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Landing Pages Versus Microsites

What’s the difference between a landing page and a microsite? About $3,000... I’ll be here all weekend folks, and don’t forget to tip your waiters.

A landing page is a singular page that helps a client complete a call to action.  It provides a limited amount of information on a very specific product or service, and usually has some way for the client to acquire the product or service.  It shouldn’t focus on more than one aspect of your business.  

A landing page is the final step in the process. As such, the branding of the site should be congruent with the branding found on your traditional site.  Think of your landing page as the cash register in a brick and mortar store, as many times, it can function like one.  The customer has already seen the entire store, and is there to finish the transaction.  They don’t need to be introduced to the brand, or start to formulate new questions.  They need to buy, schedule an appointment, etc.

A microsite is completely different.  It isn’t limited to a single page.  It often times has its own landing page attached.  It is a tool used to introduce your product in a different light than normal.  Therefore, the branding can be different from your traditional website, and skewed towards a specific audience.  It can have a different look and feel than anything else the business has produced in the past.

The advantages of this are excellent.  You can introduce new product or services without effecting your current branding.  You can launch campaign specific ads, that speak to your target demographic in ways that differ from your main page.  You can restructure your business to meet the needs of an exact customer, and highlight your company in a completely different way.

For an example, look at:
http://www.coca-cola.com/en/index.html
http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/

The first site changes its skin often.  It has a different look and feel, depending on the current campaign that is running in their marketing efforts at the time.  The second site, the corporate site, changes a lot less.  It has a full menu, to get to all aspects of the Coca-Cola universe.

One-off ads should have landing pages, to help create ROI statistics.  Cross medium campaigns should have microsites that tie together all aspects of the current marketing campaign.  Figuring out which tool works best for your marketing needs is just one more reason to work with a seasoned account executive when creating advertisements.

How important is People Talking About on Facebook?

On Facebook, I think everyone will agree that likes are good. The more likes, the better the potential to reach people. A goal of reaching a higher number of likes, or percentage growth of likes over a specific period of time, is a decent goal to have. Likes are a requirement on Facebook. If no one is liking you, then all you have is another area to post advertisements and contact information. Everyone agrees, Likes are nice.

People Are Talking About This, on the other hand, is excellent.

Lots of things fall into this catagory. Here’s a list.

• liking a Page
• posting to a Page’s Wall
• liking, commenting on or sharing a Page post (or other content on a page, like photos, videos or albums)
• answering a Question posted
• RSVPing to an event
• mentioning a Page in a post
• phototagging a Page
• checking in at a Place.

To put it more simply, these people are actively engaging with your Facebook page in some way, within the last week. Although this information can be set for different time durations, the portion that loads automatically on your Facebook Timeline or Wall is referencing the last week, so it’s important to note that.

So what is it about Talking About that makes me consider it substantially more important than Likes alone? A Facebook user has the ability to easily hide posts from his or her wall. That means that they can like you, but never see any of your postings. Therefore, Like is a requirement, but not an accurate measuring tool as to how many people are engaging with your brand. Talking About, on the other hand, shows that there is engagement.

Likes is a number. It doesn’t tell a story to you, the admin of a page. Your likes typically don’t go up due to new content, unless it is shared by someone. Your likes don’t change due to a funny picture, unless someone interacts with it, and someone new sees that interaction. It’s harder to recognize trends around Likes. Meanwhile, you can see trends on Talking About. In fact, monitoring these trends can tell you what type of content is more engaging to your audience, and can help you see what you need to post more of, or what to stay away from. You can’t do that with Likes.

For more help decoding all of the insights that Facebook provides you, click the Feedback button.

Timelines for Business, Facebook Business Changes

In case you were overzealous on celebrating Leap Year, and missed the news on the many changes that are happening or have occurred on Facebook, we’re going to give you a brief summary, with some friendly advice.  There’s a whole lot going on with the changes to business pages, and some of it can be very confusing.

You have probably noticed Timelines on your personal profile or on friends’ profiles. Timelines have come to pages.  Your company is no longer forced to work with the 200 pixel wide image.  You now have a small image, and an entire canvas (that is 850 pixels wide) to fill.  That means you can focus all of your artistic flair on the cover image, and allow your logo to remain consistent.  No longer do you have to try and modify your company logo to fit the seasons. You can maintain your branding, and simply change out the cover image to allow for expression.

