If you are not using Google Analytics to monitor the traffic on your website, you should be. It’s free and easy to use. It’s all transparent to those viewing your site, but provides you with a great deal of good information. After spending the money and resources to send potential customers to your website with various marcom tactics, measuring the effectiveness of those efforts is the next step in a strong campaign.

So, what information can you glean from Google Analytics?

Average Page Depth
There is a Content Optimization>Content Performance>Depth of Visit report that tells you the average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single session. This report lets you see if your site architecture is working properly as well as if people are finding what they need and taking actions suggested by your content.

Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a page and leave from that page without going to any other page. Seeing bounce rates on home pages of around 50% are typical in our experience. This can be (most likely) that the visitor is not looking for what you have (perhaps a wrong click or misinterpretation of a search engine listing) or the visitor found what he or she was looking for, like a phone number or address (you always put your phone number and address on each page of your website, don’t you?).

Hits
Many people misinterpret a hit as being a visitor. It’s not. A hit is a request by the visitor’s browser for a file – a file of any kind. If you have an older site that was built in “slices,” opening a single page could deliver dozens of hits. These files can be an HTML page, an image, a video, a script or many other file types. This is important information for those analyzing traffic data, but other reports, including page views, new visitors and unique visitors, might be more useful for general business purposes.

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Articles, Online Marketing Analytics, Marketing, Measuring ROI, Paid Search, terms, Web

The ultimate goal of marketing is to gain new customers. You spend both money and resources to educate your prospects about why your products and services are the best out there. The problem is that most of the time, people seeing your ads or reading your whitepapers and press releases aren’t entirely ready to commit. They need guidance, encouragement. The application in your case study is really interesting, but they may not have that specific application right now.

It’s these situations that expose the weak link between marketing and sales; the gap that exists between broad marketing techniques and closing a sale. You’ve met your marketing communications goal by targeting the right audience and gaining interest, but you aren’t quite ready for the sales team to take over. You’re stuck in the “in-between” when there isn’t one specific person responsible for the next phase.

Often, leads are passed on to sales without a second thought about whether or not all critical data has been obtained. A sales person gets incomplete information or a contact that isn’t ready to move to the sales-side of the deal, so the sale doesn’t move forward. How can you turn an inquisitive reader into a real buyer?

Fortunately, when given some light, that “in-between” grey area of lead management can reveal tried-and-true steps to follow. Lead management can educate buyers, help you understand your customers’ needs and ultimately generate revenue when a comprehensive and effective strategy is used.

These simple steps can turn that weak link into one of your most effective strategies by coordinating efforts between the marketing and sales teams. One group or one individual just won’t have the time, or the knowledge, to take care of everything.

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Articles, Online Marketing Advertising, Branding, leads, Marketing, sales

The list of social media is virtually endless, with big names like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn dominating the landscape, and the infinite amounts of blogs on every topic imaginable.  All of these different social media sites have one thing in common; they never deject conversation, comments and feedback as many consumers feel email and other websites do. In fact, they encourage interaction.

B2B marketers should view social media as a new way to interact directly with customers, in addition to employing traditional marketing techniques to generate even more brand awareness.

Follower-Driven
Social media can take traditional electronic communications, such as email, to the next level. On Facebook and Twitter you can encourage customers and prospects to follow you and be on the look out for your news and product announcements to help generate buzz early on by providing useful content and pertinent updates.

Community-Based
A B2B blog can be another useful type of social media by surpassing the one-sided limitations of a mass distributed press release to provide different elements not available with traditional press release distributions.

A B2B blog can provide:

• A user-friendly environment
• Two-way conversation capability
• Increased SEO (search engine optimization)
• Daily exposure to unique users

And, B2B blog users do not need to be confirmed as “friends”, like on Facebook or a fellow “tweeter” on Twitter, or even on the PR or marketing firm’s exclusive e-mail lists, so many times this format is viewed as a less intrusive means of communicating on industry happenings and technology developments.  It can also encourage a good problem/solution community, where customers and the company alike can share information to make products and services better and align future development with specific industry needs.

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Articles, Online Marketing Branding, Facebook, Marketing, SEO, Social Media

Advertising may seem expensive, but when done correctly, it’s a great way to broaden your company’s brand awareness and increase sales, especially in down economic times when your competition may be cutting back on their frequency or ad sizes!

As part of an integrated marcom program, advertising is a highly effective way to get your message seen by customers and potential customers. Because you specifically control the message and where it appears, it tends to be more expensive than other marcom tactics, like PR.

And it’s interesting to note that most publications carry separate circulations for their online readers and print readers. There is still a subset of people that rely on print to learn about emerging technologies and products, while others rely more heavily on websites and e-newsletters.

Determining where to advertise can be a bit tricky. Here are three helpful hints to make your advertising program more effective.

