When it comes to being unlinkable, there’s a lot more to consider besides boring content, poor quality writing and low-end design. Of the many issues that could cause users not to want to link to your content, here are four major ones that I see all the time: intrusive intersitials, gated content, excessive pagination and avant-garde design. You can find someone to argue for and against all four of these barriers, and I’d probably see some of those points in the last three cases, but I’m not sure much can change my mind about interstitials. Intrusive interstitialsIt’s only been a few months since Google rolled out the mobile intrusive interstitial penalty, so I’m still not surprised to see them being used occasionally, but they really are annoying, in my opinion. Intrusive interstitials are annoying on mobile devices and on my laptop. Forbes.com definitely has to be among the most notable offenders here, with their “quote and countdown” interstitial. Their quotes don’t offend me or anything, but if I click on a link, I want to see the site — not wait three seconds (an eternity!), and then have to click another button to say that I really, truly do want to go to the site. That’s like emailing to confirm that I really did want to unsubscribe from your email newsletter. I am pleased to say that I do think most sites are paying attention. In doing some research for this article, I visited several sites that had been listed as having intrusive interstitials (in various articles surrounding the topic), and most of them were no longer using them. Gated contentSpeaking as a business owner who has to deal with a lot of “tire kickers” from web leads, I love the idea of narrowing down to the serious customers. However, an as SEO and link builder, I prefer the benefits of not putting content behind a gate. There’s a great piece on when to gate vs. when not to gate that lists six good examples for each. Of course, you want to gate content such as a live demo or anything that’s proprietary, but gating content like a normal blog post is silly. No one should have to enter their email before reading your latest blog post. In my case, the only gated content that I have is an e-book where you have to enter your email address to get a link to the download. If I did on-site quotes, I’d gate that area, too. If I had a blog or a video where I was explaining our process, I would not gate that. While there are some good guidelines about when to gate content and when not to, it still comes down to what you want from your content. Conversion rate optimization, usability and SEO don’t always seem so black and white. I was recently looking at potential homeschool/online school resources and ran across this site: http://ift.tt/2neRC0b Their guide is a physical guide that will be mailed to you. That obviously costs money for printing and shipping, so in order to get it, you have to give them some information, including your phone number. While I totally understand that, I can’t really see anything that I want to see without getting the guide. I can’t access content behind the main links on the home page, as all they do is take me to a form to request the guide. That’s not a great use of gated content. Maybe I am just browsing around, kicking tires, but why can’t I see an example curriculum or read a few success stories? Want to guess how many referring domains link to them? TWO. Excessive paginationI love to blow time by looking at ridiculous things like photos of cats attacking toddlers and Siberian huskies being weird. In cases like that, I expect to have to click through page after page. However, when it comes to finding a source to link for an article that isn’t about vicious cats or funny dogs, there’s no way I am going to waste my time clicking around pages in order to find one to link to. I bolt immediately when I come to those sites. Google has guidelines for paginated content, and that’s good for sites that need to paginate. I don’t have an issue with an article that is in four parts. I do have an issue with a piece of content that requires me to click 20 times in order to reach the end of it. When content exists to show ads and make money, I’m just not a big fan — and I’d definitely hesitate before linking to it. Here’s an example from WebMD of foods that dogs shouldn’t eat. This piece has 25 slides to view! Why can’t it be a list? If I’m looking to point users to a resource for foods that dogs shouldn’t eat, I’d rather link to something like this ASPCA article on the no-no foods. It’s a nice list — no need to click “Next” 24 times, and no chance to view 25 different ads. Looking at the links to each example above, the ASPCA page has 1.3K referring domains, while the WebMD has 404 referring domains. I’m sure there’s more to it than just the annoying pagination, but it’s interesting to note nonetheless. Avant-garde designYears ago, my friend and I went to New York City and ended up having to call the hotel staff to come help us figure out how to put the plug in the sink. While he was up there, I realized we also didn’t know how to turn on any of the lamps. As the trip wore on, it became obvious that the bathtub placed right in front of the bed, protected only by a sheer curtain, was really not as cute as we first thought. Oh, and let’s not forget that the only reason we even found this hotel was that I recognized a potted tree that was at the entrance, as I’d seen a photo of it on the web. Cool designs for everything overall, but I’ve never been back. Do you see my point? When a cool design hides basic functionality, it’s not that beneficial unless you’re a site that exists to sell cool designs that hide basic functionality. I tend to bounce right off those types of sites. If I did stick around to look through one, I might link to something internal if I found a good resource — but in my experience, if the site is that difficult to navigate, I’m not likely to