have.”

Make your video a “must see” with these tips: • Compelling title — Attract viewers with a compelling title while leveraging relevant, searchable keywords.

• Striking front image — Create a visual snapshot that compels people to click. When a video is shared on social sites, a strong image impacts how viral it goes.

• Transcript — Because search engines can crawl and index them, transcripts can improve a video’s SERP rankings. Whether you use a transcription service or do it yourself, include keywords and phrases that help search engines understand your video’s subject. A transcript doesn’t have to be visible on the website for SEO benefits. It can be hidden in plain sight, allowing viewers to click on the page to display it.

• Control of experience — If your priorities are branding and visibility, put your video on YouTube. However, to better control the viewer’s experience, put the video on your site using a video hosting service like Wistia.

By embedding video this way, the links, shares, and embeds all point back to you and increase your site’s search engine visibility, though you’ll sacrifice some YouTube traffic.

Embed your SlideShare content on your own website to drive up views and visibility. Also, embed links in your slides that point back to your site’s relevant pages or blog posts.

Link to other sites, too, and they’ll be more likely to share your SlideShare.

Social Platforms

Use social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter as channels that drive people to your site with the promise of something interesting. Include your business name in your posts; Google can associate the keywords you use to describe your company with your business’s name, further enhancing your domain authority in search engine results.

Press Releases

When publishing press releases, include an image or photo, and use your key phrase at the beginning of the image caption.

For interested readers, include the URL of your website’s most relevant page. Google penalizes press releases that contain exact-match, optimized anchor text links, considering them “unnatural links,” so avoid using them or make sure they are set to “nofollow.” Post your releases on your website and share through social media and email campaigns. Above all, only share interesting and useful news. By creating betteroptimized press releases with strategic execution, journalists who pick them up can link back to your site, where you control the experience and improve SEO.

10

Winter 2015

MARKETING TRENDS

THE NEW MARKETING FRONTIER Ardath Albee discusses why research should dictate your content marketing and what the future’s marketers will look like. By Tim Sweeney n running her firm, Marketing Interactions, Inc., e-marketing and content strategist Ardath Albee digests a wealth of research that says today’s marketing labor force isn’t keeping up with the light-speed changes taking place around them.

Understanding the consumer, being more reliant on research to determine messaging, and grooming talent with the skills to thrive in today’s marketing world are areas that need great improvement and have Albee’s attention. They ought to have yours, too.

She points to the traditional marketing campaign—created with a specific start and end date and designed to generate leads and sales over that period—as an example of an oft-used marketing tactic that doesn’t account for where people might

be in the buying process. “The company may send multiple emails linking to content over six weeks or a quarter, but if the buying cycle is six months, a year, or longer, you’ve missed the boat, unless you get extremely lucky,” Albee says. “Instead, marketers need to think about the continuum of the entire buying journey and how they can be most relevant at each stage.”

The beauty of the modern marketing landscape is that tools and data are available to inform you of your consumers’ behavior and measure how your marketing performs against the goals of the business. The problem is that not enough marketers are using it.

“I can’t tell you how many companies want positioning and messaging, but they’ll get to doing the buyer persona work later,”

Albee says. “How does this make sense?”

Clearly, it doesn’t. And all the wonderful content marketing in the world won’t mean a thing if you don’t understand your buyers. “It’s no longer good enough to rely on instinct or ‘gut’ to be effective at marketing,” Albee explains.

“Additionally, our buyers are in a constant state

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Winter 2015

of change. If we don’t do the work to really get to know them and what they care about, we’re just pushing messaging into the wind that won’t resonate. That won’t help marketers elevate their status within the company, or as a profession.”

She points to a SiriusDecisions study, which says at least 70 percent of marketing content goes unused, as a clear indication that improvement is needed. ”If you’re operating without getting to know your audience, there’s a high probability you’ll default to creating content that is solely product focused.

And that’s old school. Being an effective marketer has to do with taking the time and making the effort to do the work, research, and learning required to understand buyers—what they want, need, and care about,” Albee says.

For that reason, the prototypical marketer of the future will need a strong business acumen, along with the ability to deliver the creative goods—not an easy combination to find. For starters, many marketers are not writers. “They never had to be,” Albee says. “Now it’s a critical skill.” What’s more, marketers must be able to learn new technologies that allow for timely content production—technology that many companies don’t even have in place. Then there’s the data analysis aspect alluded to earlier.

Albee believes the critical attributes for a marketing hire are passion for the work and at least an affinity for writing that can be polished with some coaching. Curiosity and passion are also vital, considering the huge scope of tasks on

” If you’re operating without getting to know your audience, there’s a high probability you’ll default to creating content that is solely product focused. And that’s old school.”