First, determine your target audience; who do you want to reach? Narrowing your target audience helps you identify what trade magazines and web sites fit your company best. Look past the raw number of people that receive the publication as well as the click-throughs and impression statistics typically found in a media kit and understand who is reading the magazine or visiting a web site. Pick a publication where the circulation is representative of your target audience – job title, industry or market segment, what products they specify or other relevant criteria. Independent third party audits, such as BPA or ABC statements, are a great source of data if they are available, but there are other ways to obtain this info, too!

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Advertising, Articles Advertising, Branding, Marketing, Media Analysis

By Marty Simon – CEO

The marketing communications business has seen a lot of business cycles come and go in the last 40 years…even a few recessions. Through it all, we’ve seen that clients who remained aggressive in their marcom efforts during downturns come back stronger and faster than those who cut back on marcom expenses.

We used to think this was only anecdotal based on our clients’ experiences. But it’s really much more than that. Research over the years has proven precisely what we’ve observed.

A few weeks ago a summary of research in just this area landed in our email. It tracked four recessions since 1970 and the impact that marcom expenditures had during those downturns. It showed the same trends for the country as we saw in our clients: those who maintained or increased marcom budgets during the recessions fared far better than those who trimmed their marcom costs.

If you think about it, it just makes sense…you get a bigger bang for your marcom buck because your competition is cutting back and you’re not. That’s a simplified view for sure, but it seems to be the essence of the strategy! The research is everywhere…search your favorite marketing resource or view the studies we read at www.gtms-inc.com and www.americanbusinessmedia.com.

Thanks to Go-to-Market Strategies and American Business Media for this valuable research!

Articles, Integrated Marketing Advertising, Branding, Marketing

If you look into the body of articles about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you’ll find a fascinating nerdy world of one-upmanship, brinkmanship…and maybe some guys playing electronic Battleship. You’ll read about algorithms, about burning URLs, social media and even automated keyword generators.

However, much of the world of search is geared toward consumers and IT B2B. If you are a typical B2B marketer, you’re probably facing less of a challenge than a manufacturer of an XBOX game trying to target 14-year-old boys. Chances are you have a good idea of who your customer is and efficient channels exist through which you can find your customers. But you still need to come up high in search rankings (ranking indicates how far down the list you are in the editorial or “organic” search).

Read the post SEM/SEO Glossary of Terms for more info.

What Is Your Customer Looking For?
When a potential customer types words into a search engine, what words is he or she typing? This is the most fundamental piece of the puzzle. You have to be on target with very specific keywords to win the search engine battle. Do you make ‘abrasives’ or do you make depressed center aluminum oxide abrasive grinding wheels for welding? Do you make ‘magnets’ or do you make NdFeB injection molded magnets? Do you make ‘sockets’ or do you make high-frequency center probe test sockets? You get the idea.

Here’s another example. If you google guitar (a favorite subject around The Simon Group), Google finds about 190,000,000 entries with Wikipedia, Gibson and Fender in positions one, two and three. That’s some pretty hefty search engineering…and Gibson and Fender should be commended. However, their effort is probably Herculean and very expensive.

But if I type in ‘archtop guitar’, we whittle the field down to 148,000 entries, with Wikipedia again leading the pack. Numbers two and three are archtopguitar.net and archtop.com. (Note Wikipedia comes in first twice so far…more on the use of Wikipedia in your marketing efforts to follow in an upcoming blog post.) But I’m a cagey customer. I don’t want just any archtop guitar; I want a ‘handcrafted archtop guitar’. For that, Google now gives me about 5,000 web sites from which to choose

Now we’re starting to get to the level where a midsized B2B company might have the resources to achieve significant ranking on Google and other search engines.

The more specific we can be in our keywords/phrases, the more focused we can be on optimizing for them. A typical Simon Group embedded computing client would have a web page optimized for “ruggedized conduction cooled VMEbus single board computer (SBC)” rather than just single board computer (or worse yet: computer).

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Articles, Online Marketing Marketing, SEO

By: Nissen Isakov, President, LCR Electronics, Norristown, PA

Building a company requires knowledge of several business sectors, from design and development to production and customer service. One important aspect is all too often left at the end of the to-do list: marketing efforts. Creating products, incorporating the latest technologies into them and offering supporting services always comes first, but the next step is letting your customers, and potential customers, be aware that these items are available from your company

Once you have in place the right products, services and infrastructure to support them, you have to get the word out. Establishing a marketing plan is a comprehensive way to ensure the right people know about your business.

For years we performed in-house marketing: print ads, online ads, website management. We thought we were handling ourselves fairly well, never thinking that as a small business we could afford the services of an outside agency. Although the company has had a history of steady growth, with the downturn in the economy, we realized that we needed the help of a professional marketing company. It was a natural part of moving our business forward.

After reviewing and interviewing multiple agencies, The Simon Group sold us on one main point: they knew our products, our markets, our industry. We knew the only way to move into the future effectively and efficiently with a new marketing agency was by working with a group of people already well established in our target markets. And of course, their great personalities helped, too.

Immediately, The Simon Group proved how well an integrated marcom plan can work. We graduated from an internal plan narrowly focused on advertising and website management to one that also included an extensive public relations (PR) program, greater emphasis on our website, tactical print and online advertising with The Simon Group’s Strategic Marketing and Planning (SMAP™) Program, direct mail and continued support and research in all areas of marketing.

