PubCon South 2010 Day 3

The final day of PubCon South 2010 went very well. All the sessions I attended were very good, and I learned a lot from them – unless I’d already figured something out on my own and then what I figured out was confirmed. The lunch was very good today. Also, during both session days, the WiFi coverage was excellent. I noted there were access points hanging from the ceiling in all the rooms – this probably had something to do with it. Kudos for the great connections.

Today’s Keynote was by Rob Snell of Gun Dog Supply. Rob gave a short history of his company, which he now runs with his brother Steve. He gave the following tips to help others be successful at running an on line store:

• Communicate 3 things:
  • Expertise – establish authority. Show, don’t just tell.
  • Offer Products to Solve Problems – Offer solutions to your customers.
  • Why You Should Buy From Us
• Use blogs, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook – any and all social media sites to show you are an expert in what you sell.
• Create buyers guides. These offer detailed, expert information to help customer solve their problems.
• Show you use the products you sell.
• Interview other experts and share that information.
• Transcribe dialog from video to text on web pages for better SEO.
• Turn customers’ questions into FAQs to get more content.
• Be price competitive AND give excellent customer service.

For another summary, check out Janet Driscoll Miller’s work on searchmarketingsage.

PPC – Über Advanced: Christine Churchill, Wister Walcott, David Szetela and Brian Massey

• Christine started off the session with a presentation entitled “PPC – Analytics Strategy”
  • If you’re doing Google AdWords, use Google Analytics (GA) with it in order to get additional reporting capabilities. Even if you prefer another analytics tool, the additional information you get from GA makes it worth the effort to use it.
  • Use the Keyword Positioning Report in GA to fine tune ad position preference decisions (this works in CPC mode only).
  • Check out GA Advanced Segments to allow for better tracking of details which can help you design better landing pages.
  • GA Custom Reports can help with advanced analytics, too.
  • You can combing Advanced Segments with Custom Reports to get some extremely detailed data.
• Brian gave some great tips on making landing pages which will better convert from click thought to sale or lead.
  • Testimonials from customers work in almost any industry.
  • Use “Risk Reversal” – excellent guarantees and wording like “We respect your privacy” go a long way in establishing trust with customers.
  • Retarget ads through AdWords. Google “follows” customers who click your ad to other sites through cookies and shows your ad to them over and over again. This can lead to addition clicks and action.
  • Measure everything. Everything is a test.
• David gave his “Top 10″ list of Cool New Things in PPC Advertising
  • Dayparting With Bing Data – Bing shows day segment data in its default reports. GA does this but AdWords doesn’t, so you have to do a little extra work to get the same information from Google.
  • Ads at the top of Gmail.
  • New AdWords User Types – manage access to different parts of a campaign.
  • New Conversion Optimzer Features – more control over CPA.
  • View-Through Conversions – VTC are conversions which occur after a banner was viewed by not clicked. Clix estimates 50% accuracy in this data.
  • Focused History Change – easier reporting by campaign
  • New AdWords Keyword Tool – good for search and content campaigns. Greatly improved over previous versions.
  • New AdWords Placement Tool – Better control over ad placement.
  • AdWords Sitelinks Ads – Allow for up to 4 additional links per ad. This gives opportunity for more keywords and deeper linking. This is great for more conversions.
  • New AdWords Graphs – better tools so you don’t need to bounce between GA and AdWords as much. There are even more features if you use the Chrome browser.
• Wister’s portion of the session was entitled “Structured Search Tips and Techniques”
  • Structured Search is used by those who change products or lines often or real estate pros.
  • Tail-heavy businesses should use this approach.
  • The web site should have a landing page for each SKU or item. Break down campaigns for different items.
  • Be specific, compliant, reinforcing and adaptable.
  • Make sure you offer trademarked items for sale if you use their words in ads. Google will block your ads if you don’t.
• Janet Driscoll Miller also did a great summary of this session.

