By MITCH JOEL, Freelance

You thought this column was going to tell you that you’re missing the boat because your company is not on Twitter or blogging. Wrong.

Maybe the problem is that you have not created an iPhone app yet, or that you don’t even know if there is a Facebook page set-up for the brands, products and services that you sell. Wrong again.

All of the attention you think you should be spending on online marketing in the many digital channels and platforms will bring your company zero return if you don’t have a website that is not only nice and easy-to-use, but findable through all of the search engines (yes, that includes Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!).

It’s time to get back to basics. It’s almost laughable to think that some companies don’t have a serious, robust and up-to-date website in 2009. No matter what you do - and this include business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) - everyone, at every level of any organization, always goes online to see just who they are doing business with. This could be potential customers, clients, vendors, consultants and more. As each day passes, we’re seeing just how significant a website is to the overall business strategy of all companies.

Here’s a scenario: you’re having lunch with a business colleague who recommends a new laptop for you to check out. Do you run down to Future Shop or Best Buy? Do you call your IT department and have them fax you over a spec sheet? No and no. You do what everyone does: you check it out online.

You do a quick search, look for some reviews and empower yourself with more knowledge than any retail clerk at any major electronics retailer could ever have. In fact, when you finally do hit the stores, you are so informed about the product and features that your more advanced questions send the clerk to the exact same spot that you used: the Internet and the manufacturer’s website.

Your website is becoming the primary and first connection that most people have with your company and brand. Remember the old saying “You never get a second chance to make a first impression?” Every day, hundreds (maybe thousands) of people are thinking about your company, researching it online and checking out your website. What does your website really say to that person if it is the first impression?

Here’s the good news: fixing up your website is probably one of the most cost-effective marketing solutions to multiple business challenges.

Your online presence is no longer just an interactive brochure (that’s so 1998). Now, more than ever, your corporate website is the gateway to your business. It’s far too easy to get caught up in the latest shiny object to come along, but never let that distract you from taking a good, serious and hard look at what everyone sees when they come to your online home.

“It’s not that important for us. It really isn’t that big of a deal. Real people with real business opportunities are going to do more due diligence, and they’re going to connect with us in person.”

That’s the most common rebuttal to the “get your website fixed ASAP” argument. It’s simple arrogance. It also demonstrates a true lack of understanding the realities of the new business landscape.

I’ve connected with many venture-capital types, and heard their constant refrain about how they had got interested in a particular business - be it from an investment or potential partnership - only to have the bets go off once they went to their website (or discovered there wasn’t one). The simple conclusion: How could these companies make a wise investment if they can’t even get a simple website together?

The big idea here is to take a step back. Analyze what your current website looks like. Use one of the many free Web analytics tools (Google Analytics or Yahoo Web Analytics) to monitor how many people are coming to your website every day, how they found you - what keywords did they use in the search engines or what links.

Once you know that, you can start building your site around what matters most to your users. You can write copy in their language (not with your business jargon) and make the site flow better. Make sure that your site is built and programmed with “clean” language that is friendly for the search engines. Review your website, frequently. Buy some friends some pizza and ask them for their candid feedback on what you’re doing online.

Remember, even if your website is not perfect, great design and content will make up for shortcomings. Having a clean and well structured website will drive traffic from the search engines as well. Believe it or not, potential customers are looking for you right now. What are they finding? You or your competition?

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Only slightly more than half of the most popular web pages right now would have been on a similar list a year ago, according to University of Regina assistant professor Nima Sarshar, a finding that underlies the constantly changing structure of the web.

Sarshar, working with two colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, looked at how talent, experience and the deletion of web pages affected the overall popularity of a page, where a page’s popularity is measured not in page views, but by the number of links it attracts.

Publishing their findings in the recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A., Sarshar and lead author Vwani Roychowdhury and Joseph Kong from UCLA expected to find that experience plays an important role, since the longer a web page has been around the more links it will accumulate.

And in a case of the rich getting richer, the more links a page accumulates, the more likely it will pop up in a search engine like Google.

