Internet marketing Magazine April 2012 by Internet Marketing Magazine

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The Key to Online Success

APRIL 2012

page 17

› AUTOMATING A PRODUCT-BASED BUSINESS PAGE 14

› EASY ONSITE SEO PAGE 19

› 7 MARKETING LESSONS FROM AD:TECH PAGE23

› RAISING VENTURE CAPITAL

DOUBLING YOUR SALES ONLINE IN 2012 AN INTERVIEW WITH:

ARMAND MORIN

PAGE 27

› LISTEN AND EARN PAGE 32

›› THE ORIGINAL AND BEST INTERNET MARKETING MAGAZINE internet marketing magazine

DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE IPAD, IPHONE, ANDROID AND THE WEB

april 2012

› INTERNET UPDATE

The STATE OF THE INTERNET

Day in the Life of a Kiva Robot

The Rise of the Robots Amazon.com is buying an army of robots. The online retailer announced on Monday that it is acquiring Kiva Systems, a maker of robots that service warehouses, for $775 million in cash. Amazon, a customer of Kiva’s, is buying the robotics company as it builds out its vast network of warehouses and tries to improve its margins.

omous mobile robots and sophisticated control software, the Kiva Mobile-robotic Fulfillment System enables extremely fast cycle times with reduced labor requirements, from receiving to picking to shipping. The result is a building that is quick and low-cost to set up, inexpensive to operate and easy to change anywhere in the world.”

You can check out Kiva’s smart robots in action in the ‘Day in the Life of a Kiva Robot’ video above Kiva advise how their system from the Wired Business Conferworks: “Using hundreds of auton- ence in 2011.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

Kiva ranks as Amazon’s secondlargest acquisition, behind its $847 million takeover of the shoe and accessories retailer Zappos. com in 2009. The iPad 3 That’s Not an iPad 3 You would have to have been hiding under a rock in a cave to have not noticed in the last month Apples launch of the iPad 3. The only thing is that it’s not called the iPad 3 as most of the population calls it. Apple refers to the device as the ‘Resolutionary New iPad’.

The American eCommerce Dominance in Europe

the most influential local ranking factors in improving business’s rankings in Google Places.

Internet Retailer’s just-published Top 400 Europe, which ranks, Some Key learnings from their profiles and quantifies Europe’s study: 400 largest e-commerce opera• Not having any Google retions, shows that e-retailing in views or having an average reApple CEO Tim Cook introduces the new Europe is booming, which is cerview score of one hurt rankings iPad. Photograph: Robert Galbraith / REUTERS tainly different from much of the • The presence of a busiEuropean mainstream economy. ness description alone did not THE world’s best-selling tablet help ranking, but having the computer received a major over- Here’s some interesting finding’s search category in the busihaul, becoming the first Apple from the guide: ness description did help. product to connect to next-gen• American e-retailers in Eu• Getting your fifth Google eration 4G mobile networks and rope are growing faster than review significantly helped gaining a high-definition screen, European e-retailers. In fact, ranking, although incremental more graphical grunt, voice dicmuch of the total e-commerce reviews between one and four tation and a significantly better market growth in Europe is and above five had a very small camera for the same price as the driven by American e-retailers, impact on ranking. You have to old model. led by Amazon.com, which is get 100+ reviews to again have the largest e-retailer in Europe a significant impact on ranking. It is rumoured that the iPad 3 by far. • Having the search city launch had a wider purpose than • The total e-commerce in “at a glance” was associintroducing an upgraded tablet. It market in Europe is larger and ated with a 1.42 improvement was Apple’s most coherent effort growing faster than the U.S. ein rank. For example “Seattle” yet to bind its family of screens commerce market. when searching for “Seattle closer together, in a way that pre• Web-only merchants pizza.” pares the ground for the world’s (those without stores or cata• Having photos (at least 1) largest technology company to logs), often called ‘pure plays’ was associated with a 0.25 imdisrupt the world’s most important are growing faster than any provement in rank. entertainment medium – broadother type of online merchant casting. in Europe with growth of 26% last year, compared to just 12% Google Takes Aim at OverTim Cook introduced his concept for retail chains. SEO’d Websites of the “post PC era”. With growing • The fastest-growing mernumbers of tablet computers and chandising category in Europe- Google’s head of search spam, smartphones, the humble deskan e-commerce was sporting Matt Cutts, announced as a side top computer is no longer the goods, which grew year over note during his panel at SXSW in centre of our digital world. All our year about 30.2% to $1.05 bil- March that Google is releasing an screens have become computlion from $806.5 billion. algorithm update specifically to ers, and that revolution is coming target sites over doing their SEO. to the television set. Top Local Ranking Factors “We are trying to level the playing Google is set to release a ‘Nexus Study field a bit. All those people doing, tablet’ to compete with the iPad 3 or lack of a better word, over opand the Kindle Fire, so keep an The team at Bizible.com recently timization or overly SEO - versus eye out for that one very soon. did extensive research to discov- those making great content and er, through statistical analysis, great site. We are trying to make

internet marketing magazine april 2012

GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now.”

Adwords Express is only available in a limited set of countries at this time.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the SEO industry over the months to come.

YouTube has altered its suggested videos algorithm to favor videos that are watched for the longest periods of time.

Google Rolls Out Adwords Express

Previously, suggested videos — which appear as related videos on watch pages, or recommended videos elsewhere on youtube.com, were served up based on the number of people who clicked on those videos. Now, YouTube videos that trigger the longest viewing times will be prioritized.

Google Adwords Express is the next step in a natural progression by Google to try to simplify AdWords for smaller advertisers who don’t want to spend time managing an Adwords Campaign. The general idea is that you set up an incredibly simple campaign that includes nothing but: • Your category • Your ad headline • Your ad description • Where to send people (send them to your site preferably or your Google Places page) • A maximum monthly budget

YouTube ‘Suggested Videos’ Now Favor Longest-Watched

From the Desk of the Editor We had a good turn-up to the Bret Thomson ‘Video Sales Letter Mastery’ webinar in March. The recording of it is now available in the members area in the ‘Webinar Training’ section. You will now find the new full Armand Morin ‘Double Your Business in 2012’ Interview audio in the ‘Audio Expert Interview’ section of the member’s area. The audio interview covers a truckload more content than what is printed in the magazine. It’s free, so if you haven’t been sent your link to the member’s area please feel free to register for it today at http:// internetmarketingmag.net/become-member/ Until next time… Wishing you the best of success online

The Adwords Express Ad Setup Process

Our take on testing it is that it is great for the small business owner who wants to appear on Google but doesn’t have the skills or motivation to go about creating a proper Google Adwords Campaign. It’s not really designed for the sophisticated marketer who wants to be able to control all aspects of the campaign.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

GregCassar Greg Cassar Internet Marketing Strategist & Editor – Internet Marketing Magazine

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internet marketing magazine april 2012

› EXPERT INTERVIEW

DOUBLING YOUR SALES ONLINE IN 2012

an Interview with Armand Morin An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar

Armand Morin is a self-made multi-millionaire author and best-selling recording artist. He is one of the most well known Internet Marketers in the world today. Having started online in 1996, his personal businesses alone have generated over $80 million in revenue. Armand is known for revealing his latest epiphanies, his wildly successful no-nonsense strategies, and his proven marketing models. think about doubling your sales, they think the easiest way is to double your traffic. And while that can work, certainly it’s one of the higher cost ways of going about it because the cost of traffic is growing exponentially. What are your thoughts on that? Armand: Like you said, there are two ways of doing it. With traffic itself, I think there’s alternative forms of traffic that ArmandMorin.com people can utilise and in some ways I think some of Greg: We met about two years ago when you were the traffic methods that they’ve been utilising in the in Australia doing the Armand Morin Live and we past have, I wouldn’t say outdated themselves, but had a good chat over coffee about all things traffic the companies that they’re using have really made and conversion, so hopefully we can do some more it difficult. Probably the primary example of that being Google. of that today. Armand: Yes, absolutely. There’s a lot of things changing in 2012 and I think a lot of things that people have done in the past just simply isn’t really cutting it anymore. Greg: If we talk about ‘doubling your sales online in 2012’. I know that most people, when you

internet marketing magazine april 2012

Google has done everything in their power to make sure people don’t use them for advertising and so now you see more and more people leaning towards Facebook – they’re on track to hit a billion users shortly. Alternatively there are different types of Ad networks available now for advertising your products for achieving more reach.

But either way, driving more traffic can certainly be expensive; it’s also worth it. But the one thing, that many people aren’t really focusing in on, which is really the fastest way to increase your income, is to work on the conversion of what you currently have and often that is the first step that people neglect, so therefore the majority of their traffic is actually wasted. Greg: So you’re saying get that conversion piece right and then worry about ramping up the traffic?

page has a really big job in front of it because it is talking to everybody and trying to convert them. Where as if you speak directly to the end user, such as, for example, post pregnant women, you know, they just had a child. They typically have gained some weight during their pregnancy and now they want to lose that weight.

Well, if we created a landing page that targeted specifically post pregnancy women, so we can create a Armand: Yes, if you don’t know what your conver- headline that would appeal directly to them, we can sions are, it’s instantly going to make your traffic much use optimised keywords for that or better search enmore expensive because it’s going to take more visi- gine rankings, and also at the same time the end user tors in order to convert into a sale. If we can reduce is feeling that we’re having a conversation not at them, the number of visitors necessary, then we don’t need but to them. And so they feel that we’re talking to to drive as much traffic to reach the same amount of them and, as a result, they’re going to be more likely income. So the first thing anyone should really do is to do what we need to do, meaning either capture their really focus in on their actual website and the conver- name and email address possibly, or go directly for sions and what they are really trying to achieve out of the sale. their traffic. So if I see a page and if I’m a woman that’s looking to Greg: Where they send their traffic is impor- lose post pregnancy weight, I’m going to see a page tant, too. A lot of people just send the traffic to maybe instead of an image of a woman in a bikini the homepage of their website, which when opti- which has really nothing to do with me. I might see a mised well can work. However sending traffic (non picture of a woman that has just had a baby and that Google traffic) to specific landing pages, so you page is going to have sales copy to the extent of “I can do landing page design can be more effective just had a baby 6 months ago and now have lost 31 because then you can do all the split testing. pounds”. It’s talking about people that have just had a baby and this diet product appears it’s targeted for Armand: It’s really interesting. I’m glad that you men- people that have just had a baby. tioned that because one of the things and one of the ideas that I’ve been really a heavy proponent of is the Greg: Yes, ‘just like me’ type of thing, so they can asfact that it actually happened to be when I was in Aus- sociate with it. tralia, oddly enough, the last time we met really. I was sitting in my hotel room there and I was like, “Why am I trying to force this one page to try to appeal to everybody?” And at that point in time it kind of hit me - why not make a bunch of landing pages to appeal to different demographics, different types of people, different reasons why. Let me give you an example of that. Let’s say you’re promoting a weight loss product. If you have a weight loss product, there’s obviously different types of people that would want to buy that weight loss product. But what typically people would do, and most people still do this very day, is they have one single landing page and they drive all the traffic to that and try to capture everybody. So that one landing

internet marketing magazine april 2012

Armand: Exactly, they can associate very quick. Now what also happens is that as a result of that our conversions increase dramatically. We’re talking double, triple, and quadruple in many cases because we’re simply targeting it better. But in a diet scenario we’re talking about the same exact product. We could have one landing page pair that’s focused on men with what we call here in the US beer bellies. You can target different demographics, different types of people, and speak directly to them. So instead of having one landing page, you might typically have 50, towards 100 landing pages, depending on the different types of people. Now, that also helps you in another area, the advertising. Before with you’re advertising you could really only advertise one landing page, so you were really limited on the keywords that you would use. You were also limited as far as how much traffic you could drive because you can only speak about really one topic.

Greg: That’s very clever. And I guess how we were talking about display traffic, which is banner ads, you could figure out exactly where post pregnant women hung out online or do Facebook ads, directly to that profile of people who are women who have just had babies. Armand: Exactly. So you’ll be able to target that advertising really, really well and in many cases also decrease the cost of your advertising because we’re targeting a smaller niche market.

But now it’s like having now 50 websites, even though they may not be separate websites. So now you’re running 50 campaigns and your traffic just increased essentially 50 times over and your conversions have increased.

Greg: Your ad will get a better clickthrough rate as well with your Facebook’s, etc, because it’s going to be more relevant to the market. As we know in those sorts of situations where you’re getting a better clickthrough rate, your cost of your traffic is going to come down because they want to reward relevant advertisers.

Effectively you’re making a lot more money because you’re getting more traffic and you’re making a lot more money because you’re increasing your conversions, and you did both at the same time

Armand: I think most of the time when we’re talking about traffic and we’re talking about conversion, what happens is people have different views of each where traffic is exciting and traffic is something you can brag about. But

internet marketing magazine april 2012

conversions, no one sits around and says, “Hey, I have an 8% conversion rate.” But that is exciting to me. What most people don’t understand about traffic is traffic is not about the amount of visitors that you send. Traffic is 100% about conversion, that’s it. I can show people a couple of different techniques and you can get a bunch of traffic, but it’s not going to do you any good, especially if it’s not targeted traffic for what you have.

ence here?

Greg: With Facebook traffic, obviously from a conversion point of view you can send it two ways: off to a Facebook landing page, as well as off to a traditional web landing page. I know there are a lot of people that prefer to send it to a Facebook landing page. Do you have a prefer-

Armand: We do both. In certain cases it’s appropriate for us to send it to a web landing page of some sort, maybe on an email opt-in or something of that nature. In some cases that works well. In other cases, we send them directly onto a Facebook landing page. There are a lot of reasons for keeping people on Facebook. Number one, it’s less expensive. There’s been a study not too long ago that proved your advertising costs would be 46% less expensive if you keep people on Facebook landing pages on average.

