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Blogging 101: Long Tail Search

Posted June 1, 2010 By s.applegate

Long-tail keywords are lower-volume keyword phrases containing three or more words. These longer keyword phrases are typically used for more specific searches. Long-tail searchers know exactly what they are looking for and are typically searching to fill a specific need or solve a problem. An example of a long tail search would be “award-winning media planning and buying agency”. The intent of this search is much more specific compared to a short tail keyword such as “media agency”. The first phrase indicates the searcher is in detailed research or buying mode. The second phrase indicates the searcher is in the initial research phase.

Because individual long tail keyword searches typically do not bring a lot of traffic, the appropriate strategy for marketers is to target high quantities of long tail keywords. The most efficient and effective way to implement this strategy is by blogging.

To find and target long tail keywords, consider the following:

– Free online keyword research tools

For example, Google Adwords Keyword Tool can help determine a range of long tail keywords when you type in a popular, competitive keyword. The tool will also allow you to gauge competitiveness, search volume and average cost per click.

– Competitor analysis

Online tools such as SEMRush will uncover a list of keywords used by your competitors, as well as their rankings in organic and paid search results.

– SEO consultants

These are search engine optimization service providers you can hire to carry out optimization projects on your behalf.

– Enterprise platforms

One of the most popular platforms is HitTail, a web tool you can use to get long tail keyword suggestions. HitTail will give you a tracking code to put on your website and then use the recorded data to give you a list of topics to write about in order to improve your search engine results.

The top 4 advantages of using long tail search terms on your blog or website are:   

1. Rank viability

Since long tail keywords are less competitive, it is much easier to achieve top search engine rankings than with short tail keywords.

2. Targeted traffic

Targeted traffic to your website or blog will increase because the number of your individual pages with long tail keywords will go up over time. The aggregate result is more visibility and thus more traffic.

3. Conversion rate increase

The searchers using long tail keywords are further along the buying cycle than people who are making generic searches.

4. Readership increase

If your posts are done effectively, they will meet your viewers need, keep them on the site longer and potentially entice them to subscribe to your RSS feed. This is even more likely if you have related posts. Your audience will expand, allowing for greater monetization potential.

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Filed in June Newsletter Articles
   

Twitter Secrets Revealed

Posted April 30, 2010 By s.applegate

Previously, Twitter had one source of revenue – a data fee from search engines indexing tweets. The second source is from advertising, which started on April 12th. The third source will come from a fee charged to business users for professional/commercial accounts – a service which has yet to launch.

Advertising will be sold in the form of “promoted tweets”, which will appear in search results on Twitter.com. Promoted tweet is a keyword ad that shows up at the top of a search when a user searches for a particular term. Companies can bid and buy keywords that trigger their promoted tweet to appear. Promoted tweet is not an “ad” in the traditional sense, but a company tweet. This tweet is clearly labeled as “promoted”, but since it’s a tweet itself, it can be retweeted, made favorite and replied to.

An example of a promoted tweet:

Twitter will be rolling out promoted tweets slowly over the course of the year. Initially, advertisers will bid on keywords on a cost-per-thousand basis, but a performance model is in development and is expected to become the basis for pricing. The new performance model will measure “resonance” which takes into account nine factors – including the number of people who saw the post, the number who replied or retweeted it, and the number of people who clicked on links. If a promoted tweet does not reach a certain resonance score, Twitter will no longer show it, the advertiser will not have to pay for it and users will not see it.

Twitter’s first advertisers are Starbucks, Bravo and Virgin America – all heavy users of Twitter as a communications medium. Unlike search ads on Google or Yahoo, there will only be one Twitter ad displayed at a time. This restriction is likely to block out small advertisers for whom keywords might become too expensive as a result of bidding wars.

Twitter recently said the service handles 50 million tweets a day, but it hasn’t disclosed how many search queries it gets. In the next phase of Twitter’s revenue plan currently scheduled for fourth quarter, it will show promoted tweets in a user’s Twitter stream, even if a user did not perform a search and does not follow the advertiser. Their appearance will depend on whether they are algorithmically relevant to the user or not. For example, if a user tweets a lot about pets, pet product companies might target him/her with their promoted tweets.

