In the past, Interactive or Digital Agencies specialized in a single area of expertise such as SEO, Creative or Email marketing. Today, the most effective agencies must offer expertise in four (4) key areas that are integrated into a custom solution focused on achieving a specific customer goal. These four (4) key areas are:

-    Website Design that converts visitors to customers
-    Search Marketing that generates high-quality leads
-    Content Marketing that is specific to each marketing channel
-    Testing and Analytics that measure and improve performance

1. Website Design That Converts
First, it is critical to have a website or landing page design that converts visitors to leads or customers. There are specific key elements that need to be present to optimize your website or landing page for conversion. While most agencies focus on creative or SEO, a company will leak revenue if the web pages are not optimized for conversion. You have less than 7 seconds once a person lands on your website or landing page to move them into your conversion path to become a qualified lead or customer.

2. Search Marketing For Lead Generation
Second, your agency must have a deep understanding of all things search including SEO, PPC and Local Search. Each of these dynamic search programs requires different tactics in order for them to be effective. Knowing which program, or combination of programs, to apply for each customer is important. In addition, effective implementation is critical for success.

3. Content Marketing Fuels the Engine
Third, content marketing is the blood that runs through the veins of all effective Internet marketing campaigns today. Website copy, landing page copy, blogging, social bookmarking, online press releases, white papers, case studies, email newsletters and lead nurturing all play an important role in lead generation and customer acquisition. Most companies lack the time, resources and expertise to do all of these forms of content marketing effectively today.

4. Testing and Analytics Measures and Helps Improve Performance
Finally, there needs to be a system of testing different conversion elements throughout various points of your online marketing campaigns and conversion path to continue to drive higher lead volume or customer acquisition at a lower cost. Analytics must be an integral part of your marketing infrastructure and measured at key points to deliver insights into the performance of your online marketing success in order to achieve your goal.

The days of using agencies that operate as Internet marketing silos with standalone services that are not integrated into a cohesive solution which is focused on your specific goal is a recipe for falling short of achieving your goals. Ensure that your Interactive Digital Agency includes expertise in all of these key areas. To get help in any of the four key areas of Internet marketing, contact Xcellimark for more information.

The 2003 movie Elf starring Will Ferrell and James Caan is a popular Christmas movie of our generation. I’m not discounting classics such as It’s a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street, but I think watching this movie can help us learn some important Internet marketing tactics that can be applied to any business website.

“….Then I traveled through the Lincoln Tunnel”

Once Buddy decided that he must meet his biological “human” father, he embarked upon a journey from the North Pole to New York City.  His sense of resolve is to be admired since there wasn’t an airport that he could take a flight from.  After all, it’s a long journey through seven layers of the candy cane Forrest, past the sea of the whirly, swirly, gum drops and then through the Lincoln Tunnel.

When you embark on an Internet marketing project, it’s the start of a new and exciting journey. From planning your initial strategy that includes understanding the goals of your campaigns to computing your return on investment, you need to make sure your strategy contains a consistent message in order to grow your customer base. Each element of a campaign is critical for success in a marketing campaign. Elements include website design, content writing, link building, Pay-Per-Click Advertising, blog writing, social bookmarking, and much more.

“We can take these guys! Make as many snow balls as you can.”

This is a classic scene in which Buddy is walking through Central Park with his little brother (Michael) and they suddenly get ambushed by a gang of snowball thugs. Michael is convinced of their eminent defeat and suggests that they try to escape. Sometimes, in a difficult situation, you need a specialist. Buddy tells Michael to make as many snowballs as he can. Buddy makes several snowballs in the time that it takes Michael to make one, then stands his ground and launches a snowball counter offensive that disrupts and foils the snowball thugs.

If your website is not producing the results you want, it’s time to bring in a specialist. Whether it’s an advertising campaign that’s costing you more money than it’s producing or a website sorely in need of a makeover that will help convert visitors into customers, start by analyzing and calculating what you are spending and what your return on investment is. Take a look at your current website and look for ways to improvement it. You may have too much clutter on the site such as too many images or content. It’s not necessary to have all of your information on the home page. Rather, you should highlight your value proposition, the benefits of your product or service, and why website visitors can trust you to deliver. In this dynamic industry one thing you can control is what a person can do on your site. Whenever we see a site that is confusing or tries to give too much information, we say that there is “too much unsupervised thinking happening.” Your site and content should be structured to answer 3 questions:

1.    Where am I?
2.    What can I do here?
3.    Why should I do it?

Answering these questions will not only dramatically assist your visitor to decide to become a customer but it will also increase your search engine rankings when more visitors find what they are looking for by becoming customers.

“Must be a south pole elf”

In another scene, Buddy unknowingly interrupts an important business meeting to spread the joy of his new found love and proceeds to unintentionally insult a writing consultant brought in to revive the publisher’s efforts in writing children’s books.  While this encounter does not end well, it brought to light  some insightful character issues and truly tested a father’s love. After Buddy disappears, his father quits his publishing job and opens his own company, which gives him his own voice to pursue the work he loves. 

A Company’s voice (writing style) is one of the most powerful ways to communicate to their audience. To be effective in communicating to potential customers, a company’s website should contain content that is informative and compelling to drive website visitors to become your customers. This type of content tends to feel more personal, highlights benefits rather than features, and lends credibility to the company in question. Content also plays a major role in the search engine rankings of your site. Search engines checks site periodically to archive what the site is about. The more relevant the content of a site is when compared to a visitors search will determine how high a website will be placed in the search engine rankings.  

Throughout the 1 hour and 37 minutes of this movie, Buddy makes us laugh and cry, and at the end, we have arrived at the conclusion that everything will be alright. Companies often find themselves on a journey to rebrand their business and generate more revenue, and like Buddy, if you have the right people in place, your company’s marketing efforts will not go unrewarded and everything will be alright.

For help implementing the Internet marketing tactics discussed above, contact Xcellimark. From initial consultation to project completion, our team of experts can help you every step of the way.

IBM conducted a study delving into insights from Global Chief Marketing Officers (CMO), called “From Stretched to Strengthened.” They interviewed 1,700 CMO’s from 5 different sectors, 19 industries, and spanning 64 countries.

The study found that 79% of the CMO’s expect a very high level of complexity over the next 5 years, however only 48% feel prepared to take on the complex challenges to come.

The biggest concern for these CMO’s was the uncertainty of how to respond to and make sense of the vast amount of information becoming available to them. They called this “Data Explosion.” And due to this new data being spewed from their analytic dashboards and other metrics, CMO’s are having to change, take action and even make investments.

Many investments are being dedicated to technology to help better understand the insights buried within this data:

•    73% of marketers are investing in technology (CRM, analytics, etc.)
•    69% of marketers are looking to integrate insight within the data
•    65% of marketers are seeking to understand analytics

But what’s preventing CMOs from using new technological tools? According to IBM’s survey 72% of marketers pointed to “Cost” as the biggest barrier, preventing them from using and leveraging technology. Second was a “Lack of ROI certainty” coming in at 61%.

So, Do You Know Your Marketing’s ROI?

 
How are you measuring the success or impact to revenue and profit of your marketing efforts? Sadly, many marketers don’t know. They simply perform the same functions or strategies that their competitors are doing or mimic what was done in the past. They cannot accurately measure the effectiveness from one campaign to the next.

IBM’s study pointed out by 2015, ROI will be the leading measure of success. This will require involvement from the Finance Department to measure the impact to financial metrics, such as revenue, cost of sale, and profit. Social media metrics, such as Facebook “likes” and Twitter followers, are becoming a trailing measurement of success.

So, how are you measuring ROI? Would you like to be certain that your marketing efforts are contributing to additional revenue and new customer growth? Stop guessing. Xcellimark can help you capture value within your marketing data and measure results. Our team will prove your marketing investment’s ROI and monetize your efforts. Contact us today to find out more.

“You Got Red On You” – Shaun of the Dead

Around this time of year, zombies are known to creep up in places around the world, and the last place you want them is on your website.

But if your website is overwhelming to your visitors with too much competing information, confusing navigation and multiple objectives fighting for attention, then you may be breeding more zombies due to their utter confusion about where they are and what they can do on your site.

There are various ways to prevent your website visitors from transforming into zombies and instead becoming interested leads or buyers, so let’s go over a few tips to keep your potential customers safe. 

“The First Rule of Zombie Land Is…Cardio” – Zombie Land

It all starts with your homepage - the entry point for all visitors, zombies and non-zombies alike. Your home page should be welcoming, easy to navigate and clearly state what you want visitors to do and why they should do it. This alone is like having a shotgun to fight the zombies.

When a visitor goes to your homepage, you only have 7 seconds to answer their 3 questions:

1. Where am I?
2. What can I do here?
3. Why should I do it?

Answering these questions will help minimize confusion and maximize profits.

Website Design and Layout is the Best Defense Against Zombie Invasions
 

After you have created content that reinforces why people should do business with you rather than your competitors, and after you make sure it is optimized for the Search Engines, you need to look at your website’s design, usability and what you are trying to accomplish. 

Keep in mind that you control what a visitor can see and do on your website, so make sure you organize it in a way that allows a visitor to make informed decisions about your products and services quickly and easily. 

“Something Evil is Lurking in the Dark…” Thriller by Michael Jackson

Another thing that can breed zombies is when a web page tries to accomplish too many objectives all on one page. An example of this is a web page that wants visitors to fill out a form for more information, sign-up for a newsletter, or chat with an online specialist. It’s difficult for the visitor to actually know which objective is more important or which one they should actually do.

When a web page has multiple goals, confusion is created and visitors are more likely to leave your page or become zombies. To combat this, remember “less is more,” meaning you should limit the number of goals on each individual web page.

Contact Xcellimark if your site is not generating revenue like it should, has not been updated or revamped since 2006, or is constantly under a zombie attack. Xcellimark offers Landing Page Analysis and Optimization services that can guide your visitors to take action that will increase your revenue. 

Many people claim to know what is holding their company back. They believe that if they can only do this “one thing” then all of their problems or challenges will be solved. This near-sightedness often causes decision makers to misdiagnose the problem and spend their efforts and resources trying to put a band-aid on the situation, without ever addressing the root of the issue entirely.

That is why it’s important for business owners and marketing directors to fully understand their online marketing goals and challenges before embarking on a new online marketing initiative. But sadly, most decision makers tend to decide on the solution before conducting a thorough discovery process with a trusted expert or consultant.

Superficial Solutions Will Get Your Business No Where

I receive phone calls from marketing directors that state, “I need a website” or “If I only had more traffic to my website...” These days, a very popular inquiry is, “I want to increase our Facebook followers.”

But the conclusion is not so superficial. It’s important to understand why you think you need these solutions and to what end you are pursuing these strategies.