But what this game is all about is it’s about conversion into an actual sale or depending on what you’re going for, it may be an opt-in. What we found out is that if you’re going to sell something then the rule that we follow is you send them off of Facebook. You send them to your landing page. If you are trying to build likes or perhaps if you’re trying to build an opt-in list, as an example, then keep them on Facebook because it’s not going to really matter that much at that point. Greg: We’re driving them off Facebook or any traffic source to landing pages. We generally start with A/B split using Google Website Optimizer in a round robin and over time Website Optimizer will figure out which page the winner is. We generally do a series of those and then once we’ve got it down to a fine art we then look at things like multivariate where it rotates in and out headlines and calls to action, that sort of stuff. Do you take a similar sort of approach when you’re optimizing landing pages?

to test a maximum of three things at the same time.

conversions are going up, up and up and then all of a sudden take a downturn when they were all comBut the fact is that in the end you’re bined on one particular page and so coming out with more a true form of it is that same type of effect that you what is working and what is not. will find out with multivariate split testing. Greg: I was at Google on Friday last week, the other thing they were Greg: It’s interesting, with split testtalking about on multivariate was it’s ing we can think we know what the actually how the things interact with answer will be but it doesn’t always each other. Because say, for exam- work out that way. I’ve got a couple ple, it’s rotating out two headlines hundred split tests under my belt two images and two calls to action. now and so generally I think I know The ultimate best converting ver- what’s going to work but the market, sion of the page ends up being this the customers are ultimately right headline, this image and that call to and they definitely do surprise us. I action - that sort of thing. You can’t did a split test in the last week with necessarily see that result with A/B adding benefit-ridden bullets besplit tests. side a webform that I thought was definitely going to make a difference and it worked worse than having no benefits there at all. I was thinking ‘how is that?’ But that was the result we got.

Armand: So when it comes to conversion, we need to test each one of the different elements, but we also need to look at the very minor details as far as the words, the placement, Google Website Optimizer Split Tests the layout, and there’s so many factors to consider and Armand: That’s absolutely correct. that’s why we actually have to test Armand: Yes, we take almost the I have done tests in the past where these things. Because to one indiexact same approach. We do the I’ve found what allegedly is the best vidual it may look okay, but when split test; kind of get an overall idea headline and I found allegedly what we start looking at masses coming as far as what’s converting. We’ll is the best, let’s say, image and I there and they don’t have the knowlget it to what we would consider a found allegedly what is the best call edge or the background behind that reasonable conversion rate and to action. And individually those landing page, all of a sudden they then what we do is, we then can do were the best of those three ele- get a different feeling. And, let’s a multivariate split test on it and we ments, but combined together my face it - people go by feelings when can test multiple things. Maybe it’s overall conversion rate wasn’t as they’re making a decision, especiala headline, a button and an image, good as maybe when I started. ly in most cases a rash or an instant whatever it may be, but typically on type of decision in order to buy a a multivariate test we’re only going I’ve seen cases like that where my product or a service.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

“

So now you’re making a lot more money because you’re getting more traffic and you’re making a lot more money because you’re increasing your conversions, and you did both at the same time.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

“

Armand Morin

Greg: One thing I wanted to ask you about that’s been a major learning for us in the last year or two is really looking at things like form design. We’ve seen that by maximising form design sometimes you can double a business just by fixing their main call to action form. Here we are talking about getting more people to click on the call to action to get them over to the main form that’s on the side and the second one of just reducing the number of fields or changing it so that it’s got a much more logical flow and it’s trustworthy. Have you had similar experience with form design and the amount of difference it can make to a business? Armand: Absolutely. I look at all kinds of studies every single day regarding everything about a website, but form design is one of those things that people don’t really realise how much it’s impacting their sales. As an example, two-column form designs actually have a higher abandonment rate than a one-column and by keeping things in a single column going down, straight down through, it’s easier for people to understand.

the point instructions. In some cases, giving them an example inside the field of what should go in that field will increase the conversion of what it is. It’s an art within itself. We’re getting ready within this next week actually, oddly enough, to implement a new order form that we’ve created in order to accomplish many of the things that we’re just talking about. Greg: One thing that’s changed the game over the last two years on the web is the ability to remar-

single one of our pages we have a remarketing campaign going in some shape or form. There’s some really cool tricks regarding how to use remarketing to make it more effective. For example, by putting your remarketing code on your most popular landing pages, but not just one code, putting multiple remarketing codes there would actually trigger other pages re-marketed banners to show up to individuals as they navigate around the web. What a lot of people do is they have a general remarketing banner set for their business in their remarketing campaign. If you have a remarketing campaign and set of banners for each of your products then it’s going to be much more effective.

As an example, I went to Zappos.com not too long ago and I was looking at a particular brand and style of shoe. Well, I left that site. I went around, did Zappos.com Re-Marketing Banner Ad Example whatever else I was doing that day. ket people. So where traditionally I went to a new site that I frequently if they turned up to your site and read and discovered that not only they didn’t opt in or they didn’t was I getting Zappos ads, but I was take their primary course of ac- actually getting Zappos ads showtion you wanted them to take, ing me the exact shoe that I was just then you may not ever see them looking at. That in itself is extremely again. These days giving them a powerful. By increasing the field size of the remarketing cookie and following actual individual input boxes, you’re them around with banner ads can Greg: On your landing pages, going to make it easier for people have a positive effect on traffic you’ve changed from long form to understand. Also simply putting and conversion. Have you tested sales letters to video sales letters simple instructions in case a person remarketing in your business? over recent years. I know we cerdoesn’t understand it. And not long tainly do the same as well. Not verbose, instructions but short, to Armand: Yes, absolutely. On every everyone loves them because

internet marketing magazine april 2012

a bit, so my speaking in the US has decreased. My speaking in other countries has increased quite a bit. So in order to replace that income that we’ve had from the US market, what we’ve simply done is replace that by doing webinars, where I’m taking the same presentations that I would have typically done and do those on a webinar so people literally from all over the world can watch at the same time.

Armand Landing Page Example

they don’t necessarily look as pretty as professional video, but from our experience they sure do convert like crazy. Is that the reason why you changed a lot of your marketing over to using video sales?

Greg: One other trend that I’m seeing across a whole bunch of different market segments is email open rates going down. I think its just because people are getting so much email. And I’m seeing more and more marketers getting trouble from the Infusionsoft’s etc, of this world for spam complaints, but they’re not really spam. They’re just above their threshold. Have you seen much of that going on?

Armand: Email itself has been kind of a Wild West type idea for many years where you just get a person on Armand: Yes, the reason why is for conversion. We your list and you emailed them consistently over and know that it’s going to convert better than our long-form over again, and what people don’t understand is the sales letters. A lot of people say that long-form sales idea of how to manage your emails and how to get your letters are dead. I don’t think so. I think it really de- emails through. This is something that we heavily fopends upon the product or service that you’re market- cus on literally every day now and it’s really due to the ing, but in most cases, video sales letters will convert last couple of years of what’s been happening. more. What we have been able to do is really create a formula that works for us as far as presenting the product, answering the questions, and then ultimately getting the person to buy. Our videos, they’re not extremely long videos but they’re not extremely short either. They’re somewhere between 7 to 15 minutes.

We consistently watch every single day the email deliverability. We use companies like Sender Score. Sender Score tells you exactly what your IP address is doing all the time, so we watch that. We subscribe to all the different ISPs, what they call feedback loop, which means if there’s a bad email that gets sent out, we get those emails back and we unsubscribe those individuals immediately.