11

Training Your Marketers

By Ardath Albee

1

TRAINING NEEDS TO BE FOCUSED. Marketers have extremely full plates. Make sure training is bite-sized so it can be taken and applied as part of the work employees are responsible for on the job.

2

PROCESSES AND FUNCTIONS CAN BE HARD TO CHANGE WHILE THEY ARE IN PLAY. For training to be effective, it must be approached as more of a change management process. I’ve seen wonderful projects crash and burn because they tried to do too much all at once and the company’s culture couldn’t make the adjustment.

3

Ironically, subscribing to the process of measuring twice and cutting once can help marketers sell executives on the value of doing the fun stuff. While it may seem as though the bean counters don’t comprehend the importance of content marketing, Albee says the responsibility falls on marketers to speak to executives about the performance of their programs as they relate to business objectives.

“Executives don’t care about clicks and opens; they care about revenues, market expansion, and reining in operational costs,” she explains. “When marketers can go to their executive team and point to data that shows quantifiable contribution to downstream revenues, for example, they’ll get their executives on board and earn the respect they need to influence strategic decisions at higher levels.”

EMAIL MARKETING

onlinemarketinginstitute.org

marketers’ plates—learning about their buyers, their customers, the value of their products, and what that means in real-world situations.

“Without those things, they will only reach a superficial level of understanding,” Albee says.

“Things change fast. The ability to adapt is an imperative. The rest of it can be taught.”

Developing new skills and mindsets in your marketing employees is not something to solve overnight, but the sooner it happens, the better off you’ll be. “It will take even longer if companies don’t start helping their marketers gain these skills,” Albee says. “And that can be costly in terms of competitive advantage, brand awareness, reputation, and many other things that are critical to company growth and success.” n

MOBILE MARKETING

eMarketingassociation.com

CONTENT MARKETING

contentmarketinginstitute.com

THERE’S GREAT VALUE IN “SIDE TRAINING” CERTIFICATION COURSES CURRENTLY OFFERED. The instructors are often practitioners working in the trenches, planning and executing marketing strategies while dealing with today’s real-world issues. This is learning informed by real-world programs. Keep the following in mind when you choose a course.

• Research the instructor before you sign up.

Their track record and the work they’ve done will impact what you take from the course.

• Make sure you’ll learn hands-on application, not just theory. Putting new knowledge to work is a must-have outcome.

•D igital certification courses are a great option because they can be updated, so the training can be kept current as things change.

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12

Winter 2015

CONTENT MARKETING

Creating A Great Brand Blog (And Getting It Read) The people behind two highly successful brand blogs give us the lowdown on how to deliver value, resonate with an engaged audience, and further your brand conversation. By Tim Sweeney

ompanies today are engaging consumers on a more personal level than ever before, inviting them inside their walls to hear from decision makers and get a glimpse of their culture.

Producing an informative and engaging blog is one of the most useful and cost-effective ways to have this extended conversation. What’s more, studies show that blogs are now one of the most highly sought-out sources by consumers prior to making a purchase.

PlayStation and Stone Brewing Co. shared with us how they do it so well.

Specialist Brandon Hernandez writes many of the posts and insists that the blog has never been thought of or written specifically as a marketing tool.

TARGET YOUR CORE AUDIENCE

Though a blog’s low price tag may be an appealing aspect to the budget keepers, the brands that blog best are less concerned with ROI and more interested in creating a platform from which to tell stories and engage in regular discussion with their most passionate followers. Readers of The Stone Blog (blog.stonebrew.com), the blog for Escondido, California-based Stone Brewing Co., crave details on everything Stone does with regard to creating craft beers. Senior Communications

“Tactics aren’t really what we’re about.

We write our blogs from the heart and talk about things that are important to us,” he says.

“The blog provides us the ability to go into great detail about our beers, which helps those interested in them learn more than 140-character tweets and social media posts can convey.”

Likewise, when Sony PlayStation launched PlayStation.Blog (blog.us.playstation.com) in 2007, the goal was to create a more direct, two-way conversation with PlayStation owners.

“PlayStation.Blog was inspired by a desire to democratize communication and increase transparency with our audience,” says Sid Shuman, Senior Manager of Digital Communications at PlayStation.

“The blog gave readers and media outlets an opportunity to get gaming information from the people who were making it happen.” Topics range from new products to announcements surrounding the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

The blog also lets PlayStation’s authority figures interact with readers in real time, answering questions and garnering feedback via the comments section.