The ads will also provide a way for advertisers to enter the Twitter chatter when it becomes negative. While some companies have created tools to measure sentiment on Twitter, there was little they could do with this information because posted responses get quickly lost in a sea of complaints.

As Twitter gains insight into promoted tweet performance, it will be interesting to see what this new ad model evolves into. One thing is certain — the resonance measurement is a sign of progress in establishing more useful and comprehensive performance metrics for targeted buys via social media – how users respond to the message, if they retweet it, reply to it, post it, blog about it, etc.

Have you seen a promoted tweet yet? What do you think?

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Filed in May Newsletter Articles
   

New Metrics in Out-of-Home

Posted April 30, 2010 By s.applegate

Eyes On is the industry’s long-anticipated new audience measurement currency. After five years of development, Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB) released its first Eyes On ratings in 2009, but expects the buying and selling community to start using the new currency by the end of 2010.

The new ratings system measures audiences “likely to see” an outdoor ad, with sophisticated demographic and ethnographic data. This is a significant improvement over the existing measurement, Daily Effective Circulation (DEC), which measures the audience who had the “opportunity to see” an outdoor ad, and lacks availability of demographic data. Additionally, Eyes On will help the buyers and sellers compare OOH with other media more easily.

TAB’s new system combines auto and pedestrian traffic counts with route and destination surveys and in-person interviews to determine ad exposure and recall. Data from in-person interviews is analyzed to quantify the likelihood that a passerby will focus on the ad. Weekly ratings include demographic information about the outdoor viewer’s age, gender, race and income. Advertisers can get specific data at the DMA, county and zip code levels.

If you are not sure if OOH should be a part of your media strategy, consider the following:

• If your brand has a local market strategy, OOH can help provide efficient and effective market coverage with the added benefit of always being “on”.

• If you are using other local media, adding outdoor to the mix can broaden your in-market reach, connecting your brand with light users of other media.

• If you are looking to generate interest and awareness, OOH is a perfect fit.

• If you are trying to influence consumer behavior close to point of purchase, use directional OOH to intercept and impact the in-transit consumer.

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Filed in May Newsletter Articles
   

Double Down with Behavioral

Posted April 30, 2010 By s.applegate

Based on the study conducted by Howard Beales, an Associate Professor at the School of Business at George Washington University, there are major differences in costs, CTR and conversion rates between behavioral targeting and run of network targeting. The study used data obtained from 12 ad networks, 9 of which were among the top 15 networks by total unique visitors according to comScore’s December 2009 rankings. The three remaining networks this study used are smaller, to provide some representation for smaller networks in the marketplace.

The study shows that the price of behavioral targeting in 2009 was 2.68 times the price of run of network advertising. Consistent with the difference in rates, the conversion rates for behavioral targeting are more than twice the conversion rates for run of network advertising.

As seen in the charts above, the study also shows average cost and conversion rate for retargeting or reengaging a customer who clicked on an ad but did not complete a sale/conversion. However, the retargeting numbers should be taken “with a grain of salt” because only three respondents provided the retargeting data and because the survey did not request information on the division of tasks between the advertiser and the network for this type of advertising.

The high conversion rates imply that behavioral advertising is more interesting and useful to the consumer, and more likely to attract advertisers to the network. If advertising better matches their interests and needs, consumers are more likely to respond to such advertising, and advertisers are willing to pay more for ads delivered to such audience.

Behavioral targeting also improves CTR by as much as 670% over run of network advertising. Although a click through is not the same as sale, it gets consumers closer to sale (making them subject to retargeting) and drives traffic to advertiser’s website.

It is also interesting to see how CPMs compare across different behavioral targeting verticals.

All CPMs are still significantly higher compared to run of network advertising.