Greg: Do you do much selling from webinar as a general rule? When we have bounces, we look at the bounces. If they bounce more than three or four times on a soft Armand: Yes, we do. We do a huge amount of selling bounce, then we remove those emails, and this is an on webinars right now. In fact, I spent three days work- everyday activity. It’s not a sometime activity. It’s an all ing with a team of people to even increase that. We the time activity. And so we’re very, very keen on that. just set up 32 sites to sell via webinars. But if you look at most marketers, they just don’t do that and that is why they get themselves into trouble. Occasionally we’ll do the live webinars, but the reason why we don’t really do that a lot is because I have to be We’re probably a little bit different to most because we there in order to do it. manage our own auto responders from our own servThe fact is that in the US seminars for the Internet Mar- ers. We manage our own lists and so we’re probably keting industry have really kind dwindled down quite more hands on with auto responders than other people.

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We have to be in order to get our messages through. Greg: Do you have any thoughts on what are the right and wrong amounts of emails to be delivering to your list? Armand: I think it kind of depends upon your list and what the original promise actually is. I think you have to stay in touch with at a bare minimum an email to the list at least once a week, because if you don’t, what will happen is people will forget who you are and therefore report you as spam. I know twice a week is not going to be as bad, but when you start getting anything above three or four or five times a week, then what’s going to happen is you’re going to have a lot more people unsubscribe as a result of hat. Not because of what you’re saying, but just because of your frequency. So once or twice a week is perfectly fine. Greg: That’s good advice. We’ve covered a lot of stuff right from traffic through to conversion

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and split testing, follow-ups, remarketing, and a whole bunch of stuff. Thank you very much for your time. How can people find out more about you and your products and services? Armand: It’s very simple, anyone who is interested can go to ArmandMorin.com. You can find out pretty much everything that we’re doing there, whether it be our blog, or my speaking schedule, or certainly even about our new products that we’re releasing from time to time. There’s a lot changing in the world of marketing and marketing on the Internet specifically; it’s just a matter of kind of staying in touch with what it is that needs to be addressed. We talked today about a lot about split testing and we talked a lot about conversion, so if you understand those ideas and you consistently advertise your products and services, your business is bound to succeed.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

› SELLING PHYSICAL PRODUCTS

8 Tips To Automating A Product-Based Business plex. This work will manifest in a variety of operational ways i.e: manufacturing, shipping, fulfillment.

means it will take longer for the enterprise to become profitable. It also creates a larger risk position for the entrepreneur. Things like trademark registration can wait until the enterprise is off the ground. The start-up entrepreneur should spend cautiously.

2. Keep the product small. By ‘small products’, I mean anything 5. Publicity is better than smaller than a shoe- advertising. box. Smaller products generally cost • Publicizing is usually free less to mass pro(unless you hire a publicist, duce and mass diswhich I have never done). tribute. This means • If something is in the news, lower risk position that means it’s time relfor the start- up evant, and consumers love entrepreneur with time relevance. If it’s timegreater overall porelevant, they’ve got to have tential to hit it big. Small products it. Building a successful automated usually leave more resources for • News loves news. Publicity product-based business is like marketing. can be leveraged. Advertisbaking a cake. The right ingrediing cannot. You could get inents need to be added in the right 3. Own the niche. This is a terviewed by a news station way, which need to be baked uncrucial strategic marketing pofor a feature in a magazine der the right conditions. I learned sition. Create value through a about your product. You will this the hard way, through trial unique offering. The product rarely be interviewed about and error. Here are 8 tips on gains momentum because peoan ad you did. automating a product-based ple and media talk about how it • Consumers love news. If business that every start-up solves an everyday problem. Idea product is affiliated to a entrepreneur should know: ally the product brand name will trusted news source, the become synonymous with the product becomes trusted in 1. Keep the product simproduct type i.e.: how all tissue is the consumer’s mind. ple. One element + packagreferred to as Kleenex. • You probably could not buy ing is best. The entrepreneur the amount of traffic you will is creating work for them-self by 4. Keep costs down. Spendreceive with a news feature. making their product more coming a lot to launch a product

internet marketing magazine april 2012

Consumers don’t buy from home-made websites. It takes a lot of work to set up a site that will actually provoke people to buy. This requires resources to create. In order to offer the right price point for the product on the website, the entrepreneur will need to source fulfillment and manufacturing. The entrepreneur is already heavily committed at this point. The product is really only part of the total business equation. Where fulfillment (a website/method of distribution), marketing (method of driving traffic to the site) and start-up equate to 75% of the total business equation, the product itself equates to just 25%. With this is mind, it seems like more of a risk of both money and credibility to test 75% of the total business equation (fulfillment, marketing - website, but no product) with no monetary benefit, than test 100% (fulfillment, marketing, product) with full monetary benefit. Publicity Shares Your Message for Free

• An incoming link from a trusted site with heavy traffic is incredible for web site real estate value and SEO (search engine optimization). 6. Use your product as currency to acquire publicity, and for other marketing purposes. 7. Employ a fulfillment service from the start. Don’t try to fulfill the first 50 units yourself. Due to the volume of mailing done by fulfillment houses, they enjoy huge volume discounts on shipping through FedEx, DHL, UPS and other couriers. Most fulfillment houses extend this savings to the seller (entrepreneur), which is reason enough alone to deal with a fulfillment house. 8. The best way to test a product is to commit to a minimum order quantity and a minimum risk position for the enterprise. If the entrepreneur doesn’t commit to producing and selling their product, it’s unlikely that consumers will commit to purchasing it. Setting up a mock website that will take potential customers all the way through the buying experience and then deny them any purchase at the end because the product doesn’t exist yet is not a good idea, or realistic. It seems like a good way to reduce risk, but in fact it’s more risky in the long run.

Further, this will scare away the ‘innovators’, the segment of the market who are willing to take a chance on a brand new product before the rest of the mainstream jumps on board. This is also disrespectful to the innovators, who are an integral group of consumers that every entrepreneur should covet. Moreover, if the product is great, this gives copy-cats time to beat you to market. First to market wins. First to market means niche ownership and niche ownership is king. Bob Maydonik is a Vancouver-based entrepreneur who owns the UG Group of Companies. He has been featured on Tim Ferriss’, 4 Hour Work Week Blog. His businesses and products include: Urban Green Enterprises Inc., landarchsuperstore.com, Xystems Enterprises Ltd. (Square36 - Oversize Yoga Mat, New School Entrepreneur Business Press, Reclaim Recycled Products and Forms & Concepts Park Furniture. He is the author of Creating Products: How To Implement Ease of Automation and The New School China Trading Secrets. www.newschoolentrepreneur.com

internet marketing magazine april 2012

› ADVERTISEMENT

› COPYWRITING & CONVERSION

CONNECTION

The Key to Your Online Success

...and How You Can Create It for Your Website

The Key to Success

It was November 2009 and we were walking the glitter strip at South Beach in Miami, Florida on the last leg of a memorable world tour. Funny how things happen but I recall thinking nothing of it at the time but this incident in Miami with my then 8 year old son was pure marketing gold... but it didn’t hit me till we were half way across the Pacific on the way home. No, this isn’t a written version of “Come and see my holiday slides” so stick with me here because there is a massive, possibly business changing pay-off for you.