But what role “talent” played was less clear, so to measure it they tracked which pages had accumulated 1,000 links during a 12-month period.

A web page that started the survey of 22 million web pages with more than 1,000 links was defined as an “experienced” page, while one that finished the 12-month survey with more than 1,000 links was defined as a “winner.”

What they found was that even with search engines more likely to send readers to established pages, 48 per cent of the winners at the end of the 12 months were not experienced.

The result is surprising, they say, since it is extremely rare for a less-established web page to receive 1,000 links.

Constant growth

Part of the reason for this, they say, is that the web is constantly growing, with the number of new pages growing at a rate that could be as high as 35 per cent annually. At the same time, they say, pages are constantly being deleted at a rate of about 10 per cent per month. And every time a page is deleted, the pages they pointed to die a little in popularity, too.

The net result is that for every new page created, 0.77 are deleted.

“Web page structure evolves in a matter of weeks,” said Sarshar. “It really tells us that within a year or two, the web is a totally new web.”

Translating these numbers to the actual number of web pages is a difficult task, since no one can say for certain how many pages exist on the web at any given moment.

Sarshar, Roychowdhury and Kong put the total number at over 12 billion, but acknowledge that is just a best estimate.

In July, Google software engineers, posting on the company blog, said their systems that process links found one trillion unique URLs on the web at once. But they admit addresses are not equivalent to web pages, and suggest that strictly speaking, the number of web pages is infinite, since a web calendar could have a “next day” link that could send the user to a new “page” theoretically forever.

Regardless of which estimate one looks at, the 22 million pages the authors looked at represents a tiny fraction of the total size of the web, Sarshar acknowledges. He said a longer-term study that casts a wider net would give greater insight into the changing shape of the web. But he and his colleagues see parallels between the way web pages connect to each other and existing societal models.

“The balancing act between experience and talent on the web allows newly introduced pages with novel and interesting content to grow quickly and surpass older pages,” the authors write.

“In this regard, it is much like what we observe in high-mobility and meritocratic societies: People with entitlement continue to have access to the best resources, but there is just enough screening for fitness that allows for talented winners to emerge and join the ranks of the leaders.”

Monday September 22, 2008 | 12:48 PM ET | CBC News

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Blogs may sometimes seem an overused form of communication, but they remain an important instrument in the corporate tool kit. Here are the seven types of corporate blogs that I think are most effective:

Industry blog - Nothing demonstrates your passion more than your ability to look at the industry you serve, provide insight, colour and information about it.

More often than not, the standard thought is to blog about your products and services. I’d would avoid that type of content like the plague, but insights into how the industry works and where it’s going puts you on the same level as your clients and establishes you as a recognized authority.

Ideastorm blog - Both Dell and Starbucks have used a blog to post ideas, get feedback and create an aura of collaborative thinking with consumers. It’s a great way to get consumer insights, and a powerful way to see if some of the ideas you’re kicking around have any weight or general interest. It’s also a friendly way to illustrate corporate culture, and how your business develops ideas.

Individual blog - Every company has a champion. Your goal is to find that champion and let them express it. It might be the person who was the editor of their college paper, but who is now the EVP of engineering, or the person who handles customer service and knows all of the the ins and outs of the company and industry.

I’m frequently asked how to identify the right person to blog for a company - it’s usually not who you would suspect. These blogs usually provide candid insights, humour and human interest stories.

It’s exactly how someone like Robert Scoble (who blogged for Microsoft) was able to build up his own personal brand. Every company has a Robert Scoble or two - you just have to find them.

CEO blog - These seem to be the first thing marketers look at when thinking about implementing corporate blogs. Don’t fall into this trap. Unless your CEO has the passion, desire, time and dedication to commit to frequently blogging and to curate the comments, I’d avoid this at all costs. That said, there are countless examples of brilliant CEO blogs. People who love to write and share their insights.

