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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Internet marketers need to get inside each customer's head
You will make more money if you get inside each customer's head; really get inside and start to think exactly like they think. We all know that marketing is about providing what people want, but new research, published in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that we need to do much more than simply finding out basic needs and desires.
Psychologists in Chicago at Northwestern University looked at the comparative value of empathy and perspective taking. Their investigations showed that during negotiating sessions, those individuals who showed empathy towards their "opponents" were less successful than those who undertook "perspective taking".
Empathy is not enough online
In psychological terms, empathy means the ability to have an emotional connection to someone, to be able to gauge their feelings and react appropriately. That might seem sensible for sales people and for anyone trying to negotiate. Indeed, you'll find plenty of sales training material suggesting that you work on your empathy.
But the researchers discovered that "perspective takers" had much more successful negotiations. Those people who can perform "perspective taking" are able to consider a situation from someone else's viewpoint. It is much more than empathy, which merely deals with emotion. Perspective taking allows you to think like your opponent. When you do this, you are considerably more successful than merely being empathetic.
So what does this tell us as Internet Marketers? It suggests that simply knowing what your customers want and connecting with them emotionally is nowhere near enough to be sure of selling. Instead, you need to see your web site and all your sales materials, emails and so on, from the customer perspective.
Connect with your customers
And how can you achieve that? It means you have to really, really, really get to know your customers. Talk to them, ask them questions, find out as much as you can about them. Be with them, go where they go, join the clubs they join. The more you understand your customers and the more you connect with them the more you will be able to start thinking like them. And once you do that, you can take their perspective, resulting in more sales. Labels: internet, internet marketing, internet psychology
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Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Why the Google advertising change doesn't matter
Google quietly changed it's terms and conditions for advertising yesterday. Up until now, advertisers using Google AdWords have been banned from using the brand names of their competitors in their adverts; now they can.
This has spawned all sorts of suggestions as to how businesses might capitalise on the change. One example I read was if you are Sainsbury, you can now use the word Tesco in your online advertising with Google. Fine; but what value does it bring you.
Let's take a look at some statistics. Wordtracker tells us that every 24 hours just over 1,200 people type in the word "Tesco" and a mere 500 or so type in "Sainsbury" or "Sainsburys". However, both of these stores sell millions of different things. Compared with the other keywords for which they might be found, these figures pale into insignificance.
Take "car insurance"; both Tesco and Sainsbury's sell car insurance. There are almost 3,000 searches on Google every day for the phrase "car insurance". There are just over 200 for "Tesco car insurance", but none at all for any combination of "Sainsbury" and "car insurance". In other words there are almost twice as many people looking for "car insurance" as anything containing the word "tesco" or "sainsbury".
Brand, online trust and credibility
What does this tell us? It suggests that at the outset, brand does not matter. When people are searching for something they are looking, for instance, for anyone who can help them with their car insurance needs. When they have a selection, then, perhaps, brand comes into play in terms of trust and credibility. But at the search level, it is of secondary importance.
This means that using a competitor's brand name in an advert is - once again - looking in the wrong direction. What it means is that companies will focus on their competition, rather than spending their time thinking about their customers. Tesco, for instance, is well known for saying its turnaround from being an also-ran in the supermarket business, to a world leader came when they stopped worrying about their competitors and focused every ounce of corporate muscle on their customers.
The Google change will do the reverse. It will make companies focus on their competitors rather than their customers. And as the "car insurance" example suggests, at the search stage of the process who provides the car insurance is not important.
Consider fresh bread!
As another example, consider "fresh bread". Only 11 people every 24 hours search for this phrase - but there is only one advert on Google and that's not from Tesco or Sainsbury. Yet, both these companies have in-store bakeries and would be able to outbid the current advertiser easily, gaining almost all of those 11 people a day. Add that to the millions of other products and they'd gain even more traffic from people looking for specific products.
What the corporate brands do, is believe their own publicity. They honestly believe that the brand is all important, when online it is of only secondary importance. To the people who want fresh bread, they want fresh bread - who supplies it doesn't matter that much.
I'm not saying that brand is irrelevant; I'm just saying it is lower down the pecking order than big brand owners would like to think. The problem with the Google change it confirms in the brand owner's mind the importance of brand. Hence they will spend more money using brand names in their Google AdWords campaigns - and who will benefit? Well Google of course.