Nine times out of 10, it always comes down to the need for generating more revenue and/or profit. And once the need for new customer growth or higher quality leads at a lower cost is identified, we can drill down to understanding the full implications of your current challenges and even uncover previously unrecognized problems and anticipated solutions.

Why Bother?

Why bother getting more website traffic if your website does not clearly articulate your value proposition or effectively compels site visitors to take your desired action (i.e. – request more info, buy your product, etc.). And why bother getting Facebook followers if your followers are not qualified, prospective customers?

Before you spend another dollar of your advertising budget, take the time to look below the surface. A step back may allow you to see the forest among the trees. Only then will you be able to accurately assess the dissatisfaction with your current situation and effectively measure the success or impact of your next online marketing project.

When you’re ready to grow your business with a customized Internet marketing program, contact Xcellimark for more information.

Most people think a website is just a website and as long as they have one, they feel that they are doing enough to actively engage their audience in online marketing. However, Xcellimark proves time and time again that companies are leaving money on the table by not testing, measuring, and optimizing their online marketing efforts.

The most recent example of this is the website redesign Xcellimark did for Grand Bayman. This premier Ambergris Caye condo community saw an 83% increase in their website’s ability to close prospects visiting the site. Conversions were defined as either of the following:

• Signing-up for a "Chill Weekend"
• Signing-up for the newsletter
• Filling out a "Contact Us" form for more information on purchasing a condo at Grand Baymen

The main goal of GrandBayman.com is to generate leads of qualified prospects that are interested in attending a “Chill Weekend” to test drive island living and get more information on renting or investing in real estate on Ambergris Caye, Belize. Due to seasonal website traffic fluctuations, the newly designed website was able to generate more leads with less traffic than Grand Bayman’s previous website design.

Online Image Determines Your Online Success

How your website is designed and laid out directly impacts your website’s capability to convert visitors into customers or leads. Site visitors make inferences about your product and/or service quality based on your online image. If your online image is cheap, then they infer that the quality of your product is cheap. And if your website is difficult to navigate, then they assume that you’ll be hard to work with.

Clear Copy is Key

It is also important that your website’s copy clearly communicates your company’s value proposition. You need to be able to clearly answer the following 3 questions within the first 7 seconds of someone coming to your:

• Where am I?
• What can I do on your website (i.e. fill out a form, buy a product, etc.)?
• Why should I do it there, as opposed to a competitor’s website (Value Proposition)?

If you don’t answer these questions clearly and quickly, visitors will abandon your website and continue their search for someone else to do business with.

Xcellimark understands these principles of website design and we know that when the right principles are put into place, your website will generate more revenue than ever before. To learn how you can increase your profits with effective website design, contact Xcellimark today.

In a fight to stay relevant among the torrent of online competition, many business owners are taking advantage of optimization techniques. While they may be experiencing an increase in traffic, these owners often find that the increase is not converting to sales. Why don’t these users continue on to purchase the goods and services on a website?

The most common reason for this is Friction. Marketing Experiments, an online testing firm, defines friction as “psychological resistance to a given element in the sales process.”

While website optimization is a continuous process that involves a variety of elements such as images, layout, design and more, there are three things you can do right now to remove obstacles on your website that cause people not to convert.
 

1. Reducing Click Counts

Customers have grown increasingly accustomed to the convenient nature of their browsing experience and, in the process, have lost their patience. This loss, however, presents an opportunity. Web designers can help increase customer satisfaction and conversion rates by reducing the number of clicks and links or pages one must go through to reach any particular product or service. This is especially true for the more popular pages.

2. Shorten Website Forms & Make Content More Readable

Measuring the time it takes a potential customer to read content can identify areas where copy should be shortened or organized in a more readable manner. An Internet user’s short attention span will send them elsewhere if they are presented with long paragraphs. Therefore paragraphs should be short with paragraph headers sprinkled throughout for quick scanning. This is also true of online forms. Contact pages or questionnaires shouldn’t ask for unnecessary information that can dissuade possible customers or leads.

3. Clarify Deals and Ordering Processes

Websites that advertise special promotions should also provide a clear path to apply those promotions. Customers who can’t determine how to take advantage will feel cheated, even if they are receiving the correct price. This need for clarity and simplicity applies to the entire ordering process and should be ensured for every product or service.

These methods of reducing friction will strengthen any website's ease of use. Making the conversion to a sale as simple and fast as possible will encourage your users to purchase immediately. Your customers will also appreciate the effort, even when they don’t realize or comment on it.

Interested in converting a higher percentage of your website users into sales? Contact Xcellimark for website optimization services that increase the total revenue of your website.

OK, we all know the question that has been eating at you night after night when you’re trying to fall asleep – should I have a “contact us” form on my website or simply a telephone number for people to call?

You know, these life-changing questions are sometimes tough to answer but I have some ideas that might help you through that tough decision-making process.

Who Wants To Fill Out a Form Anyway?

Ah, those annoying forms. Or those time-consuming phone calls. You have a potential client on your website and they’ve decided that they really like what they see but they still have a few questions. So, they decide to contact you for more information and possibly to place an order.

But, what would they rather do? Fill out a form with their questions or simply pick up the phone and call.

Half of you will probably say that they’d rather fill out the form and tell you their questions, allowing you to get back with them via email with the answers. The other half of you would say that your potential client would of course want to pick up the phone and call so they can talk through the questions and answers with a live person.

So Who’s Right?

Well, actually you are all correct. No, I’m not trying to be politically correct here by making you all “feel good” about yourself and your answer. The real answer lies in whether the person contacting you is an extrovert or an introvert.

According to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator , 45.5% of all people are introverts, 50.5% are extroverts. And, what works well for an extrovert will really annoy an introvert and vice versa.

Extroverts think out loud while introverts contemplate what they are thinking and what they want to say before they say it.

Therefore, introverts tend to want to communicate in writing while extroverts want to communicate by talking.

Extroverts automatically assume that of course everyone would want to talk to a live person if you had the choice. They simply can’t imagine choosing the form if you didn’t have to. Who wants to have to deal with emails when talking to a live salesperson allows you to talk through all the questions you have, and all the questions that you might think of that didn’t occur to you before you began talking.
 
Introverts are extremely glad to have a simple form that they can fill out with their questions (emphasis on simple!) as opposed to having to deal with a salesperson on the phone who may try to push them into buying something that they are not yet prepared to buy. The Intranet is the greatest invention in the world for Introverts because it has allowed them to be shielded from those pushy, annoying salespeople who won’t let them off the phone.

So, the moral of the story is, always try to have a form and a telephone number for people to contact you if possible. I know that for various reasons it’s not always possible and that’s ok. People do adapt. Introverts can call. Extroverts will fill out forms. But if you have the ability to do both, then you are able to cater to all personality types.

Of course, the form and telephone number should be a part of a “knock-out” website  with conversion optimization and compelling content, so that’s where an award-winning Interactive Agency such as Xcellimark  comes into play. (Shameless promotion but it had to be in there somewhere!) We’d love to talk to you (or email you)  with answers to all your questions! 

Growing up I have always loved Kung Fu movies. When Bruce Lee came onto the scene with insurmountable odds, he always leveled the playing field with his Kung Fu. Kung Fu takes strategy, longevity, and precision if one is to prevail.

All too often, we see companies with either partial or no strategy when it comes to the online marketing of their business. In this article I will unwrap what it takes to go from a grasshopper to the Kung Fu Master of Online Marketing and reach your online “Zen.”
 

White Belt – Research

First rule of the Art of War: “Know thy enemy” and research is where it all starts. We begin our research with a market demand analysis. After interviewing clients to gain a better understanding of what their business is and the goals they are trying to accomplish, we look to research what key words or phrases are the most relevant as well as what a client’s competition is doing.  After a thorough analysis, we meet with the client to discuss a more comprehensive strategy.  

Yellow Belt – Website Design

Harvard conducted a study concerning online consumer behavior. The study concluded that consumers infer a product’s quality based upon the perceived image of the business’s website. (e.g. if the site is difficult to navigate or confusing, a consumer can infer that the company is difficult to work with).

Website design is more than cool looking graphics and fancy features. A Website should be designed with a conversion path and goal in mind. Each element of the site (color, layout, content, etc) needs to be carefully thought-out so it won’t defeat the purpose of the site.

Brown Belt – Search Marketing

Search Marketing can be defined as the strategy to drive traffic to your newly designed Website. Since every business has different customers, this will vary from client to client.

You can choose to pay for visitors to come to your site (PPC)  on Google and other Search Engines. You can also choose to optimize your site for long-term growth through search engine optimization (SEO) . Or you can implement a local search strategy  if your clients only come from (or you only serve) a local area. Sixty three percent (63%) of all searches are deemed local intent.

In any case, your strategy will need to be measured for performance and continuously optimized to get the most profit in the shortest amount of time. 

Black Belt – Testing and Optimization

You are a Master of your online marketing when you continuously test and optimize . Between the internet and consumer preferences, testing and optimization should never stop. Remember going to the eye doctor? In order to find the lens that will give you immediate optimal vision, you have to go through a seemingly endless supply of lenses.

Testing each component of a strategy is the only way to dominate your online marketing presence and that includes everything from PPC ads to website layout to the number of fields you use on a “Contact Us” form.
Continual optimization has been known to lead to dramatic increases in ROI. 

Master These Belts for Online Success

These levels represent the four main components of a successful online marketing strategy. To reach your online “Zen” you must master all of the levels. Whether you seek to become a master at marketing your online business at the black belt level or want to search for more enlightenment, Xcellimark  can guide you through all or some of the levels of Internet Marketing Kung Fu.

Blogging is not just for wannabe journalists or angst-ridden teens. It’s one of the most surefire ways to boost your website in the search engines, build tons of incoming links into your website, and spread the word about your company all over the Internet.  If you currently have a blog, here a few tips to bump up your web presence online:

1. Use Meta Tags

Meta tags are a must for any website but blogs especially. In addition to having meta tags on the blog’s home page, you want to make sure each blog post is individually optimized as well. There are various ways to do this depending on the type of blogging platform you use. Some blogs require special plug-ins to help you insert meta tags in a user-friendly way while others have fields clearly labeled for meta tag data. However you choose to do it, no blog post should be published without meta tags.


2. Link to Other Blog Posts & Web Pages

Blogging is one of the best vehicles to give and receive link juice. When you write a blog post , make sure you link a few keywords in it. These links can lead to another blog post on your blog, an internal page on your website, or to another website altogether. Just make sure your keyword is clear so your reader knows where that link is taking them. This is a great way to build an internal network of links and you never know - someone else out there blogging could link back to your blog post or web page from their own blog.