Departmental blogs - I often cite the developer teams at Microsoft for successfully curbing the “Microsoft is evil” line that the mass media was toeing for many years. I believe that negativity has dissipated because certain departments within Microsoft have begun blogging, sharing their insights and responding to detractors. If a company is big enough to have large departments, departmental blogs are an amazing way to collaborate, share, grow and learn. These can be multi-authored thus providing a multitude of perspectives from within one department.

Parody blog - Companies like Apple are forced to deal with blogs like Fake Steve Jobs. I take the Saturday Night Live approach to this: you have to be doing something right to get to the point where others are creating a parody of you. I know this is provocative. I also know it can be dangerous, but as long as you’re filling your side of the funnel with real, authentic and insightful blogging, having a couple of parody/fake blogs out there only validates that you’re important enough to be talked about.

Customer Service blog - It’s the one type of corporate blog that most marketers try to avoid. They think of Dell Hell - or how the head of JetBlue apologized on YouTube. Customer service blogs should be the gateway to better products and services. They offer your consumers a place to connect and get answers.

Jackie Huba from Church of the Customer and co-author of the book, Citizen Marketers, says: “I see no reason for a company not to blog - unless they’re sleazy.” Companies who avoid customer service blogs have bigger problems than figuring out whether or not they should blog. Customer service blogs done properly are the great equalizer and engager.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

Statistics Canada reported Thursday that total private and public sector Internet sales hit an estimated $62.7 billion, up 26 per cent from 2006.

ROBERTO ROCHA

The Gazette

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Online stores need to do a better job of understanding their audiences and provide a pleasant shopping experience, a study of Quebecer’s Internet shopping habits concluded.

The study’s findings surprised technology transfer group Cefrio, which commissioned the survey, about who shops online and for what.

For instance, the most purchased category of goods online are clothes, accessories and jewellery, comprising 13 per cent of online purchases since October 2007.

And women are the top buyers of such items, outnumbering men four to one. But many shopping sites aren’t geared to a feminine audience, researchers said.

“A lot of online stores are simply catalogs with an order form,” said Philippe Le Roux, an associate at Interactive marketing firm VDL2.

“Everyone complains that big-box hardware stores have almost no service. Well, most online stores are like these big-box stores,” Le Roux added.

Men are more likely to buy music, gadgets and computer equipment online. Travel products and games are evenly split among genders.

However, men are the biggest Internet buyers overall, accounting for roughly 55 per cent of shoppers.

The survey, conducted by polling firm SOM, has measured the shopping attitudes of 1,000 Quebecers every month since June 2007.

Its latest findings show that one in three Quebecers shop online. They spent on average $268 in February, a sharp drop from the $433 spent in December as the holidays approached.

The study urges Quebec businesses to start learning how to sell their wares online, because it takes two to three years to master e-commerce.

Sites must also reflect cultural preferences

Thursday, April 10, 2008

The Canadian Tourism Commission knew exactly how to optimize its website to foreign markets. It knew that Germans prefer canoe trips, while the Japanese are fond of organized bus tours. The multilingual version of its website reflects these preferences.

“It all comes down to understanding your clients,” said Huiping Iler, chief executive of WINTranslation.com, a Web translation service in Ottawa.

But there are few examples like this one, she says. Most companies don’t bother to understand their audiences when they translate websites. Sloppily made multilingual sites either turn off international clients with bad translations or don’t show up at all in Web searches.

Take the concept of an open house for a home for sale. This is a practice unknown in many countries, yet companies nonetheless push the service on their foreign language sites, even translating the words “open house” literally.

This is not only a linguistic and cultural blunder, but it also keeps search engines from pointing to a website.

“There’s a real lack of understanding,” Iler said. “People who do marketing are often unilingual. When they have to make content for another market, they may not know a lot about search engine marketing.”

Iler said companies too often ignore the combined power of search engines and good translation. In a marketing era when Google is a measure of reputation and people rarely search past the first page of a search result, making a website visible to foreign markets is crucial.

This means knowing the keywords that people use to find information in different countries.

For instance, a company that sells laptops needs to know whether people in a given country search for “notebook computers” or “portable computers” and put those words prominently on a Web page.

