Discussing PPC Advertising, Analytics, and other forms of Search Engine Optimization.

Due to the massive response to our last post about when to use adwords, I’ve asked a few friends to put together guest posts that describe how to market a book, or a product with a low price point.

Our first guest will be Jacob Morgan, social media strategy expert and creator of Search Marketing Salon

Marketing Your Product Through Social Media, How?

By Jacob Morgan

When trying to market something such as a book, social media can really be a powerful marketing tool. Social media is going to allow for something much more powerful then a PPC campaign, it’s going to allow for the author to build a relationship with the reader. There are several great examples of how authors have used social media to further market their books, take for example the best selling book by Dan and Chip Heath called “Made to Stick.” This duo created a very popular blog based on their book that receives around 1 million views each month (according to Quantcast). Rohit Bhargava from Ogilvy also created a site for his new book “Personality not Included,” that has also been doing quite well. The point is that social media is a great way to market a book while building relationships with your readers. Not only that, but social media doesn’t have a direct cost associated with it, yes, you do have to spend your time to make it work but you don’t have to budget a direct amount like you do with something like Adwords.

So what are some ways you can market your book online using social media?

First of all create a blog for the book that talks about specific issues in the marketplace.

Basically use real world examples or advice that has to deal with your book. For example, if your book is called “The Ethical Executive,” then you may want to create a blog and write about real world example of how executives ARE or AREN’T being ethical. There should be no problem finding a new example every day. You can also give your “ethical tip of the day” to readers. Maybe you can even get some interviews with executives that you can put up on your blog.

Reach out to other bloggers

Find bloggers out there that talk about business, marketing, ethics, etc. and ask them to write a post about your book, this is probably one of the best ways to get the word out. Ask as many relevant bloggers as you can, this will allow you to capture the blogger’s attention as well as the bloggers’ readers attention. If done properly you can have a groundswell effect work for you that will get you a lot of attention.

Join Twitter

Twitter is a great way to connect with and build relationships with users. I have around 700 followers on twitter and every time I write a new post or come across an interesting article I send it out to 700 people instantly. Don’t underestimate the power of twitter. If you have something to say and something of value to provide, then do it. You can also run special promotional deals (not just on twitter) where you give your twitter followers a special promotional code for 10% off the book.

Get on Linkedin

Linkedin is a great marketing tool that many people neglect. There is a section on linkedin that let’s you ask and answer questions to your network (and others). Why not create a question on linkedin titled “What is an Ethical Executive,” and ask your network what they think about the subject? Of course you can also make a plug for the book when asking the question. You can also join the various business networks out there and let them know about your book.

Get on Facebook

Facebook is another great way to market your book. One of the things you can do is post your new blog post links in facebook so that your entire network sees the updates. You can also create a facebook fan page for all of the loyal readers of your book/blog. If you do create a fan page, make sure you interact with your fans (this is a better strategy for once your traffic has picked up).

Look for Syndication or Partnership Channels Online

Writing a blog on a particular subject is great for syndication provided you add valuable content to the blog. My Social Media Blog for instance is syndicated on social media today, marketing.alltop.com, and socialmedia.alltop.com. This means that my reader base increase exponentially. If you are looking to market a book then getting syndicated in niche communities is a great way to get the word out.

Use Your Already Existing Channels to Spread the Word, Offline and Online

Do you have a link to your site in your email signature? What about on your business card? Are you telling people about your book through twitter, facebook, and linkedin? Do you attend industry events where you can tell people about the book? Do you speak at small conferences or events?

Create a Flickr Account

People love images, why not create a flickr account devoted to the most and least ethical executives out there? You can also ask your readers visitors to upload photos that the come across as well. Hold a contest; offer a free signed book or $100 cash prize to the person that gets the best photos up.

Participate in Online Discussions Around Your Topic

Do some research and find some business social networks, join then, and then join the business conversation. Linkedin is one, Ryze is another, Workology is European networking site, there are many others out there too, you just have to spend some time researching. Join and connect with as many people as you can, the more relationships you build the greater your marketing reach is going to be. You can also check out business forums or community sites.

Cross Promote, Be Clever and Be Creative

When using the multiple social media channels out there it’s important to cross promote. For example, you may tell all of your twitter followers to connect with you on facebook, etc. Probably one of the most important things you need to remember is be clever and be creative. Don’t be scared to try out a new marketing tactic that hasn’t been done before. Heck there are several authors out there that have even given their books away for free! Inject personality in everything you do and try to think outside the box, get creative and have fun with your marketing ideas, remember the goal here is to build relationships.

The above tips should provide for a solid social media marketing foundation. These ideas can be used for virtually every product/service out there, you just need to think of a unique angle or promotional campaign that targets your users.

Thanks for reading

Check out my Social Media Blog

Follow me on Twitter

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Connect with me on Facebook

A big thanks to Jacob for his coverage of what social media initiatives would work for marketing a book such as The Ethical Executive.