3. Social Bookmark All Your Blog Posts

Once your blog post is published, let thousands of your closest friends know about it through social bookmarking. You’re probably already familiar with bookmarking your favorite URLs in your web browser but social bookmarking is a little different – it’s where you bookmark your URL of choice on the Website of an online community such as Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. Not only is social bookmarking a quick and convenient way to share content, but if the social bookmarking website is “do-follow”, meaning it allows the search engines to follow your links back to their point of origin, it’s a great way to build incoming links and more traffic to your blog and website.

The three tips above are some of the most effective at helping your blog and website gain momentum in the search engines. But if you would like additional help, consulting and training on the best blogging practices, contact Xcellimark now for more information.
 

The seemingly endless fountain of innovation, Google, has announced and is currently testing a new feature which stands to significantly improve search engine rankings of those results relevant to Google account holders. Google +1 will give individuals the chance to recommend a search result to their friends and family. This new system also offers another excellent chance for website administrators to increase their Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

How Google +1 Works

For users logged into their Google accounts, Google +1 will display as a button next to the usual search engine results. Users will then select the +1 button on those results which they find most interesting or relevant.

When someone in that user's Social Circle searches for a similar result, they will see the profile picture and name of the user who recommended the site underneath each listing. The Google Social Circle currently includes people who the user has added as contacts and may eventually show followers and friends from websites like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. 

Improving SEO Efforts With Google +1

Google +1 offers two clear opportunities for web developers to increase search engine rankings and click through rate (CTR). When a result is recommended by a connected user, that listing will move higher in ranking. Added to a variety of other SEO techniques, the +1 recommendation can push a website through the final rankings to make the all important first page listing.

Perhaps more important than rankings, the recommendation has the potential to substantially increase CTR rates for search engine results. Seeing a friend or family member's face and having the knowledge that they supported that particular listing will greatly impact any users decision of link selection. For this reason, Google's new tool could dramatically increase the return on investment rate of effective SEO implementation. 

Taking Advantage of Google +1

The only difficulty webmasters are going to face will be encouraging users to return to search results and recommend them. This will mostly be accomplished by offering excellent content optimized to bring in the proper audience. In the world of Facebook and YouTube "likes," people are becoming more accustomed to rating website content. Users will transition this trend to Google when they see websites providing superior information in an efficient manner.

Another option for gaining the Google +1 will be the use of properly coded Meta Tags. Most web administrators are already taking advantage of Meta tagging and content distribution to ensure Google snippets accurately represent their website. While this can be challenging because of Google's automated description creation, applying good SEO principles can add suggestions or requests for the +1 as users are reading through their search results.

Xcellimark has already implemented Google +1 in various areas throughout our website, including this blog. To learn how we can help you increase your search engine rankings and click through rates, contact us for more information.

In my recent blog post, I talked about staying power and what it takes to win the Internet Marketing race. Today I'll give you some hints and tips about Google and PPC ads.

Does Google Always Get It Right?

Unfortunately no. Sometimes Google misses the doorway pages and they remain ranked. More often though Google can sometimes wound (ok, penalize, but it feels like you’ve been shot!) a real website not made up of doorway pages because of something on the page or site that reminds them of a doorway page. That’s another reason you need to understand what works, what doesn’t work, and what to do if Google mistakenly injures your site with their search and destroy bot.

The automated PPC engines sound perfect too – let computers determine what works best.

But What Happens When the Search Engine Algorithm Changes?

Oops. Tough to turn the Titanic when it’s already moving in a particular direction. And, hard to rewrite the code so it keeps up with Google. Besides that, are you really getting the most for your money? Sometimes people will save a dollar just to lose a hundred on lost opportunities, ads that don’t work, web pages that don’t convert, etc. 

Pay Per Click costs you every time someone clicks on your ad. You need to be sure all your clicks count or you are simply throwing away money. It’s hard to know or measure what you might be losing though.

So How Can I Help Explain This?

I might be able to equate it to something else. Think about losing weight or exercising. (I know, what does PPC have to do with weight loss or exercise? Nothing, but the analogy I think works.) Do you think you can lose more weight or inches by actually doing a real workout (it requires work on your part and the willingness to get sweaty), or by placing a vibrating massage machine on your muscles?

The machine technically sounds cool and the makers will probably argue that you can lose a great number of inches and pounds by simply watching TV while placing the machine on your assorted muscle groups. The other requires you to put personal time and energy into focusing on improving your overall health, which in turn allows you to lose weight and inches. In the long run, which one will give you the better overall (long-term) results?

You Choose

So, do you want marketing programs that imitate the hare (they sound good but burn out fast) or ones precisely designed for the long haul to win the race?

Xcellimark designs Internet Marketing programs using best practices that actually work. Give us a shout if you’d like to learn more about how we can help you.

Most of you are familiar with the childhood story of the Tortoise and the Hare. The rabbit is quick out the door, but along the way he gets sidetracked and overconfident. On the other hand, the Tortoise is methodical and precise, carefully working his way through the track, which ultimately allows him to win the race.

Business is a lot like that. Many times companies come out of the gate at a fast pace, excited and ready to rule the world. But staying power is the key to success.

The Same Can Be Said About Marketing…

Especially Internet Marketing. Take web design for instance. We all have a niece, nephew, son, daughter or friend who claims that they can build you a website. Most likely they can, but how professional it is and how well it converts is usually questionable.

Many companies also think that Search Marketing is a fairly easy concept to grasp. Throw up a PPC ad on Google, send it to your home page, and relax while you reap the rewards. What? You spent a lot of money and really didn’t get many sales? I guess that stuff just doesn’t work!

Try That SEO Thing Instead…
 

Throw a bunch of keywords into your content, maybe buy a bundle of keyword-rich domains, send them all to your website, and wa-la, You’ve Got SEO! Hmmm, didn’t work so well after all? That stuff just doesn’t work!

And What About Those Automated Programs?

Submit your website to 5000 directories across the web in a matter of minutes! Quickly create hundreds of doorway pages to target individual keywords. Or easily set up your PPC program through an automated program where one ad can be used to send hundreds of keywords to your website.

Sound Too Good to Be True?

You can certainly do all those things if you’re looking for the quick fix or cheap approach to marketing your business on the web. Will they work? That’s debatable.

The 5000 directories won’t help your business at all since Google and Bing will view it as spam. Most likely it will end up hurting you.

Google has also changed its algorithm to specifically hunt for doorway pages, especially ones automatically created by programs on the fly. They’ve given the search engine bots a “hunt and destroy” mission when looking for the doorway pages. (That just means they remove them from the search index when they find them.)

While it may seem like Google runs the world, they don’t always get it right. I’ll talk more about that and other hints and tips about Google and PPC ads, in part two of this blog post on Thursday so make sure you bookmark this page and re-visit the blog for the second half.

There is much talk about Landing Page Optimization and ensuring that your landing pages are highly optimized for conversions when someone clicks through from a PPC ad or other ad.

But what about the Home Page? How do you optimize it so it is most effective?

Hmmm.  Define Effective

Many times businesses want their website home page to do a tremendous amount of work. So to say that their website home page is effective is sometimes difficult to define, because it really depends on what they want their home page to do.

That may sound silly, but really, what exactly do you want your home page to do for you? Do you want it to help brand your company? (Most likely.) But do you also want it to drive leads? Do you want it to announce latest news, get people to Like you on Facebook, display your products or services, have people sign up for a free trial, download a whitepaper, read details about your services, buy your product, or something else all together?

Maybe it’s all of the above.

Give Your Home Page a Break

Many times people try to make their home page work too hard. They try to make it a catch all for everything to do with the website. Or they try to have it make the sale before a visitor even understands who the company is and why they should buy from them.

Decide on Your Objectives

The first thing you need to do with your home page is to decide on the objectives. That may sound obvious but many times it’s overlooked.

You must then prioritize the objectives because they are not all equal.

What’s Really Important - Really

First decide on your main objective. Many times that is to move your visitors into your website for them to learn more about your products or services so they can better understand why they should buy from you. Your home page can’t really accomplish all of that unless you only have one product and no other objectives for the home page or the site.

Ok, So What Else Is Important?

Next you need to decide which of the remaining objectives you have are primary and secondary objectives. These objectives are not as important as your main objective, but they are still objectives that need to be handled in some manner.

For example, is listing your latest news items on your home page a primary objective or secondary objective? It probably depends on how important the news items are to your visitors and whether it causes them to want to buy from you more.

Also, how large should your social media icons be on the page? Is social media a driving force within your business? If so, you may want to make the icons more prominent on the page, or even have feeds on your page showing the latest comments on your social media campaign. But if it’s not that important to your business right now, then the icons should not dominate important real estate on your home page. Maybe place them near the bottom with your footer links.

There are many other aspects to consider when designing and writing for your home page such as where to place your value proposition, how to best use images, how your images and content are laid out together, etc. But that’s for another time.

Contact Xcellimark to find out more about improving the image and the effectiveness of your website and home page.

Remember when you went to the eye doctor after getting your eyes diluted and you were forced to read a chart that you could barely see in front of you? Afterwards, the doctor has you look into a mechanical device that would make anyone look like Darth Vader. 

The doctor then puts lenses in front of you that will help to optimize your vision. In order to get the proper prescription, you have to go through several lenses and variations in order to get the right one. Such is the case with online testing.

Candidates for Online Testing Protocol 

There are various elements of an online campaign including but not limited to:

1. Website Design Layout
2. Copywriting
3. Pay Per Click Advertising
4. Conversion Path

Conduct an A/B Split Test to Boost Conversions 

Xcellimark typically conducts an A/B split test which is similar to going to the eye doctor. We will develop an alternative version of a page and split the incoming traffic that arrives through PPC campaigns.

Depending on which element you are testing and how much traffic the landing page gets will determine how long the test should run and how significant your results. Through testing, we have experienced results that helped us drop costs by 40% and increase conversions up to 200%. 

Begin at the End

The most effective element to test is the conversion process because it’s the final result, the fruit of your labor of the campaign. Remember: every element is crucial so there is plenty of material to test but the conversion process needs to be optimized as much as possible.

It’s a “reverse engineering” type of thinking but starting at the end is a great place to begin optimizing and tweaking your campaigns. After all, all of your customers will go through your process in order to become your customer.

Other Opportunities for Conversion 

You will also need to devote time to other elements such as ensuring your copy clearly articulates your value proposition and is optimized with meta tags so that your site will rank organically in the search engines.   Your PPC ads will also need to reflect any significant changes in your value proposition.

Want to learn more about how online testing can help your profits increase? Contact Xcellimark today to learn more.

I get newsletters and coupons emailed to me all the time. I even created a special email account to keep them separate from my personal email account so my main email account does not get flooded. But, I may have to take one of them off my spam list and let them through to my inbox and that’s Coach.