find what I’m looking for. These sites may contain fantastic information presented in various formats, and maybe that’s all they need. So I’m certainly not saying that they’re not good sites for content consumption. I’m just saying that, in general, I would only link to one to use as an example of a site that wasn’t very linkable. Isn’t that ironic? Final thoughtsWhile there are other irritations that would prevent me from wanting to link (like making link text blend in with the background, or making it stand out in glaring colors), I do find these four to be the major offenses. I also recognize that not everything is about links; not everyone considers linkability a top concern when making a choice about their site or content. However, links still make you rank, and they bring you traffic — so if something is preventing you from getting the links you deserve, it’s worth taking a second look at how you can fix that. The post 4 major barriers to being linkable appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2oupFRV
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Getting a marketing strategy up and running is a big hurdle for any business. Keeping the ROI high is even trickier. So you’ve been pouring copious amounts of time and money into your digital marketing strategy, but the results just aren’t coming. There can be many reasons as to why your approach isn’t working. In […]
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My daughter Sadie hides anxiously behind the living room couch, while her best friend is searching, calling out her name, and trying to find her. Hide-and-seek, a game played out millions of times. If you don’t know, hide-and-seek is a popular children’s game in which any number of players conceal themselves in the environment, to be found by one or more seekers. The hiding is not what makes it fun. Kids will play for hours and hours when they continually find each other. When one of the children stays hidden for even five minutes too long, the others quickly lose interest. It is a quest fueled by the moment of discovery. Hey podcaster, stop hiding behind the couchNow let’s think about why thousands upon thousands of content marketers, business owners, hobbyists, and fans start podcasts. More often than not, it’s to build an audience around a topic they love. They start with enthusiasm and determination, only to quit after 10, 12, or 20 episodes (the number doesn’t matter, the quitting does).
Podcasts need to be actively optimized — not only to help you build an audience and authority, but also to help you stay motivated to not quit. The search beginsThe consensus amongst podcasters is that since Google can’t index audio, you can throw your standard SEO practices out the window. It is true; Google can’t listen to or index your podcast episodes. It is also true, and more pertinent to this discussion, that Google is not where people go to find podcasts. Where do people search when they want to find a new podcast?
These are “alternative” search engines — directories where people search for podcasts. It’s not accidental when podcasts rise to the top of the directories. We need to understand our audiences and anticipate what they search for just like we do when we write, but with a slight twist. Why you should submit your show to podcast directoriesWhat if you could spend 10 minutes doing one simple task and get new listeners for years to come? We need to find audience-building strategies we can leverage. Repeatable steps we can take upfront, yet will continue to provide us with new listeners for months and years to come. The way to do this is simple: submit your show to podcast directories. As with most things, how you use podcast directories will change and evolve with your show. A brand-new show will benefit from a different strategy than a podcast that has been around for 50+ episodes.
Optimize for discoverabilityAs podcasters, we value audio over text. The reason is simple: we are more comfortable behind a microphone than we are behind a keyboard. Our thoughts and ideas flow when we speak, and we stare impatiently at a blank page when it’s time to write. Don’t fight it. It’s what makes us podcasters. It also stops us from being found.
For our discussion today about optimizing for discoverability, we are not going to get into anything involving extra work. Yes, having transcripts for your show can be beneficial, but we are focusing on tasks you already must do for your podcast — but doing them with a purpose. How to win the name gameDeciding on a name for your show can be a fun and creative process, but we need to stay focused on our goal of discoverability. Here are three things to keep in mind when naming your show for discoverability:
Next time you’re on the subway or at a coffee shop, look at how fast people scroll up and down on their phones.
A good name isn’t easy to find, but never sacrifice clarity for creativity. Craft a better show description (your elevator pitch)Where a show description is displayed varies from directory to directory. Currently, iTunes still generates the majority of all podcast downloads. So we will focus on iTunes when discussing show descriptions. A show description is the block of text displayed on your podcast page within iTunes. More importantly, it is the main place where you get to tell iTunes and potential listeners what your show is about. Here are three ways to optimize your show description:
Think of crafting your show description the same way you would think about writing your next blog post. Keywords matter, but not more than other important elements that help you create a compelling case for a potential listener to download and subscribe to your show. Write captivating episode titlesContent marketers and copywriters stress over their headlines more than any other part of their work. It makes sense when we understand how a headline can make or break an article.