Now what do you think? Is there anything in your experience that you think would work that we haven’t covered? Have you had any experience using these networks that you would like to share with us?

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I recently had an inquiry from a friendly lady who was interested in using Adwords to help sell her husband’s book The Ethical Executive. I thought it might be a good time for an ethics check before accepting this proposition.

Do you think I did the right thing?

– — – — – — – — – — – — – — – –

Friendly Lady,

(REALITY CHECK BEGIN)

Let’s take some time to consider your motivations for choosing Adwords as an advertising platform. Adwords of course is a very agile and inexpensive vehicle for serving ads and generating interest in a product. It is also very responsive and can begin to return results immediately as opposed to other types of advertising that have a long term cumulative effect.

As with any type of advertising, the revenue generated by selling a product must be considered when determining whether it would be worthwhile. In this case, with a book that may cost $25, after overhead the profit from selling one book might be $5 or less. The cost per click to get someone to your website in Adwords might range from 50 cents to $5. That is just to get someone to your website with no guarantee that they will make a purchase.

With a conservative estimate of an average $2 per click you could achieve 150 visits to your website per month from Adwords. With no historical data and no time to test and experiment to find the best conversion rate, it is hard to guess how many of those visits would be likely to actually purchase a book. Almost certainly less than 25%. Therefore based on that guess (25%) it would cost you $500 to sell 37 books per month. This is clearly not a profitable equation (unless you happen to profit $15 per book).

THE OPTIMISTIC POTENTIAL

That being said, there are other objectives to consider. As we discussed it would be tremendously profitable if Adwords could aid this book to make the best seller list. If this were possible, the momentum of being on that list would result huge number of sales.

While the number of books which must be sold in order for a book to be a candidate for the best seller list is unknown, it is also most likely more than 37 per month.

In addition to the specific trackable sales resulting from Adwords referrals,
there is the added benefit of interest and buzz which can be generated. It is possible to achieve a great number of ad impressions using Google Adwords which means that the name of the book could be put in front of a lot of people’s eyeballs. This could result in additional word of mouth and more purchases which would not be directly attributable to Google Adwords. Obviously with a larger budget this ancillary effect can be increased.

There is also the benefit of the vast amount of data that can be collected by using Adwords coupled with Google Analytics to track user behavior. In the case of a long term project this data can become the basis for findings which can help you to effectively develop your messaging, drive design changes in your website, as well as predict outcomes of other potential initiatives.

If you are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization you can apply for a Google Grant. Google provides grants that range from $10,000 per month to $40,000 per month in free advertising for qualifying organizations.

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Now that OMS is passed and Webmaster Jam Session is over, there will be many of us interested in what the future holds for getting together with our fellow marketers in the Atlanta area. I thought that we could use this calendar to show the upcoming marketing events that are accessible to we in the Southeast. If you have any you would like to see added just drop us a line!

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I think that there is actually a wealth of thought provoking possibilities in the suggestion that SEO is evolving. ‘SEO is Dead’ seems to be such an inflammatory statement that is sure to get noticed, attacked, defended etc. which of course makes it great link bait. What I find interesting about it though are probably some of the less inflammatory aspects.

1) The thought of being threatened by this idea is patently ridiculous. It seems that every good SEO professional is a general web strategy consultant. The website owner will need to be led through the jungle that is Search Marketing regardless of which tactics are involved. If the only thing that the threatened SEO does is tool around with onsite elements then maybe some further training would be warranted.

2) Tactics may change – On site factors are often what people new to SEO are concerned about, and while some on-site factors might lose importance there will never be a time when effective information architecture will stop being important both for search engines and for searchers.

3) Interesting that someone is making news that ‘SEO tactics will change sometime in the future’ – It is useful to be alerted to the fact that tactics have changed. Or are currently in the process of changing, or there is some specific event which might suggest that they will change in a specific time span, - but to exclaim that at some time in the future these tactics will change is to merely point out the overwhelmingly obvious without a description of what the tactics will change to.

I’m hedging my bets with the side bet that Web Analytics is not going anywhere. It is a significant aspect of SEO (using the broad definition) but it also ties into so many other aspects of the web development industry and touches so many needs that online businesses have. But Why?
Web Analytics Touches:

A/B testing
Competitive intelligence
Data integration
Data visualization
On-site behavioral targeting
Predictive analytics
Search analytics
Usability testing
Web analytics
Copywriting
Bid management

4) Aaron makes a good point in a recent SEO training module (which will probably be set to private soon) that there is a significant value in predicting the changes in the language – the example he uses is that the phrase Pay-Per-Click is more and more being replaced by the word Adwords as Google continues to develop their brand.

a. It would be important to recognize if the Acronym SEO were falling by the wayside. It is not, btw, and debates about whether it is dead or not will probably only serve to increase traffic, interest, and demand for SEO.

5) Bob Massa makes a good point that the industry may be able to rid itself of the “baggage laden misnomer” in his post about the Future of SEO.