Because behavioral targeting makes use of data derived from users’ online behavior, the practice has raised privacy concerns. When asked, most people will say they don’t want their online behavior analyzed. However, evidence suggests that consumers will click and convert through ads that are relevant to them. Similarly, advertisers will pay more for an opportunity to hone in on consumers most likely to buy their product. As for the networks, behavioral targeting accounted for over 40% of their total advertising revenue in 2009.

Post a comment to tell us about your experience with behavioral targeting. We’d love to hear from you!

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Filed in May Newsletter Articles
   

Top 8 Email Marketing Tips

Posted April 30, 2010 By s.applegate

Email marketing can be a highly effective tool for customer acquisition and retention. It allows targeting, drives direct sales and traffic to your website, and if done correctly, it builds lasting relationships, loyalty and trust. To execute a successful email campaign, consider the following:

1. Since subscribers spend eight seconds on most messages, make sure to answer their three biggest questions, ideally in a preview pane:

• What is this email about? Consider strong, clear subject lines that get your offer across before the subscriber even opens the email. In the body of your email, guide subscribers’ eyes where they need to go. Balance copy and imagery to get your message out without overwhelming the subscriber.

• Why should a subscriber care about it? Convey your value proposition above the fold.

• What should a subscriber do about it? To provide a clear action opportunity, use easy to see, straightforward calls to action that tell subscribers exactly what will happen when they click.

2. Test – different subject lines, calls to action, messaging, layout and send times can boost the performance while uncovering tactics you can build upon.

3. Segment – mining past purchases and click behavior as well as subscriber preference feedback will reveal opportunities to send the right offers to the right subscribers.

4. Performance metrics – review and analyze open, click and unsubscribe rates to optimize and improve your campaign.

5. Triggered emails – studies show that lifecycle messages such as welcome, birthday, anniversary, browse and shopping cart abandonment emails deliver revenue per email that is multifold what is generated by broadcast emails.

6. Stay “on-brand” – update your sign-up form, opt-in confirmation page as you change your logo, brand messaging or email program benefits.

7. Grow your subscriber base organically – make it easy for customers to sign up for your emails.

8. Don’t make it difficult to unsubscribe. Consumers have control over their inboxes so if they can’t unsubscribe easily, they will likely use a spam button.

As with most media tactics, you will have more success if you sustain your efforts and continue to refine your message and approach. Aside from generating immediate sales, email marketing is successful when it becomes a tool for building and maintaining brand awareness and strengthening relationships with customers, so that when prospects or customers are ready to act, they recognize your name and think positively about your brand. Delivering a variety of messages such as promotions, newsletters and invitations with links back to your website gives recipients many opportunities to remember your name and to reach out to you when they are ready.

For more tips or a customized campaign proposal, contact Applegate Media Group today at 877.515.5557 or info@applegatemediagroup.com.

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Filed in May Newsletter Articles
   

Marketing with Twitter

Posted March 1, 2010 By s.applegate

Twitter is the shortest form of social media. Its messages are limited to 140 characters and usually consist of a brief comment or a URL. The messages, or “tweets”, are sent to everyone following the account. Companies use Twitter to generate website traffic, produce leads, and drive trials or purchase. According to Marketing Sherpa, people follow companies or individuals for specific reasons. The most common reasons are to learn about specials and new products, but also for pure entertainment or educational purposes.

Dell, who has close to 1.5 million Twitter followers, sells their refurbished products through their Twitter account @DellOutlet. In June 2009, Dell claimed that since launching their Twitter account in 2007, it has generated more than $2 million in sales directly attributable to Twitter. Another $1 million in sales came from people who started at Twitter and then moved to Dell’s website to buy a new computer. In December of 2009, the company released another statement to say that their global Twitter outreach has resulted in $6.5 million in sales, a number that includes purchases of new and refurbished equipment globally.

How did they do it? Looking at Marketing Sherpa’s chart, Dell is just telling their followers what they want to hear. Through Twitter, Dell announces the latest available refurbished equipment, and also sends coupons and clearance event updates to their followers.

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Filed in March Newsletter Articles
   
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