The “Info” portion is now front and center.  Make sure your store hours, phone numbers, etc. are all completed. You’ll also notice something else front and center: your apps.  This causes a very large change for some companies.  If your strategy was using a like gate that loaded instantly, and forced your prospective fan to like you before continuing, it’s time to come up with a new strategy.  The fact that you can now have graphics that represent your apps, and that they are in what I would consider a more highlighted area means that your app quality needs to be maximized.  

Speaking of apps, you will notice that you only have room for 3 “above the fold” apps.  Put your very best stuff right on top, as only really loyal fans are going to open the drop-down to see your additional apps.  If you have multiple locations tied into one Facebook page, I suggest using the Facebook Map app.  It’s a sweet way to have a single page, but still have the ability to easily point out all of your locations, and it uses location based information to lead your fan to the closest location.  Lastly, most of your old apps are now out of style.  You need to go back, and make them fit to the 810 pixel canvas.

As an admin you have additional control over the postings.  You can now star posts, which makes them double wide.  This can draw extra attention to wide graphics.  You have the ability to back date, so you can fill in information from years ago. Milestones are an excellent tool to use when you want to backdate your past events.  Rather than simply putting in posts, and backdating them, use milestones to create important events.  Use this for big, important events that happened throughout history.

Post of the Week basically bookmarks a specific post, and keeps it at the top of your timeline.    It makes sure that the most important post doesn’t get slipped down the timeline.  You can also do this with questions, polls, photo galleries, etc.  Therefore, if you have something that specifically asks non-fans to like you, it may be a way to ask for likes.  It won’t substitute a like-gate, but it is an option.

Admin panel is completely redone.  There’s a real reason they are calling it “Mission Control”.  It gives you front and center what is happening on your page.  It shows all of the social tools you need right away, such as insights, page tips, new likes, etc.  Now that pages can message back and forth privately, instead of just on the wall, it will provide this information right away.  There’s going to be new admin permissions.  You don’t want everyone to be able to control the whole page? Not a problem.  Coming later in March, there will be 5 different admin levels.  You can give your customer service level people one type of access, without fear that they are changing permissions or moving apps around.

All in all, the changes are good.  For the psychology behind the changes, stay tuned.

Can You Sell on Facebook?

Gap, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom, GameStop are all national brands that opened a “Facebook Store” only to close it within a year, as reported by a Bloomberg report.  The reason being seems to be that it wasn’t cost effective.  The high development costs with low sales has led each of these large companies to determine that Facebook is not an effective place to sell actual goods.

Are they wrong in thinking stores won’t work on Facebook? That’s not a simple yes or no.

First, you need to look at the limitations that a Facebook shop has, versus a traditional website.  Chances are, your online catalog is wider than 520 pixels.  It probably isn’t loading through an iframe, either, which means that it can render itself, without having to pass through Facebook’s structure, first.  In essence, that means it is framed to fit your screen, not a small window, and that it isn’t being restricted in its load speed.

Your own website’s online catalog, without question, is more effective in its presentation of your goods catalog. Anyone who thinks a Facebook store will be more effective than a dedicated site is gravely mistaken.

Does this mean that no commerce can happen in a Facebook App? Can it be a coupon-only model?  I don’t think so. The sales model simply needs to be different than an online catalog.

There have been effective fire sales, featuring a single product at a blowout price.  Understand that this does not guarantee a lot of return followers.  If accurately promoted, you can have a huge influx of fans, that leave after making the purchase, to never visit your page again.  If you are using a fire sale as a way of creating permanent excitement to your brand, you may be setting yourself up for failure.

One of the deciding factors that establishes whether it makes sense is price.  It can cost a lot of money to develop Facebook Apps.  Therefore, if you are spending a lot on creative, without a solid return on your investment, then the store fails.  It only makes sense if you have the ability to get a Facebook shop put together without having a large expense.