The title of your episode is your headline. It is the single most powerful way to make people stop scrolling and listen to an episode. So don’t treat episode titles like afterthoughts. Here’s how to write better episode titles:
Writing great episode titles takes practice. When you get stuck, you can jump-start your process with these smart headline-writing tactics. Make noise from behind the couchWhen you listen to kids playing hide-and-seek, you will notice all of the noises they make — laughter, whispering, and yelling — all signals that will help them be found. We need to make noise, get noticed, and be discovered. Creating useful content on a consistent basis is essential if you want to create a remarkable podcast. Your usefulness stems from your passion and knowledge. Podcasting is hard, but having your show discovered by new listeners on a consistent basis will keep you motivated through the dips and struggles. You started a podcast to build an audience. Don’t hide it from listeners. The post Podcasters: Stop Looking for an Audience (and Let Them Find You) appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger http://ift.tt/2nqxI3e Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land:
Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:
Search News From Around The Web:Local & Maps
Link Building
Searching
SEO
SEM / Paid Search
Search Marketing
The post SearchCap: Google image search bug, local insights & post-rank appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2nZglJw Attend MarTech San Francisco May 9-11 for 70+ presentations, 100+ speakers, 100+ exhibitors and sponsors and networking with 2,500 martech professionals. My hand-crafted agenda is a master class in marketing, technology and management topics. You’ll be joining attendees and speakers from top brands including: Rates increase Saturday These incredibly low rates are available for only a few more days! Register today for an All Access Pass and pay only $1,645 — that’s $250 in savings compared to on-site rates. You’ll get exceptional content, speakers, limitless vendor solutions, networking and top-notch amenities. P.S. Rates increase in just a few days. Don’t miss your opportunity to save big and attend MarTech. Register today! The post MarTech beta rates expire this week – reserve your seat now appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2o2VOUy Content demands have risen exponentially, driven primarily by changes in consumer tech adoption. Mobile has changed how marketers communicate with their audiences. What’s different with mobile compared to older mediums is the frequency and mindset of consumers. People are in discovery mode on mobile. They devote almost their entire attention to one thing on the screen at a time. The change in behaviours is creating a content challenge for brand marketers. The number of stories you need to tell is getting larger. But budgets are staying the same. This white paper from Flashstock helps you understand what you need to know about the content economics of your production process, and solutions that will allow you to scale and meet the increasing demands of content marketing today. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download “How to Scale Content Creation for Social and Digital Channels.” The post Are you keeping up with the increasing demands of content marketing today? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2mJrYUT Closing out the excellent first time slot in the Local track at SMX West this year was Thomas Ballantyne’s session about online reviews. Far too many business owners either ignore or don’t care about reviews, so Ballantyne — the director of marketing at Bulwark Pest Control — built his presentation as a tool to help marketers get buy-in from their clients. Reviews are vital for successBallantyne began by citing a recent BrightLocal survey that showed that 92 percent of consumers read online reviews to determine the quality of local businesses. Whether a business owner wants to pay attention to reviews or not, potential customers are seeking out and reading reviews of the business. Even more important — 51 percent of people trust user-generated content over info on a company website or in news articles. Ballantyne explained that people trust reviews written by other people much more than anything written on your website, which is why it’s so important for business owners to focus on their online reviews. According to Ballantyne, Millennials actually trust user-generated content MORE than what they hear from friends or family, so online reviews are clearly becoming more and more important to younger generations. Reviews are the crossroads of social media and transactions. They simply can’t be ignored. Consumers own your brand messagingIf 51 percent of people trust user-generated content more than what’s on your site, and if online reviews are 12 times more trusted than product descriptions, that means that your customers actually own your brand messaging. It won’t matter what you say about yourself or what you sell — most consumers will care more about what your customers say about you. Amazon is the king of reviewsAmazon is the largest single source of consumer reviews — and they’ve embraced that. In fact, Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, is taking a different approach to reviews, displaying “the good, the bad and the ugly to let truth loose.” Ballantyne notes that Amazon realized that good reviews from customers are equal to trust, and trust is currency. There’s no such thing as a bad review problemIn a “drop the mic” moment, Ballantyne summed up bad review problems with one of the most tweetable lines from this year’s conference: “If you have bad reviews, you don’t have a review problem — you have a business problem.” Business owners always blame bad reviews