Google held their presentation in a large auditorium enough to capacitate the whole lot of us and focused their first presentation on trends in the industry. This is the one piece of information I took from it. Social media and mobile marketing is not a fad. Paraphrased and not that I thought otherwise but if Google says it, it must be true… right? 

So we broke for lunch, killed about an hour and a bit talking to people and what not, then we (Google conference attendees) were separated into two groups, by choice of course. Beginner or advanced? Not that I claim to be an expert on AdWords, I chose the advanced seminar hoping to pick up some tidbit or gem that I could take back to the office. Nope. I had to double check again to see if I had entered the beginner room by mistake.

I don’t know who they were targeting with their presentation because it wasn’t helpful enough to people who have some sort of understanding, yet I heard from a couple of people with no understanding that it was very confusing and too heavy on the lingo that means nothing to them. It’s Google… one of the most recognizable brands in the world… I thought this was going to be the be all and end all of seminars. Oh well.

I’ll sum it up to my top ten benefits to make it a little easier of a read for you since this post is already getting too text heavy.

My Top 10 Benefits of Google AdWords

1. Allows you to be seen on Google
2. Cost effective way to market your business or products
3. You chose how much or how little you want to spend
4. Your position on Google is not determined by how much you spend, but rather by how relevant your ad is to your target and how many clicks you receive
5. All of your ads are completely customizable in terms of what text or link is displayed. If you’re running ads on the Google Content Network, your ads can even have images and video.
6. All of your ads are completely targetable by keywords, location, even time of day. If you’re running ads on the Google Content Network, you can even target your ads to certain age demographics.
7. All of your ads are easy to track to see which ones are performing well and which need to be revised, allowing you to spend your dollar wisely
8. AdWords software is very user friendly and will allow you to make it as complicated or as simple as you want
9. Google provides tools to generate keyword ideas, they let you know how heavy the competition is for each of the keywords you are targeting, recommend pricing points and much more to help you maximize your money
10. It will boost traffic to your website and create more brand awareness

We use an interview process to guide clients through their first blogs. It’s their story and our pen initially. Our intent is to get them over their fear of writing and provide a model they can adopt to eventually go solo. Kind of like installing training wheels on your first bike. These are the top 3 push backs we get from potential bloggers… and our response:

1/How can I find the time?

You need to block off 2-3 hours on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to write. Making it a routine is the answer.

2/What would I write about?

You write about what you know, what you’ve experienced and share that insight in a personal and candid way. You are not selling your company, simply sharing information that may help others in some way.

3/Does it really accomplish anything?

Yes! I find it somewhat therapeutic to step outside of my day to day routine and reflect on recent events through my blogs. It clears my head for new thinking. It keeps me in touch with clients and prospects. And last but not least, it increases our industry and web profile.

Lee’s Quote for the day

“Blogging is like jogging without the sweat and the iPod. They’re both good for you and become more enjoyable with time.” 

• You don’t know how to
• You don’t have the time to
• You don’t think it will benefit you

These are reasonable responses to the question of “why?” but with a little further research, I think you may just change your opinion as many businesses have, including us!

It can be a little difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel, especially in a business to business scenario. There are several benefits, so maybe now is the time to jump in!

You don’t know how to – It can be a little overwhelming if you don’t have an understanding of what it takes to get involved in social media. The best thing to do is search for one of your clients on these social media platforms, or even one of your competitors to see what they are doing and how they utilize Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Word Press, LinkedIn, etc. Read, read, and read… it will give you more insight in how to join the online world as well as keep you up to date on what is going on in your industry. Who knows, maybe you will have something to say right away. Commenting on other businesses blogs and pages are great ways to introduce yourself and share your knowledge on the web.

You don’t have the time to – You don’t have to dive into everything at once. Maybe you are already more familiar with Facebook than any other site. Start there. If not, just pick one to start with for the first few months and you will gradually gain the confidence to implement others. Setting up a Facebook or Twitter account will not take you long to accomplish, just get it done and you can do some tweaking later. There are actually a lot of great blogs out there that will walk you through the entire process of creating these accounts.

The best in the business are posting and tweeting multiple times a day. They most likely have the resources to have an employee dedicated solely to social media. You should shoot for at least once every couple of days and if you start up a blog, try to start by posting relevant news to your company or your industry once a week, or at a minimum, bi-weekly. The more you do it, the better you will get and thus, take less of your time to create frequent posts.

