Are you choosing the right keywords?

Most people know how important it is to achieve a high ranking on Google if you want to attract 'zero cost' leads to your website. The first requirement for success is choosing the right keywords.

When I start a keyword research project with a client, I always ask them to supply an initial keyword seed list which I then supplement with my own research. To discover tips to improve your Google rankings read more...

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Using Google PPC as a research tool to refine your brand messages?

Many of Britain's best brands will research their brand proposition and messaging before developing new web sites and marketing communications. However, they tend to be the exception and many companies fail to do much research. Either they:-

• are in a hurry & don't want to wait to get results
• will not want to allocate any budget to research
• don't have the resource or expertise to manage research effectively
• believe they know what their customers want without the need for any research or insight

If you always guess what your prospects / customers are thinking you are highly likely to get it wrong. If this is the case and results are not as good as expected, you may have to re-do the previous website / brochure / advertising campaigns etc resulting in longer lead times and higher costs.

In my experience, (and I have worked with brands like Asda & Egg who have an enviable track record for achieving great results in shorter lead times than average) doing some essential research to quickly find out what works and what doesn't, means that you are significantly more likely to achieve the desired objective in less time & for less cost.

Using Google PPC as a research tool

I frequently use Google PPC to do research for my clients and find this a fast & low cost way of doing some research and getting results that enables clients to make objective decisions designed to maximise their Marketing Return On Investment (ROI).

With Google PPC it is possible to get a research test campaign running incredibly fast. e.g. suppose a company wants to test different propositions such as whether cost, service or quality is more important to prospects. An ad could be created for each of the 3 propositions & depending on the search volumes it is possible to get valuable results the same or next day. The results will show which proposition is more compelling to the target audience by comparing how many clicks or conversions each version gets. This principle could also be applied to researching headlines, ad copy, product names etc.

Google research example

A campaign was created with 3 different Google ads each communicating a different message. The ads were clicked 1,000 times in 48 hours at an average cost of 25p click, giving a Google campaign cost of £250.

• Ad version 1 accounted for 27% of the clicks
• Ad version 2 accounted for 58% of the clicks
• Ad version 3 accounted for 15% of the clicks

Clearly, message 2 had significantly more appeal to the target prospects.

Can Google research pay for itself?

If the client had progressed version 1 or 3, the test results suggest that their ongoing business results would only be a half or a quarter of the winning test's results. This would have a huge impact in lost sales revenue / profits. At some point, sooner rather than later, the proposed brochure, ad campaign, website etc would need to be redesigned duplicating the original development costs.

In the above example the advertising cost was £250. Even adding in a set-up cost if this is managed by a web marketing specialist the total research cost is likely to be significantly lower that redesigning everything in a few months time.

Depending on the value of the product or service, it may be that if just 1 of the 300 visitors attracted by the research test actually buys, then the value created is higher than the cost of the test. e.g. One of my clients ran a Google PPC research test investing just £300 on Google PPC media and attracted a client worth £140,000. Not a bad marketing ROI.

If you need help on using Google PPC as a research tool then contact a web marketing expert.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Tesco use Clubcard data for personalised emails

UK retail giant Tesco is to start using its Clubcard data to broadcast personalised emails. This is a good example of powerful email marketing. For many years they have been sending Clubcard members personalised coupons by direct mail but this is the first time they have sent personalised emails. Read more...


Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Is your email marketing getting through? - Part 2 - Inbox Preview

If you use more than 1 email client (or reader) like Outlook or AOL or Gmail then you will probably have seen that the same email can look totally different when viewed in different email clients. So you may have prepared a great looking email with powerful sales messages but it could look a complete mess when viewed in Outlook or Gmail or Windows Live.


Discover how an advanced email marketing system can significantly improve email performance. Read more...

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Is your email marketing getting through? - Part 1 - Hard bounces

Earlier in the year, I attracted a new customer who asked me to manage their email marketing campaigns. They were sending a B2B monthly newsletter to over 2,000 global corporate customers. They were doing a good job using a basic email system. However, the quality of report data available was poor and nobody was spending much time doing any analysis.

When I did the first email campaign, there were a significant number of hard bounces indicating that many of the email addresses on their database were invalid or no longer live. For a customer database, especially a high value B2B database, this has to be a concern, as potentially, customers will not be getting your email communications announcing new products or special offers or changes in specifications etc.

As a result of my first email campaign report, my client investigated the hard bounces. In some cases, the email address was found to be incorrect and updated. In other cases, the individual had left the organisation and they were able to update their records with the correct contact. As a result of cleaning up the data, the hard bounces for each campaign are now less than 0.5% which means each month's follow up takes little time and they are reassured that their client database is in good shape.

Learning for companies big and small

• Review the hard bounce rate after broadcasting an email campaign
• Remove hard bounces from your mailing list to avoid ISP's considering you a potential spammer and blocking your broadcasts
• Depending on the volume & value to you of the recipients, consider contacting them (if you have their phone number) to update their contact details
  

If you need help in developing effective email campaigns that increase customer lifetime value then contact an email marketing expert.


Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.

Are you making the most of your customer & prospect data?

Many companies have customer or prospect data but fail to use this data effectively to grow sales & profits.

One SME retailer I met had 15 years customer data and attracted over 2,000 customers per month. However, they never did anything with that data. Having worked so hard to be distinctive to the competition, develop a compelling message to target prospects and finally achieve a sale, it is bizarre that they chose never to contact the customer again.

A significant number of those customers would have been happy to:-

• provide a glowing testimonial for the retailer
• buy additional products and services from the retailer in the future
• refer them to friends and colleagues to grow the customer base
  
• provide important feedback on customer service

However, this retailer didn't believe in seeking customer opinions or allocating any budget or resource to any marketing activities beyond the first sale.

Many of Britain's best brands know the true value of 'retention' marketing to customers after the first sale. Previous companies, I have worked with including RAC & AA get incredibly high customer retention levels which are proven to deliver high Marketing Return On Investment (ROI).

Amazon develop bespoke personalised email messages that provide relevant offers based on previous purchasing / web viewing history. Brands like Sky & BT invest heavily in Friends & Family referral programmes.

Historically, many of these data-driven marketing programmes were outside the scope of small and mid sized companies due to technical resource & cost requirements. However, these barriers to entry no longer exist given the explosion in web development software & systems in recent years. The barrier to entry is knowledge.

I believe that 90% of the data-driven marketing programmes that I developed with some of Britain's best brands to grow sales & customer lifetime value could be successfully applied to small and mid sized companies.

A customer database is an asset but only if you make use of it. If you do it well it will help grow customer lifetime value and increase your marketing ROI.

Data marketing tips for companies big or small

• Give a specific individual in your company responsibilty for managing customer / prospect data
• Try and collect relevant customer / prospect data whenever possible - make sure every employee knows the importance of doing this well
  
• Use this data to help profile your customers / prospects especially your high value customers
• Use email to get customer feedback on your service shortly after purchase
• Email customers to ask for a testimonial shortly after purchase
• Email customers with a relevant offer to incentivise referrals to friends & family
  
• Emailing customers with relevant & targeted offers based on their purchase or web browsing history
• Make sure you comply with the UK Data Protection Act
  

If you need help in using data effectively to attract and grow customer lifetime value, then contact a web marketing expert.


Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency which helps companies to attract and retain valuable customers online.