It all comes down to your goal, and the goal of the potential customer.  Most people aren’t on Facebook to buy things.  It’s that simple.  However, if you can create a deal for potential customers that is good enough for the customer to forgive the fact that the offer is automatically shared to their wall, and that caters to impulsive buyers, it is possible to have an effective sale on Facebook.  You can set up a highly effective sales process.  It needs to not set you back much to build, or it will be considered ineffective.  

A big retailer, like Nordstrom, would actually have a harder time setting up a sale like this, than a small business would. On a local level, Facebook stores may work, and well, but when it comes down to national style pages with huge catalogs, Nordstrom is probably right.  

Are you Green Marketing?

There are certain buzzwords in any industry that some find bothersome.  For example, the term, “Pre-owned” as a euphemism for used in the automotive business has always made me a little crazy.  A pre-owned car is new.  It hasn’t been owned yet, it’s pre-owned.  If it is simply previously owned by someone else that isn’t you, then it has been used.  

Now that I’ve got that out...

“Green Marketing” is one of those buzz terms for the advertising industry that gets to me in a similar way.  I’ve heard this term used in multiple ways, which probably adds to why it is so bothersome.  Some use it as a marketing badge of honor, as in “This company only uses 100% recycled material.” In other words, they are marketing the fact that the company is green.  Others have used it as a process by which they market, as in “We only want to advertise in non-print, energy efficient ways.” In this way, they are publishing their marketing in green ways.

Both are great ideas, that have been overdone in many cliche ways.  Images of your logo with leaves sprouting, or of hands gently cupping a growing tree, a recycling symbol superimposed over your logo, etc. have all been done a lot.  If you are trying to reach a new audience, these will most likely not work.

A customer’s willingness to do business with a specific brand or company has a hierarchy, with certain factors outweighing others.  For 99% of your customers, they are:

1. Perceived value.
2. Ease of obtaining/using product or service.
3. Environmental impact of brand/company.

In other words, a company needs to sell a product or offer a service that has the best value, with the easiest usage, first and second.  Although I list environment third, it’s a far third. In the mind of your customer, it’s most likely like this:

You correctly assumed the green slice is the environmental impact.

Unless your business is tied with your competition on the other two fronts, I wouldn’t suggest focusing a ton of marketing on the green front.  If your company is in need of some public relations messaging, or you are trying to wok on some brand loyalty, it can be useful, but as a tool to drive new business, it isn’t high on the recommendation list.

Social Media is Leading From the Middle

One of the more prominent leadership models you hear about recently is this concept of leading from the middle. This is usually compared to two other leadership strategies, such as leading from the rear, and leading from the front.  From the rear is like being a general in a battlefield, shouting orders of what you want done, without getting involved in the fray.  Leading from the front often times turns into being a micro-manager, charging forward to do everything yourself while your employees wait for you to do it for them.  Leading from the middle is hard, requires a lot of work, and that your team be in sync with both the short term and long term goals.

Social media is always, without fail, leading from the middle.

You simply cannot micro-manage social media, as one person cannot be truly “Social”.  You need a team of people. The good news is, you have a company, which has people.  You have a customer base that is made up of people.  That means there’s plenty of people that you need to communicate and interact with your company profile.  An enthusiastic employee base to start the exponential growth of your site, as your primary brand ambassadors, is essential.

Now, having a little bit of the old “General” style leadership, when it comes to getting the ball rolling, makes life a little easier.  If you have the authority to tell your people, “Since I haven’t shut off Facebook at work on the computers, and since we’re having this little contest going on our Facebook page, I’d appreciate it that when you’re on Facebook during work hours, on my dime, you participate a little...”

With that being said, if you think you can effectively create a social media experience that your employees and your customers take advantage of by leading from the rear, barking out orders, you are gravely mistaken.  You can’t order people to be social.  As soon as you try to command a lot of social interaction, your quality goes down the tubes, and you end up commanding mostly yourself.  At that point, you’re trying to micro-manage social, which we already said simply doesn’t work.
So, how do you effectively lead from the middle?  It starts by letting everyone involved, both internally in externally, know what you are hoping to accomplish.  Both internal and external clients need to have a reason to interact with you.  If they see the value in what you are hoping to achieve, then you can move forward.  There needs to be an incentive, whether it is intrinsic in the interaction itself or additional to it.

Then, you need to do it.