Although great content always helps with search results, both Shuman and Hernandez insist that increased sales is not a motivating factor. Shuman says SEO benefits are a bonus, but the most gratifying results of the blog come when gamers and media find value in the content posted on the blog and then share it. He points to PlayStation’s Ultimate PS4 FAQ Page, which took their team a month to assemble. The page

Winter 2015

shares everything from system specs of PS4 to the launch game lineup, and the response was enormous from the moment the page went live.

“Gamers were hungry for every bit of info they could get regarding the launch of PS4,” Shuman says of Sony’s newest video game console, launched in November of 2013. “And we saw plenty of feedback, too, which helps us understand and better represent the collective will of our audience.”

13

“ We can start a dialog that helps to further our aspirations where our company’s ethos is concerned and help the world learn about and appreciate craft beer and the craft beer movement.”

Brandon Hernandez Senior Communications Specialist Stone Brewing Co. Escondido, CA

FIND YOUR VOICE(S) AND DELIVER VALUE

Whether you choose to incorporate humor into your blog or just the facts, what draws readers to most brand blogs is perceived value in the information being shared and an authoritative voice to provide it. That’s why most of the posts on PlayStation. Blog are done by members of their Worldwide Studios team, executives, popular independent game developers and third-party publishers. “Engagement and personality are great and always encouraged, but first and foremost we must always bring the facts,” Shuman says.

At The Stone Blog, members of the greater Stone team have recently been invited to contribute their own unique stories. In one case, the winners of an in-house brewing contest were invited to blog about their whirlwind tour across America as they

BLOGGING TIPS FOR GETTING STARTED 1

KNOW YOUR PEOPLE. If you aren’t writing to a specific audience that seeks your content, they aren’t likely to come back.

Remember the purpose: engaging with your most passionate brand supporters repeatedly and furthering that conversation.

2

DON’T EXPECT TO BE FOUND. While it is crucial that your blog is optimized for search engines, not everyone will be searching for your content. Use email communications, social media channels, media members, brand ambassadors, and your website to promote your posts.

3

CHOOSE A MANAGEABLE BLOGGING PLATFORM. WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr are just a few of the platforms available; some are even free.

WordPress’s free platform has been downloaded nearly 50 million times.

At least a few of those people are less tech savvy than you.

4

USE WRITERS WITH KNOWLEDGE AND PERSONALITY. Content providers who are passionate and knowledgeable about the subject matter add value. Employees, CEOs and customers all have stories that can create dialogue among your followers.

5

CONTENT IS EVERYWHERE. Brands often fail to recognize that what might be old news internally —how you create products, company values and employee profiles— is interesting to outsiders. Ask the audience what they want to know.

14

Winter 2015

CONTENT MARKETING

unveiled their winning brew to the masses. It was as much an entertaining story of two guys barhopping from city to city sharing beers with fans as it was a promotional tool for their beer.

“There are no specific instructions on language, as such guidelines only serve to suck the authenticity out of any written piece,” Hernandez says. “All we ask is that writers remain consistent to Stone’s core beliefs and accurately convey any historic items from Stone’s 18-year lineage.”

Given that each writer was initially hired because they fit well with Stone’s values, maintaining a consistent voice has never been a problem, he says.

“ Gamers were hungry for every bit of info they could get regarding the launch of PS4. We saw plenty of feedback, too, which helps us understand and better represent the collective will of our audience.”

Sid Shuman Sr. Manager of Digital Communications PlayStation

Like at Stone, the in-house editorial team at PlayStation is small but passionate about their chosen subject matter. All have extensive gaming media backgrounds and are capable of responding to blog followers. A read through the comments section on PlayStation.Blog reveals countless posts by Shuman in reply to readers’ questions, and he admits to a love for amassing in-depth information in the form

of news bulletins, large-scale FAQs or hands-on previews for new games. “We must always be certain that PlayStation fans have access to the deepest and most detailed information possible,” he says.

FOCUS ON TOPICS THAT APPEAL

If the goal of your blog is to build a rapport with the consumers who are most passionate about your products or chosen field of business, don’t worry about appealing to those who are not.

Stone’s blog is a source for people looking to dig deeper into what Stone does: craft exceptional beers. Hernandez says the number of fans who recite the brand’s philosophies back to them shows that craft beer lovers are paying attention and spreading the word.

“Generating consumer engagement for the sake of consumer engagement isn’t really our thing,” he says. “In the best cases, we can start a dialog that helps to further our aspirations where our company’s ethos is concerned and help the world learn about and appreciate craft beer and the craft beer movement.”

At PlayStation.Blog there is an element of “breaking news” to what Shuman and the team produce. Readers look for the latest information directly from the horse’s mouth.