You don’t think it will benefit you – It is true that social media is more effective for B2C companies but that doesn’t mean that it is not beneficial to B2B. The idea behind social media is to first of all, create more brand awareness on the web. The more websites your company is listed and active on, the easier it is for people to find you, understand you and learn what specifically sets you apart from the rest. These sites show up on general searches through Google and other search engines, so if you post quality content, rich in industry keywords, you will get a higher ranking. It’s all about posting good content as regularly as you can to try to get people involved in your business and your industry. Start a dialogue, talk to people that you otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to, drive businesses to your website, and ultimately make a positive impact on your business. We’ve seen it work.

Remember— If you do want to get into social media and even after your research you don’t think you will be able to pull it off, you can always outsource it to a trusted company.

15 Benefits of Social Media:

• Create brand awareness
• Reach beyond your own prospect list
• Drive more traffic to your website
• Stay informed of the goings on in your industry
• See what people are saying about your company
• Get your news out there in real time
• Gain a higher ranking on Google and other search engines
• Show your existing and future clients you are willing to stay up to date
• Show your existing and future clients you care about your brand
• Show your existing and future clients you care about them
• Ability to provide immediate customer service
• Post job opportunities instantly
• Track website and social media performance with Google Analytics
• Generate more sales leads
• Oh yeah…. It’s FREE

A Few Points on Social Media Sites

Facebook

• This is the most universal social media site.
• This site allows you to post videos, pictures, links, polls, etc.
• You can customize your landing page to entice a visitor to “Like” it.
• You post relevant news to your “fans”
• Join industry or company specific groups and join the discussions.

Twitter

• This is the most real time social media platform, where the majority of serious “tweeters” will post multiple times a day.
• A great way to post latest news, other peoples relevant “tweets” (retweet), post and reply to job opportunities.

LinkedIn

• This is the best site to stay in touch with key contacts from specific companies of your choosing.
• Offers group discussions in several industries.
• Lets you introduce and be introduced to mutual business contacts in your industry.

WordPress

• This is one of the easiest ways to set up a blog for your business.
• A blog is a great way to increase the content and size of your website which will help to get you a higher ranking on search engines.
• Helps to bring visitors to your site regularly.

YouTube

• People love to watch videos.
• A great link to have on your website.
• If you have no desire to create videos, you can still set up a channel for your business, like relevant videos to your industry as well as post comments.

Google Analytics

• Not a part of social media but an essential tool to track the effectiveness of your website and social media.

Somewhat ironic I thought, that a professional sales person would not have expanded on that answer. What if he was in the business of selling something I or someone in my family or business network might need? Was he embarrassed about what he sells for a living? The conversation ended. And so did a possible sales opportunity.

I had a similar feeling when a transportation client told me (that same morning) that their website was fine. It was all they needed. One of their employees designed it 5 or 6 years ago and he was happy enough with it. I mentioned to him about 5 or 6 ways it could be improved but he wasn’t all that interested. By not addressing these details, will he be out of business? Probably not, but will he lose possible sales opportunities? Absolutely yes!

The carrier in question made a few mistakes that are easily corrected. And from our research, he is not alone. These are a few things that we see often and most likely need to be addressed on your site if it was designed 4-5 years ago.

1/ If you have a 2 language site you don’t need a splash page anymore to select languages. It can all be done with programming. The same goes for a separate splash or flash opening of any kind. Get the visitor to your home page, as soon as possible.

2/ Don’t make your customer click extra buttons to get to the secure log-in area, or rate request forms on your site.

3/ If you’re like most companies with an older site, you probably have out of date information that needs to be updated. Don’t delay, it is easily rectified.

4/ Have relevant information about your core services front and center on the home page with quick links to access additional data.  It’s your best opportunity to cross sell other services to existing customers and capture the interests of potential customers.

5/ Make it easy to contact you. That is what the majority of people coming to your site are trying to do.

6/ Don’t have any text explaining your company services as an image as it cannot get picked up by the search engines and therefore, will not move you up in the rankings when people search for your service.

7/ Understand what key words are searched for in your industry and optimize your site accordingly.

8/ If the equipment pictures on your site were taken a number of years ago and they were a few years old then, you could be promoting a 7-8 year old fleet on your site.

9/ Design trends change. Sites are not left justified anymore and they take advantage of the background area to expand the graphic treatment and overall visual effect.

