MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

If you’re joining us for this afternoon’s SEO live optimization web clinic, you already know the topic is way too broad for one hour.

Learning the fundamentals of search engine optimization is only step one. Keeping up with the frequent changes, learning and testing the latest best practices, and steering clear of the mountains of misinformation? That’s a full-time effort.

If you’ve been around the block with SEO, you’re already a regular reader of the following sites and tools. Still, when it comes to reliable SEO info, these resources consistently rise to the top of my shortlist.

10 SEO resources you’ll want to bookmark

• SEOMOZ
• SEOBook
• Search Engine Roundtable
• SearchEngineWatch
• SearchEngineLand
• SearchEngineGuide
  
• TopRank Blog’s Resources list and Big List of SEO Blogs
• HubSpot and Website Grader tool

That’s it? Why not an exhaustive list of 400+ SEO sites?

A few reasons: First, TopRank already has a megalist; it’s right up there (thanks, Lee!). Second, from the sources above, you can branch out to any number of free and paid tools and augment your own list based on your experience level, needs, and preferences. And third, if you really have time to regularly read more than a dozen sites on SEO, more power to you and your Google Reader and/or RSS feeds.

Feel free to add your own favorite SEO resources in the comments section.

And check back with the blog as we’ll be following up today’s SEO clinic with responses to the live audience Q&A, additional resources and specific articles, plus our clinic contest winners — some lucky marketers will not only have their pages optimized, they’ll also win seats at our Landing Page Optimization Training Tour.

With our June 10 web clinic, Twitter Experiments: Getting beyond the “now what?” featuring special guests Jason Breed and Marc Meyer, we knew we had a full house going into the session.

But we never expected to break into Twitter’s top 10 trending topics by taking down a chunk of the interwebs.

What our crew and 1,001 clinic participants also didn’t expect was that the webinar hosting service would go down three times due to a “service disruption … a result of unscheduled maintenance in our network.” Nice.

Despite all that, we managed to plow through the webinar and we’d like to send a special thank you to the 862 folks who stayed with us. This post includes some answers to your questions from the web clinic.

You can now access the presentation: Twitter Experiments: Getting beyond the “now what?”

Pamela Jesseau, our razor-sharp new content queen, tackled the following clinic questions to help you set up your Twitter account, build your following, and expand your business. (Also check out her post: Twitter for businesses: 7 articles + tools you don’t want to miss.)

Q: How do I search Twitter for mentions of my company? What do I do with the results?

The simplest way is to use the search box in the right-hand sidebar of your Twitter page, or Twitter’s search page at search.twitter.com.  These will find mentions of your keyword within all Tweets.

One tool that was featured in the web clinic is Twazzup, a third-party application that can help you track mentions of your brand. Just enter your company name or search string to find out who is Tweeting about you. For example, the image below shows a search for a company that was recently in the news in North Florida.

You can also set up a search string within an application like TweetDeck, which will alert you when someone sends a Tweet with your name. Then what? Listen to what they are saying, address their concerns, thank them for their feedback, and follow them to engage the conversation and build your community.

Q: What if your company name is too long for a good Twitter name?

Twitter only allows 15-character usernames, so there are many companies which have to improvise. We ran into this issue ourselves and abbreviated MarketingExperiments to @MktgExperiments.

Your Twitter handle should still make sense and be fairly easy for people to remember.  Other examples of organizations that got around this issue using abbreviations, shortened forms, or acronyms include:

• @pdxtrailblazers – Portland Trailblazers
• @SBoSM – SmartBrief on Social Media
• @TheHSF – The Heart & Stroke Foundation
• @MarriottIntl – Marriott International

Q: If you are not tweeting with a big following, what is the point?

Everyone has to start somewhere.  You can build on a small following by first engaging and bringing value to those that do follow you.

Add yourself to the user-generated Twitter directory WeFollow and choose three tags that describe your business and industry — such as marketing, SEO, and software for example.  Others with similar profiles will find you when they are looking to expand their networks.  In turn, take the time to search for people in your target group and follow them.  But don’t stop there — start a conversation.  Retweet an article you found valuable, or start a discussion on a topic relevant to your sector.

Fridays provide the opportunity for you to recommend a colleague or partner by Tweeting their name to others and tag it with #followfriday. Some may return the favor, or at least tweet a thanks with your name to their followers. (Learn more about #followfriday and other hashtags at … wait for it … Mashable.)

