2010 Marketing Recommendations
Search Engine Marketing
ComScore recently released their 2009 report on global search engine usage and the numbers are impressive to say the least. Globally, there were 1.5 Trillion searches in 2009 and 131 Billion searches in December 09 alone, which is a 46% growth over the same time last year. The United States, China and Japan are the top 3 countries for search volume and are growing at an average of 27% a year. It is not surprising that according to Jim Connolly, author of one of Advertising Age’s Top 150 Ranked Blogs, over 95% of people now check out a potential supplier on a search engine before they decide to use that supplier or not.
The real challenge with this expanding opportunity is how to stand out and be visible to your ideal audience at the right time. Defining your ideal audience is the key first step and then developing marketing and communications that puts your marketing where your customers are. Consider that Chemidex has achieved 28% annual growth in searches and document views, and is a great resource to expand marketing opportunities in your markets and reach the key decision makers and influencers. Working with a marketing platform that focuses on reaching your precise audience with superior analytics and real-time reporting tools puts you at a competitive advantage.
Interactive Advertising
Online continues to be an increasingly important medium in which to reach and engage prospects and customers. According to a recent BtoB study to forecast the marketing mix in 2010, the number one goal for marketers is Customer Acquisition.
Paid Search - Over $13 billion was spent on paid search advertising in the U.S. in 2009 and that number is expected to double to $26 billion by 2014. As more money is spent on paid search, marketers will need to find new ways to ensure their search campaigns deliver the results their companies need. According to Forrester Research, two-thirds of marketers said that high keyword prices are their biggest challenge with paid search. With ever-increasing keyword prices, it is crucial for marketers to find ways to drive costs down and conversions up through smart keyword selection.
One idea that is often over-looked is to purchase your own corporate brand names or trade names. While these keywords are often optimized for organic search results, these also offer a great opportunity to own the search results pages and have little to no competition. Our own experience has been that purchasing our own corporate brand name results in a 20% lift in conversions and a 3300% Return on Ad Spend.
Email marketing – Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days for e-mail marketing. According to Interspire, recent studies have shown that people are most responsive to email marketing received on Tuesday or Wednesday. Prospects are more likely to read your message, which should lead to increased sales.
Social Advertising - Social media has now allowed marketers the ability to have an ongoing, two-way conversation with their customers at any time. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) recently published Social Advertising Best Practices to help marketers better understand social advertising.
Develop a Real Social Media Strategy
Almost every company now has a blog or a page on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, but few have a strategy or resources to take full advantage of these powerful tools. Many companies have built a social media presence, but not every company has a plan on how they will engage their customers with social media. Marketers need to decide whom they want to target and reach with their social media. Most importantly you will need to decide what do you want to use social media for. Is it to generate sales leads, create word of mouth, or develop better customer service?
Mashable provides a great resource for leveraging Social Media for customer service: http://mashable.com/2009/05/09/twitter-customer-service/
Measure more than just hits, clicks, and bounces
Everyone agrees that in this age of metrics and analytics, it is difficult to judge how successful your marketing programs are if you cannot measure the direct results. For interactive marketing tactics such as Web sites, Email and Social Media, the number of analytics tools and reporting platforms that allow you to measure these initiatives are expansive. It is critical to have the right tracking platforms in place as you launch these intiatives so you can begin to collect and analyze the results.
In 2010, marketers will begin to focus less on metrics such as hits, impressions and clicks, and will begin to tie Analytics with metrics that truly matter to your company’s bottom-line.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – How much gross revenue is realized for every $1.00 spent on advertising (Gross Revenue / Advertising Spend = ROAS).
Conversions – Number of users who make a purchase, register for an account, or complete any other kind of transaction.
Customer Acquisition – Number of existing prospects your marketing efforts convert into new customers.
Customer Engagement – Improving single visit and multiple visit conversion rates on your Web site.
Lifetime value – Measures how much each customer is worth in monetary terms over the lifecycle of your business interactions with them. This metric will give your marketing team a better idea of how much you should be willing to spend to acquire a new customer.
The best use of your marketing dollars will be on the methods that generate the most sales opportunities for your company. Contact us if you would like more information on how we can help you reach and engage your ideal audience.