Category Archives: Professional Services Marketing

A Practical Content Marketing Example

Posted on by
Reply

Many marketers are still coming around to the idea of content marketing and how it positively impacts both consumer preference, conversion and search engine optimization. To provide some illumination on the concept of content marketing as well as some simple context, let’s look at a practical example of how content marketing works.

I was recently asked by the University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL) to deliver a webinar to some start-up ventures associated with its incubator.  The subject matter of the webinar includes marketing, web design, and Internet strategy.  The audience of the webinar is to be comprised of small business owners, marketers and technology executives.

I don’t conduct webinars very frequently, so I had a couple of questions about the best practices of duration, platform, and otherwise.  But one of the most pressing questions on my mind was *when* to conduct the webinar.  I was curious about the best days of the week and time of day to conduct a webinar to maximize attendance.  Like most people, I went to Google for an answer.

I typed  ’what is the best time to schedule a webinar?’ into Google.  There, on the first page of search results, was a blog post from AccuConference, a company that helps people like me conduct Webinars:

The first page of results for the query ‘ what is the best time to schedule a webinar?’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I clicked on the link, I was taken to a well-constructed page (see below) from the company which contained its expert opinion on what days and times tend to work best for business people to attend webinars.  The page is clean, simple, and contains the right keywords in some of the right places.  And, most importantly to the company, I was introduced to the company’s products–software and services to help people conduct online meetings and webinars.

A well-constructed blog post that ranks on the first page of Google search results for a highly relevant search query.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We can learn a great deal from this example, but here are a few of the more important take-aways about content marketing:

  • Blogging is not a waste of time!  This company has likely invested a great deal of time in creating relevant content to reach their customers.
  • Content marketing meets people where they’re at and when they’re there.  If this company would have sent me a spam e-mail message months ago (when I wasn’t particularly interested in webinars), the marketing message would have never reached me.  Instead, this approach caters to a captive audience.  People who look for things on Google want them now, not later.
  • A great place to start with content marketing is anticipating the questions your audience might be asking when they need your product.  This is not an exact science, but you can certainly brainstorm, talk to customers, and look to your analytics results for clarity.

In a world where we’re increasingly bombarded by more marketing messages than we can handle, seek not to become a part of that fray but to use content marketing to reach your customers at the exact moment they need you.

Is Your Website…Different?

Posted on by
Reply

Assume for a moment that your website is among the most (if not the most) visible representation of your company.  Are you confident that it is sending the right message to your audience?

It very well might be.  It might be clearly communicating your message and presenting your products and services.  It might be attractive to look at and function just as you hoped it would.  Perhaps it is attractive, engaging, and informative.  But there is something else to consider.  Is it different?

Your firm is likely very different from your competitors.  You might have a different culture, a different approach, a different methodology.  But if your website is not clearly drawing specific lines of distinction on your behalf, you are in danger of simply blending in with your competitors on a highly visible stage where everyone is watching.

There is a simple litmus test to see where you stand.  Pull up your own website and imagine that your logo and firm name were removed.  Assuming you can ignore the specifics of your firm’s employee names, services, and office addresses, imagine replacing your firm’s logo with that of a competitor.  Would anyone know the difference?  If not, you probably have some work to do.

Apple uses Miles Davis imagery as motivation to "think different."

Different is not new.  Apple had an entire ad campaign several years ago around the theme of thinking ‘different.’  Michael Porter, the Harvard Business School Professor widely considered the leading authority on competitive strategy boiled the concept down to the idea of being ‘different.’  Different is important.  And your website should celebrate the differences between your firm and its competitors.

There are numerous ways to differentiate your website as a reflection of your firm.  A few examples might include:

  • Developing unique content for your audience that cuts to the core of what your audience wants in a way that is not self-serving to your firm.
  • Using design treatments that are consistent with your corporate identity yet very distant from those of your competitors.
  • Cutting back on the depth of your content to hone in on your message; your users will feel the difference.
  • Developing site functions that no other competitor has (for example, a firm that promotes personal service might give users a personal cell phone number or email address instead of a general contact form).
  • Sharing content (i.e. photos, book reviews, and/or company news) that is actually interesting to people.  Note:  How long someone has worked at your firm or a stock photo of your city skyline does not qualify.
  • Taking a position on a professional subject or idea that might generate discussion; you might have two individuals in your firm develop editorial copy about competing sides of an interesting argument (hint:  as usual, avoid religion and politics).
  • Share news about your philanthropic activities, but develop content around the idea of your involvement, why it is particularly important to your company, and what you hope the results of your involvement might be.
  • Tell your visitors what you do not do as a firm or what types of clients might not be a fit.

The trick to all of this is to not pursue “being different” simply for the sake of being different.  The result of that can be quirkiness or zaniness which comes across to the user as contrived.  After all, there are times when it is important to be the same, an example being website navigation.

In the end, differences should reinforce your firm’s identity.  A successful “re-take” of the aforementioned litmus test involving the inclusion of a competitor’s logo on your site should make it obvious that they are stealing from you!

Albert Einstein & Web Statistics

Posted on by
Reply

“Not everything that can be counted counts.”  –Albert Einstein

It is true that one of the great blessings of online marketing is the fact that so many things can be measured.  Tools like Google Analytics track hundreds of data points–how many visitors visit your site, what they click on, what sites refer them to you, which keywords were entered into Google to find you, what country they came from, and even what network they were using at the time.  The laundry list of available data being collected in real time goes on and on.