It is hilarious being in an industry where everyone is so hypersensitive to news and recent events and discussions. While people in some industries use recently released textbooks to keep up to date, the people in search are aware of the news before it exists and will be able to tell everyone that they saw the death of SEO coming years before it happened.

This is all to the good and the people who are doing just that will be able to continue to mold the art of traffic development and continue to make money for clients.

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I know that singular vs. plural matters in SEO, but does capitalization matter?

It appears to make a difference in the search engines some of the time. The official explanation is that ‘We may take this into account if we can recognize that it is relevant to the query.’ E.g. Someone search for ‘US’ is probably looking for info on the United States whereas someone searching for ‘us’ is less likely to. If you check you will see that queries for ‘us magazine’ and ‘US magazine’ return slightly different results. (Now that is the official explanation, in practice I seldom see that to be the case – it really seems more random)

So the answer as it relates to what you’re working on is that I would take how it looks to the potential client into consideration more than anything else. I usually capitalize the first letter of each word in the title and in the description I usually capitalize the first letter of words that I would like to emphasize.

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Who Uses the Internet?

Some interesting data on who is using the internet. I found this while I was trying to determine the status of the “Digital Divide” in the United States. Is it worthwhile to market to an adult demographic that has a household income below 30,000 and no education?

The answer is a resounding yes with 50% of adults in that category using the internet regularly.

I did additional research to determine the amount of time actually spent on the internet by these people. Turns out that people with less education and lower income now spend more time on the internet. Explanations for this seem to have to do with the “opportunity cost of leisure time” — that low-income users have fewer other uses for the time. Another possible explanation is that low-income individuals find the internet more useful, are able to find information which they would not normally be able to pay for, and those with low-income who are willing to pay for internet probably value it more highly than others.

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It is time for a legitimate SEO conference in Atlanta. I’m just saying. West Coast has it locked. The SEO Conference Circuit twists and turns through the West Coast, hits Chicago and New York and then gets on a boat and heads for London.

Not Fair.

Leave a comment if you want to help organize this thing or if you have resources or if you know others who will be interested.

I will update this post regularly with intermediate goals and projects as well as a description of progress.

Thanks,
Eric

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When the new Google Local Business results began showing in the search results there was much speculation about what it took to get moved to the top of the listings. Around July of last year I heard reports from people who had attended some of the SEO conferences – apparently not even the top experts had the secret. Thanks to Lisa Barone from The Bruce Clay Blog for a great description of the SMX Give It Up session.

Google Local Ranking Tips: How Google ranks local listings in importance:

* Registration with Google Local
* Perceived closeness to center of city
* Number of local reviews
* Local link popularity
* Local Phone Number
* Participation in Online Menu Services
* Quality of local reviews (the stars)
* City name inclusion in anchor text
* Local Directory Listings
* Keyword/City in Business Name
* Domain Authority
* Address Inclusion on the Web pages

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We went to the AiMA event last night. The topic was finding the value beyond click to conversion. There were some very professional speakers and they did a wonderful job presenting the material. The first two (Yahoo Guy and Google Girl) were really good speakers talking about things that we already know and that we’re already talking to clients about.

The Yahoo Guy (Ron Belanger) got really deep into why search is so important for Brand Development, going a little more deeply into the fact that customers use search to develop their concept of what your brand means to them. He had some stats to support the fact that most internet users will go to search and taste 2-3 brands before making a purchase decision. In this context if you’re the brand leader you can continue to dominate using search and ensure that your brand is there on top of search results in the most pleasing light possible. If your brand is less recognized you can use search to develop the brand and to disrupt the brand message of the top competitor. He makes the point that people go to search to find that positive message reinforcement even for products they may have already purchased or companies they already are engaged with. The post purchase value of search marketing is very easy to underestimate.

The Google Girl (Raku Coryne) talked more about actual metrics and using Google Analytics, and did a wonderful job of explaining how to use Analytics data to develop actionable insights. She mentioned bounce rate as a key performance indicator, and described some of the ways you can use it. She also discussed the factors that make up a good metric. I think she would have done well to go more into the advantages of segmenting the data and comparing those metrics from segment to segment, but I understand that it’s not the kind of thing you can do at a conference.

There was some talk of the importance of mapping offline purchases to online initiatives and vice versa, and promise that there were ways to do this although it still seems pretty grey. Coupons and online only 1-800 #s can be used to quantify online to offline to some extent. Google Analytics can be used to demonstrate the degree of effect an offline initiative might have to online. This can be done by comparing the geographic area where the offline campaign (TV, Radio, Mailers etc.) took place to a geographic area where it didn’t, or by comparing the online traffic for the time span of the offline initiative to a time span where it was not present.

I thought that the majority of this material has been covered and discussed thoroughly for quite some time now and I kind of had the feeling that the guy from Yahoo was giving the same story he gave 5 years ago. That being said, if you were not familiar with the concepts then it would have blown your hair back so I’m sure someone got something out of it.

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