Social Media Marketing is not always about Client Acquisition

Because of the fact that online marketing is one of the most precise and measurable ways to market products and services, many companies have resorted to only going online to acquire new customers or clients. What these companies are forgetting is that being online gives a chance to dialogue and to do some Brand Monitoring.

A great example of how many companies today are misusing a great marketing tool, due to too much focus on generating customers, is the latest buzz word in online marketing, Social Media Marketing. What many companies see here is a chance to communicate directly with their prospects and clients, and what they do is to push out their offers and promotions. The problem with this is that many people view the Internet and being online as a part of their private life, as private as their own homes if not more. If a company then comes in there and pushes in promotions and offers, it is very likely that they will have next to no success in generating new clients. No one wants to get their private space flooded with promotions and advertisement, that’s something we always need to have in mind when planning campaigns. This is especially true for Social Media Marketing, as many of the websites and forums are very private in the sense that only friends can view profiles etc.; very much in the same way you only let your friends in your house.

Now you might be thinking “if I cannot promote my products to prospects and potential customers through social media, then what good is it for?”. No worries here, there are still many areas where this tool comes in handy. One of the best ways to use social media is to reach out in an honest fashion to prospective customers and see what they think of you and your services. One great example of how this has been done in the past is when chocolate manufacturer Cadbury brought back the Wispa bar after seeing demand from social networks. Their move proved to be a success and is a great lesson in how to use social media.

Another way to use social media sites and networks is to search your own brand name and do some brand monitoring. Many times when customers are disappointed with a product or service, they might not complain to the manufacturer or company, instead they send out their complaints on the web.  Someone might be unhappy with their hotel while some other person is angry that their new phone has broken down. This is a great chance to search such critics and try to convert them into happy customers.

Let’s use Twitter as an example. You can use the Twitter search to see what other people are saying about your brand. Let’s say you run a Hotel called ‘The Sleep & Eat’. Simply put in “The Sleep & Eat” and see what people are saying about you. If you find guests that are unhappy, then contact them directly and offer them some sort of compensation or at least let them know that you are aware of them being unhappy. This is an extremely powerful way of monitoring your brand and increasing customer happiness. You can also use the same concept when doing press releases or news releases of some sort. Just type in your company name and see what reactions you have gotten around the web.

As you might have figured out by now, this strategy is not about directly generating new customers and clients. The brand monitoring is to build a respectable brand and show that you care about your business and customers. By establishing that image in a genuine fashion, the customers and clients will come by themselves.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing Agency

5 Simple Ways to Increase Time on Site

Let’s continue the bounce rate discussion by looking at another relevant metric, Time on Site, and how we can increase the average time your visitors spend on your site. You might wonder why you would need visitors to stay on your site longer than they do. The answer is simply that the longer a visitor’s stays at your site, the greater the chance that they’ll notice something they like and convert into a customer or a returning visitor. There are of course many other reasons for why you want them to stay longer, but the mere fact that you increase time of exposure to your visitors is enough to justify an increase in time spent on site.

So let’s take a look at 5 pretty simple things you can do to increase time on site and get down the bounce rate some more.

1.    Add relevant media to your website.

Try to make your content more alive. Think about how you can use audio clips, video clips or other types of media such as small browser games etc . to increase the time each visitor spends on your site. Videos and games for example are a great way to increase time on site. If you can embed a video nicely in content you’re interested in showing your visitors, you stand a better chance of getting the content noticed. The same goes for small browser games; you can also present interesting page links while the game is loading, or at the game over-screen.

2.    Ask friends, colleagues and partners to find specific sections of your website from the most popular entry pages.

It might seem strange to you that your visitors hit the back button or close your page down quickly after their entry. However, it is important to remember that you’re view of your website is extremely biased. If you have a rather large website with a lot of content or products, you might even have a hard time finding what you’re looking for yourself. You need to look at your website from a user perspective, only then can you make the right adjustments that will cut down your bounce rate and increase time on site.  To do this you can ask other people to find specific sections or information on your website from the most popular entry pages for example. See how long it takes them to find what they’re looking for; if you notice it takes more than what should be reasonable then ask them what adjustments they think could have helped them. Remember that convenience and time effectiveness are some of the biggest reasons people use internet. If a visitor doesn’t find what they’re looking for within reasonable time, then they will leave and you’re very likely to see a drop in average time on site and a high bounce rate.

3.    Insert a breadcrumbs menu on top of your page so that visitors can see exactly where they are on your site.

Let’s say your visitor is looking for a specific type of Nokia phone. If the visitors is looking for Nokia e71 but ends up entering your page through the page of Nokia N85 (or some other model) they might hit the back button; they might think that you don’t have the model they’re looking for. However, if you put in a breadcrumbs menu that looks something like this: Home > Mobile Phones  > Nokia Phones> Nokia e71, you make it a bit more obvious to the visitor that there are more items one level above the page they’re on at the moment.

