Marketing

Measuring Without Good Marketing Data is Like Driving Without Directions

What is Marketing Data?

In the context of this post, marketing data is any measurement of a marketing channel’s effectiveness. Marketing data could include email open and clickthrough rates paired with the campaign data logged in Google Analytics to help you understand what visitors from your email newsletter did after clicking through to your website. Other marketing data might be the people who registered at your tradeshow booth. Still more data can be gleaned from Social Media. Ultimately you want to understand the effectiveness of your marketing activities toward some action by a prospect that engages with you.

Where to Find Good Marketing Data to Measure?

Good marketing data can be found in many places. Some of the more common places to find good marketing data are:

  • Email Marketing Platform
  • Marketing Automation System
  • Website Analytics like Google Analytics
  • Social Media Tools/Platforms like Facebook Insights.
  • Search Engine Optimization Tools like Google Search Console

Should I Compare Our Company’s Marketing Data to Another Company for Measurement?

In general, we recommend you compare your marketing data to itself. Why is this? We have found that even within the same market verticals audiences tend to exhibit different characteristics between two companies. In addition, technical design factors can inhibit or, enhance a prospect’s path to purchase/lead. Put another way, your website or, your competitor’s could be faster, slower, look better or, worse on a smartphone. These and other factors would skew the comparison of your data to their data. Another example can be seen in comparing social media data to a competitor. Many factors influence the engagement of a post. From creative to the time of day, day of the week, to social channel posted, all of these factors can impact the data collected.

Can There Be Too Much Marketing Data?

Absolutely. If the data doesn’t contribute to some aspect of your marketing, be it the contribution of a programmatic ad campaign to awareness, effectiveness of your welcome/new subscriber email, defined goals in Google Analytics or, funnel steps in your marketing automation it might be data that you don’t need to track or, otherwise include.

Need Help with Your Marketing Data?
We’ve helped companies big and small with their marketing data questions. From Google Analytics to email, SEM, social media data and more.  Sifting through it all can be a big deal and it’s mission critical. If you don’t have a measurement framework in place and know what you are measuring, contact us

Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC Launches #feedingcommunity Blog with Digital Partner Why People Click

Nonprofit expands its digital footprint with a mobile friendly storytelling platform

WINSTON-SALEM, NC & ASHEBORO, NC - Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC and Why People Click announces the launch of the food bank’s blog #feedingcommunity.

Jenny Moore, Development Manager Public Relations & Marketing for Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC said that, “with the launch of this blog, we have the opportunity to tell the human side of the story of food insecurity in our local communities and also to lift up the many ways people and organizations are coming together to provide food for today and hope for tomorrow for struggling families.”

“Non profit or for profit, it’s essential for organizations of all sizes to be able to tell their story in ways that move people to action, be that through blogposts, photos, videos or podcasts.” said Rob Ainbinder, principal at Why People Click. “This blog gives Second Harvest the flexibility to tell their stories how they wish and in a meaningful and compelling way.”

The blog was built on the WordPress platform leveraging Second Harvest’s existing relationship with Why People Click for strategy and design and Second Harvest’s webhost partner Host Rocket.

Visit the blog at: http://hungernwnc.org/blog/

About Second Harvest Foodbank NWNC

Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC is a proud resource and partner for more than 450 on-the-ground food assistance programs across an 18-county service region. Together, we address immediate needs for food assistance in our communities and work to end hunger through education, outreach, advocacy and collaborative partnerships working to support long-term, positive change for families.

About Why People Click

Why People Click is a digital marketing agency that helps small to medium size businesses and nonprofits increase their effectiveness in reaching the right person at the right moment. We develop and implement marketing strategies that deliver results. On the web at www.whypeopleclick.com

Why People Click Present at Lewisville – Clemmons Chamber of Commerce 7/12/2016

Rob Ainbinder, founder of Why People Click, presented “Why Blogging is Important for Your Brand & Your Business” at the Lewisville – Clemmons Chamber of Commerce July meeting on 7/12/2016 at the Historic Broyhill in Clemmons. The Summer theme of the meeting was great idea with attendees getting to play with sand. The half hour presentation covered Rob’s evolution as a lifestyle blogger as well as a lively exercise generating blog post titles and ideas.