Here’s the tricky part.  If you cannot effectively run a social media campaign from the middle, because you have neither the time or the skill to do so, you’d better empower the person you have running it with some authority.  There’s nothing worse than a Content Producer sending out emails, begging people, “Can you please go on Facebook and help with our contest?” and being completely ignored, while the boss is saying to that same Content Producer, “Why aren’t you getting people to participate?”  We’ve seen those types of social media strategies.  They last around six months, end in complete failure, and propagate the idea that social media “Just doesn’t work.”

Are you ready to lead from the middle?

Flapping in the Wind: Pointless Banners

I was surfing through some different news blogs, and noticed some of the banner ads.  Obviously, I’m a little biased about the quality of ads; although none of them were as bad looking as the design above, there were some that came close.  What made many of these worse was where they pointed to, if they somehow managed to interest anyone enough to click them.

Free hint: a 404 page does not make the best target for your ad...

Tell me if this sounds familiar to anyone:  Conceptualize the end result first. (Otherwise known as, have a goal...)

Many times, it seems as though there is no concept for the banner ad’s use, other than whatever is on the actual banner.  Someone comes up with a great new marketing slogan, and an artist takes it and runs with it, and out of this creative medley comes a beautiful 728X90 ad that can only be summed up in one way: “Wow.”  This wonderful piece of art is uploaded onto an ad server, and it is linked to a homepage, and customers flood your site.  Once there, they poke around for a minute, maybe two, and your analytics for the month show an increase in two main areas: number of hits, and bounce rate.

Building your banner ads backwards, and starting with the goal first, then building the funnel to get to said goal, and finally ending with the banner ad, tends to have analytics that point to accomplishments, rather than simply traffic and bounce rates.

Directions we’d recommend:

• A landing page that allows the user to easily buy whatever goods or products the banner ad promoted.
• A landing page with useful information, a specific call to action, and tracking capabilities.
• A landing page with an interactive experience, like a game, that builds additional brand loyalty.

Note: All of these start with “Landing Page”.  None say, “Dump them on your homepage, and hope they find something that catches their eye.”

There’s a ton of different outcomes for your landing pages; we discussed three general ideas.  Feel free to brag about your accomplishments in the comment section below.

Google Analytics and Goals

Hey, at least we're not promoting word clouds as an analysis tool...

We talk about goals, a lot. Without having clear-cut goals, you never know if your business is truly performing to its full potential, and you cannot gauge progress. In the past, we’ve talked about how you should measure your goals. This time, we’re bringing in help to discuss measuring goals from an outside expert: Google.

Chances are, if you have a website, you’re running some form of analytics software on it. Google Analytics is free, and is continually improving. Currently, we would recommend using it over most paid alternatives, although it does require you to draw some of your own conclusions. The majority of the paid alternatives help you by interpreting the information, not by providing better information.

One of the great tools that Google Analytics has is the ability to set goals. When you have decided what you want your website to accomplish, you can set filters, and build funnels, to figure out what parts of your site are best suited to accomplish your goals. The fact that Google lets you set an imaginary dollar amount to the goal, so that you can use it to calculate the true ROI of your specific campaigns, is an excellent added benefit.

The ability to not only determine the number of people actively engaging with a portion of your site, but also to know how they got there, how long they stayed there, and at what point they bailed out of your sales process if they didn’t complete the process is priceless. If there was any way you could develop a tool that tracked people in your store the same way that Google Analytics tracks the average customer through your website, you would never lose a customer.

Some of the things that you can do is track out what the common keywords or key phrases that people are searching for that led them to your site. You can analyze which of these users become paying customers by putting assigning the correct goals, and you can further use SEO to streamline your business

And by the way, these analytics don’t stop on the desktop. There are analytic features that follow the mobile user, as well. Therefore, setting up some goals specifically for the mobile device is highly recommended. Using appropriate landing pages and funnelling the mobile user to complete the desired call to action is something that you should put a lot of energy into. Your mobile website needs to be a portal to completing a call to action, not simply a place to get information and go elsewhere.

If your idea of Google Analytics is simply a tool to see how many people come to your site a day, week, month, etc, then you aren’t using this extremely powerful tool correctly. Talk to your interactive marketing people today about how to use Goals and Google Analytics to increase sales and customer satisfaction. If you need additional help, we’re only a click away.