4.    Show related articles, products or what other similar visitors have liked.

At the end of your page you can link visitors to related articles or products. You can also collect information on what other pages your visitors go to from that specific page and link to those. This is a great way to increase time on site because you will suggest pages to them that are very likely to be relevant to them. Instead of letting your visitors search for what they’re looking for, you actively push what might be relevant to them. This way they might find what they were actually looking for when first entering your page. You can also do this with products if you run a web-shop. For example you can suggest accessories to different products from the product pages. This way you might remind someone to buy an extra battery for the camera they’re about to order, or an extension cord for their new television. Either way you have provided useful information to them that will benefit both you and your visitor.

5.    Use a static box or a section to push most popular pages of your site.

Static boxes or dedicated sections with top lists are almost always interesting to a user. If you for example can list the five most popular sections of your website in a static box that is visible site wide you stand a pretty good chance of making your visitors curious. And a curious visitor is a good visitor because they do not mind spending time on your site if they feel that it is interesting to them. Top lists are a great way to make visitors interested in your content. If you run a web-shop you can list the most popular products, if you have a blog then list the most popular posts, or if you have a community then you can list recent logins or most popular user profiles. As you can see there are tons of things you can do and this will again benefit both you and your visitors, because you provide them with what might be interesting to them instead of letting them waste time looking for it.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing Agency

Are You Really Testing Your Test Campaigns?

As a CEO I know one thing first hand – Every cent not spent correctly is a mistreat of the company budget. Every time a company spends it should be with the aim to generate ROI in some aspect. No matter how little or much you spend, this should be your goal if you are genuinely interested in growing your business.  Of course there will be times when you won’t be able to generate ROI, but that needs to be your aim, and to get there you need to put in some hard work.

Over the years I’ve been involved in numerous banner campaigns that have only been small tests from the advertiser’s side. The budgets involved have usually been rather small due to the risk involved in trying out a brand new site; roughly around 1 000 – 2 000 Euros in average. These tests are something that most companies are and should be familiar with. It is also something that I’ve seen all types companies engage in, no matter size. I think test campaigns are very wise, but only if done correctly. In most cases however, these test campaigns end up being nothing more than a waste of the budget. In this article I will go through some common mistakes that damage test campaigns, and also give my ideas on how a text campaign should be planned and executed.

One of the most common mistakes is when the advertiser fully ignores the website owner’s advice or the agencies advice (if there is an agency handling the website). Let me give you an example. Some years ago I was working for a company that did a campaign with a client that was active in the poker industry. This client created a promotion where all new players who signed up through that specific banner were rewarded with a small amount of money to play with, with no obligation to deposit their own money. This was a success and the campaign got renewed and lasted for over a year without getting exhausted. The website in question wasn’t at all related to gambling or poker, but a general website that had a good age range for that specific advertiser.

That poker campaign showed us that there was great potential for poker companies on that website, so we asked some of our other poker clients if they wanted to try it out. Many were eager to give it a go and do test campaigns. So we launched the first test campaign, but with a different promotion. This poker company instead chose to offer a depositing bonus of 100% up to $300 USD. The campaign did not work out at all. This was a bit strange since we were running the other campaign simultaneously with great results. So we launched another campaign, and this poker company also had another type of banner where they promoted a specific tournament that they were arranging. This campaign did not work out either.

So now we had one campaign that was doing really well, and two that didn’t work out at all. They all offered same type of products (poker) and were equally well known in the industry. We started therefore suspecting that the two latter promotions did not fit the target at all, so when yet another poker client wanted to test the website we were fast to give our advice. We specifically told this poker company to use a promotion similar to the campaign that was doing well, and they listened. Right away, we saw good results again. This made us confident that this website was all about having the correct promotion, so every time we had one of our clients asking us to run campaigns there, we suggested what promotion to use.

The problem came pretty quick though. Many of the clients coming to us for advertising space did not listen at all to what we had to say. They kept giving us banners with 100% bonuses, special tournaments, rake back offers and other promotions we knew just wouldn’t work out. We launched their campaigns, and tada: no results what so ever.

I saw countless 1000-2000 Euro campaigns being burnt off like it was nothing. For example, one of the clients launched their test campaign with a promotion we had told them would not work, and then came back several weeks after the campaign was finished asking us whether the campaign was still live or not. They hadn’t tracked the campaign, they hadn’t listened to our advice, and most importantly, they didn’t get any kickback at all from that campaign. You’re not running a test campaign if you do not do any testing while running the campaign. Instead of choosing the correct promotion, monitoring the campaign and trying different tweaks, they did nothing. That is also what they got out from the campaign – Nothing.

So how should you then treat your test campaign? Well to start with, listen to site owner or agency that you’re doing the campaign with. All website owners or agencies that deal with publishers will know the websites audience very well if they’re serious about what they’re doing. And we will assume that they are serious, because if not then why would you be in business with them in first place? Second of all, monitor your campaign. Keep track of the impressions, clicks and conversions as close to real time as possible. Only then will you be able to do the necessary tweaks that can provide you with the information you need to evaluate the test campaign. By tracking the results while the campaign is live you can do changes such as time-targeting the campaign and only show your ads during specific hours. You can also switch banners to try out different promotions and types of ads. In other words, you can do what you set out to do: Testing!

So if you do decide to go with a test campaign, then make sure you have the resources to take advantage of the opportunity. Otherwise you will waste your own valuable time and money, and also miss out on a potential great partnership for your marketing.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing Agency