So there we were, on the glitter strip in South Beach. It was a typical humid Florida day. We were walking along (me the wife and four kids) just looking in the shop windows eating an ice cream. We came to one of those novelty T-shirt shops. Now if you’ve ever been to the US you’ll know there are lots of three things: people and cops, Starbucks and novelty T-shirt shops. We stopped outside this shop and started looking.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

Wall to wall and floor to ceiling novelty T-shirts. Funny, profane, downright rude... cool pictures... you name it this shop had it. Kind of reminded me of the marketplace you’re selling to... clutter and so much to look at nothing really stands out. Then my 8 year old starts laughing. REALLY loudly.

hooked him. Here’s what caught his eye... “Boobies Make Me Happy”.

For 8 year old boys, clearly the word “boobies” is gold (if only we could sell Boobies Bubble Gum and Boobies skateboards we’d make a fortune!).

When I asked what it was, he couldn’t speak and just pointed.

Ok, you may not have a “boobies” T-shirt at your disposal, but your prospects will have the dominant emotion and key words or phrase they instantly resonate with.

From all the t-shirts with all the humorous, profane, offensive and downright ridiculous ditties, photos and slogans, his 8 year old boy’s eyes had focussed squarely on the prize T-shirt.

mates and being the ever-so-coolIt was incredible but his keen 8 year kid in his group for the day or he old boy’s eyes had cut through the simply found it hilarious. clutter. The point is, from all that clutter, all I couldn’t see what it was. Neither those other t-shirts, he saw this one could any other member of the fam- and it resonated. ily. His second favourite by the way was a similarly plain one, “I Pee in “There, there... down the bottom,” Pools”, but that’s for another time. was all he managed to get out between fits of laughter. You see, this whole experience is just like marketing your products or Eventually I saw it. services... you have to find some way of standing out from all the othWhat caught his eye in a sea of other “t-shirts” out there to reach your er T-shirts? prospects.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

Every market, every niche has these “magic words”.

Now I’m not sure if he instantly saw himself wearing it in front of his These “magic words” usually focus on the dominant emotions they feel and instantly create connection and get their attention.

One of those deep belly laughs you know in an instant to be genuine and which is more than a little contagious.

It was a plain white T-shirt, with big black writing. One word only

find what their magic words are (their “boobies” words if you like) which instantly connect with them.

You have to dig deep enough and know your market so well that you

It’s your job to dig deep enough to find it and then find the right way to tell your prospects all about it. Only then will you cut through the clutter and create connection.

Steve Plummer is the personal c o p y w r i t e r for Australia’s “Millionaire Maker” Mal Emery. Steve’s marketing and writing savvy have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra sales for many happy clients. Follow Steve’s blog at steveplummeronline. com

› SEO

How To Do

BASIC ONSITE SEO Pennant Hills’ and so on.

On-Page Optimization Now it is a matter of placing the keyword in the right places on each page of your site. You should place the keyword once in the ‘Title Tag’ and once in the ‘Description Tag’. If you don’t know how to edit tags, ask your webmaster. It should also appear in the headline and once or twice in the body of the text.

Headline: Economical services.

cabinet

making

You won’t need to struggle to place your keyword in your copy if you have written well, because it will just naturally fit in there. If this isn’t the case, you may need to rewrite parts of the text until it does flow smoothly.

Now, are you starting to get the hang of it? However, if you are the When it comes to doing onsite SEO, You don’t want the placing of entrepreneur type then you should it’s really all about finding the your keyword to make the copy just let a professional SEO team keywords to best optimize your read awkwardly or uncomfortably. optimize your website. website with and knowing where Think about the flow of the content to place them. Keep on reading to as we discussed in the previous understand this better. chapter. David Jenyns

Know Your Market This is about choosing the right keyword for your area of business. If you are a carpenter in Pennant Hills, you might choose ‘carpenter Pennant Hills’. If you want to widen your search a little you may want to choose ‘carpenter Sydney’. This will be the keyword for your home page. You might have another page on cabinet making, so you could go for ‘cabinet making Pennant Hills’, and another on Pergolas, where you could choose ‘Pergolas

Here’s an example of how you could naturally and comfortably include your keyword in your onsite SEO. Title Tag: Cabinet Making in Pennant Hills Description: We provide a cabinet making service to residents in Pennant Hills and beyond. We design and build cabinets for kitchen renovations, bathroom renovations and laundry fit outs.

has many stories to share, from selling the Melbourne Cricket Ground for $24.95 to setting up a chain of punk rock clothing franchise stores, he is more than just another Internet Marketer – he’s a business builder. Most recently, David has started the almost overnight success, Melbourne SEO Services – one of Australia’s leading online marketing companies. Now he’s looking to help you, small and medium sized business owners, grow to the next level. Discover how he can help you: www. MelbourneSEOServices.com

internet marketing magazine april 2012

â&#x20AC;ş ADVERTISEMENT 20

internet marketing magazine april 2012

› COPYWRITING & STRATEGY

REASONS WHY THEY BUY When a client pays me my outrageous fees and I write him a killer of a letter, and he chokes, thinks it’s too outrageous, well too bad. He’s paid me to get results, not to create feel-good drivel. So I tell him to test the damn thing first. If it fails, I’ll take a different angle. You see, I don’t really care about other people’s opinions when it comes to the kind of stuff I write.

You realise that most people aren’t the innocent angels you thought they were. You’ll realise people are still swayed by the most fundamental emotions no matter what their education or income levels. (Even the most reserved character can turn into a raging mass of emotion when money is involved … no-one is immune!)

The only opinion that counts are from those special people that give you money… your customers!

You’ll realise, folks are motivated by other people’s opinions of them. They are concerned about how they look in other people’s So let the mareyes. Deep down ket decide I in their unfulfilled say. My ego souls they desis nowhere to perately seek be seen. If my “the thing” that piece fails, that’s will make others a damn good green with envy. lesson. I’ll then Sure they buy rip apart that for benefits and piece and find problems solved. out why it didn’t But, deep down People Buy Based on Emotions work. Once I have lurking in their that info the mistake never gets repeated. emotional core lies frustration and envy and a fierce desire to get the leg up on certain people be that As a marketer you’ve got to see things for what they work mates, spouses, brother-in-law etc. really are. Not how you want them to be. Not how it should be if everything was fair. No. You’ve gotta see If you understand this, and not try to judge on any through all the B.S. and open your eyes to what’s re- moral levels, your level of persuasion will jump a few ally going on. As marketers, we can’t afford to live life notches and you’ll truly understand the core concept at the shallow end of the pool. We’ve got to go deep. of sales. And sure, it gets messy down there sometimes.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

So get this: Emotions and Feelings sell in all markets. And for your message to be successful you better get in there and stir those emotions up to a red hot pitch. So what’s the point of this ramble? Three points… Number One: See things as they are. You can’t afford to base your marketing decisions on hunches. You’ve got to go deep to find the answers. Hunches are for amateurs. Do your detective work and let the numbers speak for themselves. Number Two: Know your market. All people are driven by emotions … love, fear, envy, greed, selfpreservation, selfishness and so on. Each and every one of us is a bundle of seething emotions. Doesn’t matter how sophisticated or educated your market is, the same basic principles apply. So your market is no different. Find out what are the HOT emotions of your market and then stir those emotions to a fevered pitch. Number Three: Outrageously Tell Your Story. You can’t be wimpy here or your message will be lost in

internet marketing magazine april 2012

the crowd. You’ve got to be outrageous, tell a story, and hit your market with a message that stirs that passionate sweet spot in their souls, that HOT button that gets them wanting to buy.