But this can be problematic, said Sylvain Amoros, the head strategist for Magnet Search Marketing, a division of Cossette Communications. Certain industries, like seniors’ residences, demand a semantic sensitivity in their marketing.

“You can’t put words like ‘old people’ or even ’seniors’ in the content. So you have to find ways around that,” he said.

But even proper translations sometimes aren’t enough to keep foreign eyeballs coming in, said Duncan Moore, an online marketer who recently joined Cossette. Sites have to keep updating the content to reflect changing attitudes.

“If you’re a company that sells sports jerseys, you have to keep up with new teams or new events that come up,” he said. “Once you translate a site, it doesn’t mean the work is done.”

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

MITCH JOEL

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Everybody has customer-service complaints. It’s human nature to tell a story when you feel you’ve been wronged.

In a social media world, where sharing that story with the world is only a blog post away, the stakes for companies have been raised.

And it’s not the actual complaints, comments or blog posts that hurt the most. It’s the the lingering Google search results that represent the real death by a thousand cuts.

It’s a topic that has been discussed, debated and dissected in the blogosphere since the early days. But the big question remains: do the complaints actually have an effect or are people just talking to themselves in their own little fishbowl?

Does the public know or care about raging online controversies like Hasbro defending its Scrabble trademark against the creators of the Scrabulous Facebook application or a copyright tussle over whether a bunch of Ford Mustang owners will be able to create and sell a calender with pictures of their Black Ford Mustangs via online marketplace CafePress?

If you were to survey a group of people walking downtown in any major metropolitan city in the world, what percentage of them would have even heard about the Hasbro-Scrabulous story? Does that make the story a non-issue?

The answer is both yes and no. Because of the way news now travels, we’re not all glued to one channel that has been edited for our “viewing pleasure.”

We can follow stories that not only matter to us as individuals, but that matter to the industries we serve or are interested in. The big “headline of the day” has become whatever we want it to be.

I think the game has changed. Here are four shifts in media and what they mean to marketers:

Media is much more fragmented. Not too long ago, there were only a handful of media and because of this, the stories were fairly similar. Cable brought us the whole “57 channels and nothing on” culture and then blogs made individuals into media empires.

The “mass” in mass media is quickly going away. People get their news/information from several unique and targeted outlets now. So, what’s news in my world is not news in your world. Forget about the Blogosphere, just look at specialty television. You could spend the whole year and only watch Home and Garden related programming (and you wouldn’t even have to change the channel).

The fishbowl is getting bigger and bigger. While these customer-service rants seem more like annoyances from a small group of people playing around with blogs, their impact is actually being amplified by a a shift in how people get their content and news. We’re moving from trusting “similar others” to trusting “similar others as trusted news sources.” Audiences for blogs and podcasts continue to rise as more and more people consume this content as an alternative/addition to their current media regime.

The Google Effect. All of this content lives forever in a search-engine optimized environment. As more and more people go online for their primary research, blog posts about rotten customer service continue to take their toll. Even if a customer-service rant gets resolved quickly and efficiently, the story lingers in those search results forever. Stories don’t die in a newspaper morgue anymore.

More than even, companies need to monitor, analyze and strategically plan what (and how) they’re going to say and do in these channels. More than ever, just reacting isn’t proving to be a sufficient response. More than ever, companies need to be looking at blogs, podcasts and even Twitter or Facebook status updates to hear the voice of the customer.

Blogs are not “so yesterday.” If anything, this type of content and communication is just starting to find its voice and establishing itself as one of the strongest media forces that can shape a business and its brand.

Thursday, February 07, 2008
Adman Ignacio Oreamuno pointed to marketing execs in the audience and fired off quick tips for promoting their brands online.

“L’Oréal, your business is to make women pretty. So why don’t you offer a service to make women’s websites pretty?

“Bell, Telus. There are forums out there where phone nerds talk about customizing and changing their handsets. Why don’t you create a network for them to have these discussions in your site?

“Canon, photo-sharing sites like Flickr show which camera people used to take pictures. Why don’t you create a network for people who use your cameras and offer them promotions, like free photo printing?”