Brand names are not important
What will happen to those 4,105 people a year who want "fresh bread"? Well they will be denied the knowledge that Tesco and Sainsbury offer them tasty fresh bread prepared by master bakers. Tough on them, but even tougher on the retailers who are denying themselves income by worrying about the competitor's brand name adverts rather than focusing on their customers.
Google is laughing all the way to it's bank of course. Why? Because they have focused on their customers very well indeed. Google knows that its brand name customers love using brand names - even though Google knows it's a fools game. So, if big brands want to waste their money? Let them, says Google.
Focus on your customers - and online that means providing what they want at the precise moment in time they want it. When searching, brand is of little importance. Only when people are making a decision to buy online does brand start to play its part. The result is that for almost every business this change from Google is worthless. Your customers are not searching for your brand, or your competition's brand; instead they are searching for your solutions and that's what your advert should focus on. Labels: internet, internet marketing, shopping
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It's a rather shortsighted viewpoint you put forth. The reality is that Tesco and Sainsbury aren't necessarily worried about each using the other's brand. They are worried about the many fraudulent websites that attempt to lure you to their sites based on a trusted brand name. At the end of the day, Google shows they are only in it for the money and don't care if they support and encourage fraud along the way.
Thanks for your comment. I disagree that I am being short sighted. I'm well aware that Tesco and Sainsbury aren't bothered about each other. The point I am making is that the change Google has instituted means that online businesses will be encouraged to focus on what their competitors are doing, rather than focusing on their customers. It's not about "fraud"; it's about customers.
What? Fraud? If someone was had up for fraud every time someone ended up on a website they didn't intend to be on, I think the courts would be rather full!
Anyone who does arrive on the wrong site won't be out of pocket anyway. It's the advertiser that pays for the click, not the person viewing it, so how have they been defrauded? I think our anonymous friend fails to understand the mechanics of pay per click and the definition of fraud. And let's not forget that Google insist on a 'display URL' showing where the ad goes through to, on every single ad to avoid misleading people.
Pay per click is just a form of marketing (a blindingly obvious fact which many people manage to miss) and in any form of marketing communication, you need to tell your prospect what you can do for them. They don't want to be in the middle of a squabble between you and a competitor, so any mention of competitors needs to be subtle at best. Consumers are generally sceptical of any mention of a competitor, so I hardly think any floodgates are about to open.
What I think has happened here is that Google have simply relaxed a rule that was proving increasingly hard to police. Millions of companies worldwide now use Adwords - can Google really keep a list of ALL of their advertisers' competitors? Especially if we continue with Tesco as an example - they sell just about everything these days, they must have thousands of competitors.
Clearly, Google know as well as you do Graham that this will make barely a scrap of difference. If they felt it would I hardly think they would put their multi-billion pound advertising model at risk for the extra few quid they will make from people who think there's a huge opportunity here.
Absolutely Rob, I agree. Thanks for your excellent comment which puts things into perspective. I suspect that the Tescos and the Sainsburys of the world will not be in the least bit bothered by Google's move. However, many small businesses may be tempted to use competitor names in their adverts and they are the ones who will waste time worrying about how they can steal clicks from their competition, rather than focusing on serving their customers.
Sorry, but your post is clearly flawed on a number of areas. Let's look at the first line.
Google quietly changed it's terms and conditions for advertising yesterday.
It wasn't very quiet - it was announced about a month ago and it's been in the press quite a bit since, I believe even the FT ran an article on it.
You then go on to say..
Let's take a look at some statistics. Wordtracker tells us that every 24 hours just over 1,200 people type in the word "Tesco" and a mere 500 or so type in "Sainsbury" or "Sainsburys".
Firstly Wordtracker is outdated and you should not take that figure as gospel - it's better to use MSN's figures (that use real search numbers). These show that last month on MSN the keyword "tesco" had 158,875 searches. If you do some calculations based on their market share information it actually means that the keyword "tesco" that you mention gets 1,200 searches a day actually gets more like 143,118 searches per day.
Quite a bit more and as your post is based around those figures I think it makes a big difference.
With that being said - I don't think terms like Tesco are going to be impacted too much, but terms suddenly available now such as "ipod" (with about 7k a day in searches) will have an impact.