on crazy customers, but consistent bad reviews are a clear sign that something is wrong with the business or the product you’re selling. You’ve got to take a step back and solve your business problem before you can get good reviews. Utter disaster over a $7 tipBallantyne shared a crazy story about a car dealership that shared a video they thought the public would rally behind — but it backfired and resulted in thousands of negative reviews. The dealership had ordered pizza delivery, and when they paid, they didn’t ask for change. The delivery guy assumed that the extra $7 was his tip, which would have been appropriate given the size of the order. Unfortunately, he was wrong. The dealership called the pizza place and insisted that the delivery guy come back to return their $7. When they posted the video online to show how poorly they’d been treated by their delivery guy, the internet rose up and destroyed their online reviews. They received 7,856 one-star reviews on Yelp and 2,769 negative reviews on Google. That’s over 10,000 bad reviews… over a simple $7 tip. How to get good reviewsBallantyne shared the simple solution to getting great reviews. First, you’ve got to provide good customer service. You’ve got to hire people who will love your customers. Second, you just have to ask. If you ask customers to leave a review, most of them will do it — but most businesses never ask for reviews. Check out the slides from Thomas Ballantyne’s presentation: The post SMX West session: Harnessing the power of online reviews appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2o2GDeb Just last October at the Street Fight Summit, many marketers ranked voice search as the most “over-hyped” marketing tactic of the year. I think this is because many of them aren’t seeing the full scope of the technology. We’re putting on our consumer brains and thinking about the current awkwardness of speaking to Siri in public, not of a future inside self-driving cars or those moments when we just don’t want to get up from the couch. Currently, most voice searches happen on mobile phones. But within the next few years, it seems likely that devices with this capacity will increase in prevalence — and technological capability — in private spaces, where voicing out-loud intent won’t feel so silly. What might voice search mean for local?Most who do believe in a voice-dominated future are in a love/hate relationship with the idea. Some predict we’ll lose all local organic space to ads. Others foresee a future in which anything less than the No. 1 rank is worthless. I see both conclusions as an incomplete picture. A recent Moz study demonstrated that only 3.4 percent of Google local searches result in ad clicks. While it’s possible to anticipate a future in which voice search results are entirely paid ads, the fact that consumers seem to largely prefer organic suggests that Google would have a hard time retaining customers with such a model. Imagine if Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” search were a paid ad spot — who would click that button? Replacing the organic “best” option with the highest bidder changes our perception of the result. For businesses, this is further encouragement to tap into the power of organic local reach via accurate data and local knowledge sharing. Additionally, I think it’s a fallacy to assume that instant answers will beget a world where only the lucky top-ranked result wins. Rather, as I’ll show in this post, voice will make filtering for exactly what a consumer wants a much simpler process. So instead of a single No. 1 rank for a given local keyword (e.g., “divorce lawyer Los Angeles”), there will be dozens of No. 1 pages based on the other parameters a searcher indicates in her query (“a female divorce lawyer within a 20-minute drive from my office in Los Angeles who has experience in custody cases and pre-nups, with at least a 4.5-star rating and who can meet during my lunch break this week”). So a “post-rank” world doesn’t mean “a world where there’s only top-dog answer” — it means “a world where there are many equally top-dog answers.” Below, I’ll go over some ways local and brick-and-mortar businesses should prepare for a voice-dominated future. In the next couple of posts, I’ll explain how this trend will affect national and online-based service providers. Many of the factors that will affect local reach are arguably more organic than SEO tactics. And most will still require the expertise of digital marketers. One note: These are predictions. The closest I’ve come to a crystal ball is a fortune teller in New Orleans who intuited that “sometimes I worry about things.” But many of these predictions have foundations from people in the search and marketing community with far more experience than I do, such as Cindy Krum, Mike Blumenthal and David Mihm. Local results in a voice search futureIn a “post-rank” world, much of the digital effort will be focused on ensuring that a business’s digital presence is an accurate reflection of the real world via detailed service descriptions, numerous reviews and prolific interactions. At least three factors will increasingly affect local results in a voice-first world: 1. Local reach will be affected by searcher proximity to local businessesEssentially, mobile searches that vary by even a mile or so can produce drastically different local rank results. See Darren Shaw’s research for more on this. Desktop-based searches can be less specific, since they depend on IP. For the most part, this factor cannot be influenced unless you move offices. If your location is farther out of town (and farther from the local population than your competitors), your business may not surface as often in voice results for searchers in the center of town. 2. Local reach will be affected by how ‘good’ the business isDavid Mihm pointed out in a recent post that as Google’s capacity to measure real-world engagement with businesses increases, positive engagement signals will mostly likely improve local rank. Many of these signals will be directly affected by the quality of the business’s services, such as:
Hopefully, most local business or franchise owners already care about the quality of their products and services. But soon, this quality — or lack thereof — may directly affect their digital presence. If search engines can only offer one answer, they want to send customers to an experience they’ll be satisfied with. 3. Local reach will be affected by how well the local business’s digital presence serves searchers’ needsSo I need to find a local, well-reviewed appliance repair specialist to come to my home between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. tonight. They also need to have experience with Samsung refrigerators. The screen shot below shows my current (March 2017) mobile result for “fridge repair.” Google already has much of the information needed for my specific request, save the Samsung specification. Looks like today I’m going with Sears Appliance, as they’re the only top-ranked business open at a time that works for this particular request. But I’ve actually had a repair person come to my home who didn’t specialize in my appliance model, wasting my time and his, so I’ll need to call first to ensure that Sears can repair my specific fridge. I anticipate that in a couple of years, Google Assistant will be able to perform this task for me, based on a query like, “Ok Google, I need a fridge repair specialist, rated four stars or higher, for tonight at 7 p.m., and make sure they can work with Samsung products.” And that’s it — Google will take care of the rest; after telling me the name of the business and confirming that I’m OK with a 4.2-star-rated service, the entire process will still take less than a minute. I anticipate that apps integrating service businesses’s team schedules with Google searches will soon become a staple of local search, completing the last piece of this cycle. The pieces for this transaction are almost together on the infrastructure side for Google, but further research on my end shows a plethora of local businesses on Yelp and Facebook that haven’t yet taken the time to build out a clear Google My Business listing or their own website. This includes one local business with excellent reviews that’s been in the area for 20 years and provides services 24/7. Yes, finally. Here’s the voice-search factor marketers can invest in. Optimizing for voice search via detailed contentLocal businesses need to prepare for voice search by ensuring “long-tail” details are clearly displayed on the web. Remember my Samsung model problem? We’ll soon live in a world in which a consumer won’t want to spend 10 minutes calling around with a question like that; she’ll expect to find it, well, instantly. Maybe some weekend, I’ll want to find a local restaurant within walking distance of my home that’s good for a date night, features vegan options and live music and has a booth available at 7:30 p.m. that night. The more details search engines can parse through, the more long-tail local searches a given business will be able to service. Even if Google doesn’t yet have markup options for such specific details, local websites featuring structured data will have an advantage in a voice-search world. More details — even those that don’t yet have markup options — can only enhance a website. Mobile search expert Cindy Krum recently explained why it makes sense to anticipate more integration between search engines and local listings:
I don’t see many small business owners with the technical know-how to apply structured data to their websites, so it’s almost certain that these responsibilities will fall to local marketing agencies. Then again, building a good-looking website is much easier than it was 10 or 15 years ago, thanks to providers like Squarespace and Wix. I don’t see why Google (and/or some savvy startups) wouldn’t work to simplify the data-add process for local business owners in the coming years. Optimizing for voice search via reviewsLocal businesses need to prepare for voice search by curating customer reviews. I’m excited to see how the future of voice affects reviews, and I anticipate it’ll change the experience for both reviewers and review readers. Google already initiates questions on more objective business characteristics. We already have pop-ups after leaving local businesses, inviting us to quickly rate our experience. It’s an easy jump to anticipate voice searches in which customers request a local experience with “good reviews” or “four star or higher reviews.” The extra selective may request “four point five star or higher” experiences. If we’re going to make a quick choice, we want to know that it’s a good choice. I’d be much more willing to make an appointment with a 4.3-star hair stylist whose website I haven’t seen than a 2.7-star hair stylist. At the end of the day, reviews are a reflection of the entire business. No amount of marketing can fix a poor customer experience, but marketers can ensure that customers who do report positive experiences are encouraged to leave reviews on public directories or search engines. Optimizing for voice search via local brandingLocal businesses need to prepare for voice search by establishing a local brand. This is the qualitative branch of local reach. As search engines’ abilities to understand real-world interactions improve, more attribution will be built between local brand and local prevalence. Businesses are already building this capability between digital ads and foot traffic. It’s not a long shot from here to measuring the number of event attendees at a business’s event booth, or