Pete Godfrey With more than a decade of experience in the marketing arena, Pete Godfrey, AKA “The Wizard of Words”, has developed a keen eye as to what it takes to succeed in business. As one of Australia’s most successful and highest paid copywriters/sale strategists, Pete’s client list contains many of the world’s savviest entrepreneurs including Mal Emery, Greg Milner, Pat Mesiti and many others. To get to know Pete better and see how you can profit from his hard-won copywriting advice go to http:// www.petegodfrey.com/blueprint and grab his new FREE report “Business Profits Blueprint: How to Profit in The New Economy”. Valued at a very real $97, it’s yours FREE for a limited time.

› MARKETING TOOLS & STRATEGY

7 MARKETING LESSONS

from ad:tech

In March 2012 I received an all access media pass to attend ad:tech in Sydney. Ad:tech is an interactive advertising and technology conference and exhibition. The event moves from city to city worldwide with a blend of keynote speakers, topic driven panels and workshops. The aim of the event is to provide attendees with the tools and techniques they need to compete in a changing world. My take is that ad:tech is not necessarily for the average information marketer as there is very little covered on the direct response side. Ad:tech is ideal for larger players such as brand advertisers, media agencies, corporates, marketing managers, advertising executives and eCommerce retailers. Here is 7 Key marketing lessons from the recent Sydney ad:tech event. 1. Social is not a campaign, social media marketing should be there as part of your marketing mix on a permanent basis – it is a commitment, not a campaign. Social media is just another channel for you to communicate with. The best way to approach it is: a. Listen and research what is being said about your product, service or market place b. Gain insights from that research c. Develop an overall Social Media Strategy d. Implement Tactics on individual social platforms to deliver the strategy 2. Google+ Ripples are a great way of seeing visually who your biggest influencers are in your marketplace. It shows how posts were shared across Google+.

Google Plus Ripples

In the example above, the Dali Lama posted and this is the ripple effect his content created by the other users sharing the same content. You can see who initially shared it from the Dali Lama’s profile, followed by the people who shared from the initial sharers. 3. Paid, Earned & Owned Media are ways of classifying the different media types and the value of the content you produce. a. Paid Media is any type of advertising or other traffic that you pay for to leverage a channel. Examples include Pay Per Click search advertising, display advertising etc b. Earned Media is something that you earn as your brand. This is really about when the customers become the channel. Examples include viral video’s, blog comments and ‘buzz’ about your brand.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

Blackmores community content

5. The Rise and Rise of Marketing Automation toolsets. In many cases in the past marketers have been limited with what email and other marketing automation they could do by how marketing savvy their CRM was. The issue with this is that many CRM’s like 4. The Growth of Community for Content, Per- Netsuite or SalesForce are not really designed with the sonalisation and Re-marketing. Adding groups and marketer in mind and can do very limited marketing auforums to high traffic sites can have several main ben- tomation. efits. The first of these is to make your site ‘sticky’ to get the site visitors coming back again. The user-generat- New breeds of marketing automation tools are on the ed content helps build your site as an authority site so rise. These tools allow you to implement quick agit is seen favourably from the search engines. Person- ile webforms, follow up sequences and event driven alisation engines and also re-marketing cookies enable marketing campaigns without being restricted by your you as a marketer to then laser target your promotional CRM. These marketing automation tools then synch emails and display advertising to the right people. A with with your CRM like a database mirror so that your good example of this is shown with Blackmores above CRM always remains the ‘center of truth’ for your corwhere the community aspect of their site also functions porate data. The 3 market leaders in this ‘marketing as an enabler of personalisation. automation’ space are Marketo, Silverpop, and Eloqua. c. Owned Media is content assets or channel platforms that you have developed and ‘own’. Examples include your website, white papers, free reports, your blog, your Facebook Fan Page etc.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

Dell Social Media Listening Command Center

6. ‘Right Message to the Right Person at the Right Time’ has now changed. The above mentioned is a saying that has been going around in marketing circles for many years. This has now evolved to be ‘The Right Message to the Right Person at the Right Time on the Right Channel’.

you can engage with your customers and assist them with any questions, issues, or concerns that they may have.

The addition of the ‘Right Channel’ is key because there are so many different media channels to speak to your prospect with, and you need to communicate with the prospect where they are handing out, and speak to them differently depending on the channel. An example is that via email you could use terminology like ‘Buy Now’ but via social media like Facebook you may say something softer like ‘Check it Out’.

This is just a small handful of the many insights and learnings from the ad tech events. Ad:tech is still to be held in San Francisco, Singapore, London, Tokyo and New York later this year. Check it out.

7. Listen is the most important aspect of social. More and more companies are waking up to the fact that social media is not just a platform to blast your content out by, it’s most important function is to listen to what your customers and prospects are saying. Then armed with that information

One of the best examples of this is Dell with their Social Media Command Center.

Greg Cassar is Australia’s leading Internet Marketing Strategist. With InternetMarketingDoneForYou.com Greg & his team provide traffic, development and conversion optimization services for medium to large businesses, enterprises & eCommerce stores looking for serious growth online. You can follow Greg’s latest updates by subscribing to Internet Marketing Magazine at InternetMarketingMag.net for the new members area and the latest issue updates.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

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› 26 ADVERTISEMENT

internet marketing magazine april 2012

› FEATURED ARTICLE

The Lowdown on Raising

VENTURE CAPITAL This month, in the third part of my series on raising venture capital for your business, I’d like to give you some insight into various ways you can establish the value of your business ( or idea ) before you decide to give up a chunk of it in return for some much needed funds. potential investment through a prism of ‘stages’. Various VCs use slightly different terms, but these are generally classed as follows : - Seed - Proof of Concept - Commercialization - Early Growth - Expansion

In general, most businesses seeking venture capital haven’t been established for long (if at all) and as such, don’t have a financial track record that can be evaluated in the traditional manner by a hard-nosed accountant with a calculator. It’s more likely that you’ll be coming up against a hard-nosed venture capitalist, who is likely to be valuing your company by a set of criteria all of his own making. In order understand where he’s coming from, you first need to understand that most VCs view a

destined to crash and burn before $1.00 of revenue is ever realized, so there is a good reason that they are rated as extremely high risk. But that’s not to say you can’t raise money for them, and many big funds having a policy of sewing a handful of ‘seeds’ in the hope that the odd one will sprout.