Time will tell though - it's certainly going to be an interesting few months ahead.
James, thanks for your comments. However I don't agree that my article is flawed. Let me address your comments individually.
Firstly I used "quietly" to indicate they did this without announcing it to AdWords customers. True there were press announcements, but it was a "quiet" introduction of a policy change if you thought you'd hear about it via AdWords directly.
Secondly, I don't take any figures as gospel, so why should I take MSN's as valid either? The exact numbers themselves do not matter. It's the proportions that matter. Even with the hugely inflated figures that MSN suggests, more people are searching for the products and services that Tesco sells, than for the company itself. This means that if they are using PPC keywords merely for their brand name - they are missing out.
I am saying nothing different to the theory proposed in the leading business book, The Long Tail. That tells us - along with plenty of other examples - that focusing on your competitors is doomed. People should focus on their customers.
Whether you want to use your numbers or my numbers, they point to the same thing. Anyone worrying about the use of brand names in their PPC adverts is barking up the wrong tree.
Finally, where do you get the notion that Wordtracker is out-dated? True it uses a different process to MSN and it comes up with other figures, but it's not the raw numbers that matter. What matters is the general indication that these tools provide.
Thanks for your reply.
In terms of Wordtracker vs. MSN, I would say that MSN is more reliable - the figures are taken from actual search numbers in the previous month.
Some people still use Overture even though it's about 6 or 7 months old and wordtracker uses it's own metric and is still relatively new to the UK - it's more of a sample than real results. Saying that, my wordtracker login shows a heck of a lot more than 1,200 searches a day for Tesco so unsure why it's so different to your own..
With all that said - I appreciate and agree that merchants should concentrate on their own customers, but as part of an overall PPC campaign I think it's fair to say that competitor and product keywords that were previously trademarked can now have a big impact on the ROI - this can be both positive and negative.
Let's look at one each one.
Negative - in that your own brand becomes more expensive to bid on. As a paid search agency we have seem that bidding on your brand, even when you rank number 1 organically can have an impact to your sales - so of all of a sudden this becomes a lot more expensive.
Positive - As mentioned in my previous example, retailers who sell ipods can all of a sudden start bidding on a product that they sell, which is not a bad thing. There are plenty of other examples of where this could work and we've already seen (before the changes) that competitive terms convert, sometimes very well.
It's all part of a balanced keyword campaign :)
James, thanks for the clarification. From what you say, I can see we are in agreement. The difference in our Wordtracker results may be because of the use of different databases. The "compressed" database can produce different results from the "comprehensive" database, for instance. But I don't think we need to get hung up on precise numbers. Your iPod example is a good one which shows that focusing on the products people want to buy is probably going to be more successful than focusing on the Apple brand name, for instance.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
The Internet World is all about relationships
Your friends like you; honest, trust me, they do. If they didn't like you, then you wouldn't like them and, hey, you wouldn't be friends. Web sites are the same; if they demonstrate they like you - by providing exactly what you are after - then you like them. It's simple really, give your audience what they want and you are home and dry.
So, why oh why is that so few web sites do that? They tell us all about themselves - and frankly, we couldn't give a stuff could we? Sign on at Amazon and the first thing you see is a list of books all suited to your personal preferences; the site is about you. Is there material about Amazon itself? Sure, but it's tucked away.
You see, Amazon knows about relationships. They know that to build a relationship you have to ask questions. Imagine how difficult it would be for you to get new friends if you were never able to ask people a question. It would be impossible. But you can't ask any old question. To build relationships you need to ask questions that allow people to provide you with information about themselves.
Amazon does this in subtle ways - you provide them information on your buying preferences, but also in answering their questions such as "do you want it gift wrapped?" They know from that whether you are a "fluffy" person or not - and that helps them direct the right kind of materials to you. In building friendships we do the same. We ask questions that help us create a picture in our mind of the kind of person we are dealing with.
So, tell me why today when I went to the Internet World exhibition at London's Earl's Court was I faced with so many people who were unable to ask me the right questions. The questions I received were useless in helping the exhibitors find out anything about me; as a result they were unable to build any kind of relationship with me.