But in the end, what matters most is for companies to be bold and creative, speakers said yesterday at a conference on using social networks to build a brand.

“This is the Wild West,” said Oreamuno, president of Ihaveanidea.org, a social network for advertising people.

Social networks like MySpace and Facebook are very new, there are few rules, and usually, the first one there gets to the gold.

However, they represent a massive shift in how people communicate. They empower consumers to slam a brand without mercy. And they can no longer be ignored. Any company serious about being “with it” has to be willing to pour resources into it, said Rick Murray of the digital division of public-relations firm Edelman.

“You need to think about how you’ll play in this space every single day,” Murray said. “You can’t just launch a campaign and see how it evolves. That kind of thinking is so yesterday.”

It’s a lesson that Cogeco Cable Inc. took home.

The cable company, which serves parts of Quebec and eastern Ontario, had dabbled in Facebook, targeting ads to university students at Queens, Windsor and McMaster.

“We only touched the tip of it,” Marie-Claude Caron, Cogeco’s director of marketing, said at the conference hosted by advertising magazine Infopresse.

“A year ago, we weren’t even thinking about having these positions. I mean, a social marketing manager? Who knew?”

This rapid change of how people use technology to share tastes is a source of panic attacks for marketing departments that can’t keep pace. Murray travels the word preaching to his clients that they should accept this reality or become obsolete.

“This is a major societal shift,” he said. “We need to think from a sociologist’s and cultural anthropologist’s perspective.”

It’s fashionable for companies to say they want to have dialogues with customers, rather than relying on traditional top-down messages. But of all the brands that say they get it, only five per cent are doing it, Murray said.

“Sending an email to bloggers does not count,” he said. “Putting an ad in Facebook is not a conversation.”

He pointed to cold medicine Motrin, which made a site for moms with tips and news on children’s cold medication. The site has a forum where they can ask questions and talk among themselves.

“You have to think about being a newspaper,” he said. “Offer new snack-sized content every day.”

This shift does not mark the death of traditional marketing, Murray assured. To have

a mass nation-wide reach, television spots, billboards and print ads will still have a role to pay.

But even though marketing departments will have to increase in head count, the costs of marketing will decrease, he predicts. Social campaigns are cheap, and as more resources shift online, it will pull down spending.

This should be all the more reason for companies to take chances.

“In this world of communities, you get credit for trying,” Murray concluded. “You don’t have to get it right every time.”

A majority of businesses that have used pay-per-click advertising over the past two years to drive traffic to their company website have noticed a deterioration in return on investment (ROI).

This finding came from a survey commissioned by Dutch firm Toading and conducted by Pulstracker. It was found that 71% of surveyed companies in Europe claimed some deterioration, with 21% of the total complaining of a major drop in performance.

The principle cause for this decline, according to the surveyed companies, was likely to be increased competition within their own industry sector, as more pay-per-click advertisers in their space had pushed up the bidding for keywords (63%). Nearly a quarter of the companies complained that they were unable or could not afford to bring in outside expertise to fine-tune their performance (24%). Only 3% believed that the change was down to fluctuating market conditions in their sector, resulting in less demand for their product or service.

The complexity of setting up account options was mentioned (22%), but a majority of unhappy respondents (52%) said the biggest practical hurdle for them was the `complicated’ keyword bidding process. 26% said that balancing the need for outside expertise and consultancy with the corresponding cost and impact on ROI was causing problems for them.

Businesses’ continued use of pay-per click advertising shows that they have benefited and still find it a valuable tool, but they find it an unpredictable and complex undertaking, as this study has found,” said Mathijs van Abbe, CEO, Toading.

“Keyword bidding in particular crops up as a frustration for advertisers. This is a sign that, as markets become more crowded, advertisers need to be more precise about their offerings, including pricing information. Not only is this helpful for potential customers, but it can dramatically improve conversion rates, and doesn’t have to be the complicated process many fear it to be.”

SOURCE: WWW.HOTELMARKETING.COM