Incyte Marketing

Would you rather hunt for customers, or be seen right where they are hunting for you? By now you have probably heard of search marketing, or search engine marketing (SEM). SEM is the ongoing strategic process of making your business visible to your target audiences where they are searching for your products and services online. A lot of emphasis has been put on search engine optimization (SEO), the goal of which is to get your website listed on page one of Google, Yahoo and Bing for the main keywords people type into the search engines when searching for your products and services. Pay-per-click (PPC), whereby a business pays a search engine when its PPC ad (located above and to the right of organic results in Google) is clicked, is also very popular. While rating high on the search engines is very important, and a well-executed PPC may produce results, there are several other emerging trends in the way people are searching for businesses that you need to be aware of.

Besides traditional searches, more and more people are searching with their mobile devices and via social media. According to a September 10 report by TMP Directional Marketing and 15Miles, Bridging the Gap, From Search to Sales, "Seventy percent of mobile users utilize their device for searches once a week or more. Sixty-four percent use social media for searches once a week or more. The report says that, "Both platforms outperformed search engines (61 percent) and local-search sites (49 percent). Print [directory] users are the least engaged with the medium; only 27 percent use it once a week or more."

Consumers and businesses are searching across a variety of channels, including search engines, mobile searches (including phone directory apps Google Maps, and others), Facebook and Twitter search apps, and emerging channels. These search entities are focusing on local search, as most consumers buy within 15-miles of their location, and most searchers go offline once they find what they are looking for and pick up the phone or visit the storefront; in addition, most people who are searching with a mobile device are searching for the location of a specific local business.

While a national search engine presence (both "organic" results and pay-per-click) is important for some businesses—especially those doing business at a national level—the importance of a presence on local search cannot be under-emphasized; even big corporation are investing in local search. Local search results can take many forms: visibility on organic search results, targeted pay-per-click campaigns, and listings on Google Maps and Mapquest are a few examples. From the report:

"Non-search engines are outperforming search engines in terms of growth. Among search engines, Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com and Microsoft (i.e., MSN, Bing) are on the rise, with the most notable changes from Microsoft (up 77 percent). AOL is the only general-search site studied that experienced a decrease in usage (down 14 percent). Non-search engines demonstrated strong year-over-year search growth, fueled mainly by Facebook (up 210 percent) and Amazon (up 46 percent). These numbers prove that local search has become the industry’s focus, as major players have all turned their attention to enhancing their local products: Bing Maps, Google Maps and Places, and more. Undoubtedly, the local-search market share has been altered. Even non-search engines, such as social networks coupled with mobile penetration, continued their push into the local-search landscape, particularly with the launch of Facebook Places and Twitter Places. Expect more platforms to enhance their local solutions in the coming year, painting a bright future for online and mobile search and an uncertain forecast for traditional channels."

The key takeaways from all this? "Develop your search presence across various online platforms, from general search to social media. Failure to do so could result in missing a major segment of your target consumers. Obviously, data supports the fact that consumers are searching with added frequency, but being unable to find you when (and where) it matters most could spell additional sales for your competition." Also, be sure that you have a robust local search plan, executed across multiple online channels. If you have any budget left over, you can advertise in the print directories for the dwindling number of people who still use them.

Kelly Walker, M.S., is Partner and Brand Communications Director for Incyte Marketing.
Visit www.incytemarketing.com for more information on this and other relevant topics.

"The only thing we have to fear is a ninja dragon with elbow lasers."

"I’ve been using an electric toothbrush, but I think I’ll go acoustic for my next album."

"What’s that thing sneaking up behind you? No peeking!"

"Great minds think alike. I assumed you were thinking about Skittles, too."

These are just a few posts on the Skittles Facebook page. Quite funny, and they highlight a point I want to make: When it comes to social media, content is king.

According to social media consultant, Jeremiah Staes, "People tend to tune out pure marketing messages in social media. The best way to break through that challenge is to be compelling, so that people in diverse yet somewhat connected social circles actually enjoy your stuff and share it themselves."

Generally, social media content should follow the 80/20 rule: At least 80% of your posts should be informative, interesting or entertaining, and about 20% can be used to sell your products or services. If you can wrap sales copy in an attractive package (as the last post I included from Skittles does with humor), all the better. You should spend more time talking withpeople than you do talking at them—folks go onto social media for conversation, entertainment and education, not to read sales pitches. To be effective, content on social media needs to be appealing, relevant and regular. Otherwise, your audience will become bored, disconnected or confused—and winning back these people will be very difficult if not impossible.

Do-it-yourself social media without a content plan, including allocating the time to post at least weekly, and without dedicating a professional writer, is a recipe for frustration and anemic results. The problem is that most corporate people: a) are busy just getting their normal work done and don’t have time to regularly think up and write the kinds of posts people are likely to share b) most are not professional copywriters and c) even the best writers may not understand how to write specifically for social media. A lot of businesses set up Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a blog because they know they "should" and because they don’t want to be left behind by technology. However, many don’t have a good content plan that will engage their audiences, build trust with their community and customers, strengthen their search engine ranking (SEO) and lead to measurable results down the road. (Go to www.incytemarketing.wordpress.com for more great tips on social media, blogging and search engine optimization.)

A professional social media writer is constantly studying and keeping up with the rapidly-changing trends and technical tweaks in the social media world and in yourindustry, evolving your content strategy accordingly. Not only that, he or she keeps up with the conversations on your sites and responds in a timely manner, with feedback that keeps the buzz going and growing. The professional knows how to use keywords, links, photos, and videos to boost online presence and SEO ratings. They will also skillfully comment, post on and link to outside social media pages and blogs to actively spread your brand messaging to a broader audience than just your fan base, and to increase your following.

Some of our new clients engage our services with the idea that they will take over their social media management once they "learn the ropes." However, most observe the intricate strategy we put into a successful social media marketing program and how efficiently we work, and decide to leave it to the specialists; they see the potential returns of killer content combined with solid strategy as well worth the small investment.

I have to go now. Something is sneaking up behind me, and it’s either a ninja dragon with elbow lasers…or my 7-year-old son with a Nerf gun. Either way, I think I’m in trouble.

For more information, contact Kelly Walker at Incyte Marketing:

kelly@incytemarketing.com