For instance, if I got asked once I was asked a dozen times "are you looking for more traffic for your web site?". I answered "no" every time, at which point I was met with a stunned "oh" and a "well thank you anyway" before they moved off to the next victim. But what if I had been asked "how do you get people to come to your web site?". I have to give more information - and then they could enter into a dialogue with me about how they could help me get more of those kind of people.
I wandered around the exhibition for over two hours noting what was happening at each stand. Apart from the fact that most stands had almost no visitors (they were all at the various presentation "theatres"), most of the people wandering around were doing just that - wandering. When I did overhear people being accosted, just like me they were all asked completely closed questions, making it almost impossible for the exhibitor to build any form of relationship.
 No doubt the exhibitors will go away with a huge pile of business cards and say it was an event worth going to. I doubt it - except for one company, Huddle. This is an online collaboration and project management system that incorporates social networking principles.
However, Jon Landau from Huddle was different to almost every other exhibitor I met. He asked me several open questions and engaged in conversation with me. In other words, he treated me as a human being rather than a "prospect". Interestingly, the Huddle stand was amongst the busiest; no surprise there.
Do I know if Huddle is better than its competitors? No. Do I think it is? Yes. How do I judge it? On the fact that the company, through Jon, engaged with me. And that's why most web sites do not work - they don't engage. Most web site are rather like those hapless exhibitors at today's Internet World, asking closed questions and letting me pass on by without engaging. That's what most of the world's Internet traffic does. It stumbles across a site, which asks "do you want to know about us?" - a lovely closed question to which we all say "no thanks". But the owners of those web sites measure their success in terms of the number of visitors they get, just like today's exhibitors counting business cards into the small wee hours. It's one measure, but not a very good one.
Far better for you to really engage with people. Not only do you get more business, but you get more recommendations. You might have noticed I spent a couple of hours in a large exhibition centre and only found one company to recommend. Now what does that tell you about the Internet World? Labels: internet, internet marketing, internet psychology, social networking
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Readers' Comments:
I had a very similar experience last year Graham which is why I didn't return this year.
It seems that very few exhibitors have thought about how to engage with visitors to the exhibition.
I recall wandering around collecting free pens (for my daughter); picking up a few leaflets (for inspiration for my then embryonic business); dropping my business card into bowls promising me the chance to win something useful (but which I knew would lead to 'spam emails' so I was choosy; and being ignored by most exhibitors who simply waited for people to step onto their stands and ask for information.
When I was approached (like you) I was asked closed questions that may have been consciously chosen to quickly identify serious prospects and avoid time wasters. In reality they probably only received positive answers from the time wasters.
I've long subscribed to the view that, in business especially, 'you get the behaviour that you are seen to measure and to record'. I'll bet most of those exhibitors judge a successful exhibition quantitatively by the number of business cards and 'leads' they generate. A qualitative aspect is rarely apparent.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Joined-up marketing is essential online
BBC Radio FiveLive carried an interesting item on the news this morning from Sony BMG that they are making their entire back catalogue available as a "free to listen" service. Wow - that's great, you might think. But this is another example of how big business still has not understood the Internet.
What did I do on hearing the news? That's right, go to the Sony BMG web site in the UK and look for the service. Where is it? No idea. Maybe it's in their "news" section, I thought. No, nothing there either. Perhaps it's on their US site, rather than their UK site? Nope. Nothing there. What about their news section? First item in their news list is dated January 2005.
This is one of the world's "leading" entertainment industries. So where are they leading us? Up the garden path, that's for sure.
If your business is undertaking PR activities - such as going on national radio - you should make sure your web site is "in sync". Or you should set up a separate domain name or web page and plug that like crazy. For example, I speak to several chief executive leadership groups. I have built a special web page just for them; when I am doing any publicity work around the world of CEOs, I only direct them to one page - http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/ceo. That way, when they read or hear an interview directed at them, they go straight to the relevant information.
Sony BMG have either been "caught on the hop" by the BBC, perhaps covering the story in advance of when Sony BMG wanted to release it, or Sony BMG did not think that people listening to the radio would immediately go to their web site. Either way, it's a significant failing by this entertainment giant.
Businesses - particularly big firms - seem to think we live in distinct little worlds; online one minute, offline the next. They haven't yet worked out that we live in an "integrated" world. The consumers of Sony BMG music for instance, listen to it online, on their iPods, live at concerts, on CDs, down the pub, in the car, on a website - and so on. The same individuals consume music in a variety of ways.
