Archive for category SEM

Demand Side Platform (DSP)

Posted by Volker in SEM on 28/07/2010

I need some indexing links, so thought I make you aware of 2 domains:

www.demandsideplatform.co.uk
www.displaymediaoptimization.com

Cheers
Volker

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Digital Marketing Thoughts

Posted by Volker in SEM, cb consulting on 29/06/2010

Ok, I admit it. On Sunday afternoon, just before the game, I had one of those moments. I thought I had to write a blog post about Digital Marketing and why and how it works. Here are those thoughts:

I spoke about Inbound Marketing on my blog before. The idea of inbound marketing is that, particularly online, you as a company or individual make enough noise to be seen and getting interest. This interest is then converted into sales. I know that is over simplified, but that is basically it.

To do that, e.g. making enough noise, a lot of companies use Social Media these days. Twitter to form an opinion or to build a brand, maybe a Facebook page, some Facebook discussions, a group on LinkedIn or just a good blog that gets quoted within the industry. Speaking at events is usually welcomed, or sponsorship at events to associate a brand with a sport, e.g. Rolex and Golf as an example.

Now, there is another way of creating awareness. I recently, as you know, entered the online display arena with a company that executes media plans across ad exchanges. That means we can buy inventory more cost effective and get a greater reach for less money than using ad networks for instance. This brand performance can be used solely for branding or it could be used for branding in association with direct response to actually measure the ROI straight away, similar to search marketing.

Another way is to use TV of course. Maybe less targeted (until IPTV comes into play) and of course more expensive. However, the costs of producing a good display ad (creative) or TV advert might differ, but both shouldn’t be neglected.

To my mind, and thanks to Kotler, the 4Ps are still valid. Product, place, price, promotion. People buy because they know a product or a brand and they saw it in a place or associate it with a certain status. Then the price….that is tricky but general speaking if one really likes something, one will be able to afford it. So now, the promotion, is really what I am talking about.

Looking at a Digital Marketing Strategy, there are only a few ways to think, and these ways are 90% online and 10% offline (or all online) and to have the right mix between inbound and outbound Direct Response. What do I mean with that?

1st:
As a brand you need to create a lot of awareness. Brand performance is the newest word I use for that. To do that you can use a mixture of TV and Display Advertising with a measurable KPI, e.g. sign-ups or voucher code use. This way you don’t only spend money on a big brand reach and awareness campaign but you start from the beginning to focus on your ROI for every penny you spend.

2nd:
User Engagement. Again: competition or user codes, discussions in forums or blogs, feedback and research rounds, social media like Facebook and Twitter. Having all that combined and using the feedback you are getting from your customers to improve your service and products is key.

3rd:
The trick is to utilise the user engagement (2) and turn that into sales. Using DR (direct response) channels like Display (DR & brand awareness = brand performance), PPC (DR but also brand awareness), social media, and Email campaigns. That means you are turning your brand performance into DR and get a list of hot leads.

4th:
Use good sales people and close those hot leads. Using their feedback and good account management skills for client engagement to make sure clients are happy.

5th:
Feed all those information back into your system – CRM Software. That means you have a feedback loop and know exactly which channel worked best, where to spend more money, where to spend less money and which channel gives you the greatest ROI. Measuring, comparing, adjusting.

It sounds simple but there are a lot of things where brands do go wrong. And, don’t forget, not every user is the same, and not every brand either ;-)

I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on my Digital Marketing Ideas.

Volker

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Inbound Marketing for SMEs

Posted by Volker in Marketing, SEM, cb consulting, social media on 27/11/2009

I wrote a lot about inbound marketingg before. Mainly for start ups and SMEs in London.

Most of the stuff is applied from the gurus in the field: the guys from Hubspot!

As part of my consulting offer, I offer advice for SMEs on how to effectively use social media, search marketing and “inbound marketing” as a tool to succeed in their business ventures. A strategy I am using at work too. Whilst I won’t take this mainstream and will always look into being full time employed with my main job.

Here is the latest slideshare presentation on inbound marketing I put together:

Inbound Marketing cb Consulting
View more documents from Volker Ballueder.

Have a great weekend.
Volker

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Multilingual Search Marketing

Posted by Volker in SEM, social media on 02/11/2009

As most of you know I have a background in multilingual or international search marketing with speaking engagements at mayor conferences, e.g. SMX, SES and Internetworld. However, since changing jobs I noticed that multilingual search doesn’t seem to be much of a rocket science as most countries in the Western World are dominated by Google and its algorithm, and the Eastern World has a few search engines you need to watch out for, e.g. Yandex in Russia, Baidu in China, and Naver in Korea.

However, the key to make international search marketing successful is the use of native speakers for the tasks of SEO and PPC, such as keyword research, link building, campaign set up, landing page optimisation etc. Of course it is debatable whether doing that in-house or with satellite office is more successful, but that is a question of business models and objectives and should not be discussed.

Being bi-lingual one of my interests is how to deal with cultural differences and language differences. Teaching my son German whilst speaking to my wife in English is a challenge on its own. Even Eric Schmidt from Google said that in five years time the majority of the web will be “non English”, the web will be dominated by Chinese-language and social media content. That just shows the significance of international and multilingual search marketing.