They always send me a coupon for an additional discount at the outlets. That’s great and all but in my mind, I’m wondering what they have in stock and if it’s worth me making the 30 minute (sometimes one hour depending on I-4) trip to the store. But something triggered me to take a second look, print the coupon and consider going to the store.

What Was the Trigger for Me? 

The image in the email caught my eye – but it wasn’t just any image of a random product available at the store. It was the specific item that was on sale and it listed the price and the amount of the discount so I did not have to guess how much I’d be paying.

What Coach is doing coincides with a key principle from Marketing Experiments: an image is only as valuable as the value it communicates .

What’s in Your Email?

What kinds of images are you using in your email marketing? Are they random stock photos with no relevance to the subject matter. Or do they communicate value and meaning?

The point of this post is not to do away with stock photos – let’s face it, we need them to help us design websites, landing pages and email campaigns; and some of them can visually get your point across. Just make sure you choose images wisely and not randomly.

Choosing the right image is only one part of a successful email marketing campaign. To find out what else you need to strengthen your existing client relationships through email marketing, contact Xcellimark.
 

It’s no longer a surprise that the fastest increasing marketing budgets are those that are focused on Internet marketing strategies, such as e-mail marketing, social media, and search marketing (SEO/PCC).

As more and more people use the Internet to communicate, share ideas, research, and conduct business, it’s obvious that the newer strategies will grow at a faster rate than those that have been used in marketing/advertising for decades.

However, the shocker to most people is that now these newer online marketing mediums are being measured and proven to be more successful than the once-thought, “tried-and-true” methods, such as direct mail, trade shows, and print advertising. As the traditional mediums become more and more cost-intensive, online marketing is proving to garner a larger ROI, when results are measured.

Modern Internet Marketing Strategies are Not Just for B2C

To build on this disbelief, the stats below (provided by Marketing Sherpa) rate the effectiveness of various marketing tactics within B2B (business-to-business) markets. It was once speculated that Internet marketing was primarily for consumers.

However, the stats below prove that businesses are more effectively reaching other businesses with interactive marketing techniques (i.e.: website design, SEO, online events, e-mail marketing, etc.), as opposed to archaic models, such as telemarketing and traditional public relations.

If you’re tired of spending more and more on the same marketing strategies that you attempted last year, and you need your marketing to bring in more results, seek out the strategies that are proving to be most effective. And if you want help, contact Xcellimark today.

I still encounter businesses that have their website managed by their IT (Information Technology) Department. Here’s the problem with that: IT Departments are usually not made up of great marketers.

While IT specialists are usually very good at ensuring connectivity, data protection, and assessing equipment needs, they’re usually not the best at articulating a company’s value proposition or understanding the business’ target market and how that market interacts with a company’s brand.

For this reason, managing the company’s website design , functionality, usability and analytics should be a function of the Marketing Department.

Don’t Leave Your Marketing in the Hands of IT

I understand that the line gets blurry, especially when the IT Department is responsible for fixing computer crashes or other Internet-related errors. Or even when the IT Department is responsible for procuring website hosting and server needs.

So, somewhere in delegating those responsibilities, the role of managing “all-things-website” was kicked over to the IT Department, including messaging and how the company’s online brand extension engages its target market online.

These increasingly important strategies have been handed over to people who have never even taken a Marketing class in their life. This is like allowing your printing vendor to be in charge of managing your direct mail pieces.

How a Controlling IT Department Can Impede Performance

IT Departments usually keep their hands firmly gripped on the control of the website because of the fear of someone messing something up, causing problems or errors that will undoubtedly result in trouble tickets and more work for the IT Department.

So, requested design changes or functionality upgrades from the Marketing Department are funneled through the IT Department’s work-flow, essentially restricting or impeding the Marketing Department’s ability to effectively improve or assess the website’s performance.

3 Ways to Effectively Market Your Website

This problem can only be solved if the marketers acquire the skills necessary to effectively manage a company’s brand online. Effectively marketing a website calls for a new skill-set that involves design, analytics, SEO, usability, communications, and more. This gap can be filled by one of three ways:

1. Invest in the training and sophisticated tools to equip your current staff to take on these new and important competencies.
2. Hire online marketing experts to add to your internal resources (designer, coder, copywriter, analyst, etc.).
3. Partner with an outside interactive digital marketing agency.

Either way you approach it, when the website’s steering wheel is finally handed over to the Marketing Department, the company’s online brand can effectively be managed and measured to align with the strategic direction of the company. Only then will the company’s online marketing efforts have the flexibility and control required to be successful today.
 

It’s been mumbled a lot in 2010, but now it is on the lips of mouths and tops of mind of every marketer. And that topic is “Content Marketing.”

Publish, Publish, Publish

Content Marketing is the strategy of publishing and distributing great content online to better establish your brand and expand your business’ influence. Your content should be informative and provide value to the reader.

Content can include articles on industry trends, company news, or market advice. The content can position your company as an authoritative voice in your industry or influence the reader to take a desired action.

Don’t Just Write - Distribute

Social media platforms, such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and booking sites like Digg and Delicious, have made it easy to distribute your content online and advance your reach further than ever. But no matter how you look at it, if you’re not Content Marketing, you’re not marketing.

Feed the Search Engines

Search engines have made it no secret that they are expecting new and fresh content from websites that want to rank highly for competitive keyphrases. But as mentioned in my last blog post, time and resources is the biggest challenge for businesses to effectively leverage social media, i.e. content marketing.

Content Creation Becoming Larger Piece of Marketing Budgets

Last September, I attended ADWeek in Washington, D.C., and Kevin Gentzal, the Chief Revenue Officer at Forbes Media said that marketers must now be content creators and that this strategy is now 33% of most marketing budgets.

In fact, as you can see from the survey chart below, content marketing is even tougher for smaller business because it requires a much larger percentage of the marketing budget. The research and expertise required to create high-quality content is very time-extensive and good copywriters do not come cheap. This is where outsourcing your Content Marketing efforts to an interactive or digital agency is very cost-effective.

Real Life Examples of Success!

To see the effects of Content Marketing for yourself, please see the screen shot below. You’ll see that Xcellimark has been able to dominate the page 1 rankings for the keyphrase, “interactive digital agency Orlando” by creating a company press releases and distributing them online to several of other websites. This type of online exposure results in an increase in branding, leads, and revenue.

To see how Xcellimark can design and implement your businesses Content Marketing strategy, contact Xcellimark today. You’ve got a message and your prospective customers need to hear from you. Allow Xcellimark to show you how.

According to a 2010 study by Forbes Insight & Gartner, The Future Looks Bright, “Digital channels play an increasing role in customer engagement, offering new ways to connect companies and customers while improving marketing efficiency, yet our survey showed that the importance of digital is not equally grasped by everyone, and even for those who understand its significance, they don’t feel effective at leveraging it.”

A study by Forbes Accenture Marketing, Onward and Up (2010), concluded that “Only 2 in 10 marketers said their companies very effectively use most channels to reach, influence or interact with customers.” So, how best can companies respond to this need without hiring Internet marketing experts that could easily double their payroll expenditures?

Popular Marketing Tactics for 2011

According to eMarketer, the fastest growing segments in digital marketing are e-mail marketing, social media, and search marketing (SEO/PCC), but the greatest challenge with implementing these tactics is a lack of time and resources.

To overcome this challenge, 40% of marketers are adding or expanding digital marketing agency support (according to the CMO Council’s 2010 Outlook).

And According to Forrester’s Research Inc.’s US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 to 2014, only 10% of marketers are able to manage their Internet marketing efforts in-house with the same level of sophistication and effectiveness as those out-sourcing the expertise and tools of a specialist and/or full-service interactive agency. 

Digital Agencies are the Way to Go

It’s not surprising that agencies are the popular choice. It is much easier than paying top-dollar to hire an expert in each Internet marketing field (SEO, PPC, social media, copywriting, coding, design, etc.).

Agencies instantly bring their expertise, sophisticated tools and platforms to the table. Agencies can be judged by performance and much more easily replaced by another agency if they don’t bring in results.

If you want to see how easy it is to work with an Interactive Agency that will solve all of your digital marketing needs, contact us today. Xcellimark will provide the resources, content, and talent to build your brand online and generate leads for you business.
 

Ironic how sometimes this question enters our lives. We live in a fast-paced instant-communications world where sometimes you have to wonder if people really have something to say or if they are just causing noise.  All over the web I see people causing noise, particularly in Social Mediums.

Surely What I Have to Say is Important!

We can trace this practice all the way to our leaders in Washington. But surely our businesses are not this way. Businesses only speak when we have something important to say, right?

Navigating your way through the social media world, it’s amazing how we can spend so much time talking about doing laundry or selling a cow on Farmville, or what club someone will be visiting later that night.

The advice used to be “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything. ” I think we should update it to ”if you don’t have anything to say then don’t say anything.”

Understand What Interests Other People

As a marketer, it’s my job to capture an audience’s attention in a very short period of time and attempt to convert them to a customer. To do this we have to give people reason why they should do business with us. In order for our voice to be heard, we must say something of value if we are to say anything at all. To say something of value, you must first know what your value or value proposition is.

A Value Proposition is the answer to a consumers’ question of “Why should I do business with you?” Believe it or not, this is many times a hard question to answer for most. Because it is a hard question to answer, we may give an answer that really doesn’t answer anything or we may have the feared deer-in-headlights look on our faces.  If we talk for the sake of avoiding the deer-in-headlights look, we may just be creating noise that really doesn’t answer any questions.

A Value Proposition can be further explained by answering three more questions about your business or what you are offering.

1. How much is what you are offering desired by a customer?
2. Is the offer available elsewhere?
3. How believable is the claims about your offer?

Please contact us if you would like to learn more about how your value proposition can significantly enhance your advertising efforts.

In part one of this article, I covered some of the factors that are critical to your search engine marketing success. In today's blog post, I'll cover the rest, including the role social media plays in search engine rankings.

The Emerging Role of Social Media’s Impact on Search Engine Rankings

According to the latest research by StrongMail, 57% of businesses plan to increase their spending in Social Media in 2011, second only to Email marketing (65%) and ahead of Search Marketing (41%).

One of the reasons for the increase in Social Media spending is the growing and significantly positive impact it has on search engine marketing results.

The key components of Social Media that impact search rankings are blogs, social bookmarking, online press releases, and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. These Social Media components significantly impact your search rankings through the following factors:

• Relevant information
• Frequent content updates on your website
• Increased volume of relevant and high-quality incoming links 

Additional Benefits of These Social Media Components if Implemented Well are:
 

• Establishes you as an expert within your industry
• Generates traffic to your website as the result of social bookmarking where your content is published on other websites that drives incoming links to your website
• Improves your online image
• Develops an online community that will interact more with your website and your company
• Builds an email list for remarketing and follow-up communications

All of these key components must be a very active part of your Internet marketing strategy and almost daily operations.  The blog needs to be an integral and internal part of your website. It will not be as effective for your website rankings if the blog is external to your website.