The record industry is still stuck in the 1970s when people bought either an "LP" or a "cassette". The world has changed and big firms like Sony BMG have yet to notice. Labels: internet, internet marketing, speaking
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This is a classic case of a large company taking the "multiple markets" or "stakeholder" approach to communications, whilst forgetting that we're ultimately just one large market.
It reminds me of something Sky did a few years back. They wrote to me telling me that prices were going up. This, they told me was unavoidable due to increases in their costs, but they were throwing in a new channel - Sky Mix (which to this date I've still never watched).
The same week I read in the Telegraph that Sky were putting up prices, which I already knew of course. What it also said though was that this was to boost margins and shareholder returns, not to cut costs.
Of course, we all know that every single person with Sky TV is a beer swilling football fan who wouldn't go near a broadsheet, so there's no danger of the big secret getting out is there? Yeah right.
And of course, Radio 5 live listeners won't actually go on the internet and try and find free music will they? They're too busy listening to all the free music they download to even use a radio. Think again Sony!
I don't think it's just online marketing they need to join up - it's all of their marketing across the board.
Well said, Rob. Thanks for your comment - I agree, many big businesses need to get their act together. Some of them succeed in spite of themselves. Gosh, if they were organised, they'd be dangerous...!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Where do all the Internet profits go?
Billions of pounds is traded everyday here on the Internet - do you see any of it? Probably not much. If you do make money online you don't get those billions, I'm guessing. So who does?
Well, the vast majority of the money that is spent online goes to just a handful of companies - Google, Amazon, Ebay and Microsoft. Even Tesco, the leading British retailer, with its millions of pounds of income each week online is a minnow in comparison. So the rest of us, earning less than those millions each week, are the "also rans" of the Internet profit world.
That does not stop people dreaming about making millions online. The problem is for many they are just dreams; they do not turn their dreams into reality. There are endless ebooks and courses that promise a great deal - and offer very little. Dozens of "gurus" offer their advice on how to make more money online (me amongst them...!). However, the people making the real money don't offer their advice. The Googles and Ebays of the world don't tell us how they did it.
So I've been looking at what these businesses do to earn their billions; what do they do here on the Internet to make themselves so attractive? The answer is surprising. Ebay, Google and Amazon have all done the same thing to make themselves billions online - and that is one thing. They have ignored the Internet. That's right, the single common feature between these giants of online profits is that they have got their traffic and their business as a result of their "offline" activities. In other words they have set up a business where the Internet has merely been the delivery channel. This has enabled their focus to be on the business, not on the channel.
Most online businesses focus on the channel and not on being a business. That's the difference between the billionaires and the rest of us; we are all looking in the wrong place for that money. We are looking at the Internet when we should have a much wider perspective. Focus on running a business, rather than the Internet systems and technologies and you are much more likely to make more money out of the Internet.
If you'd like to hear more about this theme, I'll be discussing it tonight in a special one-hour live teleseminar with communications expert, David Festenstein. You can even get your question asked in the £47 call by going to askgrahamjones.co.uk and placing your query which I promise to answer during the call at 8pm, tonight, the 23rd April 2008. Labels: internet, internet marketing
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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Did you do anything for the "global" Earthday?
 Today is the worldwide (apparently) Earthday. You knew that this morning if you strolled along to Google to discover the logo had changed. In fact for every Earthday for the past seven years, Google has changed its logo in honour of Earthday.
The idea behind Earthday is to mobilise people to take action on the environment. But it is likely to have little impact. The day has had scant attention here in the UK and the British media hasn't rushed to cover the topic. And the reason why isn't hard to see.
All you need to do is visit the Earthday web site and you will see immediately that this so-called "global" day is really only taking place in the USA. It's rather like the "global series", which is a match between the USA and Canada. The American view of "worldwide" appears to mean it covers ALL of America...!
OK, I know, I'm being stereotypical. But, take a look at that Earthday web site. The phone number is a USA number and we are being urged to call our "representative" or "senator". But outside the USA, we don't have them. Equally, all the headlines at the bottom of the page are American, not global. Dig deeper into the site and you discover that there are international projects taking place and that over 1 billion people worldwide will be celebrating today's Earthday.
