Visual Bing – The New Look for Search?

Recently, Microsoft released a beta of an enhanced Bing search engine called Visual Bing. Instead of returning text, Visual Bing displays images of the products that match your search query.

Currently limited to just several “galleries” and a bit on the slow side, it does point to some hope that search will evolve in a big way. Search marketers have been limited to 70 characters in the major engines for their PPC ad creative. After 9 or so years of PPC, there’s a limitation to how innovative a marketer can get with 70 characters.

Additionally, searchers now simply scan the copy instead of really reading the text. If Visual Bing is a stepping stone to a more visual presentation of search results, both organic and paid, it will breathe life into traditional marketers who are looking for more creative and effective ways to drive profitable traffic beyond a 70 character text ad.

Social Media and Fundraising

It’s interesting to note how the United Way is launching a social media campaign to raise funds. With a headstart from one of its 500 cause members, the United Way is now jumping on board the Facebook, MySpace and Twitter boats.

It all started when 1 United Way member on Facebook asked her friends to donate money to the United Way instead of buying her birthday gifts.

Although a bit short on strategy, it’s nice to see that charitable organizaitons are realizing the potenetial benefits from approriate use of social media.

“We need to understand how to use the social media and the new technology”, said Vince Corrado, this year’s campaign chief.

The Importance of Storytelling in Marketing

According to a 2006 study examining brain reaction to commercial brands, strong brand identities can create more excitement than weaker ones even in products considered dull such as insurance.

Stories tend to create a stronger reaction to products as they engage us, if …

A successful marketing story has at a minimum 2 basic features:
1. Characters the target market can relate to
2. Circumstances the target market can relate to

Human behavior is more directed by emotions, how we feel, versus pure logic.

Stories also have a strong viral effect which can mulitply the success of the campaign.

One of the most successful storytelling marketing campaigns was a direct mail letter produced by the Wall Street Journal in 1974. This letter told the tale of 2 successful businessmen who get together for their 25th college re-union. As we get into the story, the letter communicates in a very succinctly way, that although both successful, one businessman was a CEO … the other was a manager.

“Have you ever wondered, as I have, what makes this kind of difference in people’s lives?”

Well enough readers did, as the Wall Street Journal was never able to come up with a more successful direct mail piece.

PPC vs. SEO – Updated Study

Here’s a common situation:

You’re a Marketing Director for an eCommerce company tasked with generating company revenue at the lowest cost per order. You have a fixed marketing budget and need to figure out how to allocate your miniscule piece of the corporate pie to SEO and PPC.

Well a study just released by Engine Ready (which is an update from a similar study in January 2008), shows that a visitor from a PPC ad will likely convert more often and spend more than that from an organic listing. Now before you cancel your engagement with your SEO agency, note that this study looks at the revenue side of the equation, but not the cost side.

Nonetheless, there are some pretty good takeaways, and it’s definitely a worthwhile read.

Location, Location, Location

Finally, there’s an easier way to leverage the power of geotargeting your Google AdWords campaigns by analyzing CTR’s, Conversion rates and CPA’s by geographic origin. Using the new AdWords report “Geographic Performance”, you can run a report at the account, campaign or AdGroup level that’ll show you metrics by country, region, metro area and city.

Some or all of this data might be also available in your analytics, but always required the extra step to run the analytics report. Additionally, you’d have to have your analytics setup in a similar campaign and AdGroup format to get this information in this useful layout.

Couple things I question – why are we forced to run the report that shows a daily listing only? Running a month’s worth of data will require some Excel gymnastics to create meaningful summaries.
And, it would be a great enhancement to make this report interactive by using a map. As you move your mouse around the map, your key metrics would appear. It’d be great to also be able to interactively consolidate regions on a map to get summary level statistics for larger areas such as Southern California.

But our team will gladly take this first version of the report and begin further refining and tweaking our client’s accounts while we closely measure the impact in performance from using this data.
Note that this report approximates geographic location based on the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of people who saw your ads.

The Power of Equilibruim

The word on the street is that PPC advertising will fall out of favor with advertisers as the economy worsens. Further, I’m hearing that companies will steer more towards natural optimization so they can avoid PPC click charges.

This is absolutely insane.

