ruthless brevity

Are you respecting your clients/prospects time? Are you ruthlessly brief with them?

I was crafting an email today to a person I know is very busy. So I removed everything from my message that was not necessary to get my point across. I know he appreciates that I value his time so much.

But do we do that with clients? Our homepage is at http://www.portentinteractive.com. Our headline is “A Whole-Brain Internet Marketing Agency.” Does that convey enough meaning in few enough words? Is their a better way to communicate that idea very quickly? Read the body text that follows and you get a good idea of what we do in a small space.

On http://www.momagenda.com, our client says this:

“Welcome to momAgenda, the new day planner for moms!

It is my fervent hope that by using this new day planner for moms, you will completely eliminate chaos from your life…you will make it on time to every appointment, eliminate double booking of play dates and activities, plan meals religiously, always remember everything you needed at the grocery store, and you will finally lose those last 5 – 10 pounds of baby weight.”

Now that is a concise, easy-to-understand headline, with a brief-but-complete body to make the point. But if you go to www.momagenda.com, you won’t see it, because it is below the fold- you have to scroll down to see this headline and description.

So ruthless brevity is not just about content, but design and where you place that content. If that same blurb were higher up, say where the Crocodile momAgenda is currently shown, then users would see immediately what the momAgenda was about.

Compare this to Flow Corp:

” Flow International Corp

Flow International Corporation (Flow), the inventor of abrasive waterjet technology, is the world leader in the development and manufacture of ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) waterjet systems. In fact, nearly 60% of all waterjet systems sold in the world are made by Flow. Our UHP technology is used for pure and abrasive waterjet cutting, surface preparation, and food processing applications” which is all above the fold, immediately obvious.

Respect your users: ruthless brevity both in content and design is key on the internet.

how to choose keywords for your site

To get high rankings for ads and organic search, you need to focus on a set amount of keywords. Four places to find keywords you want are the Yahoo keyword tool, the Google keyword tool, google search results, and referral data.

1. The Yahoo tool can be slow, but it is good for quick-and-dirty keyword searching. The numbers they show you are how many people searched for that keyword last month throughout the Yahoo/Overture network. DO NOT believe these numbers- they are vague estimations at best, and fanciful at worst. I use this tool to get other keyword ideas once I have a couple of keywords already decided on.

2. The Google keywords tool is superior in that it is easier to use, and tells you additional data like how much competition their is in relation to search volume. Again, do not trust these numbers- they do not reflect reality. But it is good for getting more keywords.

Notice here those keywords where there is a lot of search volume but little advertiser competition. This does not mean this is a good keyword- but it might be. Search for that word in google and see what comes up- any of your competitors? Are those results in the same area as you? Take everything with a grain of salt.

3. Search Results can be helpful- input a keyword you know you want, like ‘blankets.’ Of the results there, go to each and see what other keywords they think are important. WARNING, this is highly inaccurate because most websites do not have a good idea of what keywords to bid on, BUT this is another quick-and-dirty way that requires very little net savvy to work.

Go to the first result, and view the source code for the page. In Firefox, it is CTRL-U, in Internet Explorer, it is VIEW->SOURCE. You are looking for something that says

(bracket)meta name=”keywords” content=”firefox, mozilla firefox, foxfire” /(bracket)

or the like. Those words inside are the other words that site thinks are important. Now don’t take these too seriously, they are just to give you more ideas.

4. Referral Data is best because it is based on hard data. Either from google analytics, the analytics you have on your blog, or some other analytics tool, look to see how people are getting to your site. I can tell you that, a few days back, three people reached this blog by searching for ‘hacking youtube,’ because I once wrote a post on that.

In google analytics, under Dashboards->Marketing Summary->Top 5 Keywords it will tell you the 5 top keywords people used to get to your site. To see a more complete list, go Dashboards->View/Marketer->Overall Keyword Considerations. If that does not make sense, give me a call and I will walk you through it.