However, if you need to take on an investor at this stage, you need to steel yourself for the fact that they are probably going From their point of to want a big chunk of equity in view, the earlier you order to offset that risk - and I’m are in the stage pro- talking anywhere north of 40% , cess - the greater and maybe even much more. At the risk for them. this stage, talk of becoming the This makes it tough when you are next Facebook or powering a car just starting out, but conversely, with recycled sewage is cheap, the further you are along in the and until you actually get some stages, the stronger the bargain- runs on the board you are at the ing position you will have when it mercy of the markets. comes to cutting a deal. In the Proof of Concept stage, As a general rule of thumb, a you are usually looking for funds Seed investment is exactly that. to help roll out enough of these You have a concept, you’ve done babies to prove that the concept your research, you may have de- actually works, and more imporveloped a broad framework for tantly, that someone will actually your concept, but you need cash pay real money for it. A big step to actually build it. From long ex- up the ‘Stage’ ladder, you might perience, I can tell you that at this well argue, but hardly enough to stage, even the most compelling, get your average VC popping the “can’t fail, gonna sell a million of champagne corks just yet. His arthese” business ideas are usually

internet marketing magazine april 2012

gument is likely to be that while the concept “appears to work”, it’s still a long way from actually selling enough of them to call it a viable business. So once again, a ‘Proof of Concept’ stage company, while further up the food chain, is still likely to represent a ‘high risk investment’ in your VCs lexicon, and as such, they are still more than likely eyeing up a goodly sized chunk of equity if they are going to get on board at this stage. Don’t be surprised at expectations of around 35 - 40% of your company in return for an investment.

moving into its Commercialization stage will probably be expecting to take out 25 - 35% in equity in exchange for enough capital to kick the Commercialization stage into top gear.

Early Growth stage usually means just that - everyone is focusing on growing the business and capitalizing on the company’s commercial success. This is the stage where you start looking at better plant and equipment, more servers, more staff, and better ways to grow the business and streamline your processes. Any fund coming in now will at least be able to see tangible allocations of capital, and improvements to either sales and/ or the bottom line. Expect to have to give up 15-25% depending on the financials and how much the VC likes your business model. If they can see ways of polishing up a business model that is already showing promise, there’s a good Moving along to the ‘Commercial- chance they’ll be elbowing each ization’ stage - this is where the rub- other out of the way. From an enber hits the road, and people can trepreneur’s point of view, this is begin to get a much better sense often your best chance to cut a of your business and it’s likelihood deal that will allow you to grow the of success. In the Commercial- business and still come out the ization stage, you are looking for other end with something to show funds to help roll out your business for it. across various platforms, markets or geographic regions. A history of Finally, in the Expansion stage, sales figures will have been estab- you’ve pretty much proven your lished, early developmental hic- concept and now your just looking cups will have been identified and to take it to the rest of the world ( hopefully ) ironed out, and you be - think “Global Domination” - you starting to build a decent pipeline may as well because that’s what of potential customers or markets. any VC coming in now will be Naturally, from your flinty-eyed thinking! VC there is still plenty of scope for failure, but at least many of Money for expansion usually the risks will have been mitigated means international offices, bigger , or at least quarantined off, A VC marketing budgets and of course fund coming into a company that is - even more staff. But remember,

internet marketing magazine april 2012

just because you’ve done it all in your own country, doesn’t mean it will be a ‘shoe-in’ somewhere else. There are the vagaries of different cultures, different logistics, possibly language barriers, and of course a seemingly endless stream of new local laws you’ve never even dreamed of. So yes , a business in ‘Expansion’ mode is probably a good bet, but trends, markets and weird things out of left field can all turn a successful business on its head these days, so as far as your flinty-eyed VC is concerned - every business is a risk. However, if the planets are in alignment, and the wind is blowing the right way’, there’ a good chance that several VCs will be competing for the chance to put some money into your rapidly expanding business - but still be prepared to give away 10 - 15% to get them over the line. Tony McAuslan is the epitome of a modern day ‘Entrepreneur’. After working for some of the world’s largest companies in Advertising and then Gaming, Tony launched his own start-up business in 2001. Starting from a base of only 3 staff, Tony raised over $25m in venture capital and grew his company to over 80 staff with offices in Sydney, Los Angeles and London. After exiting the company in 2005, Tony went on to work as a Business Development Manager for one of Europe’s largest private VC firms, where he helped raise over US$80m for a wide range of start-up ventures. He now splits his time between mentoring various start-up firms, and consulting for clients who are seeking venture capital funds. He is based in Sydney and can be contacted by email at tmcauslan@hotmail.com

› GOOGLE ADWORDS

How to Add NEGATIVE PLACEMENTS Managed Placements are exactly what they sound like – placements (websites) that you manage. You give Google a list of the sites on which you want your ads to show & Google puts them there. This gives you more control (you know exactly where your ads will show), but also limits your reach (you have to think of every site yourself) The alternative (& often a great way to run campaigns) is to make use of the power of Automatic Placements. Now Google will decide where to place your ads based on information you give it (more on this later). The downside here is that Google is in control & your ads may show in places (or next to content) that you don’t want associated with your brand. Google Adwords Campaign Placement Exclusions

Reading the news this morning I was surprised to see an ad for The Age on, you guessed it, The Age! Clearly someone at Fairfax doesn’t understand how to control where their ads do & don’t show on Google’s Display Network. And they’re not alone. So if the phrase “negative placements” means nothing to you, read on… The sites on which your Display ads (typically text or image ads) show are called Placements in the AdWords system.

That’s where Negative Placements come in. They give you a way to stop showing ads on certain sites. For instance, a negative placement we use a lot (on 99% of campaigns) is adsenseformobileapps.com which we’ve found to generally give poor results across the board in many different industries. So, it would make sense for whoever’s running the Fairfax Digital campaign to exclude theage.com.au from the campaign showing ads for The Age.

Sure they’ll make a few cents if someone clicks There are typically 2 types of campaign you might their own ad – but why pay for the click/impression in the first place? run: Automatic & Management Placements.

internet marketing magazine april 2012

you may want to exclude them from your main ‘automatic placements’ campaign & run them in their own managed placement campaign – so you can more easily see their performance & adjust bids as needed. Sometimes these sites work very very well for clients, other times they suck. It’s just one more thing that you must test if running ads on Google’s Display Network. Our standard list of Aussie newspaper sites follows – feel free to add any others in the comments below. news.com.au in particular often gets very poor results & is usually worth excluding: Google Adwords

‘Far better to save that space for an ad that makes them money (assuming they have covered their online properties with ads to make money!). Maybe it’s some warped idea of brand-building… but c’mon who really thinks they need to interrupt a user with an ad for their own service while using that service! If you want to get a bit more advanced, you can use ‘Placement Exclusion Lists‘. A newish feature that Google quietly rolled out recently that allows you to create lists of sites & exclude them from campaigns more easily. This is great if you’re also running other types of Display Network campaigns such as topic targeting, interest targeting or remarketing campaigns. Sadly there’s no way to easily share your lists between client accounts if you’re running an MCC account – maybe Google will add that one day. But given negative keyword lists aren’t even in ADWords Editor yet, we may be waiting a while! Last tip… If you are running ads on Aussie newspaper sites,

internet marketing magazine april 2012

• • • • • • • • • •

theage.com.au smh.com.au theaustralian.com.au news.com.au heraldsun.com.au theherald.com.au couriermail.com.au adelaidenow.com.au perthnow.com.au dailytelegraph.com.au

Mike Rhodes is WebSavvy’s founder and is a popular international speaker, best-selling author & consultant. With over seven years’ experience of managing & running Google AdWords campaigns; he’s considered by many to be an innovative leader in Australian Pay Per Click marketing. He’s also a coach for the global leader in PPC training: Perry Marshall. Formally a qualified E-Myth Consultant he’s been building small businesses for over ten years & considers online marketing a tool to grow businesses, not just to drive traffic to a website. Visit WebSavvy. com.au for your free 30 minute PPC Strategy Session consultation.