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter icons should not only be a part of your website, but their postings should be a part of your web page content for website visitors to view.  Blogging, posting, tweeting and social bookmarking needs to be conducted effectively throughout the week in order to achieve any meaningful success in not only search engine rankings, but growing your online community.

Key Challenges of Effective Social Media

There are key challenges in effectively implementing a social media marketing program for businesses of all sizes and industries.

The number one challenge or barrier to success is the time and resources (primarily human capital) to be invested.  The challenge for time and resources is further defined as:

• Allocating existing human resources to an emerging but complex online marketing program.
• Training and equipping personnel so that they can be effective in managing the variety of platforms and appropriate communications styles and then integrating them with other Internet marketing initiatives such as search and email marketing.
• Staying abreast of the latest trends and tactics that are effective in generating measurable results.
• Gaining results quickly to maintain executive commitment and gain a foothold in your industry before your company is relegated to the online sidelines, maybe indefinitely. 

The Time is Now

There is a sense of urgency in this area. It is likely that if businesses do not implement and manage an effective social media program now, they will not be able to catch up later in the search engine rankings or in developing a leading online community for your target market. Search and Social Media marketing are critical for online business success. Don’t wait or it may be too late.

Search Engines Dominate Online Lead Generation and Sales
 

Over 85% of Internet users’ most preferred tool for research (of any kind) is the Internet search engine. Whether you are researching a product or service to buy or are actively engaged in the purchase process, the search engine is the tool of choice. Even the vast majority of the people who know that they will purchase in a store will use a search engine first to determine where to go shop and buy.

Google, Yahoo and Bing now control 95% of all search engine traffic. The companies whose listings come up in the search engine results pages (SERPs) in those three search engines are the big winners. They receive almost all of the traffic for the given search term (keyphrase).

If you are not on page 1 of the SERPS then basically you don’t exist for that market. Unless you are a well known brand name, no one searches on a company name as their initial search. They search on the product, service, area of interest, etc.

To succeed in online lead generation or online sales you must be prominently listed on page 1 for the SERPs for the search terms that are highly relevant for your products and services. Research even shows that people think those companies who are listed on page 1 of the SERPs are the industry leaders. There is almost built-in credibility if you are listed on page 1 in the search engines.


What Impacts Your Search Rankings
 

There is no silver bullet to get ranked on page 1 in the search engines for your search terms. You have to do many things well and correctly. And it is getting more challenging and complicated as time goes by.

Here are the top factors that impact your rankings in search engines:

• Domain Age – how long your website has been online
• Content – how much content is on your website, how relevant it is for the search term   and how often is it updated
• Coding – how search engine friendly is the coding of your website including your meta tags for each page, alt tags for your images and link text for your internal links
• External Links – how many high-quality links are coming into your website especially from authoritative and related websites
• Speed – how fast do your web pages load
• Site Map – do you have an updated site map that allows Google to know all your active pages on the website

There are other factors critical to your search engine marketing success such as social media. Revisit the Xcellimark blog on Thursday for part two of this article to learn more about the impact social media has on your search rankings.

Years of Academy Training! (As Spoken by Buzz Lightyear)

I have 6 years experience in Internet Marketing and continually pursue training opportunities conducted by the world’s industry leaders. I’ve attended countless workshops, seminars, conferences, webinars, roundtables, and more.

I routinely read industry blogs and trade journals to keep abreast on cutting edge trends and tactics. My contribution has consistently resulted in bottom-line growth for those involved, year-after-year. So I consider myself an expert in Interactive Marketing strategies.

A Slice of Humble Pie for Lunch

The Xcellimark team holds bi-weekly “Lunch N’ Learn” meetings where we order in and participate in a training session that adds to everyone’s skill set and brings awareness to the value other departments bring to Xcellimark’s overall solutions. I had no idea that during this particular “Lunch N’ Learn,” humble-pie was on the menu.

Xcellimark does a lot of testing on our clients’ landing pages, ensuring that we’re getting optimal results. In this training exercise we were asked to look at 2-3 different landing page options and decide which one we think performed the best and had the best conversion rate. We also had to explain which components within the landing page lead us to our prediction.

Then, we compared our prediction to the actual performance metrics. I was wrong 50% of the time. Even with all of my knowledge of online marketing and best practices, it was almost as if I was guessing and leaving my predictions up to chance.

Test Your Landing Pages for Optimal Campaign Performance

This was an eye-opener. I came to the sobering conclusion that sometimes the “by-the-book” landing page template is not the best landing page due to unique market factors such as industry, user preferences, and competition.

I immediately thought of all the businesses out there that are not testing their landing pages or other online campaign elements. I thought of the businesses that are implementing best practices taught and practiced by industry leaders, but are not carefully monitoring their analytics and continually seeking ways to improve their site or campaigns’ performance.

It is not enough to understand the latest trends or tactics. The truth is, if you are not testing, you are still leaking revenue.

News Flash! It’s been confirmed by Google that social media does in fact affect your search rankings in Google’s search engine (and Bing as well).

The search engines use different aspects of social media to help determine your ranking status. Twitter tweets, retweets, followers, Facebook links, Facebook friends and fans, LinkedIn, and blog links are determining factors in how well your website ranks in the search results.

Social Media Continues to Become Stronger

If you thought social media was a fad, you’ll need to rethink your marketing strategies. Social media has become stronger every year and its definitely here to stay.

While many companies have avoided or ignored social media because it’s sometimes hard to directly connect actual sales or increased revenue to social efforts, it’s now apparent that the effects of social media reach far beyond a direct sale.

Just like companies who are serious about ranking in the search engines realized that they had to have strong incoming links to their website to succeed in a competitive market, you must now also have a social media presence to help get or sustain the high rankings that do translate into increased revenue and sales.

Don’t Know How To Be Social?

Many companies find themselves in a dilemma because they either don’t know how to get a social media program going, they don’t have the staff or time to do so, or both. In those cases it helps to find a partner who can help you get started.

Xcellimark can train you on how to get your social media program off the ground. We can also partner with you to not only get it set up and going, but to also maintain your social media presence. Either way, doing nothing is no longer an option.

There was a day when some businesses didn’t think they needed a website. Those that think that today probably won’t be in business long.

In the same way, the days of thinking you can ignore social media programs is past.

Social Media:
 

• Helps get your company known in wider alternative circles outside the search engines
• Allows your clients to easily recommend you to their friends
• Provides links back to your website, helping you promote your business
• Helps put a personal face on your company
• Helps increase your search engine rankings which drives more people and business to your website

Get started today with a complete marketing package that includes social media. Contact Xcellimark to help get you off and running!

The word “Brand” is thrown around a lot in marketing circles. It’s your identity in all its different forms. What does it look like? What does it stand for? How is it represented visually? Does every contact an outsider has with one of your employees support your brand representation?

Creating & Implementing Your Brand Identity

There is a lot that goes into creating and implementing a brand identity. When creating a brand, here are some simple guidelines to establish that cover the key assets of your brand.

This will vary from business to business, but some basics include:

•    Your brand name (including any variations of it)
•    Your brand or value proposition
•    Your brandmark – including color and examples of correct and incorrect usage
•    Choice of fonts to be used
•    Color palettes and relevant uses
•    Use of illustration, photos or imagery
•    Tagline, including when and how to use it
•    Tone of voice which includes the personality of your brand and key phrases to be used

Many companies work with an outside creative agency to assist them in establishing their brand identity. Whether you have the internal resources or use outside consultants to create and evolve your brand identity, it’s important that these guidelines are established as part of that process.

Your Brand Guidelines Should Evolve Over Time

Guidelines are especially critical in establishing a compelling online image. We also recommend that you re-evaluate your brand guidelines every few years. Your market and online competition are always evolving and you must remain relevant in your market to continue to grow your business.

Remember, it only takes seconds to compare your brand to another competitor’s brand online. That first impression is critical to whether you gain enough interest from your prospects so they spend more time on your website instead of going to your competitors.

It’s 2 AM Sunday morning; do you know what your website is doing?  Most people don’t know what’s going on with their website. They know they get visits, but they don’t know where visitors came from, what the visitors are looking for or if the visitors complete the website’s objective.

Now, more than ever, there is a need to capture and interpret data about your website to not only make decisions about how to market your company but also how you should optimize your advertising efforts.  For these answers we turn to the age old questions of:

•    Who came to your site?
•    What did they do on your site?
•    When did they visit your site?
•    Where did people go on your site?
•    How did they find your site?

Analytics Can Answer All of These Questions 

A thorough analysis of the answers to these questions can give you key insights into your website visitor’s behavior. The questions are dynamic in nature and can be dependent upon business cycles, level of competition and other factors.

These questions, if left unanswered, can lead your business down a dead end. The search industry is constantly changing with updates that can have a huge impact on your ability to reach potential customers. If you want your business’s website to be seen and optimized for people trying to find you today, contact Xcellimark to schedule a thorough website consultation and analysis.
 

In my last blog post, we discussed the need for marketers to adopt standardized measurement techniques that justify their efforts and validate ROI.

In summation, the Lenskold Group/MarketSphere 2009 Marketing ROI & Measurements Study states that 79% of marketers indicated that the need to measure and report marketing effectiveness has increased in the past year. In today's economic conditions, the need for measurement could not be more critical.

The Risk of Measurement

One risk of looking under the rug of our marketing campaigns is that we might find something that we don’t like.  For example, marketers might find that their beloved efforts do not actually bring in more profit.

Even worse, marketers may have come to hang their hats on more superficial benchmarks, such as the 100,000 Twitter followers or a snazzy Flash intro to the company website. What is the point of doing these things if we cannot connect these efforts to profit potential?

Nothing may be wrong with snazzy Flash intros and certainly nothing is wrong with Twitter followers, however marketers must understand what metrics or campaign results are tied to financial performance. How does it influence sales and financial contribution?

Proper Measurement is a Must

The risks of NO measurement are far worse than the risk of measurement. With the proper analytical tools and expertise, the missing links can be uncovered. With the proper campaign results being tracked and reported, a marketer can draw a clear conclusion to what is driving business results. Proper measurement techniques allow you to refine upcoming objectives, and by leveraging that insight, a marketer can optimize his/her campaign for improved performance.

Invest time and resources in the proper expertise, practices and tools necessary for measurement, because the risk of not knowing how your efforts contribute to the overall health of your business or company is far more risky.

Everywhere you go people have their favorites list. Favorite place to eat, favorite place to relax and probably favorite place to have some fun. Whether you live close to your favorites or you just returned from a trip, there are sites dedicated for your reviews.