10/ You may have spent a lot of time and energy achieving various certifications, green initiatives, awards…are they promoted on your site and is your last posted news item current?

Lee’s quote for the day

The correlation, between marketing your company to a potential customer and dating someone for the first time, is very similar. In both cases, you need to present the best version of yourself, do something to capture their interest, do things to maintain their interests and if you want the relationship to be long term, never take them for granted.”

There are two ways which you can view Google Analytics data, through the browser and via pre-defined and scheduled e-mail reports.  Although you can customize the type of reports you receive from Google Analytics, the most commonly received report is the default dashboard report which presents a good set of key website performance metrics. The dashboard report consists of several categories, which are defined by several key metrics.

We’ll take a look at each of these categories and metrics in detail, and I’ll show you how they should be interpreted within your transportation related site. Typically most dashboards reports cover the past month, so just keep that in mind if you’re viewing the PDF report.

Traffic Sources Overview – The Four Ways Visitors Get To Your Website

There are four key traffic sources for any website. Direct Traffic, Referring Sites, Search Engines and Other.

Direct Traffic refers to visitors who type in your website address directly into their browser. These visitors either have your site bookmarked, know your website address, or reference some promotional material where your website address is printed, such as an ad, a business card or some other advertising piece.

Traffic from Referring Sites is the amount of traffic you receive from other sites that carry a link to your company. It could be a transportation partner, an association that you’re a member of, or a general internet directory.

Other Traffic comes from custom defined sources. You can track your various marketing campaigns (e-mail newsletters, outlook signatures, etc) using Google Analytics, but that’s beyond the scope of this article, and we’ll take a look at that in another one.

The Top Traffic Sources subcategory shows the source of where your website traffic is coming from. Here you will see search engines like Google, or Yahoo, or a list of those Referring Sites that we’ve talked about.

The Keywords subcategory will show you the top 5 keywords or keyword phrases that are used to get to your website through a search engine. In most cases it will be your company name, as a good percentage of visitors will type in your company name into Google when looking for you. If your website is Search Engine Optimized (SEO), phrases related to your business will show up here. So for example, if your site is search engine optimized for “Canada LTL”, or “Toronto Montreal Truckload” these terms will show in this category. Keep in mind, that on the dashboard report you only see the top 5 keywords, and you will have to login into the Google Analytics service in order to view more.

Visitors Overview  - What Kind Of Visitors, and How Are They Viewing Your Website

The visitors overview page, is the third page of your dashboard overview. The first metric that you will see is the Visits metric, which will tell you the amount of visits your website has received over a specified period. Any time someone visits your website, they are counted in this metric.

The Absolute Unique Visitor metric, is the amount of “unique” visitors your website has received. It is a bit more difficult to understand. A unique visitor is someone that is visiting your website for the very first time. If they have visited your website in the past within the specified time period, they are still only counted once. You can have  multiple visits, from one absolute unique visitor. This metric is a true representation on the number of actual individuals that have visited your website.

The Pageviews metric shows how many pages were viewed on your site. If your website has just a single page, and you had 100 visitors to your site, more than likely you will have received 100 pageviews. Simple math. So the pageviews metric factors in how many pages your website has. If you have a very large site, and a large number of visitors, the amount of pageviews that you will receive is very high.

The amount of Average Pageviews shows on average how many pages a visitor has looked when visiting your website. The higher the number, the better. A higher number typically indicates a higher quality of visit. In an ideal world, a visitor will land on your homepage, go to your services pages, and then visit the contact page. You’ve just landed a potential customer, and best of all, you can track this with Google Analytics.

The Time on Site metric shows the average number of minutes or seconds that the average visitor has spent on your site. Again, a higher number will usually indicate that the visitor is interested in your website and has spent a good time browsing around the various pages.

The Bounce Rate shows how many times a visitor has left immediately after visiting the first page that they’ve landed on. While this is an important metric, it is more important to look at the bounce rate when viewing the New Visits metric.  The reason behind this, is that the bounce rate on the dashboard report factors in New and Returning visitors. A Returning Visitor for example may just be visiting in order to trace a shipment, so the bounce rate for returning visitors will higher than new visitors. New visitors to your site will have a lower bounce rate. They will be interested in the services you offer, and will look around other pages of your website. The New Visitor/Bounce Rate report is not available within the default dashboard, and you will have to login or get a report setup in order to view these stats. Contact us on how you can do this (link to contact page).