the match between your business and its logo on a local Little League team t-shirt. Search will increasingly become a digital map of real-world relationships, whether it’s conveying the quality of a product, the details of a service or a brand’s prevalence in the community. Where next?I performed zero voice searches during my research for this article, as there’s not yet an instant answer for “how will voice search affect digital marketing?” Clearly, we’re still in the toddler years of this technology. But my research methods also highlight a stark difference between search types: quick answers and deep research. Both take space in local marketplaces, but each will respond to different types of queries. And, in my view, each will be serviced by a different business type. So in the next post, I’ll dive deeper into how content and community development may affect local reach, even in a post-rank world. The post Preparing for local reach in a ‘post-rank’ world: Get your data in line appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2o2oCNa SMX West was buzzing last week, and much of the conversation was about Google’s recent change to how exact match keywords will work in AdWords campaigns. Although the news just came out last week, the SMX programming team quickly organized a “flash session” that happened Wednesday morning before the scheduled agenda began. Panelists including Marketing Land’s Ginny Marvin and SMX moderators Matt Van Wagner and Brad Geddes took questions for almost an hour from a big crowd of concerned advertisers. They covered topics including
In this week’s Marketing Land Live podcast, Ginny Marvin and I recap that excellent session with two audio clips from the audience Q&A. The episode runs just under 40 minutes. You can listen here or use the link below to subscribe via your favorite podcast service. We invite you to subscribe via iTunes or Google Play Podcasts. Show notesGoogle to further dilute exact match in AdWords; will ignore word order & function words Seriously, Google, can you just make exact match exact? Thanks for listening! Join us again next week for another episode of Marketing Land Live. The post SMX West: What Google’s exact match changes mean for AdWords advertisers [Podcast] appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2nsRZqx At the Local Search Association annual conference a few weeks ago, search and marketing experts in the local space provided insights into trends and challenges the advertising, marketing and search industry faces today. Here are 10 of the top takeaways shared at LSA17. 1. Location drives almost all consumer engagement, even for national brandsAccording to Rob Blatt at Momentfeed, 85 to 95 percent of consumer engagement for brands happens through location assets such as local listings and local pages. That would explain why 50 percent of brands are using location data to target customers. A strong shift in marketing budgets toward location-based marketing is naturally following that trend. Data from the Location Based Marketing Association (LBMA) found that 25 percent of leading brands’ marketing budgets are spent on location-based marketing, and that number is projected to rise. Companies in the US increased use of location-based marketing by 5 percent from 2016 to 2017, while those in Canada increased use 6 percent and those in the UK 7 percent. In terms of dollars, Neg Norton, president of LSA, shared that in 2016, $12.4 billion was spent on location-targeted ad spending, rising to $32.4 billion by 2021, equivalent to 45 percent of all mobile ad revenue. With local often being synonymous with location in the marketplace, these numbers emphasize that local marketing and local presence are just as important as national campaigns. Last month, I observed factors that influence the appearance in search results on Google Maps, and notably, national brand reputation was not a ranking factor. As consumers increasingly look locally for information, all businesses — whether traditional SMBs, franchises or local stores belonging to national brands — must recognize how location needs to be a core part of their marketing strategy. 2. Location is much more than targeting a placeLong gone are the days when location was solely used to target based on proximity. Location data has grown much more abundant and rich in its insight to consumer preferences and profiles. Shashi Seth of xAd shared how the increasing volume of location data can be used to build consumer profiles that allow for better and more productive targeting. Four out of five mobile phone users have smartphones. These always-on devices are being checked, on average, 46 times a day and provide constant location data through sensor technology such as GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, apps, compass, accelerometer and gyroscope functions built into the devices. Likewise, the number of sensors, such as beacons, being deployed to detect those devices is exploding. In Q2 of 2015, there were approximately 900,000 such sensors worldwide, growing to over 13 million by the end of 2016 — growth of almost 13.5 times during that time span, according to data shared by Marianna Zaslavsky at Unacast. And that number is expected to grow to 500 million by 2021. The volume and frequency of location data being transmitted may be aggregated to determine broader trends. Oren Naim with Google shared new functions on Google Maps that provide live data on its crowd indicator for locations such as restaurants. That data can be further analyzed to profile the audience at a specific location. But Seth explained that, broken down by individual, location data maps a consumer journey that reveals information such as what you like to eat and where you shop, whether you work out and what you do for entertainment. It provides frequency and time of day for various activities. Demographic information such as income, gender and age can be extrapolated by where you live, shop and work. This incredibly rich data may be used to effectively target users with relevant content, leading to better returns. LSA will continue to explore location and how to use it in local marketing at its Place Conference later this year. 3. How do you scale local?While consumers demand local information, brands like Walgreens with thousands of locations are challenged to manage local information across the country. Walgreens, Brandify and Brandmuscle covered those challenges, including the following:
Executing locally is still evolving and remains a company-by-company decision. By definition, it is hard to template local success, and that might seem to favor giving local managers greater power in making decisions over local marketing and content. Many brands haven’t reached that point of trust or training yet or have operations that demand more operational consistency. Given the right support, either a top-down or bottom-up strategy can be successful. Walgreens uses an approval process for adding content that has helped scale local content more seamlessly. Regardless, this will be an area of continual development, driven by the value of local and the influence of consumers who want to know if they can bring their dog into a store or if it is closed because of weather. The challenges with scale may also be an opportunity for smaller agencies and marketing providers. Niche practices by geography or vertical allow focus where their strengths lie and where others who rely on scale may not be capable of or willing to work. 4. Attribution is getting better — and becoming necessaryAnother area in which location data is making a difference is attribution. Accurate attribution has long been sought by both clients and marketers to justify work done and demonstrate ROI. Allyson Carper at Brandify stated that online-to-offline attribution is the industry’s path to success. Improved location data available today makes it much easier to track store visits. While attribution is typically still a comparison of usual traffic to post-exposure traffic at a location after a specific campaign, the volume of data makes such comparisons much more accurate and meaningful. More detailed data, such as profile-building described in the consumer journey above, also allows a deeper analysis of who is the most responsive audience. For example, in a campaign for a quick service restaurant, it was presumed that consumers who frequented fast food restaurants were the best target audience. Ninth Decimal’s attribution analysis helped reveal that consumers who were DIY enthusiasts, movie enthusiasts and leisure travelers were better targets. Such insight allows future campaigns to be refined and better targeted. 5. Privacy laws: the threat to local marketingWhile there was no planned discussion at LSA17 on the impact privacy laws may have on location-based marketing, the issue was raised — and rightly so. All the benefits and increased ROI of using location data could come crashing down if overly restrictive regulation on the collection, distribution and use of location data is passed. The problem is two-fold. First, location data is being categorized in proposed legislation as personally identifiable information subject to protections provided to data, such as health or financial information. Commonly, opt-in permission and disclosure requirements are imposed as part of the regulation, with significant penalties for non-compliance. Such regulation may impose restrictions that create serious barriers to use of that data. Second, states are looking at individual and different approaches to regulation, making compliance very difficult, since the future potentially holds numerous different and conflicting regulations across physical state borders that online content often does not adhere to. There are also some broader concerns with the use of targeting data including location. The FTC released a paper last year exploring how big data might be used in a discriminatory manner. For example, if location data were to be used in a manner that treated users from a predominantly African-American neighborhood differently, those users may be impacted in a discriminatory fashion. These are issues that the industry must tackle in a unified and intentional manner or risk losing significant innovations made possible only with the use of rich and voluminous data. 6. The threat to traditional brandingBrands have traditionally relied on consistency and control of brand assets to maintain the image and reputation they want in the public sphere. But that control is being hijacked by social media and other consumer-generated content. Reputation can crumble to the ground with one viral tweet. Consider the over 200,000 users that left Uber after the #DeleteUber movement. Brands such as Chick-fil-A recognized this shift toward a public definition of reputation and expressed having to adapt to managing social media in trying to maintain its brand identity. On the other hand, traditional SMBs are well aware of how reviews can impact their businesses. And consumers are increasingly enabled by Google to generate photos and business information such as hours of operation and to record other observed commentary in local business knowledge graph pages. The ready access to shopping information is also making consumers less brand loyal. According to Google, 65 percent of smartphone users look for the most relevant information, regardless of company or provider. A recent study by McKinsey also found that only three business categories out of 30 were loyalty-driven. Those three were mobile carriers, auto insurance and investments. That’s not to say that branding isn’t important. Keeping your business top-of-mind pays off, as consumers are more likely to buy from companies considered first. But consumers are much more likely to look around every time they shop and hear many more opinions that influence their decisions. Managing online reputation will continue to challenge local businesses. 