Conversely, for every “favorite” there are those that think less reputable of a business or service.  Whenever I hear the word “critic”, I always think of the “Hecklers” from the old Muppet Show. Every time there was an act or performance, a wise cracking comment was sure to follow.

Positive Reviews Can Help a Business Grow

But being a critic is more than just reporting the negatives. When a business delivers on their commitment to quality, we as consumers owe it to them to give them the accolades they deserve.

I know when I go on a trip I want to learn where the “must see places” are to go to enjoy my experiences on my trip. Therefore it is helpful to know what other people think about an area or a particular place to ensure I go to the “must see” places and avoid the troubled places.

Social Review Sites

A great place to review any business is the Local Google listing  or the Google Maps listing. It’s also a perfect place to leave your own review. Simply log into your Google account and you can leave accolades or warnings about any business with a listing.    

I would also suggest using social media to leave reviews and begin discussions about places you have been or businesses you have patronized. Our society has come a long way from the “Suggestion Box”. Now everyone can see where to go and where not to go by simply going online and reading reviews. Join in the fun of promoting your favorite businesses!

Mistake #5 – Implementing a Solution Without Ongoing Testing and Optimization to Ensure Maximum Return on Investment

Many times companies launch an Internet Marketing campaign and then hope for success. They’ve put their best effort forward pulling together the campaign, coming up with great ads, and developing landing pages that are sure to convert.

If they’ve done it right, they should be successful.

But how do you know that it’s as good as it can be? How do you know if you can do better?

The key to real success is first coming up with a great strategy, implementing the strategy, tracking real results (conversions, not simply visitors), and then testing new ideas against the original strategy to see if you can continue to improve your results.

Ongoing testing is crucial to knowing if you have the right strategy or not. Ongoing testing helps you to think outside the box and try new ideas that just might improve your overall results. And ongoing testing is the key to truly maximizing your conversions.

Ready, Set, Go

Ok, so now that you are aware of the pitfalls that many businesses can fall into and how to avoid them, get started on marketing your business today on the Internet. It’s the most fertile ground out there to help grow your business.

Not sure where to start? Xcellimark will be glad to help.

In my last blog post, I covered Mistake #3 - Failure to Clearly Articulate Why Someone Should Do Business with You Instead of Your Competition. Once you're able to effectively communicate your value proposition, it's time to make a strategic decision on who'll help you with your online marketing: the company that charges less or the company that provides the best ROI

Mistake #4 –Choosing the Cheapest Route Instead of Determining the Best Value

There are a lot of companies these days that build websites and claim to do Internet Marketing. Believe me, we get the spam emails from companies every day through our website contact us form touting how they can help us rank high in the search engines or build us a better website. Really?

These companies simply send out spam “bots” to electronically fill up people’s inboxes and web forms. It’s just like getting all the annoying spam telephone calls during dinner.  They obviously don’t even realize or care whose inbox they are filling up.

I guess they must get responses from businesses or they wouldn’t bother sending the spam. But is that really the type of company you want to entrust your business to? Do you make other major purchasing decisions by who has spammed you lately or who is the cheapest in town?

The marketing of your business is an important strategic decision that you need to think through carefully. As we’ve mentioned in other blog posts, your online image makes up ¾ of a potential client’s decision making process on whether they will do business with you or not.

Make sure you know who you are entrusting your online marketing to and make sure you are getting the most bang for your buck. Just because a company is cheap doesn’t mean they are the best value. Strive for the best value and ROI, not the cheapest. You’ll be glad you did.

Re-visit the blog next Tuesday to learn more about ongoing testing and optimization in the final part of this series.

Last week I talked about Mistake #2 – Failure to develop a winning online strategy. This refers to businesses jumping into online marketing without fully thinking through their goals and objectives. Because of that, most of them fail to develop an online strategy that will help them reach their goal.

Today I’m going to talk about Mistake #3 so you can learn how to effectively communicate your value proposition to your potential customers.

Mistake #3 - Failure to Clearly Articulate Why Someone Should Do Business with You Instead of Your Competition
 

You’ve probably heard people talk about value propositions in the past, but have you thought about the value proposition for your company?

Clearly defining and communicating your value proposition to your potential clients helps motivate them to do business with you.

So what is a value proposition really? It’s simply a statement that clearly states why someone should do business with you instead of your competition. What does your company offer that will compel someone to do business with you over everyone else.

It’s worth taking the time to determine what makes you different from your competition and then finding a way to clearly articulate that to your visitors.

We'll talk about another mistake that can be potentially hazardous to your company on Thursday so stay tuned.

I covered Mistake #1 - The Kevin Costner Approach to Online Marketing in Part 1 of the series.  This refers to the “build it and they will come” approach to having a website. Never assume just because you built a website that it will be found by thousands of people in the search engines. Business just doesn’t happen like that.

The bottom line is that you have to market your website just like you have to market any business. But, I won’t repeat the entire article again since you can read about it in the previous blog post. Let's go on to discuss Mistake #2.

Mistake #2 - Failure to Develop a Winning Online Strategy

Many businesses jump into online marketing without fully thinking through their goals and objectives and what they consider to be success. Because of that, they fail to develop an online strategy that will help them reach their goal.

Simply throwing up PPC ads or placing banner ads throughout the Internet will not always provide you with the results you are looking for. You need to first determine the goals you are trying to achieve.

Are your goals to increase leads, increase sales, brand your company, create buzz about your company, bring more people to your website, a combination of a few of these, or none of the above?

Once you determine your exact goals, you need to strategize on the best Internet marketing program that will help you achieve those goals. Not all online marketing programs are the same and each can help you accomplish different goals.

Decide on your goals, then your strategy, and then start launching your online program.

We'll talk about Mistake #3 and #4 next week so make sure you bookmark the URL to our blog and come back to learn other insightful ways to grow your business.

Within the last couple of years, Business Week and Fast Company have both published articles discussing the short life-span of CMO’s.

According to research by Spencer Stuart, an executive-search firm, the average tenure for top-consumer branded company CMO’s was only 23 months, compared to CEO’s that lasted an average of 54 months. 

How Can Everyone Work Together

Marketing Strategies & Goals Help Increase ROI

Because online marketing is still fairly new in the scheme of things, constantly changing and evolving, many businesses are not sure what to do to maximize their online success. Or they simply don’t understand the importance of having a strong, positive online image in today’s marketing environment. Either way, the results can be devastating for a company’s future.

This article is Part One (1) of a Five (5) part series on the most common mistakes businesses make in online marketing.

Mistake #1 - The Kevin Costner Approach to Online Marketing

The first mistake is the “build a website and they will come” approach. This is where businesses naively believe that just because they have a website on the Internet, they will be found by hundreds or thousands of qualified prospects who are all dying to do business with them.

This type of business quickly becomes discouraged by their lack of results and determines that the Internet and online marketing space is simply hype and not all that it’s cracked up to be.

However, this is the same approach that a business owner would take if they decided to open a store front but never put out a sign or advertise their business. Their results would be just as disastrous. Most business owners understand that concept - you just have to understand that it’s the same thing on the Internet.

You must be willing to develop an online strategy and put together online marketing plans and digital campaigns using proven marketing tools such as search marketing, social media, and online video.

Understanding how to pull together a successful plan and implementing it for maximum ROI is another issue though that some businesses think they understand but really don’t. But that will be covered next month in Part 2!

Bottom line, working with a professional Interactive Agency like Xcellimark can mean the difference of simply throwing money at some type of online presence with little to no results or building a web strategy and marketing plan that sets you up for great success.

Contact us today to find out how we can help you succeed online.
 

87 Octane gas is a commodity. No matter where you purchase it. It is offered per gallon at about a 5-cent range within a given area. Some fuel marketers may feel that they can charge an extra cent or two per gallon based on other incentives such as a preferred location or cleanliness of the store. However, no matter where you get your gas, it is essentially the same gas you can get at any convenient store or gas stop.

Cars are not a commodity. A Kia Sephia will never sell for the same price as a Lamborghini. Why? Let me list some reasons: performance, features, reliability, luxury, brand recognition, just to name a few.

Boost ROI with a Customized Online Marketing Plan

For the same reasons, online marketing is NOT a commodity. Business owners often tell me, “Oh yeah, we have SEO .” “We do social media.” “…and we got it at a good rate” or “much cheaper.” Savvy business marketers know that the important number to focus on is ROI. How much money did your online marketing investment make your company in terms of business results (PROFIT)?

Don’t invest in online marketing as if it’s a product on the shelf to check off your marketing shopping list. Be sure that your online marketing plan  is customized to your business’ unique goals. Measure the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts. Ensure that you’re getting a return on your investment that justifies your efforts. Not all online marketing is created equal.

Learn how an online marketing plan from Xcellimark can help you get a return on your business investment. Contact us today.

Online success is becoming a key driver of business growth in today’s environment.

However, there are many challenges that businesses face when implementing and managing an effective Internet business strategy and plan.

The Most Common Challenges to Online Business Success Today are:

• Obtaining an acceptable ROI for your Web marketing efforts.
• Differentiating your business online from your competitors or other competing interests.
• Determining the most effective means and methods of communicating online to your target audience.
• Establishing credibility and presenting a compelling image online.
• Providing continuous resources (time, money, people) to your online initiatives.
• Effectively identifying and then managing different Internet service suppliers, many with competing interests and conflicting strategies, to deliver the tactical elements to a desired holistic online plan.
• Integrating your online experience with your off-line operations of the organization.

These “challenges” need to be an integral part of your Internet business plan and continually managed for ongoing success. For many organizations, that means getting the help you need to really succeed in the online space.

Help Is Available to Manage Your Online Marketing Efforts

Most companies hire accountants to handle their accounting and tax issues and lawyers to handle their legal issues. In the same way, Interactive Agencies like Xcellimark are designed to provide you with the help you need to receive the highest ROI on your marketing efforts while establishing and maintaining a compelling image online.

Contact Xcellimark today  to find out how you can benefit from the help of a professional in the online space. You make back your investment many times over when your online marketing efforts are handled by professionals who have the experience to know the market, technology, and best practices to provide you with the greatest success.

It’s Friday night and you’re ready for a nice relaxing weekend with only two questions in mind: What do I do? Where do I go?

Maybe you finally want to try that barbeque place you’ve heard your friends talk about or maybe you want to go racing with some serious go-cart action.

But how do you find the places closest to you or the best places to go?

Local Listings Help Searchers Find Local Businesses

The solution is simple - “Local Search listings.” With a local search  listing, you can find restaurants, go-cart tracks, eye doctors, and even where to get your shoes repaired.

A local search listing is a comprehensive business listing that business owners control.

Reviews Help Businesses and Searchers Alike

The local listing also links in reviews from consumer review sites so searchers can read other people’s recommendations or warnings about a business or service.