That could be Shuman himself, the President and CEO, or the next star indie game developer.

The benefit to PlayStation is clear communication with gamers. To facilitate idea exchange, they’ve even built a massive “idea database” where consumers can share their thoughts on how to improve products, vote on other people’s ideas and opine on how PlayStation can bring ideas to fruition.

“We have a legendarily engaged readership and we love hearing their thoughts,” Shuman says. “We put great internal value on blog post user ratings and comment feedback.”

Winter 2015

15

The key is that your audience immerses itself in your content. The sale of a case of beer or a video game may not be traced directly to a blog post, but that’s not the measuring stick; information sharing is.

PUBLICIZING YOUR BLOG

Of course, the advice above means nothing if the right people don’t see your blog. At companies with great culture, employees can be your greatest disciples simply by posting blog entries on their own social networks.

Developing allies in the media who cover your industry and have large social followings can also quickly lead to increased traffic. Stone points fans to their blog from pages on the company website that are devoted to particular beers, helping fans “understand the origins of the beer and the heart behind them, which is extremely important to us,” Hernandez says.

Stone has also experimented with publishing new entries at various times of the day when people are likely to be viewing their social media feeds, even weekends.

PlayStation.Blog, meanwhile, fancies itself a bit of a news-breaking machine in the gaming industry and is therefore most active in the morning. Still, there are no shortcuts to growth. “Outside of promotion on Twitter and Facebook, we don’t use evangelist networks or the like to spread blog news,” Shuman says.

“We’re only as good as our content!” Blogging on a frequent basis helps, too. PlayStation, for instance, posts multiple entries per day on a variety of topics that their followers eagerly dive into.

That, in the end, is the key—that your audience immerses itself in your content.

The sale of a case of beer or a video game may not be traced directly to a blog post, but that’s not the measuring stick; information sharing is. “We’re not looking to entertain, push beer sales through the roof, or build an image,” Hernandez says of Stone’s blogging efforts. “We’re just making sure fans of quality beer know what we provide, telling people who we are—often without even hoping they’ll ‘like’ us.” n

4 MORE BLOGS TO LEARN FROM Building brand loyalty with valuable content that appeals to their core audience—here are four more blogs that do it all.

THE 1. PATAGONIA’S CLEANEST LINE thecleanestline.com

The Cleanest Line is written by Patagonia employees, friends, ambassador athletes, and customers. Multiple authors keep the subject matter and story angles diverse: environmental issues, surf trips, and podcasts all get a turn. The goal is to encourage dialogue about Patagonia products, outdoor adventure, and environmental issues the company is passionate about. Reader feedback is encouraged.

ON THE MOVE 2. MARRIOTT blogs.marriott.com Bill Marriot, Chairman of Marriott International, builds trust in the brand by sharing company values, PR-type stories, and the personal tales of Marriott employees worldwide. The fact that the 82-year-old Mr. Marriott, a self-described technophobe who handwrites or dictates his posts, recognizes

3.

WHOLE STORY wholefoodsmarket.com/ blog/whole-story

the blog as “a great way to communicate with customers and stakeholders” ought to be a lesson to others.

The Official Whole Foods Market Blog is a logical brand extension for the natural and organic grocer. Topics range from light (ice cream) to more serious

DAILY PFENNIG 4. THE dailypfennig.com This FX trading blog is written by a collection of writers who’ve “lived, loved, and breathed world currencies and economic happenings for over a couple decades.” Mesmerizing stuff,

(mercury levels in fish) and posts are

right? Actually, it is, thanks to catchy titles and

frequent, often daily. Readers have access

informative posts that clearly tell you what you’ll

to recipes, videos, and coupons. Whole

be reading about, then give it to you in

Foods employees, certified nutritionists

an entertaining and conversational way.

and cooks provide visitors with a wealth of content to come back for.

16

Winter 2015

DIRECT MARKETING

BE REMARKABLE: VARIABLE DATA PRINTING OFFERS THE MEANS TO STAND OUT

A well-done mailer tailored to speak directly to the receiver looks exclusive and can feel to the recipient like they just received a treasured object literally created just for them. And it is being delivered to a captive, relaxed audience.

With today’s modern technology, the cost of variable printing is very low.

Done correctly, variable printing direct mail programs can be a very effective part of a marketing campaign. How then, you might ask, is it done correctly?

Consider the three T’s. ike so many effective tactics that stand the test of time, variable data printing is still around because it works. It taps into a timetested persuasion tactic: a laser focus on the individual consumer’s pain point in any given selling situation.