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Articles, Integrated Marketing Advertising, Branding, Marketing, PR

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the latest buzz phrase of the marketing world (we’re guilty of using it, too!), but did you know it is sneaking into the PR world as well? Not only should you optimize your website or your blog, you should also be optimizing your press releases for search engines.

A traditional news release with plain text will reach the editorial community on the date you release it, but what happens when a potential customer is searching Google for that great new product six months later? Unless your press release has the staying power to continually rank high in search engines, the chance of an older press release being found is slim.

This is where SEO comes in. Here are some important tips for optimizing a press release:

1. Use the important keywords in the title (words customers would search).
Headlines are the first thing a search engine and a reader will see. Putting keywords in the headline increases your chances of being found and people seeing the relevance of your news release to their search.

2. Keep the title to approximately 80 characters.
PR distribution sites will often use the headline for the title tag. Keeping the title short (while including keywords) ensures the keywords of your release will not be cut off and will be visible to search engines (and readers) at the first glance.

3. Effectively use keywords throughout the press release.
Using a keyword density check tool will help you determine if your press release includes too little, too many, or just the right amount of keywords in the text. Using too many words may seem counterintuitive, but it could actually hurt your SEO. Too few keywords hurt, too.

4. Use links in the body of the release.
Adding links in the body of the text will increase the chances of the search engines finding your release. And always start with http:// for the URL. Those seven little characters will ensure the links are active in the release whereas URLs starting with www. could be missed.

5. Include anchor text.
Try to link at least three keywords in the text specifically to an internal page of your site rather than just the homepage. These tagged phrases provide more SEO value to a release than just listing URL links in the text, since they appear as searchable terms.

6. Make sure your news gets out.
In addition to the traditional press list, news releases should be distributed more widely using outlets targeted for online media as well as submitted to a variety of online news sites that post content, both of which are geared at the end user, versus the editorial community.

SEO has changed the landscape of not only traditional marketing, but traditional public relations as well. Writing and distributing timely news releases with the editors, end user, and search engines in mind will dramatically increase the reach of each release.

Articles, Online Marketing, Public Relations PR, press release, SEO

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are important online marketing techniques in today’s increasingly web-based world. They also come with fancy new terms that make the concepts even harder to understand when you don’t know the definitions. Hopefully we can help.

Here is a list of important SEM and SEO terms to get you started. More can be found on SearchEngineWatch.com, SEOglossary.com, and other similar sites.

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Articles, Online Marketing glossary, SEM, SEO, terms

What to look for in a Large Format Printer
Outputting large graphics is not an easy matter. Digital printing technology may have made some aspects of printing easier, but for high-quality, brand-building graphics, trade show graphics and booths, packaging and point of sale items, museum wraps, the knowledge of printing technology is crucial.

These days, the three primary components in making great graphics notable are: people, computers and capabilities. As we all know, this can turn out to be a deadly combination if any of the planets, or the print heads, are out of alignment. Many things can go wrong at different points along the process.

This is where a production house can provide great value to its clients.Printing colorful graphics takes numerous detailed steps. All incoming work must be preflighted or checked for a myriad of issues.

• Proofreading the already-read copy…it’s amazing what is caught with a fresh set of eyes.
• Does the electronic file match what the graphic is actually supposed look like? Sounds
      ridiculous, but all too often the two are a mismatch. A good printer will insist upon a
      hardcopy to compare to the file.
• Is the file of adequate resolution to print a quality output? Graphics provided for a
      small brochure are not always usable for the larger size graphics and posters.
• Are the colors intended to be pleasing or a specific PMS color match? This issue is
      particularly important if there will be repeat graphics over the course of time.
• Consistency is so incredibly critical during an ongoing campaign and to
      overall company branding.

The key point is to seek a printer who specializes in graphic output and printing, especially if dealing with large graphics. Make sure to communicate often with the production house.

Questions from both parties are essential! Remember, the higher quality input from you at the beginning of the relationship with your printer means a higher quality product at the end of the process. Communication beforehand saves time, lets everyone meet deadlines and keeps waste and costs to a minimum. Make sure nothing unexpected occurs during the graphic production process by working closely with your printer partner.

Fine Art Graphic Imaging specializes in Giclée printing, a French word referring to a printing technology, using a machine called the Iris. The Giclée print process is achieved using high-end digital printers capable of producing small droplets of ink.

As a full color electronic digital output company, Graphic Imaging has always been the Designers’ Helper, a service bureau for any graphic output, to provide a comprehensive set of printing solutions for all graphic needs. The company produces graphic images for trade shows, events and retail operations and convention signage as well as prototypes for packaging applications and ‘one-offs’.

Our thanks to Katherine Keller, Owner & CEO of Graphic Imaging, Pipersville, PA. She can be reached at (215) 766-7927, or visit the website at www.graphicimaging.com.

Articles, Collateral & Printing Advertising, Marketing, Printing