Build and nurture your following, the same way you might do with other leads. You wouldn’t try to hard sell a new prospect in person, would you? So don’t do it on Twitter. Build the relationship, get your brand and yourself out there, and be there to respond to feedback.

Q: I understand why someone would have a lot of followers. But how can you follow thousands of people? It’s not manageable. It doesn’t make sense to me. Any advice on this would be great.

One of the most valuable tools that we have found for smart Twittering is TweetDeck. As mentioned above, this free application allows you to manage the tweets you receive with columns of separate, customizable feeds and filters.

You can group certain people, and create search strings to monitor mentions of your company, industry and even competitors. That way you can skip all the weather updates and lunch reports, without missing the feedback on your product, or opportunities to connect.

Q: Any results on running price specials via Twitter?

Dell Computer made news earlier this year when it revealed that $1 million in sales could be attributed to their Twitter feeds. Dell has several feeds, each targeting different segments. As we discussed in the web clinic, the company used @DellOutlet to Tweet discounts with a link to purchase the product from the Outlet Store. Shortly afterward, Dell started to offer exclusive deals to its followers. Twitter is still an emerging channel, but results like these show it does have real value for businesses.

Twitter training: Putting practical know-how into action to drive business results

In addition to the questions above, the live audience polls from our web clinic indicated that many marketers still aren’t sure how to use Twitter to improve their bottom line.

That’s why we are pleased to be able to team up again with Jason Breed, Senior Director of Business Development of Neighborhood America, and Marc Meyer, CEO of Digital Response Marketing Group, for a new training eWorkshop on using Twitter to boost your business results.

While our free web clinics provide new research findings, case studies and actionable ideas, our training eWorkshops are designed to help you advance from the “what” and “why” to the “how” and “how-to” with detailed, hands-on guidance and tools.

In this interactive eWorkshop, you’ll learn specifics on:

• Where to start (or restart) and how to map out your Twitter presence/s
• How to develop the most effective Twitter business strategy for your organization
• Ways to build and engage a following that’s more than just a numbers game
• Tools that will help you save time and maximize your efforts

eWorkshop: How to use Twitter to boost your business results
Tuesday, June 30
4:00 to 5:00 p.m. EDT
Training session: $129

Join us if you want to accelerate your knowledge, cut down on the learning curve, and start using Twitter to drive revenue, build equity and decrease costs.

Twitter web clinic attendees can save $30 on this eWorkshop when registering with the special savings code. Please check your clinic follow-up email for the code and secure your spot for this special training eWorkshop. (We’ll keep the interwebs intact this time.)

It’s not often that I get jazzed about the topic of media relations. In fact, it’s usually just the opposite.

As an editor, ducking clumsy pitches (in all media) and screening calls are part of the job. But while working in the marcom trenches, I learned to sympathize with PR folks who have to deal with editors and reporters, and the often unfair bad rap that PR has to overcome.

The eye-opener? Working with a media relations pro who set the gold standard for the job.

PR 2.0 or Relationships 101?

It was never about cranking out banal press releases or heavy-handed pitches. Instead, she did hours of research, became a subject expert in her clients’ fields, provided compelling, relevant story ideas to the right journalists at the right times — and did all the right things to build relationships. She asked incisive questions, knew her stuff, and in turn, earned enormous respect. On a tight budget, too.

Prominent coverage followed. Major papers, tv news, trade pubs. Clip files that many organizations only dream about. And all pre-Twitter.

Social media doesn’t change everything

These days, with social media, Twitter and Facebook generating so much buzz, things are getting simultaneously easier and harder. Sure, these avenues can help you get your foot in the door easily with some media types, but others have already barred the social media door to PR. Are you linking in — or spamming? How do you figure out not only whom to approach, but how?

That brings us right back to the gold standard: relationship building.

Let’s face it, with or without social media, for many of us not named Godin, Kawasaki, Brogan or Battelle, cultivating relationships can still be time-consuming, hard work. It’s not always fun and there are no guaranteed shortcuts.

But there are tools that can help you get and stay organized, and make the process of building your media relationships much more efficient. And that’s what I’m jazzed about.

A special media relations eWorkshop and toolkit

Today at 4:00 p.m., we’re kicking off our new eWorkshop series with a session on building an effective, sustainable media relations program, including a half-dozen tools plus a campaign playbook.