CRM/Marketing Automation vs Traditional Marketing

CRM. Marketing Automation. Campaigns. Analytics. Integrated.  Innovative.  

There, did I drop enough buzzwords on you at once?

For those wondering what I’m talking about, I’m talking about keeping track of your customers, and setting up marketing items that target your leads at specific timed intervals and after customer initiated events.  In other words,this is about communicating with your customers in a way so you remain relevant to them, and to offer them products or services when they need them.

First, I’ll break down a couple of the words I listed above, for those that don’t know what they mean.  A CRM is a Customer Relationship Management (usually followed by the word software or system).  Basically, it’s like a Rolodex of information regarding your past or potential customers, with as much information as you can fit.  It is edited every time a customer makes a connection with your company, and tries to maintain a grasp on where he or she is in the purchase cycle.  Marketing Automation is a system that reaches out to your customer or potential lead based on parameters that are inputted into it, (hopefully from some CRM).  These are two different systems, that when paired together work really well.  A campaign is based on what you want to advertise.  It has a start, middle, and end, based on the intended outcome.  Several campaigns can run at the same time.

Okay, so now that we went over the definitions, we can focus on the actual business use.  The easiest way to wrap your head around this to think about a more traditional marketing avenue first, like a print ad in a magazine. When you put an ad in a magazine, you are aiming at anyone who reads that magazine.  Your creative needs to be attractive to the demographic of the magazine subscription base. It’s great for attracting brand new customers.

Now, an advertisement generated by a Marketing Automation tool tied to a CRM is going to look at specific groups of customers, and target them based on an experience they had.  So, for example, you are running a furniture store.  An advertisement from a system like this would send an email out to customers who recently bought a couch, and offer them a discount on a matching recliner.  Or, if you ran a flower shop, it would send you a reminder to buy your Valentine’s flowers in advance, promoting a specific product based on the customer’s last purchase.  It is a personalized, direct ad sent only to customers that you know.  One that allows you to diagnose the effectiveness by using analytics based on real numbers.

Of the two, the more traditional advertisement, in this case, the magazine ad, is hoping to attract business based on a whimsical need.  You hope that the person reading the ad will need your product or service at that moment, and take advantage of the offer.  A CRM ad is targeting a customer that you are pretty sure needs some level of service, based on past experience with that customer.  It is much easier to calculate an ROI (return on investment) on this type of marketing.

Both targeted ads and open invitation style ads are extremely important, and Davis Advertising can help you with both.  We have the creative team to create great design and copy, as well as the technical skills to program an automated system based on your own customer base.  We can provide targeted marketing for those that could be in your customer base, or market to your past customers.  If you don’t have a system in place, call today

Media Buying Agencies Are Dead

According to an article in today’s Business Insider, the traditional media buying agency is dead.  

Okay, so maybe that’s an overstatement, but we are glad to hear that the tides are changing back to a customer centric point of view, driven by poignant creative direction and an emphasis on relationships.  The savings that occur due to aggregated buying power are being eaten up by commissions, and due to elevated costs, there has been a decreased funding of quality content.  When the emphasis is on buying media at the lowest prices, the concerns typically shift to focusing solely with reaching the highest level of potential eyes, instead of reaching the RIGHT eyes.  The creative agency targets your potential customer, focusing on several different types of media instead of simply one or two, and uses analytics that focus on real impressions rather than simple page loads or run times.

This means, in our humble opinion, that the agency of the future is an agency that focuses on values of the past, like building solid relationships between the brand and the customer.  One that uses a deeply integrated approach to blend all of the different types of media to provide a holistic experience for the customer, and one that the customer can interact with on many different levels.  The agency of the future uses all of the tools of the future to accomplish all of the goals of the past, because it understands that the technology is simply a way of connecting with people on a personal, individual level.

Welcome back.

Driving Through the Funnel - Landing Pages

We’ve made mention of building landing pages on several occasions.   As a quick reminder, a landing page is simply a separate web page that customers are directed to in order to complete a contact form in exchange for additional information or savings.  Today, we discuss the key factors that make landing pages successful, and how to quickly create them.