The last metric shows the percentage of New Visitors. New visitors are people who are visiting your website for the first time. If you further dig down in this metric, you can figure out how your new visitors are reaching you – if they’re coming to your website directly or if they are searching for a specific keyword or term on Google and reaching you via a search engine.

Technical Profile – Browser and Connection Speed Data

The Technical profile section shows the technical aspect of the visit, such as browser and connection speed. This data is important to know if your website has some features which may be incompatible with a particular browser.

The connection speed shows what type of connection your visitor is using. In most urban centers DSL, Cable and other high speed connections will be most common. However, if your transportation company is primarily servicing a rural area where high speed connections are not prevalent, you will see a larger number of dial up connections. In this case, it is important to optimize your website so that it loads as quickly as possible for customers with slow connections.

Map Overlay – Where Are Your Visitors Coming From?

The map overlay is the last section of the report and shows you where your visitors are coming from. The PDF dashboard report will just show you the country of origin. You will want to login into your Google Analytics account and view the information in detail by clicking the specific country that you wish to gain information on. This will give you a further break down by region and city.

In Summary

Google Analytics is a very powerful tool, and can be customized to an endless extent. If you have Google Analytics running on your site, that’s good news, because you’re already capturing all that key visitor data. If you don’t have Google Analytics, or simply wish to set more reports up to be e-mailed to you, contact us, and we’ll set you up.

I gave our team the following objectives, stepped back and let them loose. You can be the judge of how well these have been achieved. A taste of our new marketing is featured in the February 2011 issue of CT&L and we needed to coordinate our new web with that release date. The directives were as follows and can act as a helpful guideline for anyone in the process of updating their site.

Message first - It’s great to be clever but it’s critical to communicate…if you can combine the two it becomes memorable and creates impact

Front door message-  Lead with your strength which in our case is 22 years of experience marketing  the transportation industry. It’s important not to cast too wide a net and weight your product offerings so that people get a real sense of who you are and what you do…in short order

Side door message - Leave the door open to other opportunities which for us is the fact that our process works for any industry. You need to back that side door message up with hard facts to make it believable.

Easy to navigate - With the help of Google Analytics you can track how customers are reacting to your site through a number of metrics. Most come to your site to get contact info and get an overall impression if this is a company they want to deal with. Ease of navigation is a key element.

Warm and personal – Our clients are becoming directly involved with a higher proportion of our staff. It’s a function of running lean and streamlining communications. In general terms, we believe it is important that your web has a personality that reflects your company. A few real shots mixed in with a stock library can help accomplish this. Yes people leave but the web can be updated very easily. It’s a more dynamic and flexible media that you can measure a return on.

Assess the brand – Take a look at your brand elements. Do they need a tweak. Is your tag line unique and does it help establish a persona for the company. In B2B you can change elements of your brand without so much as a ripple in the stream. Be open to subtle change. It can breathe new life into your marketing.

Incorporate social media – We continue to experiment in this area. Our blog efforts have shown the most return. You need a champion to lead this charge. Anything that brings fresh content to your site helps promote your company and raise your ranking on search engines

Engage SEO (search engine optimization) – There is an expense to this and it varies on the size of the site and how deep you want to go with. We plan on taking it all the way. Why? It works and you can clearly measure the results (With Google Analytics) and fine tune it for even greater benefit in the future

Meet the Deadline - It’s important to set a date and work towards it with diligence. You get a certain flow that takes the project to a higher level. When too much time goes by where the project is parked on a shelf, it’s increasingly hard to get it off the bottom of the pile and successfully launched.

Lee’s quote for the day

“Change is good and engaging proper SEO powers your site like fuel powers your vehicle. Doing one without the other doesn’t make much sense or get you any further down the road”