Reviews are critical to the success of not only the local listing itself but they also determine whether people choose to do business with a company or not. If a business gets lots of positive reviews, then more and more people will want to do business with that company. Therefore it’s important to have a strategy to help build your online reviews.

Professional Help Makes All the Difference

There are many things that businesses need to do correctly to get the most out of your local listing. Simply claiming your listing is not enough.

As more and more businesses realize the importance of their local listing, it will become more difficult to show up in the “local pack”.

And just like SEO was once thought to be a simple thing to accomplish (not so anymore), your local listing is not something that should be left to chance.

If you are not increasing your business success in the local community through local search listings, contact Xcellimark  to find out how our comprehensive Local Search program can help.

We might have all heard the saying, “It’s not about where you’ve been; it’s about where you’re going.” It points out the importance of our future and what we’re doing to get there, compared to the significance of our past.

But what is more important in the world of online marketing? What would you rather know about those visiting your website? Do you know how they’re finding your website? Do you know what they’re doing once they’ve discovered your brand online?

I admit, it’s a trick question. The answer is that BOTH are important: where people are coming from and what they do once they’ve engaged your brand/website online. To be able to decipher these behaviors, the installation of analytical  tools and diligent monitoring of these metrics are required. This allows online marketers to make educated decisions on how they can better increase their site traffic and increase conversion rates  for those that do visit their website.

Once you answer questions like these….

1. How did people find my website?
2. What did they do once they came to my website?
3. How long did they stay or how many pages did they view?
4. How far down the purchase path did they pursue?
5. Where are they abandoning my website?

You will be able to answer questions like these….

1. What keyphrases should I target in my SEO and PPC effort?
2. How can I better optimize my conversion path?
3. Is my landing page effectively communicating my value proposition?
4. Am I attracting the right audience?
5. Is my messaging appropriate for those finding my site?

Xcellimark can help you find answers to all these questions. Let us know how we can help you.

Image is a fuzzy term. It means different things to different people. Your online image is driven by buyer behavior. Buyer behavior is deeply rooted in:

• Internal or psychological factors such as personality, attitudes, and lifestyle.
• Personal or demographic factors and social factors such as friends, family, opinion leaders, etc.
• External factors such as marketing. 

There was an interesting study done a few years back that outlined the elements that make up a customer’s buying decision. Their research outlined the most critical elements customers evaluate in order to decide who to buy from.
The elements were:

• Price
• Product Quality
• Service Quality
• Image

What they found was very interesting. It is somewhat easy to compare price between vendors. Yes it may take some work in order to compare “apples to apples”, but it is a rather straightforward process.

The difficulty comes when a potential customer is trying to evaluate Product Quality and Service Quality. If they are not a prior customer of a business, then they do not have experience to draw from in order to make an informed decision of Product Quality and Service Quality. Every vendor says they have great products and services.

So what do prospective customers do?

They use Image as a substitute for making a decision on a company’s Product Quality and Service Quality.

In other words, your Image is the determining factor for Product Quality and Service Quality for your prospective customers.

There are books that go into great detail on Image and Image-related topics such as branding and buyer behavior. I will not go completely into that here other than to give you a little deeper perspective on how elevating your brand impacts your business .

Online Image and the Effects it Has on Your Business

The study suggests that if your website looks cheap, potential buyers will think your products and services are cheap, have low value, and are low quality. If your website is difficult to navigate, people think that you will be difficult to do business with. If there are errors or content missing on your website, perspective clients will think you will not deliver a working product or service.

Your online image is primarily delivered by your website and the resulting experience. Over 70% of people will review a company’s website before they make a purchase decision. In fact, I read where over 80% of all people will visit a church’s website before they visit a church.

Your Website Image is Important

There are many reasons why you have the website you have – money, vendor’s capability, your personal preferences, etc.

Many businesses develop a website that they like, but it is not driven by the Image that your prospective customers are looking for. How do you stack up against your top online competitors? What kind of online experiences is your website delivering versus your online competitors or even other market leaders? 

Sometimes the evaluation bar of Image is not set by your competitors. It is often set by your prospective customers’ experiences in other online markets or providers.

Maybe your online market is lagging other industry leaders. You should always stay abreast of the online trends and experiences. If you have evaluated your website closely in the last 2-3 years, you are going to be shocked. Much has changed while you were asleep online. But the good news is that you can wake up your website with an online image makeover. Contact Xcellimark  to find out how.

What if this country was not in a recession? Would you still be on a budget?

What if healthy food was affordable? Would you still eat off of the value menu?

What if life was about choosing door #1 or door #2?

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

In every decision of your life, you will come to a crossroad where you are presented with various options - some are good and some are bad. And with every decision comes consequences that shape your future decisions and ultimately the path in life you’ll take. My Dad always told me that “A bad decision is better than no decision” because you can learn from bad decisions. I try to keep the bad decisions to a minimum.

Just as in life, your business is the cumulative efforts of the decisions you made and how much effort you put into it. What kind of decision have you made about advertising your company? Are you getting any online exposure? 

Find the Right Internet Marketing Path for Your Business

I’m not going to bore you with statistics about what percentage of consumers start the buying process online nowadays but, what if you decided you wanted to increase revenue and get a piece of the online business pie? Wouldn’t you want to know the best way to get it done?

You’ve worked hard to build a quality reputation in your community over the years. Is it worth trusting a novice to build your company’s website for pennies on the dollar only to need it fixed a few weeks later? I think not!

Just as your company is composed of people with diverse talents that have kept your company thriving since its inception, you need the right people in your corner to market your business online. 

Xcellimark works with all clients on an individual basis to provide custom web-based solutions  that will fit your needs and goals.  Contact us  today to see how we can help you make the right decisions for your business.

You’d be surprised by how many businesses don’t have an answer for that question. Or maybe they do, but it’s not a good one. For instance, “Impressing people” is not a business goal for having a website.

A friend asked me to check out a new website for her high-end salon. They wanted to show me how cool it was. It had all the bells and whistles: smooth, flashy transitions, custom photography, the latest fonts, and hip music. The design was interactive and clever. To be honest, it was a lot of fun to navigate. I was impressed.

She explained that the website cost over $15K to create. I suddenly thought to myself, “Wow, they must have big plans for the website in terms of growing their customer base and increasing profits.” But when I clicked on the link within the website to make an appointment to get my haircut, the interface was cumbersome and I soon gave up.

To make things worse, I noticed that when I clicked the link to make an appointment online, I was redirected to an entirely different website. I was confused.

Days later, I tried to find the salon’s new website again. But when searching the salon’s name in Google, I noticed that their Google Local listing had the wrong URL and was directing people to an inactive web domain. People could not find this $15K website, and when they did, they could not easily become a customer of the salon. What was the goal of the website?

Do you have a clear, specific business goal for your company’s website? Are you achieving that goal? If not, contact Xcellimark today for a FREE, no-obligation consultation to help .

Everyone needs some type of Internet Strategy and Plan. Typically businesses skip right to a shopping list that looks something like: develop a website, find a hosting company, set up email and maybe some vague notion of being found in the search engines. Done, right?

Not quite. Detailed Internet planning is a migraine waiting to happen for a Type A Driver personality. In fact, just about every type of personality, with the exception of an analytical, would as soon go to the dentist for a root canal than to take the time to do a little bit of analysis and planning.

It doesn’t have to be an award-winning three year business plan. But you should address the following areas at the basic level:

• Define Your Goals and Objectives – You must define a measurable goal or set of objectives that serve a primary business function such as sales revenue, subscriptions, lead generation, cost savings, service improvement, etc.
• Define Your Target Online Market –Define your primary target customer’s demographic profile or business type, primary needs, how they make decisions, where they are located geographically, and how many people or businesses fall into this profile.
• Define Your Online Competitive Market – Define your top competitors online. This may be different than who you traditionally face on the street. What are their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, etc.? Define their value proposition if they have one, any incentives or promotions they are running, and conduct a thorough website analysis on at least your top two online competitors.
• Define your Value Proposition – This may be the hardest thing you do. Why should someone do business with you over your competitors? You need to be able to communicate this in two versions – one that is less than 250 words and another that is one sentence, maybe two at the most.
• Develop An Incentive – You need to inspire someone to do something now. What can you provide that is of perceived value with a time element that would inspire someone to contact you now?
• Define Benefits – While developing a product or service feature set is nice, you need to be able to communicate the benefits that your product or service provides for your customer.  So what is really in it for them? Why should they care about you?
• Develop an Internet Strategy – Once you have done your basic research and definitions, you need to develop a strategy that defines how you are going to reach your target market, the image you need to present to your market, how you are going to present a compelling value proposition, your call-to-action, what online functions will help serve your prospects, customers and company, and how you are going to track performance to know whether you are achieving your goals and objectives.
• Develop an Internet Plan – Your plan should identify the required Internet marketing channels, website development requirements, communications requirements, performance management systems, company operations integration, a budget, and some idea of a timeline to start the process and when it needs to be completed.

If you really want to put yourself in the best position to win online, you must develop an effective Internet strategy and plan. While I realize that for some this is a no-brainer, for others it is like climbing Mount Everest. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. The more you do of it, the smoother things will go throughout the implementation process and the more successful your online marketing efforts will be.

If you aren’t conducting tests on your website, then you need to be. If your website isn’t performing at its optimum level, then you are leaking revenue. But I’m not writing to convince you that you should be testing. I’m here to explain what makes a test valid.

The most important component of running a test on your website is defining what you are testing. You must clearly define your test with a question (i.e. Which layout design will have the lowest bounce rate? or Which call-to-action will drive the most conversions?).  If you don’t define your test, then the results will be meaningless and you will have wasted your time.

After you’ve clearly defined your test, you will set up each version (we call them treatments) of your test. Then, you need to define your goal, or the desired level of improvement that you want to see.

Statistical formulas are used to decide how long a test must run to produce valid results, and whether the results have indicated a winning version or treatment. Every test will not have a winning treatment. This is a key principle of testing that you must remember:  a test does not have to have a winning treatment in order to be a valid test.

It is important to record the results for each test, even if there is not a winning treatment, along with all of the insights you gain from each test. Sometimes a test without a winning treatment will give you more insights than one with a winning treatment.

As you continue to test, you should begin to build a testing history that will lead to valuable insights and ideas for new tests. So start your testing history today and see how much you can improve your website results.

I recently read the book called “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Health. It’s incredibly insightful about how to make ideas stick. “Ideas” include presentations, advertising, value propositions, training and so much more.

How many times have you watched or read an ad, maybe even multiple times, and later you really couldn’t tell someone what it was about? But if I asked you if you could tell me who “Jared” is associated with after losing hundreds of pounds on a diet consisting of sandwiches from a fast food restaurant, most of you would recognize the guy in the Subway commercial.