While this “measurability” is indeed a blessing, it is also a heavy burden.  One of the major challenges for Internet marketers is making sense of all of this information.  Keeping tabs on all of this data can be overwhelming, especially for smaller businesses.  In addition to monitoring Google Analytics, other services like Facebook, Twitter, and others  produce marketing statistics that are also voluminous.   How many fans do we have on our Facebook page and are people engaged?  How many people are following us on Twitter?  How are we ranking on search engines right now?  All of these are questions that marketers should be considering.

As the services are added and the data stacks up, many marketers become overly-inundated with information.  Making sense of it all becomes impractical and some simply avoid the monitoring process altogether or do it sporadically because of the time required.   In the end, many marketers miss out on the promise of measurability.


[image_wrap]
Albert Einstein
[/image_wrap]

Albert Einstein

The good news for marketers, though, is that not all of this information is really important.  Albert Einstein once famously said, “not everything that can be counted counts.”  In other words, just because something can be quantified does not necessarily mean that it is relevant.  This is particularly true for Internet statistics.  While there is a great deal of empirical data available to marketers, much of it is irrelevant to the typical Internet marketer.

So how can this be reconciled?  Internet marketers should probably consider finding an internal compromise by isolating the metrics that are most relevant to them and keeping tabs on just those things that really–as Einstein says–count.  In other words, figure out what metrics are relevant to your online marketing activities instead of watching everything and becoming frustrated.

Determining what measurements matter is not an altogether easy task.  In reality, this will vary from one organization to the next.  In large part, however, here are a few of the more important metrics that matter to most organizations:

  • Web Traffic Statistics – Determining how many people are visting your Web page, how they finding you, how long they are staying once they get there, and what caused them to leave.
  • Search Engine Rankings – Monitoring how you rank on various search engines and how your rankings compare to those of your competitors.
  • Facebook Statistics – Keeping an eye on the number of people who “like” your page and measuring the various pieces of activity therein.
  • Twitter Activity – Counting your followers, monitoring the conversations that users have with your Twitter account, following the conversations your competitors are having with their users, and even tracking certain “trigger” words being used on Twitter (i.e. a golf course might want to watch for users within a 25 mile radius that mention the word “golf” in a tweet and invite them to play your course.)

Naturally, this list will change and evolve over time and will likely be different for every organization.  Some organizations may not be interested in search engine traffic, for example, because they rely on relationship selling and referrals instead of blind leads.

Either way, it is essential to measure your Internet marketing activities on an ongoing basis.  As overwhelming as it can be, culling and monitoring this type of data gives marketers powerful knowledge.

Measuring Web Site Performance: A 3-Step Approach

Posted on by
Reply

Steven Covey is famous for, among other things, encouraging us to “begin with the end in mind.”  The concept, naturally, is to think about what you hope to accomplish from an undertaking before diving in.  Deciding what you want out of a business plan, exercise program, or even a business trip helps to elevate focus on the end goal.  An activity undertaken without a focus or goal runs the risk of being aimless, wandering, or fruitless.

A Web site project should be no different, but it often is.  Many Web site managers and committees are more interested in starting the production process than they are in conceptualizing it.  It may be that the visual nature of the Web encourages premature emphasis on design–the idea of “looking good” undermines the notion of “doing well.”  Or, perhaps, some tend to avoid creating, refining, and documenting measurable goals and objectives because it introduces accountability later:  if there’s no standard of success, there is no way to fail.

Whatever the case, it is important that goals, objectives, and metrics are emphasized at the outset of a project. In order for organizations to succeed using the Web, they must clearly define success itself.  They must clearly and closely connect the organization’s Web activities with that of the organization as a whole.   The process for doing so, a simple 3-part exercise, is fairly straight-forward.

A Web project should begin with a review of the company’s overall business plan, goals, and objectives.  It is advisable that the group concentrates on those objectives, irrespective of the Web site, that the organization is seeking to achieve.  Next, within a document (research tells us that those who write goals down stand a greater chance of success), a Web committee should identify those organizational goals that the Web project will seek to support.  Consider restating the goal for the purpose of the Web project.  For example, if the organization’s goal is to increase market share by 5%, re-purpose the goal for the Web that states the portion of that growth that you hope to achieve online.

Also used as alternate text for the image

Three Steps to Identifying Key Web Site Metrics

Once the organizational objectives are identified and the Web site goals are clarified, the third step is to determine what means will be used to quantify/measure these goals.  These distinctive, specific areas are referred to as Web site outcomes.  Web site outcomes are distinguishable Web site behaviors that can be objectively quantified using Web site analytics, inbound telephone call tracking, and Web site form submissions among others.  An online retailer, for example, may measure the number of Web products sold in a given period.  A professional services marketer, on the other hand, might track the number of position papers that are downloaded by prospects.

Once this three-step process has been completed by stakeholders, all of the information should be compiled in a simple Web site performance scorecard.  Developing a straight-forward document of this nature can be an effective tool in memorializing the process and key metrics and keeping track of progress as time goes on.

Producing a document that outlines your goal(s) for a Web project is an important step in pursuing success because it focuses attention on defining success itself.  Completing this process should set Web site projects on a course toward meaningful impact on the organization’s development.    This methodology’s Web site deliverables should not only look attractive, but perform effectively as well.

Creating a Web Site Performance Scorecard

Posted on by
Reply

Aside from having a Web site that is functional and attractive, savvy marketers are also interested in measuring Web site performance relative to business objectives.  This instrument is designed to help marketers identify, specify and measure Web site performance.

This framework should be particularly useful to professional services firms that wish to identify areas of site performance that are less tangible than those of Web sites that focus on ecommerce transactions, for example.  Some examples are provided to help you get started.  It may take you some time to get started with this tool; the process of establishing Web site goals and identifying correlating Web site outcomes can be an exercise in and of itself.

Web Site Performance Scorecard

Web Site Performance Scorecard