1.  Give your web some personality.
   Many companies put website development in the hands of their IT department. Although they certainly play a big role, there should be a second set of eyes directing your look and message to the marketplace.
2. Take a message first approach.
   Don’t keep what you do best a secret. Make sure your value proposition is front and center. Narrow your focus and increase overall results by speaking specifically to your 80% strength and customer target.
3. Use an effective combination of Flash and HTML text in your web layout. Too much of one or the other can leave the viewer either frustrated with download time or bored from lack of effective design and text heavy layouts. A “picture is worth a thousand words” applies to websites too.
4. Optimize your site.
   Having a site without SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is like having a hot dog without the bun. Proper SEO can dramatically change your presence on the web through increased rankings.
5. Keep your news or blog category current.
   Having original news and/or blog content will increase rankings and customer interest, while copying others verbatim and having out of date entries can work against you. The more you update your site, the more reasons search engines such as Google will have a reason to visit.
6. Attention to detail is important.
   Use quality photos and well written and proofed text. Make sure your logo and tagline are reproduced consistently and correctly throughout your site and please avoid extended “under construction” postings.
7. Make your site customer centric.
   Make it easy to navigate. Tell your message quickly and concisely. Have applicable customer log-in portals front and center. For new visitors, the majority are looking for contact info so make it easy to find.
8. Benchmark your activity before and after.
   Use Google Analytics to better understand traffic demographics. Review regularly and make changes to your site based on the data received. Set targets to better capture your viewers’ attention and increase frequency and lengths of visits in the future.
9. Use a combination of push and pull strategies to increase your web presence.
   Don’t wait for business to land in your lap. Push out your information. Promote your website to customers and prospects.
10. Use one capable marketing provider. Your results will be more cohesive, cost effective and less demanding on your time. Taking a “too many cooks” approach (within your company and by using multiple vendors) could result in poor overall delivery and lack of consistency with your branding efforts.

 Lee’s quote for the day,
“To catch the big fish, your marketing needs to have the right hook, line and thinkers.”

"629,000 results. Wow. And all this time I thought that Googling yourself meant the other thing."

What do you do when you are puzzled by something? You google it, like everyone else, since Google is the dominant search engine. Today millions of business professionals are only willing to reach as far as their keyboard for the answers they need. The question is will they find you? Do yourself a favor, Google yourself and find out if you are on the first page. If you’re not, here are some things you can do to increase your visibility on Google:

1. Update your employees’ profiles (photos, bios, links to their online profiles)

Web analytics reveal that the most viewed pages are the About Us and Contact Us pages. Why is that? It is driven by genuine human curiosity. People want know who they are doing business with, their names and faces, and not only that, they want to contact them too!

2. Blog, Blog, Blog.

As highlighted in our previous blog articles, there are many benefits in blogging. You can write about the things your customers want to know, share your insights in the market, and anything else that may interest your clients.

3. Incorporate Social Media on your site.

Social Media creates much larger audience groups for businesses. The Internet is a public and social place and having social media incorporated within your website means you are connected to more people more topics and subjects, thus increasing the chances your website will be picked up by Google’s search engine.

What else do you need? Commitment, Commitment and Commitment! It is a full time job to maintain your website and do it right. Update your website, blog and social media frequently, as a less active site is not going to rank well on Google.

From my perspective, there is no shortage of marketing related topics to write about. I find it somewhat therapeutic as a matter of fact and enjoy putting my digital pen to paper as a regular part of my weekly ritual. At this point, we haven’t seen direct comments in response to our blogs but they are being read and shared. As we gain more experience in this venue and with time, we hope our efforts will be helpful to others and that eventually we’ll get more interaction and collaboration on the various subject areas posted.

This past 4-day week we had two sales leads that materialized as a direct result of our web marketing. One where we weren’t the right solution (company was looking for canned newsletter content) and one that was right up our alley and turned into an appointment. Not all that significant maybe, except that 1 branding/web appointment for us can turn into 20-50,000 dollars of immediate work and a customer for life.

In the B2B environment, I believe getting your web ranking higher organically is (at a minimum) like having another full time sales person on the road and at a fraction (3%) of the cost. Similar to adding a new sales person it takes time to see the results. In this past economy it can be 6-9 months before you see the benefit…but there are soft benefits in the meantime. Now more than ever, the purchasers of your services are forming opinions of your organization based on your presence on the web. Your message needs to be clear; your look professional and when someone searches, ending up on the first page in your category doesn’t hurt.

What does this mean in terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Well, the answer is quite simple, you should primarily focus on optimizing for Google above all others, but don’t forget about Yahoo and Bing, because if the market shifts unexpectedly, it means that you have your bases covered. We all remember when AltaVista was king back in the late 90’s, only to be driven into irrelevancy by its failed portal attempt and the rise of Google. Whatever SEO marketer you choose, make sure they optimize for Yahoo and Bing as well.