How to Make Ideas Stick

Chip and Dan identify six (6) principles that help make ideas stick. They are Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotions and Stories. They didn’t simply think these up off the top of their head though.

In 1999, an Israeli research team reviewed 200 highly-effective ads and found that 89% of them could be classified into six (6) basic categories. The same researchers attempted to classify 200 other ads that had not received awards into the same six (6) categories. They found that only 2% of the less-effective ads could be placed into these categories.

Clearly there are very deliberate things that need to be done to make an ad, presentation, training, or any other idea you are trying to communicate worth remembering. You can study and learn these concepts and then work on putting them into practice.

The Curse of Knowledge

However, there is also a major obstacle that keeps many people from successfully pulling off these principles. Chip and Dan call it the “Curse of Knowledge”. At Xcellimark we see this all the time when working with clients. They know their product or service so well that they believe they are communicating it effectively, but many times they leave out key elements that pull their idea together. They don’t see the gap because it’s just so natural for them they believe everyone understands the subject in the same way they do.

To help illustrate this concept the Heath brothers tell the story of a study done in 1990 by Elizabeth Newton as she earned her Ph.D. in psychology at Stanford. It was a simple game called “tappers” and “listeners”.

Reach the Tappers and the Listeners

After receiving a list of 25 well-known songs such as “Happy Birthday” and the “Star Spangled Banner,” the Tappers were asked to tap out one of the songs to a Listener. The Listener was supposed to guess the song based upon the rhythm being tapped.

Amazingly, the Listeners were only able to identify 3 out of the 120 songs that were tapped. However, when asked ahead of time how many songs the Tappers thought the Listeners would be able to guess, they speculated that the Listeners would get it right 50% of the time. So even though the Listeners only guessed the correct song 1 time in 40, the Tappers thought they were getting their message across 1 in 2 times!

That’s the perfect example of the Curse of Knowledge. We believe we are being so clear when actually people have no idea what we are talking about. That’s one reason some people are not very successful with Internet advertising, or with converting people on their website. They may believe they have presented a very compelling message when in reality people either don’t get it or are not moved by it in the least.

Create a Message that Compels People to Act

Knowing how to effectively write an Internet ad that will get someone’s attention and then associating it with a landing page that helps clarify the message in a way that compels the visitor to act is a much more daunting task than most think. And even when you find a recipe for success, you need to ask yourself if you are doing as well as you can be. Is it as good as it gets?

Getting people to act involves creating a message that resonates with people and following it through with enough understandable and interesting information that clearly helps them see how your product or service will fix their need. Make sure you create a message and website that sticks and then test that message and website page with something you think may be even better to see if you can improve your results.

You might be asking yourself, “What does anxiety have to do with my website?”  The answer:  A lot.

Before I tell you how to detect anxiety on your website, it’s important to define the question, “What is anxiety?”  Anxiety is a psychological concern in the mind of your visitors that leads to a fear of entering information. Anxiety always takes place in the buying process.

Fear Factor

The most common fears in your customer’s mind include: “how good is the quality of service or product I am buying?”, “Is my transaction going to be secure?”, “will my personal information be sold or given away?”and “Am I getting a fair and accurate price for this product or service?”

It is our job to first detect and then minimize these concerns as much as possible.  The best way to start is to look at another company’s website and list out anything that could cause you to question their credibility, or to second guess whether you want to provide your e-mail address, home address, phone number, credit card info or other personal information. Then go back and analyze your own website with a critical eye. You’ll be amazed at how clearly you are able to identify anxiety on your own website.

How to Reduce Anxiety

Some common ways to reduce anxiety include adding security seals or credibility indicators to your site, including product ratings or testimonials, and limiting the information you ask for from your customers whenever possible. 

Don’t stop there.  Look at your site again in a month and see if there is anything you missed, and continue to do it again every month.  There is always room for improvement.  I once heard Flint McLaughlin, the Director of MECLABS, say, “Adequacy is the Enemy of Excellence” and I believe him.

I went to the dermatologist yesterday, and because it was my first time at that office, the nurse asked me a ton of questions:

• Questions about my medical history.
• Questions about any hereditary diseases that may run in my family.
• Questions about any pre-existing conditions.
• Questions about possible allergies.

The questions took some time to answer, but I was relieved that they took the time to ask, because only then could the doctor effectively prescribe the solution that I needed.

The same rings true with Interactive Agencies. Be weary of Internet marketers that don’t ask enough questions. There are too many Internet marketers that make wonderful claims of high page rank and conversion rates, but don’t take the time to ask the right questions. Instead, they hope that their pre-packaged solutions and routine tasks that may have worked for one business will work for yours.

That’s why a partnership with Xcellimark starts with a healthy dose of questions:

• Questions about your business’ specific goals, regarding your business’ online presence.
• Questions about your business’ value proposition and what makes your business different.
• Questions about your business’ competition.
• Questions about your business’ previous and current marketing efforts.

Contact Xcellimark today  to answer these questions, and receive an Internet marketing solution that is tailored to your business’ unique challenges and needs.

For years I have heard leaders and managers claim that the Internet does not work well for their business. “We have a website and it does not produce business” or “We did search marketing and lost money” are typical comments when they first engage us.

There is not a single “silver bullet” that determines online success. There is also a factor of not only what you do, but how well you do it in each of these key strategies.

Online success is achieved by effectively implementing these 10 Internet marketing strategies:

1. Strategy and Planning - Determine how you are going to reach your target market most effectively and beat your competition by developing an Internet marketing plan. This plan identifies your primary business goals, communicates your value proposition, analyzes your top competitors, and determines how to best reach your target market.
2. Custom Website Development - Enjoy a competitive advantage by developing an effective website plan that is targeted to your market and differentiates you from your competitors. The plan addresses key areas such as creative design, digital marketing, analytics and conversion optimization.
3. Search Marketing - Receive the most qualified leads and customers by developing and implementing a search marketing plan that will reach your most qualified prospects, analyze your results and be optimized to deliver the greatest ROI possible for your business.
4. Testing and Optimization - Increase your ROI by developing and testing various incentives, layouts, content and “call-to-actions” in order to determine which ones convert to leads and customers the best.
5. Blog - Establish yourself as an expert by blogging and publishing articles on your industry, market, customers and services to improve your image as the leader in your market.
6. Social Media Marketing - Engage your target market to interact with you more by implementing a social media marketing plan.
7. Online Press Releases - Enhance your image and the awareness of your company in the media by writing and publishing press releases and distributing them online.
8. Online Video - Make yourself standout from your competition by incorporating rich media such as online video in your marketing to engage your target market more and reach more people.
9. Email Marketing - Increase your repeat business and customer loyalty by implementing an email marketing system that keeps your customers continuously engaged with your company and updates them on the latest news and promotions.
10. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - Strengthen your existing relationships and conversions by implementing a customer relationship management system that keeps track of your interactions with your leads and serves your customers through their lifetime association with your company.

It is important to keep in mind that these strategies can be implemented over time. A good plan will define at what point each of these strategies will be implemented based upon the client’s budget and ability to support.  If you effectively implement these 10 strategies, it will significantly contribute to your business growth and success.

Has your bottom line been feeling the economy lately? It seems that everywhere I go, everyone is talking about the economy - or the government – but that's an entirely different subject.

Put Yourself in the Driver's Seat

It's been interesting to see how people have responded to the down economy in the last year. I hear so many people say that they are cutting back because of the bad economy.

Sometimes it's cutting back employees, sometimes it's cutting back on marketing, sometimes it's cutting back on expectations.

I never hear anyone say they are cutting back on revenue. They like to blame that on the economy. But sometimes their actions, or inactions, can multiply the effect of the down economy on their revenue.

Here's what you need to understand. If all of your competitors are cutting back on their employees, or their marketing, or their expectations, where does that leave you? In the driver's seat!

Don't Run for the Hills, Take Over Your Competitors' Market Share

In tough times you can respond in two ways. You can cut back or you can take charge. If all your competitors have cut back on their marketing efforts, then it's a great time to take over their market share!

Tough economic times require that you have the nerve to move ahead of your competitors. Advertising costs decrease because competition decreases. It's the ideal opportunity to get ahead at a time when others are running for the hills.

What Do the Marketing Gurus Say?

Don't just take my word for it though. Top marketing gurus such as Jon Spoelstra and Roy Williams believe that tough times open wonderful opportunities for those who are willing to be bold and outrageous.

Those who are willing to market in the tough times will beat out their competitors who play it safe due to the economy. Be progressive and bold in your marketing efforts even when it may not make sense to do so. You'll find the revenue will follow.

Get Tough! Get Noticed! 

Of course, you can't just do the same old same old type of marketing. Tough times require tough decisions. You need to get out there where your potential clients are and be outrageous enough to be noticed.

Not sure how to pull that off? Get the professional help you need to succeed even in tough times. Your bottom line will thank you for it.

A lot of websites tend to waste more money than they make. That is because the majority of websites are thought to be nothing more than little electronic brochures gathering dust in cyberspace according to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).

The problem actually has its roots in the phase prior to launching a website. It starts with the 5 most common misconceptions business people should avoid when launching their website.

Mistake #1: An amateur website production will render professional results
Your business website is not the place to publish an amateur representation of your services. You are not just presenting your business to the local and surrounding communities, but to the entire world! Obtaining the services of a professional Internet Marketing Consultant can save you thousands of dollars in the development of your site.

Mistake #2: Developing a "Bargain Basement" site will make you rich
Ask any business owner who's ever purchased a cut-rate website if they were happy with their results. Focus on finding quality service at a reasonable rate rather than the absolute lowest price. Remember the saying "you get what you pay for".

Mistake #3: You're going to make thousands of dollars in your first month
Steer clear of anyone who proposes a statement like this. The truth is, once your site goes online, a good marketing strategy will result in a steady increase in traffic and growth each month. This is partly due to the time delay for search engines to visit your site, capture data, and index it. Only Internet marketing strategies that are tried and true will help make you successful for a long time.

Mistake #4: If you build it, they will come
One of the biggest mistakes today is the failure to recognize the importance of Internet marketing programs such as search engine optimization and online internet advertising. Obtaining a high volume of visitors to your site is a must for success. There is absolutely no "luck" involved in the process. Your website needs to be designed and developed with Internet marketing plans in mind from the beginning.

Mistake #5: All you can do is put up a site and hope for the best
Do not be satisfied with a service that only hopes for the best. A successful website is the result of a website marketing strategy that outlines how and where the website will deliver business results. Some Web designers never give much thought to your success once they have built your site.

Monthly detailed activity reports are essential for your success. The report should at least show detail on the number of visitors to your site, (not hits!) most popular pages, most popular search engine keywords, top-referring URLs, as well as top entry and exit pages. If search engine optimization is important to your success, then you should also have reports detailing your standings in each search engine.