Targeted The content of a variable data printing program is—by definition—varied by the recipient, so, of course, each one is targeted. But is the piece aimed at each individual correctly to garner a result?

More specifically, does it have a message and call to action specific to that recipient?

mail is more effective than most digital channels.

Taking that a step further, Carlson and Company compared variable printing marketing methods to those studied in the DMA report. They found that when campaigns were personalized the results could improve by upwards of 16 percent.

And the more specific the information presented about the customer, the more dramatic the results.

Timely Timing is just as important as targeting, in terms of defining context for the consumer. It is important to consider your call to action and provide enough time to actually complete it. If, for example, you are asking people to

Having a mailer show up on Saturday morning isn’t going to do much good, even if it is personalized.

To the Point Have you stopped reading yet?

Great! Statistically speaking, more than half of readers dropped off after the first 300 words. As humans, we are wired to process information and keep moving.

Variable data printing captures the attention of the receiver by speaking to them specifically.

That buys a little more time to get the point across. Get to your “ask” as soon as possible. And, if at all possible, integrate the Internet or social channels into your next steps.

The same USPS study that showed 67 percent of us liked getting mail

Targeting your direct mail can tap into the immediacy of a buying decision.

Because digital marketing has become so ubiquitous, variable printing is now the golden goose and is experiencing a bit of a resurgence. The United States Postal Service says 67 percent of its patrons feel mail is more personal than the Internet—and that 48 percent of us read our mail to relax!

A good variable data print campaign relies on precise data. A great variable data campaign gets a recipient to respond right now. Direct mail in and of itself has a response rate close to 3 percent, according to the most recent Direct Marketing Association survey, which found that in many cases direct

visit a mattress showroom on the weekend at the end of the month, you want to make sure they receive your mailing the week prior to the sale weekend so they can make advance plans as well as consider their budget for a large home goods purchase.

also showed 33 percent went online to purchase following the receipt of an effective campaign.

Driving people online is also an effective way to find out more about them—information which can then be used to continue targeting them in the future.

VARIABLE DATA IN ACTION: VISUALIZING SUCCESS It’s no surprise that in today’s world, where everyone has a phone in their hand or a tablet in their lap, the absence of available information can make or break the success of a business— especially if a business is just opening or moving to a new location.

Consider this: A study done by Google and Neilson, a leading global information and measurement company, found that close to 20 percent of searches about businesses were done on the go. Seventy-seven

percent were done at home—and when the searchers decided to act, 55 percent did so within an hour.

Targeting your direct mail can tap into the immediacy of a buying decision. A good example is McNellie’s restaurant in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They created a campaign that included personalized maps from each home to McNellie’s so recipients could easily visualize themselves visiting the restaurant. Additionally, to make it easier to act quickly, they added a $10 coupon with an expiration date.

The campaign was sent to approximately 2,500 people, and nearly 600 coupons were redeemed.

In other situations, social and website channels could be used to continue to market to those customers

who took advantage of the special offer.

Online channels offer outstanding opportunities to clean up information lists, engage audiences with additional offers and coupons, and entice new audience members to become part of your circle of influence.

Moreover, aside from the time and potential staff expense, online engagement is less expensive. So when you do invest in your next mailing campaign, it is more effective as a targeting tool.

McNellie’s direct mail campaign included personalized maps.

CALENDAR SHOWCASE Each quarter, Hopkins Printing produces and distributes a quarterly calendar and notepad that have been designed for Hopkins Printing by one of our talented design clients. We are pleased to showcase the design by OLOGIE, for our 2015 Q1 calendar project.

Want to receive the Hopkins Quarterly Calendar?

Contact your Hopkins Printing Account Executive today or visit www.hopkinsprinting.com/ index.php/optimize/ to place your request.

1-800-319-3352

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93% of online experiences begin with a Search

Engine. The top listing in Google’s organic search results receives 33% of the traffic.

50% of all mobile searches are conducted in hopes of finding local results, and 61% of those Commercial Sheet-fed Printing Wide Format Printing Digital and Variable Data Printing Pre-Press and Production Services Bindery Mailing and Shipping Email Marketing Web 2 Print

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27% of total U.S. internet time is spent on social networking sites.

59% of consumers

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YouTube has

become the 2nd Largest Search Engine – bigger than Bing, Yahoo, Ask & AOL combined.

Companies that generate more than

In a sea of direct mail received daily.

Variable Data

will help you stand out.

Direct Mail: 73% of U.S. consumers said they prefer direct mail for brand communications because they can read the information at their convenience.

1,000 Facebook Likes also receive nearly 1,400 website visits a day.