One of the new developments are the International Domain Names. This does not refer to names in Western characters we are used to but the revelation is that you find domain names in Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and dozens of other non-Latin languages.

The BBC had an opinion on the multilingual side of the web too, particularly with the Internet having its 40th anniversary. They say that the international domain structure has been worked on since the mid 90s.

world-wide-web-is-your-oyster What implications would that have for us in the UK or us in search? I believe this will not make a huge difference, however the run for the keyword rich domains in other languages and characters will start now. People will apply the knowledge to different languages, as they have in the past, with more freedom to integrate their language in the URL structure, domain names etc. I believe it is a huge step forward, giving the web an international presence as it should have.

Not only will the web be more complex in five years, taking in consideration the growth it is going through at the moment, but with the adoption to languages, and that includes the instant translation on Google Wave, or translation of websites, we will get closer to our human neighbours in the East, West, North and South. So the Internet becomes a connection tool, and with being a connection tool, one big social network…..

The world wide web is your oyster, or something like that.

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Mobile Industry Count

Posted by Volker in SEM on 19/10/2009

On Gary’s blog I also found the Mobile Industry count. Wow! This is hot stuff.

Will this year be the year of mobile – finally? Think we spoke about it for years!

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The future of search

Posted by Volker in SEM, cb consulting, social media on 22/06/2009

In an interview the other day I was asked about the future of search. Biased working on multilingual search at the moment, I decided to opt for the answer of “instant translated search results”, e.g. you type in a search term in English and they offer you results in different languages that are instantly translated. Saw this instant translation tool at Google Wave and was very impressed.

But what has happened lately in the search world? We are all familiar with Universal Search or Blended Search where the search engines blend results from blogs, pictures, news etc. Good example are politicians, e.g. Barack Obama. I spoke about that at SES Hamburg in 2008.

barack obama

If you are logged in with your “Google Account” your personal preferences will be taken into consideration, and dependent where on the globe you are and which index you access, you get different results. The one above is for UK only. So is personal search, the search results tailored to your preferences, the future? If so, the Internet would become a creation around your preferences rather than you changing the Internet around you. Or it gives you enough possibilities to personalise your web too and only the search results and of course the advertisement will be tailored to your life. The Digital Britain report touches on behavioural targeting and suggest it will be playing a big role in the future of online advertising.

What about Bing, did MSN’s new search engine changed anything? Google published a video pointing out that they are a “decision engine” too.

Google, according to Mashable, gets a bit scared and takes Bing quite serious. Search Engine Land comments on the “threat” too.

You remember the launch of Cuil last year. They didn’t take any market share off Google. However, if you think about it, then Bing might not want to take market share of Google (as yet) but position itself with a more relevant search engine than the msn.live to overtake Yahoo! and then take on Google in the long run. The relevancy is important and the way results are shown. Again, if that is combined with personalised search, Bing could become a winner and take on Google – but I suggest we don’t really see any shift towards Bing for another year or so. But, with launching Bing, Microsoft did go back to the battle field and the more competition there is for search engines, the better it is for our industry.

Anyhow, see Bing’s advertisement here and keep an eye out on whether they will take on Google or not.

Wolfram Alpha didn’t make the news as much and it is a search engine focusing on results and facts. If you search for “Barack Obama” you get his life facts. If you click on “search the web” you end up at Google. So this reminds me more of a Wikipedia search. However, clearly an interesting step in the world of search and how we might change our way of using search engines in the future.

Barack Obama WA

What is left to look at if we need to decide on the future of search? Maybe Twitter. I wrote about it a lot already, so the instant search which twitter offers and now shows up in Google results too, is definitely something to watch. Local search and search depending on your position, e.g. mobile GPS location, could be very interesting as well. Data protection might be against it, but definitely an area you want to keep an eye on.

Leaves us with semantic search? The user types in a few words and the search engine interprets what it means. Maybe the future will combine this with some personalised information again too? ClickZ had an interesting example in their article about a NY Sandwich: “Tell any New Yorker you had a sandwich made with rye bread, corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing but can’t remember what it’s called. He’ll tell you it’s a Reuben. But just throwing a few ingredients into a search engine may not get you such a quick or even correct response.” That means you might find recipes or anything you cannot remember the name off by putting in the “ingredients” or words you know about the “thing” you are looking for and out comes the answer. Very interesting and the Semantic Technology Conference is definitely a place to go over the next few years.

By the way, I found a great deli bar in NY whilst searching for the above ;-)

So, how do we best summarise the future of search?

The semantic search still seems to be in its infancy. However, the personalised search combined with localised search could be a winner, data protection allowing of course. And if Bing will take on Google or if we will find more vertical search engines rather than blended search results in Google and Bing shall be seen. If Yahoo! stands a chance and if Yahoo! and Bing can take on Google shall be seen also. My suggestion is that we won’t see much of a shift towards alternatives away from Google for a while, however we should not anticipate that search engines like Bing will take on Google in the long run, combining some or all of the technologies above. However, Google won’t sit still either, so the future is wide open.