I like this data because it is real. Maybe you misinterpret it, but the basic data is sound.

Once you have your list of keywords, the fun begins with search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) campaigns, but both of these depend on a keyword list.

Best of all worlds, do these 4 steps yourself, make your list of 100 keywords, with 5-10 that you really care about. Then go to an internet marketing agency. Ask them what keywords they think are important. Compare their list to yours, and you will have a good view of the possible keywords for your site.

delegation: the key to good internet marketing

Q: When you hire an internet marketing agency, how do you get the most out of the relationship?

A: Understand that you are delegating to them the role of VP of Internet Marketing.

People call me and ask about our services, and I have found that everyone has a different idea of just what an internet marketing agency does. Do we place ads? Yes. Can we get people high in google rankings? Yes. Can we integrate inventory into your site? Yes.

We can do almost anything you want, for a price, if you are willing to work with us to define the specifications on the project, and then let us do our work. You should know the 3 Steps of Mission Critical Marketing. Make sure we know what we are doing, and then delegate as much as you can.

You need to know the basics of PPC and SEO in order to make a good decision about hiring us and working with us, and we will tell you everything you need to know. You don’t need to know how to set up day-parting, where we save you ad money by not displaying ads when people in India are awake.

Decide how much you want to be involved in the process before you start hunting for an agency, because it will make things smoother for both of us.

On our first call, talk about how involved you want to be in the process.

mission critical marketing: the three steps

Three factors to consider when evaluating internet marketing agencies:

1. Metrics- the agency must work with you to define what metrics matter for your firm and your situation. The metrics you use will change over the course of your campaign- you may start out using unique visitors, because that is all you can measure, and work towards measuring $/visit.

Case in point: google analytics offers 6 kinds of charts for unique visitor tracking. Which one are you going to use to measure success, or should you use all six?

2. Where to spend- podcasting is cool, but search engine optimization brings in the money. That statement is true 99% of the time. Your agency must help you understand the tradeoffs between differing priorities, such as making a name for yourself vs. moving more product.

Case in point: I can start a pay per click campaign and have traffic going to your site within 10 minutes. Or, I can work on your title tags and URLs so you get higher rankings in google, but you will not rise in the rankings for weeks or months. Internet marketing agencies should explain to you the tradeoff so you can make a good decision.

3. Measurement- What is better- a 50% increase in page views per visit, or 20% more visitors? Metrics is deciding what to measure, measurement is interpreting that data. Google analytics provides a huge amount of data. Your firm should help you understand what is important and what is not.

Case in point: For CASSIN, we just built their first website. They want to know what matters in terms of measurement. I said three things: unique visitors, average page views per visit, and referrals. Suit the measurement both to the site and the client.

Metrics, spend, and measurement. If the agency you hire can do these three mission critical tasks well, then good results are on their way. If they can’t, then no matter how good a game they talk, walk away. And always ask for references.

Thanks to Jory for putting me in the mindset of asking what is mission critical.

dress appropriately | step 2 | conversation marketing

If you are selling industrial water-jet cutting machines, you should have a site like Flow Corp. If you are selling day planners for moms, your site should look like momAgenda.

The complicated story says people pay attention to color, textures and effects, typefaces, complexity, and layout and positioning, in that order.

The simple story says, make sure you look like you belong in the conversation. This is a focus on your audience- it does not matter what your opinion is of what you should look like. It matters how your audience expects you to look.

Would you trust a computer from here? What about from here?

It starts with audience, which you know about from step 1, know the room. What do they care about. How do they see you. THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU. Most websites are extensions of their creator’s ego, and those are the sites that make me cringe.

Think about how you want your audience to feel. Excited? Reassured? Sold? Your design and your language decide this.

Copying what works is, as always in web marketing, very valid. Think of men’s fashion- always stay the same. Think of women’s fashion- a race to see who can copy who the fastest.