After reviewing the toolkit, and seeing the components in action, I’m convinced that pros and novices alike will benefit from the tools and strategies in this special eWorkshop.

So no matter what your experience level, with the stakes getting higher every day, why not carve out an hour this afternoon to join us and raise your media relations game?

[Links updated to point to completed eWorkshop presentation.]

The underlying theme of our 2009 Marketing Blueprint clinic boiled down to this: Be prepared to break some rules this year.

That advice might seem odd at a time when many companies are scrambling to find solid ground by tightening expenditures, laying people off, and clinging tightly to marketing practices that have already shown results.

In this economy, most organizations aren’t willing to stick their necks out too far. And that’s exactly why it makes sense for the bold to do so.

After all, if your rivals are playing it safe, and you’re forging ahead with new ideas and initiatives, you’re more likely to stand apart. Aside from those competitive advantages, having the gumption to branch out with your testing, optimization and marketing efforts is what can lead to surprising gains. Failure is certainly a risk, but so is inertia; that’s why we test and learn and test again.

Best practices vs. common practices

One of the keys is distinguishing between best practices and common practices — and understanding that neither are fail-safe shortcuts to conversion gains. In fact, our case studies from this clinic showed how applying the same practices that got a 162% increase for one site yielded a 48% decrease for another site. Keep that in mind if you’re using templates or similar elements across several sites or landing pages.

You can now access the Dec. 17 clinic in three formats for your convenience — note that the research brief includes several links to relevant clinics and free tools:

• View the complete presentation (slides and audio)
• Read the print-friendly research brief with additional links
• Listen to the MP3 version

We can learn from both negative and positive results, but we don’t grow and advance our knowledge by simply repeating the same practices and methods. So even though this 2009 Marketing Blueprint lays out a framework for optimization, it’s up to you (and us) to mix things up a bit in order to discover what really works this year.

We hope you’re planning to join us for today’s free web clinic: Powerful Value Propositions: How to optimize this critical marketing element – and lift your results.

We’ve crammed in a lot of information and guidance, but there’s much more than one hour will allow.

So here’s a roundup of our blog posts and research briefs on this topic, plus our value proposition worksheet:

• MarketingExperiments Value Proposition Worksheet (PDF, 60k)
• All about value propositions – A five-part series
• Value proposition showdown: Your company vs. your product or service
• When did you last conduct a competitive analysis?
• In Search of a Value Proposition

You’ll find relevant examples and ideas throughout the resources above, and we’ll also compile them into the research brief that will be drawn from today’s free clinic.

To be notified when today’s presentation and research brief are available online, sign up for the free MarketingExperiments Journal.

P.S. We’ve received dozens of entries from web clinic registrants for our value proposition contest. We’re still evaluating them (and they’re still coming in), so we will announce the winner soon.

Did you catch our free Web Clinic on Wednesday? The topic was Measuring What Matters: How simplifying your metrics can increase Marketing ROI by up to 75% — and if you joined us, chances are you’re already implementing new ideas and tools to improve your analytics.

If you couldn’t make it, you can view the presentation here and download our free MarketingExperiments Essential Metrics Tool here (Excel file).

Metrics isn’t the sexiest topic, yet it’s one that most marketers have been grappling with for years and still don’t have many concrete answers. In our live poll, 74% of the marketers characterized their experience level with Web analytics as moderate to novice.

There’s a lot more to cover with metrics than our one-hour session allowed: Different tools, the type of website and levels of data, your depth of experience with analytics, to name just a few.

Many attendees told us the big takeaway was our blueprint for distilling several data points into just four key measurements — and using that to get beyond numbers and into your customers’ mindset.

To paraphrase Dr. McGlaughlin, too often the focus with analytics is on us: the actions we’re trying to force or entice, the conversion rates we want to see, the transactions and revenue we desperately need to achieve. Those are valid measures, but they obscure the intentions of our prospects and customers when they visit our sites.

The trick is taking all those raw numbers and using them to create a snapshot of what your site visitors are thinking, as well as what they’re doing. That’s what really helps us adapt our processes and content and improve ROI dramatically.

Several attendees requested another Clinic on this topic, so we’ll likely revisit metrics with a new session in the months ahead. In the meantime, please enjoy the complete Clinic and try our Essential Metrics Tool with our compliments.

We’d appreciate any feedback you have on the metrics Cinic or Tool, and invite you to post any other metrics-related comments you’d like to share.