August 1, 2010

SMB Dropping the Ball with Email

Email marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing methods, especially when using an in-house list. However, a recent report by GetResponse indicates that the SMB market is underutilizing the tool.

Social Media in Email

The findings of the report are quite convincing. Emails with a social sharing option get a 30% higher CTR than emails without, emails with 3+ sharing options generate 55% higher CTR and even just a Twitter sharing option generates a 40% boost.

However, despite the boost social sharing options can provide to email marketing campaigns, only 13.5% of SMBs include clickable sharing links. Do they just not know?

Will Facebook PPC Never Learn?

Annoying Facebook Ad

Ever since June of 2008 (yes, 2 years ago) Facebook ads have allowed you to “rate” the ad. At first it was a simple thumbs up/thumbs down approach where you would then be prompted to select the reason for your rating.

Facebook Ad Feedback

Initially I believe this feedback was used primarily to punish ads that users didn’t like, thus helping Facebook promote a better user experience and keep a handle on “spammy” advertisers. However, the current Facebook ad ratings also promise that my ratings will help Facebook serve me more relevant ads in the future.

Annoying Facebook Ad

Facebook Ad Removal

Facebook Ad Removal Thank You Message

When Will Facebook Learn?

As a single male in my mid-twenties, I get targeted by every major dating site on the web. I understand that I match their demographic info, so I’ve been “rating” their ads as uninteresting or repetitive for quite some time. However, as you can see from the screenshots above (taken from my account today) I still see dating site ads. It drives me crazy. Facebook asked for my feedback, I gave my feedback with their promise to improve the relevancy of my ads, but I still get the same lame ads. Come on Facebook!

LinkedIn PPC – Should You Be Using It?

LinkedIn PPC Ad

The other day I was in my LinkedIn account and came across the following ad:
LinkedIn PPC Ad
I was surprised because not only is the ad personalized with my first name, but it even uses my profile pic. That’s some heavy-duty personalization. So I decided it was time to go give LinkedIn a shot by setting up a campaign.

Step 0 – Big or Small?

After clicking the Advertising link in the footer I was presented with the following two options:
LinkedIn For Large Budgets
LinkedIn for Small Budgets

At the moment I don’t have $25K/month to blow on LinkedIn ads, so I chose the 2nd option.

Step 1 – Write an Ad

Pretty simple format. Looks like the character limits match up with AdWords limits and you can add a 50×50 image to the ad as well. The unique feature is the ability to say who the ad is from. You can choose either your personal profile or your company for additional “credibility”.

Step 2 – Target Your Audience

They have a dynamic “audience ticker” like Facebook with a starting value of just under 70 million. There are 7 areas to target, of which you may choose 3. I’m choosing geography (Salt Lake City Metro Area has about 190K people in it evidently), gender (Male takes me down to 98K) and seniority (Director, CXO and VPs leaves me with about 17K). There is an option to reach LinkedIn members on the “LinkedIn Audience Network” but I’m unchecking it for this little experiment. Also, the geographic targeting isn’t very advanced yet. They only had about 20 countries and in the US you only had about 30 metro areas to target. Not very precise yet.

Step 3 – Budget Info

You get to pick between CPC and CPM bidding (LinkedIn is throwing out some really high suggested bids), set a daily budget and give the campaign an end date if you so desire. WARNING: Though I classified myself as having a smaller budget, they won’t let me proceed on CPC bidding unless my bid is at least $2.00. Might be the demographics I chose, but dang LinkedIn!

Step 4 – Billing

Evidently they’ve got good user experience people because they asked for the meaty info last, after I’ve put in the time and effort to create an ad, choose targeting and set a budget. Pretty basic stuff so they have a CC on file for you.

Overall the setup was really easy. Nothing too fancy, but as a small advertiser using their “DirectAd” format, I didn’t have the ability to personalize my ad with the user’s name or profile picture. That must be a feature reserved for the big guys who are cranking through at least $25K/month. Figures! Well, I’ll keep you updated on how things turn out, but the only real interesting part of the process was the demographic info you could glean from the targeting section.

Who else is experimenting with LinkedIn right now? Would love to see some comments.

Book Review: Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos.com)

Delivering HappinessInevitably, if you’ve ever heard someone talk about providing awesome customer service online, you’ve heard about Zappos. Maybe you heard about how they offer employees $2000 to quit during their first four weeks of training. Maybe you’re a customer and have been WOWED when they upgraded your shipping for free and got you your stuff within 24 hours of your order. Zappos is in the business of Delivering Happiness.

Delivering Happiness: The Book

The book is on shelves starting today and I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy (which actually made me quite happy) for review and one copy to give away (winner announced at the end of the post). So, what did I think?

Good Points

  • The book has a very personable, conversational style that makes for easy reading.
  • Tony is a smart guy, with two major successes under his belt. He’s lays out his successes and failures, so you know he’s not perfect.