So before you design your site and your marketing, stop and think, are you doing this to satisfy your ego or to make more sales?

To hear more about Conversation Marketing, you can go buy Ian’s book. He has been doing this since 1995, the book is $25, and it will save you wads of cash in time and experience.

bragging modestly | step 6 | conversation marketing

Saltworks sells salt. And when you search google for sea salt, Saltworks has the first two main results and the first ad result.

This is bragging modestly.

Whenever possible, have some one else say how great you are.

We know this in job interviews- it is the person with connections who gets the job. The lone interviewee doesn’t stand a chance.

Think about how you buy presents for people. You hear about something, and then you buy it. How did you hear about it? Chances are, a friend or a community of some kind recommended it.

In internet marketing, the best community is often google. Search google for Bridesmaids dresses. The first result must be good, right?

For your website, Bragging Modestly takes a few forms:
1. search engine rankings, which includes main results and ads
2. testimonials on your site
3. tell-a-friend

Search Engine Rankings
Organic rankings (the main search results) and PPC rankings (the ads on the side of google) are the best ways to brag modestly in most situtations. Getting in to the organic rankings through search engine optimization (SEO) takes six months to a year. Getting in to the paid ad results takes 5 minutes. This is where the internet marketing agency I work for makes it’s money- because we have proven we can get to the top of google again and again. The salt company and the dress company I mentioned above are clients of ours who we have helped brag modestly in the best way possible.

You can do SEO and PPC on your own, and you should expect amateur results. If internet marketing is going to play a big role in your organization’s success, you owe it to yourself to consider hiring professionals. They cost a lot, but the best want to be compensated on performance when possible, so it is not as risky as it sounds.

Testimonials
On MomAgenda.com you can see Felicity Huffman say “I love the momAgenda! It keeps me and my family organized no matter how much is going on!”

Testimonials are tricky because they are very specific to your audience. Donald Trump can’t sell me a cake recipe, and my grandmother can’t sell me a book on becoming a billionaire.

The way to get testimonials is to ask. Have a contact box, offer people an incentive to tell you what they think of you, however you can get them.

Tell-a-friend
I am grouping YouTube and Digg and similar sites in here. When someone hears about you through a medium other than your site, whether a comment during lunch or a video shared through IM or a tell-a-friend link on your articles, this is bragging modestly. And when a friend tells a friend about you, some of the good feelings the friends share will be transferred on to you.

You can encourage people sharing about you by technical things like adding tell-a-friend links all over your site or sending out emails. You can also build it in to your story- say something that is worth spreading. Stormhoek wines gave out coupons for 40% off their wine. But you could only get them if a friend told you what web address to go to to get them, or if they handed you one. And you could make as many copies as you wanted.

Learn More
Conversation Marketing is available for $25 through Ian’s site. It will save you thousands, because when you go to talk with an internet marketing agency you will know the questions to ask.

conversation marketing | the six steps

By demonstrating each one of the six steps to Conversation Marketing, I will introduce you to how to think about internet marketing like the professionals do.

Conversation Marketing is built on six basic rules:

1. Know the Room. Understand your audience. Base your campaign on that understanding.
2. Dress Appropriately. Use the right design. Not the ‘cool’ one.
3. Sound Smart. Good content, smart architecture, and good code speak to your visitors.
4. Make a Connection. Opt-in e-mail, RSS and other tools continue the conversation.
5. Observe & Adjust. Analytics provide feedback and guidance for ongoing campaign adjustments.
6. Brag Modestly. Someone else should say how important you are.

Borrowed from Ian’s blog.

contingency design: what not to say, on the phone and on the web

Ian refers to it as contingency design: “Good contingency design means always having to say your sorry, but never having to say ’see you later’.”

Service Untitled calls it The Big List of Things Not To Say: “I’ve taken the time to go through quite a few posts, organize, and add to a long list of things that bloggers and their readers suggested that customer service representatives not say.”