Think about it … the PPC environment is a classic case of the capitalistic world where market supply and demand determine prices or bids. So if the worry warts are correct in their prediction that companies will leave PPC, those companies that stick it out will see the benefit of lower click costs and potentially higher positioning as the competition bails.

Worst case – even with inventory (searchers) dropping, lower click costs will relax the pressure on ROI and make PPC a more profitable marketing initiative.

Now the other prediction of more companies focusing on SEO is equally flawed. If true, as more companies increase their dollar investments in SEO, the competition for the top organic placements will increase, forcing those companies to spend even more resources.

As they spend more resources, the increased potential of PPC will draw those companies back into paid search, and return their SEO spending plans back to pre-recession levels.

So, forget the predictions. If the economy tanks, PPC will not go away. Google will not disappear. Savvy marketers will invest their tightened budgets where the ROI is the highest, and if their competition begins reducing their PPC exposure, PPC will be the land of greatest opportunity.

Great Free PPC Tool Available

If you’re managing pay per click campaigns you know, or most definitely should know the importance of incorporating a thorough negative keyword list. Unless, of course, you’re bidding all of your terms exact match … and if that’s the case unless you can climb into the minds of all of your potential customers, you could be missing out on a lot of qualified traffic.

Check out this free negative keyword listing from Engine Ready here. The folks at Engine Ready claim their list includes over 420 negative keywords that are useful for most businesses.

They also have a couple other intriguing ideas on how to build your negative keyword list. It’s worth the visit.

Speaking the Right Language – The Life cycle of the purchase

Something that I still see many marketers forget is that prospects who are thinking of doing business with you are in different places in the buying cycle. Some may be launching their first attempt to research the general options related to products and services that meet their needs.

Some have decided exactly on which product/service category will solve their problem, but need to hone in on a specific product type or service provider.

And others have completed their research and are ready to buy now.

It’s important to tailor your message to your prospects based on where they are in the buying cycle. Those in the first phase are attracted by copy that drives them to research or get more information. White paper downloads are prime targets for this group.

The 2nd phase prospects are closer to buying and are looking for specific benefits related to your product/service. Strong compelling benefit driven bulleted copy is a winning strategy here.

The last phase needs compelling call-to-action, sense of urgency and guidance directly to the purchasing process. Guide your visitor right to the “order now” button.

Don’t make the mistake of talking to prospects in the first phase like “Buy now …”, or “Free shipping”. It’s like being a little to presumptuous on that 1st date … if you know what I mean.

And obviously, don’t craft a message that says “Browse …” when you’re prospect is at the end of the buying cycle.

Now the logical question is how to determine where the prospect is in the buying cycle. Study the purchasing habits and analytics of your site visitors and look for trends. The length of keyword searches, use of specific words, or model numbers may be the clue you need to speak the right language to snag the sale.

The 2008 Recession – A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

It’s happening – despite whether the US economy was headed for a recession, we, the people of the US, seem to be willing to make it a certainty. Not that it’s our fault. The headlines on most major news sites seem to proclaim the doom that awaits.

Businesses have been forced to take an even sharper knife to their 08 spending plans and the average consumer is showing signs that he is trying to hold back on non-essential items.

So what? Isn’t that what fiscally responsible people do during downturns? Yes, but this time it’s different. Our last recession in 2001 was before the birth of web 2.0. Google “blog recession” and you’ll now see a multitude of blog sites, restating studies, projections and statistics about the dire state of the economy. That didn’t exist in any other pre-recession or recession period.

So in 2008, we have the added weight of web 2.0 and the blogoshpere further reminding us of our likely upcoming fate. Just another reason for us to cook a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner at home and save $150.

To clear up any misunderstanding, I’m not saying that the economic fundamentals don’t exist for a down turn. What am I theorizing, though, is that the power of web 2.0 will help determine the length and severity of any pull back in our economy.

Social Media and Customer Service

Had lunch today with Becky Carroll, President of Petra Consulting Group. Becky’s firm specializes in helping organizations maximizing the return they get from customer relationship. She’s got some unique and extremely useful insights in social media and customer service.

I highly recommend you check out her blog at http://customersrock.wordpress.com . It’s well worth the read.