And, instant translation, will get the world closer together – if it is relevant to the results shall be seen ;-)

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BT (British Telecom) – customer service

Posted by Volker in SEM, cb consulting, customer service, social media on 19/06/2009

I keep getting into the habit of writing about customer service. Particularly in relationship with Twitter.

Also, I have a love-hate relationship with BT (British Telecom). About 2 1/2 years ago when we moved into a new flat they drove me nuts. It took me a week to convince their help desk that they don’t need to do a line check every time I call and that there is a problem with the exchange. They eventually agreed to send out an engineer and fixed the problem after 10 days. I got so mad at them that I wrote a letter to the CEO which resulted in the head of customer service apologizing about the incident, and me getting 3 months free broadband as a compensation.

Now, why am I still with BT? Two reasons. One is that my wife likes to keep the land line number. Secondly, it is convenient to have them as they have a good connection, e.g. I hardly ever in the last 5 years had problems connecting to the internet. I believe 2 times in 5 years. That is a very good track record.

After the incident 2 1/2 years ago I decided not to sign for another 12 months in case I want to swap to Virgin for their quicker glass fibre optic broadband. But then I did sign another 12 months just recently because I thought I never going to change to another provider and they offered me some savings :-) I fell for the old sales trick!

What I noticed lately, particularly reading about BT’s throttling broadband speed. Of course they speak about doubling the speed and introducing glass fibre optic technology too. Anyhow, because we have such a slow speed, e.g. we signed up for up to 8 mb/s, and only receive around 3 mb/s, I complained to them and tweeted about it and said that I am not happy with the slow speed but surprised, due to previous experience, about their speedy response. After my complain via email I had a technician on the phone within 2 hours! And he unfortunately admitted that if it is slower than 2.5 mb/s I should call them. However, that is not the reason I signed up for 8 mb/s but I know there is no way to argue about it. Maybe Virgin after all?

BT thread1

Above the replies from Twitter. BT started following me, commenting and offering more help and support. I find that very good and very essential. Actually, this is what the post is about.

Any good brand nowadays needs to adopt to search/social media to follow up what is said about their brand online. With BT for instance, you need to monitor “BT” on Twitter. Go to the search function and search for BT, you will quickly see how much work they have to do and how many people write about “BT” not meaning the company.

Just thought this is a great case study on how well BT is doing, or brands in general, in adopting social media and monitoring as well as engaging with clients. It is more and more essential for brands to engage with clients where they are.

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Twitter results in Google

Posted by Volker in SEM, cb consulting, social media on 16/06/2009

Wow, I am impressed. Maybe I missed an announcement over the last few days but Google now includes Twitter search results in their search – at least for their Google Alerts.

google-alerts-ballueder2

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Telemarketing – does it still work?

Posted by Volker in Marketing, SEM, cb consulting, job on 21/05/2009

By now most people should know a few things about me. I am keen on Marketing, particular Inbound Marketing, and you might not know that I started my career in telemarketing.

A few months back I needed less convincing to use telemarketing and cold calling. I thought, if there is a company out there that fits the niche for my company’s service, then a call to them will work. And, it does. However, it is not as effective as getting this person to find you.

On Linkedina group of Business Development guys discussed telemarketing and particularly cold calling. My comment was: “I have done cold calling for many years but think it proves less and less effective. Ideally you focus on inbound marketing to generate leads. Prospects are funneled through to you and find you online (SEO, PPC, Blogs, Social Media) and if you have the right USP, they will fill in a contact form. Once that is done, you call them. I would almost call that a “luke warm” contact ;-) Because the prospect did the first step and you already know that they know you. From there it is much easier to introduce yourself.
Having said all that, for some goods cold calling will still work and becomes a numbers game. Simple example is a washing machine. Everyone needs one, and everyone wants one. There is a saturation in the market but if you call 100 households, I am sure you can sell at least 1 washing machine.”

So, we are looking at several cases here. Cold calling for B2C and B2B and then for products that are niche and products that are common. From my point of view, like the washing machine example, if you have a commonly available product and cold call B2B or B2C, you will eventually win new clients. It is a numbers game.

If you are B2B and you have a niche product people will find you anyway, particularly if you are using inbound marketing and optimise your site with SEO. However, if you are somewhere in the middle, a combination can work. Don’t call it “cold calling” but “telemarketing”. Start a survey and ask people “is that a service you could be interested in?” – get their “opt-in” to send them further information, get them curious about what you have to say.

Once you made them curious, then you got them to search for a keyword you can push in your email, something easy to optmise for and with little competition. You push a keyword that people will connect to your product and services. This is a great SEO tip too ;-)

So, to summarise, I still believe that telemarketing and telesales can be useful if it is used as a qualifying tool after the initial contact has been made through a trade show, a contact form or other means of marketing. Used mainly for inbound and “luke warm” outbound calls, as part of a strong inbound marketing mix, telemarketing is a good tool for companies.

And, for anyone who ever worked in telemarketing, it is a great way of starting your sales career. You never have any hesitation to pick up the phone – even if the president was on the other side of the line ;-)

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