Picture of attendees at Lewisville-Clemmons Chamber of Commerce, July meeting.
Picture courtesy of Angela Levine – Connect Marketing.

Blogging Presentation

About Why People Click
Why People Click works with small to medium size business and nonprofits to help them find their voice, grow their reputation and connect with the right audience through strategy and carefully executed digital tactics.

About the Lewisville – Clemmons Chamber of Commerce
The Lewisville-Clemmons Chamber of Commerce is a great place for you and your business. Chamber members have the opportunity to make new business contacts, take advantage of training and educational opportunities, and find low-cost opportunities for promoting your business in the local community. Visit the Lewisville – Clemmons Chamber of Commerce website here

SEO is the Student Not the Master in Content Marketing

In the early years of Search Engine Optimization and Content Marketing you could get away with stuffing keywords on a page to “game” the search engines (Google, BING, Yahoo) and it worked. However, there were two downsides to this practice. One, it’s a technique that was eventually discouraged and finally, penalized by the search engines. Second, this technique flat out sucked for the visitor/reader. Anyone actually reading a “wall of repeating text” stuffed with keywords wasn’t going to hang around long and probably wouldn’t want to do business with you. These were the Dark Ages of Content Marketing when SEO was the master. Eventually, search engines got wise to what was going on and adjusted their algorithms.

Not everyone made changes and some flat out refused to adjust their tactics. This was certainly to the detriment of their lead generating activities. If you’ve read online for any amount of time or, you are trying to attract and engage with prospective customers online you’ve (hopefully) adjusted your strategy over the years.

In a recent post by Mark Schafer he says, “I made a decision at the beginning of my blogging career to write for readers and NOT write for SEO.” And this got us thinking.. is their some seismic shift in content marketing? Or, some new standard for writing for the web?

We aren’t in complete agreement that we should NOT write for SEO. Rather, we’ve thought that SEO should be moved from the role of a strict master to that of a student. In other words, when we write, write with SEO in mind… not strictly for SEO (like the old days) AND write for your visitor/customer.

If we take the approach of SEO as student in content marketing there are several benefits:

  1. We are mindful of changes that need to be made to content marketing and strategy due to changes by search engines
  2. We keep the needs of our prospective customers in mind as well.

Was SEO ever the master? Or, always the student? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Why People Click CEO to Speak at XY Media Group’s “Dad 2.0 Summit” in Washington D.C.

Rob Ainbinder CEO & Founder of Why People Click, will speak at XY Media Group’s DAD 2.0 SUMMIT, February 18 – 20 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Washington D.C.

Ainbinder will speak as part of a panel “The Signal and the Noise: Standing Out From The Crowd” aimed at helping blogging dads in attendance more effectively serve their audience and enable them to reach their goals amid a crowded universe of individual publishing platforms.

The conference attracts dads and brands from all over the country and internationally. This year the conference has registered over 400 attendees.

DAD 2.0 SUMMIT, started in 2012, is a conference where marketers, social media leaders, and blogging parents connect to discuss the changing voice and perception of modern fatherhood.

More men are defying stereotypes by taking active roles in their children’s lives, making day-to-day household purchasing decisions regarding products and services, and chronicling these experiences online. The Dad 2.0 Summit is an open conversation about the commercial power of dads online, as well as an opportunity to learn the tools and tactics used by influential bloggers to create high-quality content, build personal brands, and develop viable business models. To learn more about the summit please visit www.dad2summit.com

About Why People Click

Why People Click is a digital marketing agency that helps small to medium size businesses and nonprofits increase their effectiveness in reaching the right person at the right moment. We develop and implement marketing strategies that deliver results and increase customer satisfaction. On the web at www.whypeopleclick.com

About XY Media Group, LLC

XY Media is the leading interactive agency that specializes in connecting brands with today’s men and fathers.  It’s our mission to promote positive and authentic images of modern fatherhood, while helping brands connect with dads via authentic messages, memorable engagements and thoughtful relationships. We care about fatherhood because we are dads ourselves. And we believe that any story about marketing to adult men is a story of today’s dads. On the web at www.xymediagroup.com

Understanding Google Analytics: Website Goals

Understanding Google Analytics Website Goals

“We have so much data on the web, almost all of it available for free, that we dive into the data ocean hoping that magically awesome things will follow. They never do.”

― Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist - Google

If you're a business owner, marketing manager or, agency owner this blog post is for you. Do you "not quite" understand Google Analytics reports? Maybe your eyes just glaze over at the sight of any of those dashboard reports that mysteriously show up in your email every month? Or,  you find yourself  scratching your head as something like this stares back at you when you log-in?

Google Analytics Report

The challenge is that your business is going 100 mph forward and this is a look in the rearview!
In fact, every single report IS a look back. So, what's the point? Collectively, some of this can help make decisions going forward.

Do You Have Website Goals Defined?

In Google Analytics go to Conversions > Goal Report. Are there signs of life or, do you get this?

Google Analytics Website Goals Not Defined
Aww, website goals aren't enabled. 🙁

If you are seeing this screen, stop here. Go back to your web designer and ask for at least one goal to be set up. In many cases, it's just a matter of tracking a meaningful action that is already happening on your site. This goal could be something like:

  • a contact form submission
  • e-mail submission
  • whitepaper download
  • newsletter subscription
  • donation
  • e-commerce order confirmation

Once your web designer has setup the goal on your site and in your Google Analytics, you'll begin to see a report like this. In Google Analytics go to: Conversions > Goal Report

Google Analytics Report defined

Now we are on to something! And if you see a screen like this, congratulations! You are on your way to some meaningful information.

All Website Goals Aren't Equal

It would be helpful at this point to mention that all of your web site goals aren't equally important. But, how do you know? By taking steps to define them and integrate them into a measurement frame model you can tie this into different types of priorities. The steps to developing website goals include:

    1. Identify the business objectives upfront and set the broadest parameters for the work we are doing.
    2. Identify goals for each business objective.
    3. Write down the key performance indicators.
    4. Set parameters for success upfront by identifying targets for each KPI.
    5. Identify the segments of people / behavior / outcomes that we’ll analyze to understand why we succeed or failed.

In our next post we'll break down these steps into some meaningful ways to measure.

Maybe you'd like some help implementing a measurement framework model, or goals?
Take a look at our Google Analytics service page.

Finish line image: Flickr user jayneandd
Measurement model: Avinash Kaushik

Contact Us

We'd love to chat with you!

Should You Trust Your Domain Registration to Your Marketing Agency?

As a business owner you have plenty of responsibilities: taxes, payroll, sales, marketing… the list goes on. So, when someone from your marketing agency is working on website for you they may register a domain name for your company.  Should you let them do it? What are the issues that may arise if they do? Can you register the domain yourself?

Let’s take a look at each of these questions:

  1. Should you let your marketing agency register your domain name? It depends. If they are registering it on your behalf and will list you in the registration as a contact you probably should let them do it. A better idea is that they register it for you and  then transfer it to you immediately.
  2. What are the issues that may arise if your marketing agency registers your domain name? We’ve seen a variety of issues arise. Sometimes the agency has some kind of wacky agreement that you have to buy the domain name from them at some hyper-inflated price. Sometimes the agency won’t release the domain ever. And other times the agency will transfer/release the domain name to you.
  3. Can you register the domain yourself? Absolutely, there are lots of options. Our favorite is Namecheap

The important thing is that you get real clear information about the domain name and what happens if you part ways with your agency. There are very few reasons why an agency should hold your domain name hostage.

Differentiate Your Real Estate Business with Real Estate Copywriting

Buying content can be tricky.

There is no question that Real Estate professionals are some of the most time pressed of any occupation.  What do you need to reach new clients and how can you differentiate from your competitors? How can you market effectively in a time efficient manner? We’ll explore some ideas around this topic including some risks of a popular $20/month platform and other approaches.

There is no question that interesting, engaging and unique copywriting is a tremendous benefit to your real estate business. When this content is posted on your blog, shared across social media and in email newsletters it can keep your clients and potential clients interested in you and near top of mind when needing to sell and/or buy a property.