Public Relations in a Social Media World: Sean Jackson, Steve Plunkett, Giovanni Gallucci, Lisa Buyer

• Giovanni kicked off this excellent session using the launch of Viewzi as a case study
  • “What if we promoted brands only with social media?”
  • Need to concentrate on SEO first:
    • Click thrus by humans
    • Keywords and phrases by humans
    • Backlinks for search engines
    • Anchor text for search engines
  • Prior to and during the launch of Viewzi
    • Define what the product or service is
    • Get some buzz going. Use Cision.com to communicate with journalists after finding them on Twitter and LinkedIn, etc. Build relationships with them early and pitch later. This takes time, you can’t do this in a month.
    • After building relationships you can work with people and not have it be a cold call.
    • Of course, use blogs, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
• Next came Sean with his presentation “Public Relations And …”
  • PR Success for any medium involves:
    • Clarify – Just because everyone says you should be there, should you?
      • Look at the limitations of a given platform.
      • Check to see if your audience is on the platform and make sure you can engage and sustain.
    • Monitor – Use RSS to look at conversations. Look for your Brand, names, market terms, competition and misspellings.
    • Engage – It takes an investment of time, effort and money. It is a process oriented thing. Define rules, procedures and responsibilities. Read “Authority Rules” by Brian Clark (authorityrules.com). You must make yourself an authority in whatever you are talking about. Use Google Alerts to monitor news and rewrite (while making sure you give proper attribution to the original source) instead of retweeting. (See keynote notes). Consider using www.twaitter.com to schedule tweets so content is fresh.
      • Be useful to the reader
      • Provide a sense of urgency
      • Convey that the main benefit is unique
      • Do the above in an ultra-specific way
        Make sure to say “Thank You” to people who use your press releases, retweeters, and others who pass on your message.
      • Advocate yourself sparingly, but with authority
• Lisa was next:
  • PR, Social Media and SEO are really in the same business
  • Publicize, Socialize and Optimize (in that order)
    • Publicize using press releases, video, blogs and newsrooms. Distribute them via RSS and pitch engine.
    • Socialize as a part of the PR strategy. Be frequent and consistent.
    • Optimize all. Remember to use key words in press releases and social media stuff.
      • Lee Odden said “if It can be searched it can be optimized”
      • Consider a branded YouTube channel and host optimized video to match press releases.
    • Track and analyze. Looks for the best results. Mix thinks up and test everything.
• Last up for this session was Steve
  • Sometimes in order to work PR better you need to:
    • Do media training
    • Develop Messages (keywords)
    • Give press and analyst tours
    • Cultivate relations with analysts and members of the media
    • Support trade shows (booth and material production)
    • Develop and practive crisis communications
    • Do speaking engagements
  • Sometimes PR means blogging, or digital newsletters or a Ning group.

Proactive Reputation Management: Tony Wright

• People contribute to social media to connect, to feel part of a community.
• 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust those from people whom they don’t know. (Econsultancy, July 2009)
• The average consumer mentions brands over 90 times per week with friends, family and coworkers (John Moore, WOMMA, 2010)
• There were nearly 116 million US CG content consumers in 2008 along with 82.5 content creators. (eMarketer, 2008)
• Understand the landscape – what’s out there:
  • Blogs
  • SERPS (very important, little automation available)
  • Reviews (very important with Google Local aggregation)
  • Message Boards
  • Hate Websites
  • Twitter
  • Location-based Sites (Foursquare, Gowalla)
  • Social Bookmarking Sites
• Monitoring tools have not kept up with CGC. You have to use different tools to monitor different things. Reviews and SERPs are manual monitoring only. Google Alerts and RSS feeds of searches help quite a bit.
• “Doing PR during a crisis is like eating healthy during a heart attack” – Unknown
• Most companies don’t do reputation management until a crisis hits. If a crisis hits a blank slate, the crisis wins. Companies with unmanaged reputations will lost infinitely more than those who manage theirs constantly.
• Manage your Brand’s reputation proactively:
  • Social Media Policies (don’t just focus on productivity issues, encourage employees to say nice things on SM).
  • Employee Education – everyone from the CEO to the newest person needs to understand how they can influence online reputation for good or bad. Reward employees who are mentioned in good reviews.
  • Proactive Review Strategies – Deal with negative reviews offline where possible (leave a note asking the complainer to call you). Realize there will be some bad reviews. Encourage regular customers to post some good reviews.
  • Influencer ID and outreach – Use tools like Klout to see who’s talking and who’s listening to them. This is an ongoing process. Create relationships with influencers and provide them with value. Collective Intellect is a great tool, but a little pricy. Don’t spam influencers, ask permission to talk to them. Meet them offline where possible.
  • Be part of “the Conversation” – Encourage employees to be subject matter experts in relevant online places. Offer extra value on your entire web presence. Offer customer service in public forums.
  • Crisis Planning – You need to have a crisis plan: who will do what, when, and where? How will you quantify success in your plan? It’s not a bad idea to have outside consultants check your plan and even be part of the plan to be outside eyes. Brainstorm worst case scenarios. This can be the basis of all your other crisis planning.
• You must monitor your brand AT ALL TIMES.
• Be prepared.
• Be honest and accountable. This is the best policy in the long run.
• The phone is the most underused tool in reputation management. It’s amazing what can be accomplished just by talking to someone nicely on the phone.

