Lead Generation Blog

When Times Are Tough the Tough Get… Googling?

Emily Meyer — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:07:42 +0000

Even in this time of economic despair, there seems to be a light of hope for online marketers. I just read a very interesting and reassuring article written by Aaron Goldman on the Search Insider Blog. Goldman discusses the recession and its current effects on Search Engine Marketing. The good news is – the recession is actually positively affecting Search Engine Marketing. FINALLY there is something constructive coming out of this horrible financial state that our country is currently in! A study conducted by OMD’s Snapshots found that, on average, people are spending 87 minutes surfing the web per day during this recession. According to the study, people are spending so much time online in order to escape from their economic troubles. From an SEO standpoint this is great news: People may not be buying anything, but they are spending almost an hour-and-a-half each day searching online. This is very obviously valuable for search engine marketers, and therefore is causing many online marketers to shift their business model toward SEO practices.

Google Up, SEM Down

Marcela Shine — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:14:41 +0000

Just finished reading today’s Search Insider from Media Post. Steve Baldwin cheers at Google’s reported 18% increase in paid clicks over Q3 2007. I know people love to hate Google, but in today’s economic situation, I am happy for any growth news in our industry.

What really caught me about the article (Read the entire article here), however, was Mr. Baldwin’s great closing statements.

Despite this obvious and very real opportunity, I do remain doubtful about whether we in SEM, especially in the SEM agency sector, are doing a good enough job of reaching these spenders and convincing them of the value of outsourcing search to a specialist firm. Frankly, I think that many advertisers have had enough of our pitches… You really can’t blame these people, who are reacting rationally to the “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” scenario. The onus is on us at SEM agencies to prove our case, realistically, free of jargon, hype, and especially over-promising. We need to start acting less like salespeople, and more like serious business consultants. If we can’t be honest and forthcoming about what we can — and can’t — do for our clients… we shouldn’t be surprised when these people slam the door in our faces.”

Advertisers are considering their return on investment now more than ever. They want to reward their valuable (and shrinking) marketing dollars to those of us that differentiate by delivering success, accountability and a high level of account management while managing to their reduced budgets. Simple formula… right?

Email & Social Networks Go Together Like Peanut Butter and Jelly

Emily Meyer — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:34:57 +0000

Email and Social Networks are much like peanut butter and jelly; they are great on their own but are even better together. I stumbled upon an interesting article that discusses the email marketer’s shift to include social networking. As society is starting to live by social networking sites, email marketers are taking the cue and working to integrate both in their campaigns.

The article mentions that many industry experts are predicting that due to spam filter restrictions, and shifts in budget toward social networking, email marketing will lose its spotlight in the Web 2.0 world. That being said, it only makes sense that email marketers would start brainstorming on how to integrate two very compatible sectors that already work hand in hand.

I believe this shift will be very successful for the email marketer. By socializing email campaigns, the email marketer will be able to get to know their consumer better, and personalize their campaign to meet the consumer’s needs. In addition, as mentioned in the article, since there is no competition between the two, there is no need to worry about one out doing the other. It is a win/win situation because they will continue to make the other better.

Being a Talking Head

David Muhammad — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:41:19 +0000

Being a talking head on an industry panel is pretty cool. You get to share all kinds of cutting edge info about online lead generation and look smart with savvy internet marketers, who are by nature a cynical bunch. Plus you get a speaker’s credential.

So, at OMMA’s (Online Media Marketing Advertising) last panel of the conference on Friday, 09/19 at 4:15 PM I took the stage with industry peers Zephrin Lasker, founder/CEO of Pontiflex and Ryan Suchlike, VP of Media Distribution for Clash Media with finance lead gen Guru Gary Kriessman moderating. Needless to say we all had our game faces on and waxed poetically about optimizing online lead generation ROI.

It was cool because we had a chance to share state-of-the-market tactics with the audience, who were very engaged, given that it was the final panel of the conference as I mentioned. The crowd was served a big heaping expert dish of the following strategy, tactics and trends.

Online Audience Development
Online Customer Acquisition
The importance of content and how to scale it demographics
What are some of the most effective metrics in tracking
Dual advocacy for the users and advertisers to drive engaged traffic
The Comprehensive Online Marketing Mix
The Marketing Lead vs. The Sales Lead
Managing Client Expectations

If I had the editorial real estate to indulge my ego, I would of course engage you, the reader in a full-scale knowledge transfer module on all of the above (I know you want that, since I’ve been on a panel recently right?) LOL.

Seriously though, all of the aforementioned concepts do make an effective branded digital experience for your users and they are definitely worth a search for a white paper.