7. Companies must continually innovate, and build a process to do soOne constant in the marketing industry is change. LSA17 was a microcosm of such change: 75 percent of companies at the conference were not there three years ago. Everyone agreed that innovation is necessary to keep up with such change. Big brands such as Blue Cross Blue Shield have had to innovate to adjust to changing healthcare laws, and agencies such as Propel Marketing seek out employees who think outside the box to grow the company. Steve Nedvidek, Chick-fil-A’s innovation specialist, shared three stages of innovation that the household brand has gone through, providing lessons for any size business. Stage 1 is during the early stages of a business, when lots of innovation is needed to establish the business identity — for example, introducing the boneless fried filet in the Chick-fil-A sandwich, inventing franchising and being the first to open locations in malls. Stage 2 is during the growing stages of a business, when execution is more important and innovation is periodic — Chick-fil-A came up with the self-preservationist cow spokesperson and slogan “Eat Mor Chikin” during this stage. Stage 3 is where it is today, encouraging systemic innovation in a maturing enterprise where they face challenges such as how to squeeze $5 million in sales from kitchens designed for $2 million. Critical to innovating is having a process to do so. Chick-fil-A created a physical space called “Hatch” where innovation takes place. Advice Local holds monthly brainstorming meetings to come up with ideas, big or small. Propel Marketing emphasizes the need to test and analyze ideas, while Kris Barton from ReachLocal expressed that he spends a lot of time shutting down ideas that don’t fit the capability or credibility of the company. Nevertheless, it is important to not criticize failure that is not a result of execution. And fortunately, failure is much less expensive today, according to Steve Aldrich of GoDaddy. Technology has significantly lowered the barriers to starting a business or experimenting with an idea. So embrace risk and reward innovation. 8. Marketers need to take their own adviceSharon Rowlands of ReachLocal observed that not enough marketers are practicing what we preach. It is important to increase the productivity of sales by targeting prospects better, the same way providers help clients target their customers. Jon Martinsen of FCR Media further explained the importance of using data to segment prospects to help focus the sales consultation. Second, recognize the importance of repeat customers. According to Google, the probability of selling to existing customers is 60 to 70 percent, compared to only 5 to 20 percent for new customers. Making sure to invest in customer support is one of the most important things that led to ReachLocal’s recent success. 9. Artificial Intelligence won’t take over marketing… yetBrendan King of Vendasta noted Amara’s Law applies to marketing: we often overestimate the effect of technology in the short term, but underestimate it in the long term. So it seems with artificial intelligence (AI). There’s been significant media coverage over the threat AI poses to both the function of marketing providers and their sales teams. Yet perhaps the inability to scale and the complexity of customized local services have helped preserve jobs in local marketing. King stated that 85 percent of all marketing services are still sold through local providers. Right now, the tools simply are not good enough. The luxury of failure might exist for innovation but not for clients. Andrea Kayal at Signpost and others from TIMIFY and Freshlime all posited that human decisions are still needed to execute quality marketing campaigns. AI can help streamline some services, but Eric Owen at Mono Solutions pointed out that automation is only as good as the data that is used to direct the work. Nevertheless, technology — and specifically artificial intelligence — is supposed to help solve complex problems, and in the long term, it’s foreseeable that it will solve the scalability and nuances of local marketing. 10. Mobile prodigies are the futureMobile prodigies are young people who have never lived in a world without mobile. Julie Bernard at Verve shared some statistics about these mobile prodigies whose consumer behavior will shape the future of local marketing. Almost half spend more time on their mobile devices than on TV. And time with mobile devices continues to grow, with 80 percent saying they spend more time on apps than they did one year ago, downloading on average five to six apps per month. An astounding 95 percent make in-store purchases influenced by mobile ads, and 56 percent even rely primarily on their mobile device while shopping at home. Yet mobile prodigies also have strong preferences for the content they consume; 80 percent expect tailored ads based on location, interests, hobbies or habits. The rewards are strong for those who cater to these needs, as 60 percent will share sensitive data if ads are customized and relevant. Appealing content is nothing new, but it takes more resources to customize content. As data and tools make that a more reachable goal and as mobile prodigies grow in influence and buying power, the return will justify the investment into creative content. The post Top 10 insights on local marketing at LSA17 appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land http://ift.tt/2opPUt3 |
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