How To Start and Grow a User Generated Content Community: Paul Edmondson

• Five things to help you start and grow:
  • Partner
    • For accountability
    • Combine strengths, help cover individual weak areas
    • For the long haul
  • Money
    • It takes time to build a community
    • Rarely do you find latent demand for a user-generated content service
    • You can’t make it if you’re undercapitalized
    • Venture capital is not for everybody, but it can work well.
  • Product
    • If you build a good rewarding service people will use it.
    • Segment your users
    • Cater to the highest value
    • Watch closely how people use it … you might have to make some tough decisions.
  • Marketing
    • Establish value metrics per post and per member
    • Test channels
    • Maximize the channels that produce
  • Everyday
    • Take care of your business
    • Treat the community well
    • Enforce the rules
    • Show up every day
    • Improve

Advanced PPC For Management: Kate Morris

• Every account and company are different – what’s presented here are merely guidelines.
• Key to Success in PPC
  • Poetry License
  • Strong OCD – Organization skills, Customer knowledge, Data analysis
• Setup Must Haves
  • Tracking! Analytics, Internal PPC platform tracking
  • Backup credit card (Just in case something happens with the primary card)
  • Mobile or not? If your site doesn’t work on mobile you need to turn off mobile in AdWords
  • Weekly reports emailed as CSV for easy import into Excel.
• Pull Levers with Care
  • Devices and networks
  • Geography and language
  • Local settings
  • Product settings
  • Bidding changes
  • Day Parting – figure out what times your ads work better and concentrate on those times. Increase bids on peak times.
  • Content Network – doesn’t work for everyone. Use with discretion. Isolate this to specific campaigns.
• Account Organization
  • Specific to a business and what they do
  • Possibly location-specific
  • Make sure landing pages are keyword rich and match the keywords in the ads. This helps increase quality score which lowers cost. Look for “Edwards editor” as a tool to help work out quality score.
• Keywords
  • Think like your customer. What will they use as a search phrase? It’s not always what you think they will look for.
  • Think customer intent
• Haiku Marketing
  • Know the rules
  • Use numbers – people love metrics. Put a price in the ad
  • Get attention – do competitive research, not to copy buy to stand out apart from them
  • CTR does not equal conversions
  • Look at the keywords
  • Destination URL
• Tip: Dynamic Keyword Insertion
• Product Listings
  • Be in Google Base. It gets a picture in your ad.
  • Link to Google Local Business Account when appropriate
  • Be honest and don’t try to game the system.
• Mobile Pay Per Call
  • Only for users of smart phones
  • Pay per call instead of pay per click
  • Great for local businesses.
  • Not shown on desktop ads
• Site Links
  • Still in Beta
  • Up to four links
  • Can add up to 10 links to an account, Google chooses 4 to show.
  • Worth giving a try if you’re in the Beta.
• Note: I had a chance to chat with Kate via Twitter a couple months ago on a subject, nothing to do with web marketing. Not only is she a very sharp web marketer, she’s also a very nice person.

The last session of the day was entitled “Rogue SEO and Social Media.” The moderator asked us not to blog about it, but I did get some great tips on video I don’t thing anyone would object to me sharing:

• A video is 50 times more likely than a text page on the same topic to appear on Google’s page 1 SERP. – Forrester
• SEO for video on sharing sites is very basic
• Valuable and interesting content will win with video. Doesn’t necessarily need to be viral to win.
• Don’t just make one video, make many. It’s fairly cheap using a $200 camera and iMovie.
• Videos with social media tools get 20% more traffic. Make the videos easy to share.
• Don’t just make ads. People don’t like ads. Make useful, added-value content.
• With YouTube doing automatic captioning, they will be able to rate videos based on key words spoken in the video.

I’m a big advocate of using video to share a brand’s story. I think these little tidbits are great “convincers” that jumping on the video bandwagon is cheap and well worth the effort.

One last thing I learned today: if you click inside the edit box in WordPress and hit <Alt><Shift><g> the edit box expands to the full browser window with the edit buttons at the top of the page. This is very convenient when doing long posts like this one. I’m using Google Chrome, so I’ll have to check to see if it works in other browsers.

All in all I thin PubCon was a huge success. Congratulations and thanks to Brett Tabke and all the folks at Webmaster World for putting it together.

Tagged as: analytics, brand, community, facebook, marketing, PubCon, sem, seo, social media, twitter