But, the immediate American focus of that front page means that instantly people elsewhere in the world think "this is not for me". In the fraction of a second people take to make their mind up about a web site, this one simply screams "I'm a page for Americans" - hence the rest of the world may look away.
You only have half a second to engage people and make them want to read more of your web site. If you are promoting a global environmental day and you want to attract international audiences, making your site so obviously American from the outset could work against you. Equally, if your web site needs to attract middle-aged builders or young women interested in knitting wools, make sure you site shouts out "this is for YOU". Attention spans are getting shorter and your site needs to make an immediate connection with your target audience.
Sadly, the Earthday site which has so much global potential signals it is only for Americans in that moment when people visit. Make sure your site sends out the appropriate signals for your target audience, otherwise you will lose business.
Labels: future, internet marketing, internet psychology, politics
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Readers' Comments:
Spot on Graham. Although of course it wouldn't take much for another government to create its own Earthday website with some local contacts on it would it?
However, as is well documented in your blog, our government doesn't have a clue about the internet. In fact some of the stories you've posted on here about the government are more laughable than the one you posted on 1st April (which itself was very good)! Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.
As if that's not enough, our lot don't really understand the environment either. All they see it as is another excuse for taxing us for doing certain things such as driving, not recycling etc. All stick and no carrot.
As a little aside I read at the weekend that they want to close around 1,700 GP surgeries to be replaced by regional "super surgeries". Yes, that's right, the same government that wants us to travel less wants us to travel further to see a doctor, so we either drive and pollute more, or we go on public transport whilst ill and spread our germs to all and sundry.
Great joined-up thinking.
This is exactly the same experience I had when visiting the side yesterday, Graham.
There has been no talk about the Earth Day in media here in Iceland and when I checked the website, I got that same feeling, Americans only. That "Call your Senator" did that for me.
ps. One correction. World wide is not ALL America, only ALL North America (excluding maybe Mexico) ;)
Monday, April 21, 2008
How much time should you spend online?
Phil Calvert is a marketing expert who encourages everyone to market themselves "live" at seminars and other events. But he also says that blogging is the equivalent of live marketing because it places you in front of a large audience.
Indeed at an Ecademy event he explained to the 250-strong audience that social media of all kinds were now essential to anyone doing business. He went on to say that he is involved in over 30 different social networking groups and leads 50 different clubs on Ecademy. So it poses the question, when does Phil find time to do any work?
One person said to me at this event that she was far too busy working to do so much online social networking, blogging and group activities. So can you do too much online? How much time should you spend online compared with actually running your business?
Well, here's the rub. People like Phil have realised that the online world is the real world. People who claim that they are too busy running their business to do social networking are still thinking there is some kind of separation between the Internet and the "real world". But there isn't.
Online and offline have now merged; few people aged under 25 understand why older people think there is some kind of barrier between the two. To them, the Internet is "where it is at" because - well, just because.
In the good old days of business - the 1990s - there used to be armies of sales staff who travelled up and down the motorways simply knocking on doors and seeing people. Then, back in the office, there were account managers, who spent all day on the phone, simply chatting to customers making sure all was OK. There were also client liaison officers whose task was to keep people happy, that's all. Indeed, back in those good old days, bank managers spent most of their days just meeting customers, chatting with them and taking them out to lunch.
Then along came the Internet and businesses saw a way of saving cash. Sell everything online, they thought, and we can dispense with half our sale staff, we can manage all the accounts using some kind of online database and a couple of clerical people and we can have an Internet controlled call centre somewhere cheap, so we can get rid of all those client liaison people. Whoopee, we'll be rich, they thought.
But along with the savings businesses have made as a result of Internet technology, there has also come a cost. All those sales staff, account managers and client liaison staff did a hugely important job - relationship building. As relationships dwindle, so does loyalty and businesses now have to constantly get new customers.
Online, now, thanks to social networking, blogging and so on, you can build and maintain relationships. The tools of Web 2.0 have replaced those endless streams of sales calls and account management meetings with clients. So, those companies who see social media as something that is a time waster for their business are rather missing the point. What Phil Calvert does is not a waste of time, rather it is essential for the success of any modern business. All those social networking engagements build relationships - just like the sales calls of the past.