As far as design elements go, your primary branding message needs to carry through.  I recently loaded a landing page that looked completely different from the traditional website, and I thought I was in the wrong place.  Make sure that for returning customers, the landing page has similar color schemes, logo positioning, and font choice that the customer is familiar with on your website.

If you’ve driven customers to this landing page, it is important to keep them moving through the funnel, without the options to detour.  Therefore, make sure your traditional navigation tools are not visible.  You don’t want someone accidentally falling out of the landing page, and continuing onto your traditional site instead.  A landing page must be streamlined to heighten only the special deal it was written to promote, not act as a secondary website.

Excellent “Thank-You” pages are crucial to sharing.  If your customer likes what you’re offering, and has provided you with contact information, there is a better chance for anyone to share your offer with others.  Therefore, it is important that your “thank you” page easily allows for sharing.  It is important to note that you don’t want customers to actually SHARE your thank you page.  The last thing you want is for people to be able to go around your funnel.

One of the areas that many have trouble with is figuring out what to put on the form.  We hear, “What should we ask for? How much is too much?” a lot.  The answer is, the minimum you can to manage the level of communication you are looking for.  For example, if you are targeting a specific demographic, you need to ask if the potential customer is a member of said demographic.  If you are looking to get an email conversation going, asking the customer for the physical mailing address would fall into the “Too much” column.  A landing page is great for finding future information, so as to better direct market to customers that have filled out information, but do not try to get every single item of information from one landing page.

Can you tie into your landing page permissions and API keys rather than filling out forms all the time?  As a customer, if I have the ability to simply click, “Use Facebook Login” rather than filling out a long form, I’m going to take it every time.  There’s a chance that later on, the customer may take away that permission, but that is irrelevant.  Once you have the contact information in your database, you own it.  Therefore, I strongly recommend using the Authentication from Facebook as an option to filling out form after form.

Don’t forget, after customers fills out the form, they are looking for excellent content.  Content is still king!  Landing pages that provide nothing but a form, or that do not provide the customer a benefit, will not collect customer information well, and can turn people away from your brand.

The Power of Texting

Smartphone users hear a lot of different rings, beeps, blips, etc. There’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, personal email(s), work email(s), texts, picture messaging, chat clients, app alerts,the list goes on and on. And there’s phone calls, less we forget the prime use of the device... That means these wonderful devices are alerting the user a lot, and it is up to the user to define a hierarchy of the order of importance for each type of notification. Imagine each different type of alert had a completely different sound. Which, out of all of these, would you think ranks highest with most users?

My “guess” is text messaging. It is the easiest to read, and respond to. It only comes from people that actually have your phone number. They are typically from people that you know, and have regular dialogues with. Plus, it’s not exclusive to smart phone users, as everyone can get text on their phone. This “guess” is based on the fact that text messages have an astounding open rate of 97%. The average email open rate is around 20%.

Sufficed to say, Text messaging rules the roost, when it comes to communication methods.

What does this mean for marketers? It means that you’d better start texting! Here are some rules and suggestions.

• Don’t extend past the 160 character limit. If your offer extends beyond one message, it’s too complicated for a text message.
• Make the offer good. You are making an offer via a more personal form of communication, and if the offer isn’t good, you can actually harm a relationship.
• Remember to offer an “unsubscribe” message. You can offer an unsubscribe message for 28 characters a message (reply "stop" to unsubscribe.)
• Don’t overdo it. I recommend against texting more than once a week. You don’t want to overextend your welcome.
• Short links are your friends. Need to bring people off the text message? Use a short link to bring mobile users to a mobile landing page, and make sure that traditional desktop users that enter the short code into a traditional browser have a pleasant experience as well. 
• Don’t forget calls to action! Interaction is key. If the person receiving the text message wants to call right away, or respond with some form of answer, you’ve been effective. Read and delete messages are not memorable, and you’ll receive a lot more “Unsubscribe” or “Stop” messages if there is no call to action.
• Everyone likes games, and everyone likes winning. Set up some contests, random drawings, and games, like trivia, with winners being awarded some prize. Signing up for a newsletter is much more fun if I can win an iPad when I do!

Have any suggestions or rules of your own? Leave them in the comment section below!