Whether you are talking about phone communication or a website, there is a right way and a wrong way to talk with clients.

Service Untitled’s #3 thing not to say is [silence]. As in, always have some kind of answer.

Amen. If you have someone’s attention, and you stop responding, they will go away. This is what Ian says about contingency design- if someone looks for a page that does not exist on your website, great! This is your chance to take care of them and continue the conversation.

Take a look at the Search page for CASSIN Collections for an example of basic contingency design. Type in ‘boots,’ and click Search. CASSIN does not sell boots, so you get a result saying

Sorry, we didn’t find what you were looking for. Before you try your search again, you might want to look at these four hot items.

And then it shows you 4 items that CASSIN wants to showcase. (Disclosure- CASSIN is a client of ours, and I wrote that ‘no results found’ page.)

Sorry, we didn’t find what you were looking for.
First, I (the company) take responsibility for the user not finding what they want. You aren’t wrong, I am, and I am sorry. When on the phone, Service Untitled suggests “I don’t think that is 100% correct.” A tack I take is saying “I don’t get it” (making the language as formal as appropriate). It is not that you have explained your idea poorly, it is that I do not understand.

Before you try your search again,
Call to action. Of course the user wants to search again.

you might want to look at these four hot items.
Call to action. This part could be better if it was more specific. Like, “if you are passionate about fur coats, check out the Melissa. And if winter finds you lusting for color, take a closer look at the Beverly.”

Read Service Untitled’s Things Not To Say, read Ian’s article on Contingency Design, and help people keep the conversation going with your company.

And if you are serious about improving communication skills, then check out George Walther’s Power Talking.

“facebook me”- how facebook is changing how the under-30 crowd communicates

When I want to keep in touch with someone college-aged, I don’t ask for their phone number. I ask them to facebook me.

That’s shorthand for “add me as a friend to your facebook profile.” Sometimes, I give them my name and they would have to search in facebook to find me. More often, I give them my name and tell them to search a common friend’s friend list.

The friends list is a usually public list of everyone you share friend status with. So when I meet Doug through my friend Bob, I don’t have to remember Doug’s full name. I just remember his name, or even just his face (most facebook users put photos in their profiles), and look through Bob’s friend list to find him.

If facebook went down, I would not know how to get ahold of many of my friends. I some of their cell numbers, but for some people, leaving a message on facebook is at least as reliable as calling them.

If you are involved in marketing to people under 30, read up on facebook and myspace. Understanding how your target audience communicates is crucial for crafting spreadable marketing messages.

how do you measure success? using analytics to decide what a click is worth

Envision sells call center solutions. They hired us for search marketing. Challenge is, they make their sales by phone calls and sales reps. Nothing gets sold online.

So how do you measure success?

Actually, something does get sold online, just not for money. Envision has a Resource Library, which is full of PDFs of various kinds. The White Papers and Success Stories are especially important to them. These are sold for the price of the time to read them.

So we are going to put tracking code in the links to those PDFs. Google tells you how to do that here.

This will enable us to discuss with Envision how much a downloaded PDF is worth. I am totally making up the following numbers: if the average sale is worth $10,000, the average client downloads 1 PDF before calling a salesperson, and there are 1,000 PDF downloads per new client acquired, then each PDF download is worth $10. If half the people who click through to the site download a PDF, then each click is worth $5.

This is why analytics is so important: If the above math were true, Envision could say to us at Portent, for every PDF downloaded they will pay $4. Because they know that at that level they are making money.

Now, when you go in to overhead and direct costs it gets more complicated, obviously, but the basic idea applies to every business in every industry we have dealt with so far.

If you want a tool that will do this for you, go here. This is a sheet my boss Ian made that will help you calculate these numbers.

(Envision also has a blog on call center methodology. Take a look. They got mentioned in an important call center blog, in part because they have left comments on that blog.)