7. Always provide an affiliate program for any product or service you sell online. Without affiliates and JV partners (higher paid affiliates), I wouldn’t be where I am today.

”

WE CARE ABOUT YOUR ROI

”

Building Websites that Capture Leads & Sell!

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Providing Traffic and Conversion Optimization for Increasing the Profitability of Medium to Large Businesses and Enterprises. ‘Internet Marketing Done For You’ is the direct response marketing agency which is the secret weapon of many of the biggest marketers online.

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› ADVERTISEMENT

internet marketing magazine april 2012

› FEATURED ARTICLE

LISTEN AND LEARN... PROFITING FROM ONLINE FEEDBACK Online Feedback – Making it Easy to Enhance competitive prices, offer a “great user experience”, the Customer Experience and Increase ROI and success will automatically come. With the online environment becoming the main venue for conducting business, competition to provide the best customer experience is fierce. As a result, online feedback has become one of the major trends in promoting customer satisfaction and increasing digital ROI. The question I often hear is how exactly online feedback positively impacts customer satisfaction, conversions and sales. A related question I get from marketers is why traditional focus groups or even online surveys are insufficient tools for influencing the customer experience. They feel that once they know what the target market “wants”, all that needs to be done is launch a marketing and promotional campaign, provide the desired products and services at

These are valid question, but the reality of online and mobile commerce requires ongoing customer engagement to ensure positive growth. Our experience working with thousands of businesses worldwide has clearly shown the absolute necessity of customer feedback for delivering value in the following areas: Reliable and Real-Time Insight Leads to Informed and Profitable Action In the online environment, the myriad customer touch-points, interactions and the constant digital change presents a unique challenge. Focus groups or traditional surveys – even when delivered online – can’t hope to accurately and reliably capture a true snapshot of the customers’ satisfaction level during every point of their online journey. Additionally, by asking too many questions on too many (often irrelevant) topics, surveys are not mindful of customer time constraints. To really get to know your customers, you need have your “feedback door” open at the right time and place. You want to collect feedback while your customers are actually engaged with your website pages or processes. This provides a much more accurate and reliable picture of what your customer really is experiencing. Providing your customers with an easy, nonintrusive way of sharing their feedback with you (while keeping them in the funnel) is key in accomplishing this.

An example of a Kampyle Feedback Form

internet marketing magazine april 2012

kampyle.com

An example of this was highlighted in a recent webinar where we hosted Markus Eberhard, Head of Selfcare and Digital Support at Swisscom, (Switzerland’s leading Telecom). Markus shared how Swisscom, instead of using a focus-group to test their new mobile app, inserted an unobtrusive feedback button in the app and just went live with it. Right away they received hundreds of qualified feedbacks from real mobile customers that helped them focus and prioritize optimization efforts.

like shooting in the dark.

According to Markus, this proved to be far more effective, economical and reliable than traditional usability tests that typically engage only a handful of testers.

As an example, Hotels Combined, an international hotel comparison site noticed on their Google Analytics account that one of their search features was hardly used. So they assumed the feature didn’t provide real value, and removed it. Immediately after, Hotels Combined began receiving feedback from a small, but highvalue group of users stating that this feature was one of the main reasons they liked using the site and that they wanted it back. Without this incredible feedback, the online travel site would have no doubt alienated those important users (and their wallets), all the while thinking that they had done the right thing.

Gaining Competitive Knowledge that Drives Increased Conversions and Revenue

Feedback-Driven Inbound Marketing and Lead Generation

When designing and strategizing your site, the best usability experts are your customers. Without their feedback, you might think you know what they want, but you could be way off. The success of your site’s funnels – from search to checkout – all depends on a high conversion rate. But lacking real insight from your customers, getting conversion rate optimization right is

Quality leads are the lifeline of sales. Companies are willing to pay small fortunes for lists and databases of potential prospects. But there is a much simpler and effective way to generate leads. Businesses have begun successfully using online feedback for lead gen eration and inbound marketing. With around 50% of feedback including the online visitors’ contact details

internet marketing magazine april 2012

distributed to the appropriate teams, such as sales or IT, ensuring that the right level and correct type of support is given to customers who really need it. Key Takeaways In closing, let’s recap all the areas where online feedback impacts the customer experience and your ROI.

An example of Kampyle at the bottom of a site

– either email, phone or both – these feedback submissions are an excellent lead source for sales and marketing as over 45% of them ultimately convert into sales. In a similar vein, with over 800 million Facebook users, the social media giant has been integral in transforming customer feedback into inbound traffic and leads. When your online customers share their feedback, you can offer them the option to post a promotional message or link about your product or service on their Facebook Wall. These posts are a very effective way to extend your brand reach and drive traffic from your customers’ Facebook Friends to your site. Cost-Effective and Personalized Customer Support Customer support has become a huge differentiator as shown by companies like Zappos and Rackspace, and many retailers are now pouring resources into this area. However, excellent tier one support can be logistically challenging and prohibitively expensive. This is where online customer feedback can be used to provide 1st rate customer support at economical prices. Customized and relevant auto-reply emails (triggered by feedback content), can be sent to customers, thereby reducing the need for immediate real-person response. These auto-reply emails reduce reliance on 24/7 live support by redirecting customers to FAQs or by offering an option to schedule a support call. The feedback can also be segmented, prioritized and

internet marketing magazine april 2012

• Feedback is not just about optimizing your site and improving UX. With intelligent forwarding in place, online feedback can be easily leveraged to increase qualified leads, inbound traffic and social marketing reach – directly improving your bottom line. • Listening to customers is not only about making them feel like you truly care (although this is of course, very important). Rather, customer feedback is all about gaining a competitive advantage with real insight into what affects your customers’ overall experience and satisfaction level. Improved customer experience directly impacts and improves conversion rates, which in turn increases revenue. • Online feedback is about your customers being offered an on-page, user-driven channel to accurately express what is important to them. This is in stark contrast to surveys which are about your visitors having to work for you, and which generally provide less reliable insight. • Excellent customer support is essential to help differentiate your business from the competition. When managed properly, customer feedback can provide you with a smart and affordable way to give your customers the service they deserve. Ariel Finkelstein is the co-founder and CEO of Kampyle. Since 2007, Ariel has overseen Kampyle’s growth from an emerging startup to a leading SaaS provider of online customer feedback solutions, serving both SMB and enterprise companies around the globe. Ariel can be reached at ariel.finkelstein@ kampyle.com.

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internet marketing magazine april 2012