What are your choices for real estate copywriting?

  1. Do nothing.
  2. Subscribe to a $20/month content service.
  3. Get your son, daughter, niece or nephew to write something for you.
  4. Write something yourself.
  5. Hire someone to write for you.

What are the benefits/risks of each option?

  1. If you do noting: We’ll you probably aren’t really serious about growing your business.
    Benefits: none
    Risk:     Your competitors and potential clients may not see you as viable.
  2. If you subscribe to a $20/month content service: As a time pressed real estate agent you decide to subscribe to a $20/month service that supplies the same articles to each agent but, adds your profile picture and web site link to the side.
    Benefits: Quick, easy and inexpensive
    Risks: Big Google no -no,  as even Google has said
  3. Son, daughter, niece/nephew write for you: Sure, they might turn out some decent copy.
    Benefits: Low cost option. Maybe be produced quickly.
    Risks:     Will they borrow from Wikipedia or,  worse yet.. another article and risk your professional reputation or, that of your website? Meeting a deadline might be an issue.
  4. Write something yourself: As busy as you are (or, would like to be) do you realistically have the capacity to write a monthly 300 – 400 word, original content piece that meets the needs of your current and prospective clients?
    Benefits:  If you are a writer, that’s great.
    Risks: Over time will you tire, miss a deadline or, quit all together?
  5. Let us write for you: We’ll leverage our combined experience to write content for you that connects with both buyers and sellers.
    Benefits: On time, original, appeals to buyers and/or sellers.
    Risks: Very little.

If you need a newspaper column, blog post, Active Rain bio or,  other thought piece we can supply you with whatever copy you need. Contact us about your next real estate copywriting project.

 

 

8 Reasons Why Your Website Doesn't Rank or, Show Up in Google

8-reasons-why-your-website-doesn-rank-showup-on-google

You’ve recently launched a new website but, have yet to see it in Google or, BING’s search results.  Maybe you are up late looking for an answer or, you tried searching your company name and don’t see it.  Some common reason why are below:

  1.  The domain name is too new.
    Selecting a domain name is only half the battle. Your domain name hasn’t been around long enough (and active) for the search engines to “rate” it’s reputation. What you/your company do with the website is very important to the search engines and your visitors.
  2. The web site has had little traffic.
    Have you done anything to promote the web site? This could be something like send out a press release, post to Facebook or, an email campaign.
  3. The web site has a high bounce rate.
    Do people go to your website, look at one page and then, leave? If they do, that is considered a bounce.
  4. The web site is not “mobile friendly”.
    Google has a tool for you to test mobile friendliness. It has also been pointed out that a lack of mobile friendliness could have an impact on rankings/traffic. If you don’t pass, maybe we can help.
  5. The web site is not organized and hard to navigate.
    The harder it is for someone to go from page to page on your site, the less likely a visitor or, search engine may want to return.
  6. The web site has no inbound links from other companies, associations, etc.
    Do you have links from other websites that link to your site? If you don’t, it’s harder for search engines to trust that your site is reliable and worth ranking. Or, maybe you need some links removed.
  7. The search engines have been blocked or, otherwise discouraged from visiting the web site.
    When you site was launched did your developer/designer unblock access to your site? If they haven’t, there is very little chance that you will be ranked.
  8. There are no reviews of the website/company anywhere online.
    Do you have past customers/clients? Have they left a review on Google or, Yelp? These reviews help perspective new clients and search engines understand something more detailed about your business.

Need a little help getting your site ranked? Let us know.

Are You Ready for 2015?

Have you started your strategic marketing planning for next year? If you haven’t yet, here are a few things to check to get you started.

  • Are your Google Analytics visits year over year up or, down? Why?
  • Do you know what Social Media content you shared was the most popular? What’s your plan to use this knowledge going forward?
  • How is your Paid Search performing? Are you seeing good clickthru? And what about conversion rate… are your visitors completing actions on your site that lead to sales/donations, email sign ups or, white paper download?  If not, do you need some help looking at your AdWords performance?
  • Have an email promotion flight schedule in mind?

How can we help you? Please contact us.