If you see the divide between the online world and the "real world" you are unlikely to think that social networking or online clubs are the way to go; indeed you will see them as an unnecessary intrusion into your time. Younger people, in particular, expect online social networking and if your business does not do it - and you've dispensed with those older ways of relationship building - well, you can probably say goodbye to your business fairly soon.
Extensive online social networking is no longer a "nice to have", as Phil Calvert has shown, it is an essential activity. Either that, or re-employ all those sales teams and account managers. Which is more expensive? Extra staff, or a few hours online each week? You decide. Labels: blogging, future, internet, internet marketing, internet psychology
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Readers' Comments:
Great post, Graham. I find it amazing how people think the internet is so different from the real world. It is the real world.
I often get the question what it takes to run a successful business on the internet. And I explain to them that it's exactly the same is you need to run a successful business elsewhere, good products, good service and the right location (which on the Internet is under the right search terms on the search engines).
This is an excellent post and I have to agree 110% with you about online communities narrowing the gap between old and young. I own an online community of business professionals and I had not though about this point looking at my community it is reflective of your observations.
See http://www.marzar.com it is different from ecademy and you can share files in groups or distribute them to the community.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Old-fashioned PR brings search engine benefits
A new study of online behaviour confirms that good old-fashioned public relations is essential in getting search engine results that people actually click on. The research, conducted by the search engine marketing firm, iProspect, reveals a significant "click behaviour" which every online business owner needs to take notice of.
The study looked into the impact of "blended" search results. Up until relatively recently, search engines like Google only presented search results from web sites. Now, when you search on the main Google page it "blends in" search results from its news service, the image search, blog search and so on. In other words, the results you get are no longer just from plain, ordinary web sites.
News is king
The iProspect analysis shows that 36% of searchers click on a news result. However, if the searchers only looked in the news section, than a mere 10% click on a link. What this shows is the fact that if you get your company in the news, you'll appear on the main Google results page and you will get more clicks by doing so. Importantly, the study revealed that news results are "the most clicked on" results in blended search. In other words, if you are not in the news, you are significantly reducing your chance of getting clicked on when your company appears in a Google search result. In order to get on the Google search results and get clicked by more people you simply must be in the news.
At one of the keynote talks I give about the Internet I concentrate on the need to use offline public relations to gain online benefits. This new study adds a new twist to what I have been saying. Not only does public relations get you better search engine ranking, but it also means you get more click throughs to information about you.
Most business I speak with are using search engine optimisation or pay per click as their central strategies to improve their online business. This new data from iProspect shows that this is a weak strategy. The strongest results are going to come from having public relations as your central focus for improving your online business.
You must be in the Top 10
And there's on other important point. The iProspect study showed that 68% of people never go beyond the front page of Google. And guess where the news results end up? That's right - they make the front page of a blended search result, whereas other more "ordinary" web sites get relegated to secondary pages. But the study showed something even more revealing. Four out of ten people said that if the company was mentioned on the first page of Google results they thought the company was a "leader in its field".
So, to be seen as a leader, to get the clicks you want, you have to be on the front page. No news there then. But to be on the front page, you need to be "in the news". And if you are "in the news" you'll get more clicks than for an "ordinary" web site. So, call that PR agency now - you need them much, much more than you thought. There's only one problem - in my experience, few PR agencies actually understand online public relations. Oh dear. Labels: blogging, internet, internet marketing, speaking
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Readers' Comments:
Thanks Graham. A really interesting article - I agree that SEO is much strengthened by good PR. In some ways a news story, or PR generated link, is almost like an impersonal referral. The referrer has authority of opinion because they are a journalist. PR remains an important part of the marketing mix, even in a Web 2.0 world.
PS: spotted a typo. "Now news there then" I assume should be "No news there then" in the final para.
Thanks Neil, typo corrected...!
Thanks for reminding us all, Graham! This is especially true from the SEM ( Search Engine Marketing) point of view!
Now i will have to get myself in the news! Hm..mmmm........mmmm !
That's not going to be easy! :-(
Need to think about it!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Internet marketers miss the target by miles
Marketing gurus tell as all the time that we need to really focus on our market; they say that "niche" marketing is even more important these days than ever before. Online, people expect to be able to find products and services that are directly targeted at them.