Weaknesses

  • The narrative flowed well up until chapter 5. That 70-page behemoth really bogged me down.
  • It seemed like most of the cultural emphasis didn’t happen until they secured money to survive. For businesses still struggling to make payroll, these initiatives can be a hard sell

Why I Recommend You Read It

  • Zappos has hundreds of employees and has retained its small-company feel. Tony lays out exactly how they did it, so if you want a road map to help you retain/regain the culture you want, this is it.
  • Tony is inspirational. He focuses on the positive, but also mentions the negative. It’s authentic and refreshing. If you’re feeling down about your business/job, read this book for the lift.
  • Hidden gems of wisdom: Here is an example that rings so true to me:

“As unsexy and low-tech as it may sound, our belief is that the telephone is one of the best branding devices out there. You have the customer’s undivided attention for five to ten minutes, and if you get the interaction right, what we’ve found is that the customer remembers the experience for a very long time and tells his or her friends about it.”

Yes, you read right – undivided attention. In today’s media-saturated world how often do you get that? Virtually never. That’s some wisdom.

Now, to the fun part. The winner of the free copy is Michael Cooney. Look for an email today.

PPC Spell Check #Fail

PPC Spellcheck

Hey! Whoever is doing PPC for www.ThemesPress.com. You should probably run spell check on your PPC ads. #justsayin

PPC Spellcheck

Anybody come across any other good ones lately?

Win An Advance Copy of Tony Hsieh’s “Delivering Happiness”

Delivering Happiness

Delivering HappinessI had the opportunity to hear Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) speak when he keynoted at PubCon West last November. At the time I was very impressed by his passion for creating companies and creating a positive company culture. Therefore, I applied for their advanced copy giveaway program and by good fortune received not one, but TWO copies. Therefore, I am giving away a free copy of Delivering Happiness to one lucky reader.

How To Enter

I’ll make this dead simple. Just do one thing:

  • Leave a comment with 1 thing that made you happy today.

I’ll randomly select a winner on Memorial Day and notify you via the email address you leave with your comment. I’m currently about half way through my copy and I can testify that the material is inspirational and well written (in Tony Hsieh’s very conversational style). Good luck and please let your friends know!

PPC Poll – How Often Do You Run AdWords Reports?




PPC Poll – Which AdWords Report(s) Do You Use?


Book Review – Rework

Rework

ReworkRework is the newest book from Jason Fried and David Heinemeier, founders of 37signals. They share their thoughts on their experiences. They avoid business-speak, buzz words and platitudes in favor of a very conversational tone. What did I think?

Rework Makes Some Fantastic Points

The authors’ perspective is refreshing. There are no apologies and their opinions are presented on a “take it or leave it” basis. Each chapter contains several brief sections and each section very succinctly deals with an issue that virtually everyone can relate to somehow. Here are a few points that resonated with me:

  • Build on successes – Instead of analyzing failures to find what not to do, look at successes to know what TO DO more of in the future.
  • Work smarter, not harder – They believe that workaholics are not heroes, you need to sleep when you’re tired and that people should go home at 5. It’s not about the hours your butt is in the chair but what you get done. Find ways to work smarter (or maybe there are things you should stop doing all together).
  • Culture is action, not words – Company culture isn’t established by edict or during a company off-site, it’s developed by the consistent behaviors of employees. Make sure you emphasize/reward the right behaviors to establish the right culture.
  • Act today – Decision aren’t permanent. You can change down the road if necessary. Acting now allows you to start making progress and learn faster. Avoid analysis paralysis.
  • Learn to say no – Saying no is hard and unnatural, but vital to your success. You may even have to tell customers that, no, you won’t be adding that feature or, no, you aren’t going to lower the price.

What You Might Not Like

The book comes across as a bit of an ego trip. At some point in the book you will find yourself thinking “That may have worked for them, but that would never fly at my company.” Don’t brush off those topics. Write them down and really look at why you think that wouldn’t work. These are the areas where you might have a huge opportunity to grow. Or it really might not work for you. That’s okay too.

I recommend the book highly. It will get you thinking and give you a fresh perspective. If you’ve already read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

PPC Farming – Harvest Part I

Amish Harvest

Amish Harvest
Whew! This PPC stuff can be hard work. You spend hours prepping the soil (researching keywords and competitors), planting seeds (account creation and settings), watering & fertilizing (bids, match types and testing) and weeding (negative keywords and domain exclusion). Finally, it’s time to harvest and see the reward of your labors.

Landing Pages – Where the Harvest Happens

All your work should result in a qualified person arriving at one of your landing pages. However, their is still work to be done.

  • Relevance – Is your landing page relevant to the keyword searched and the ad copy they clicked? If you can’t answer yes to this question you’re losing a large portion of your harvest. The chain of relevancy is vital to conversion because your ad copy made a promise. Your landing page has to deliver on that promise.
  • Clarity – As Flint McGlaughlin of Marketing Experiments is fond of saying, upon arriving at a landing page customers want to know “Where am I?”, “Why am I here?”, and “What can I get here?” Your landing page needs to convey those answers quickly (within the first few seconds) and clearly.
  • Actionable – This may seem obvious, but your landing page should prominently feature the next step you want a customer to take. And don’t just “feature” it, tell them exactly what they should do. From the headline to the button copy, tell them what you want them to do and the benefit they’ll receive if they do it.

Don’t waste all your hard work with a half-hearted harvest. Get those landing pages done right.