 Strange then, that a recent study of Internet users reveals that the majority of those aged over 55 feel that the content available online is mostly targeted at young people. Indeed, the study shows us that not only do these "oldies" feel that the content is wrong, but they also dislike much of the design of web sites because they are generally too youthful.
What's wrong with that, you might think. Well, several things. For a start, statistics collated by Pew Internet, the leading research company on human-Internet experiences, shows us that seven out of ten people over the age of 50 use the Internet. For those aged younger than this, there are eight out of ten regular users. In other words, the proportion of "oldies" using the Internet is roughly the same as the youngsters.
This implies that most Internet marketers are missing a trick. Older people are clearly feeling "left out" by many web sites. That means lower sales for online businesses and the possibility that competitors will see this market gap and proceed to fill it.
Internet marketers miss a trick
There's another problem for Internet marketers; the world's population is ageing. According to a United Nations report on ageing, the numbers of people aged over 50 is set to double between now and 2050. In other words, for anyone running an online business this is a growing market.
So just imagine, for a moment, that you run a record company. Typically youthful in approach, your web site is bound to be young looking and targeted at young people. That puts off the over 50s, it seems from the recent study. But guess what; the over 50s are happy to pay for music - the younger population expects it for free. If the music industry targeted their web sites to older people, they'd probably make more money online.
The research showing that older people are disenfranchised by the lack of content and design targeted at them should be a wake-up call to online businesses that they need to focus and target much more than they are doing. To dismiss the "older" Internet users could be financial ruin for many businesses. Perhaps it is time to look at your online business and see if it needs re-shaping towards the older Internet user. We focus on youth too much online. Labels: future, internet, internet marketing
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Wednesday, April 09, 2008
The rule of reciprocity is alive and well on the Internet
 Imagine you are at a business meeting where you know no-one. You have arrived, slightly nervous because you are alone. You wander over to the coffee table where another guest at the meeting is pouring themselves a caffeine-laden cup. As they do so they turn to you and say "would you like a cup?". You say, yes and they pour you a coffee, ask you if you take milk and sugar and then pass the cup to you with a smile. What do you think? Almost certainly you react positively - "what a nice person", or "how kind".
Later on in the day, you feel almost duty bound to do something in return - perhaps saving them a seat at the lunch table, or offering them some bread to have with their meal. You have reciprocated. The "rule of reciprocity" suggests that when someone does something positive towards us, we feel compelled to do something in return.
You can see this in operation - often badly executed though - on many web sites. "We'll send your a free report, if you give us your email address." It's a reciprocal arrangement, but is often thrust down our throats, rather like the coffee pouring individual saying, "here's your coffee, now what are you going to give me?".
The real reason reciprocity works is because it is gentle. Online in many web sites it is far from this. That's why social networking works better. You form some online friendships, gradually revealing more to each other, then one offers the other something without asking for return or favour. But the recipient feels they have to do something in return. In other words, a more friendly basis for the "free report" offer is likely to bring longer term, more solid gain.
That's because we will be providing such potentially lucrative sales material to people who now trust us. They have done that because we have built relationships with them. Indeed, as a recent article on the basis of friendship explained in Psychology Today, we test our friends by offering slightly more information about ourselves and seeing if it is reciprocated. If people tell us a bit more, we realise they want to be friendly. So we reveal slightly more and if it is returned, our friendship deepens.
It's the same online; in social networking sites you can see people gradually revealing more about themselves. As they do so, they get more comments, connections and so on. They deepen their relationship with these people and the same old routine carries on, as though these people really were in the "real world".
What happens online in terms of how we relate to each other is no different to the way it works offline. The problem is that things like "Internet Marketing" have been given a bad name because some people have heard of the rule of reciprocity and executed it in a rather "in your face" way. You can surely use reciprocity online to your business advantage. But do it the gentle way you would when meeting people for the first time, just like offering them a coffee at a business event.
Labels: internet marketing, internet psychology, social networking
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It's a rather shortsighted viewpoint you put forth. The reality is that Tesco and Sainsbury aren't necessarily worried about each using the other's brand. They are worried about the many fraudulent websites that attempt to lure you to their sites based on a trusted brand name. At the end of the day, Google shows they are only in it for the money and don't care if they support and encourage fraud along the way.