I’ve written previously about the need to re-evaluate search marketing by attending to how users encounter your BRAND through search as opposed to the dated approach of focusing on where your URL appears.  This week a study emerged from a the search marketing agency Slingshot, showing that the click-through-rates (CTRs) on search result pages (SERPs) are diversifying dramatically such that only 52% of Google users and 26% of Bing users are clicking on anything on page 1.  People use search in multifaceted ways so we have to stop believing in the old alchemy of the magical number 1 slot and the obsession over where our URL ranks.  It’s the total experience of the brand that matters and those who make this transition quickest stand to gain the most from their search marketing efforts.

For years, the thinking has been that the top slots produce the lion’s share of the user activity on SERPs.  Various studies in the mid 2000s indicated that the top three slots got as much as 50-60% percent of the activity.  I’m not sure that the story was ever as dramatic as those stats indicated but the present reality is certainly different.  As Google and Bing have moved to build Universal Search Result pages that include blended results from a  variety of content sources, users have begun exploring the SERPs more readily.

Depending upon their mindset, the SERP gives the user many directions to pursue.  Are you just learning about a certain product or service?  Visit manufacturer sites and read articles on the topic.  Are you narrowing down or comparing options?  Visit review sites, blogs and forums.  Sick of reading and want a simpler overview….look for videos. Need something near you……check out the local listings.  The list of options grows annually and we all benefit from the multiplicity of content that is available.

All this reinforces the idea that brands need a content marketing strategy that contributes to the proliferation of content and conversation about them.  A content marketing strategy focuses on the needs of your audience and the best ways to provide them with useful information.  Useful content leads to greater distribution of content and therefore a wider variety of ways that users can encounter your brand off any specific SERP.  This trend along with the trend towards mobile access of digital content are the two most game defining changes that marketers must embrace in the coming year.  Embrace the change!  It’s a good thing.

In the beginning there was SEO.  Then on the seventh day, Google created PPC.  Then, the creators of our acronyms realized that there was an opportunity for a new one called Search Engine Marketing (SEM).  It would combine paid and organic search techniques and the Gods would be pleased with us for being so clever.  So why the snark?  I am tired of the obsession that we seem to have for “driving”  (sounds like something we do with cattle), “traffic” (aren’t these actually people), to our site (a magic land where we ensnare traffic into the inevitable conversion act with our elegant design, crafty copy and inescapable marketing acumen).  This is not how people behave online an we all know because we are (most of us) people and we do not behave that way.  The time has long since come for us to consider more than the one url that our magic land resides at but rather all the ways that users can encounter our brands through distributed content and conversions in what I daresay I have a new acronym for.  How about Search Experience Marketing (that way you don’t have to learn a new three letter abbreviation, SEM)?  Here’s my argument for why this makes more sense and is ultimately better search engine marketing than traditional approaches.

When a user searches they are presented with a SERP that has lots of options on it.  Maybe your website is one of them, but it’s only one of them.  What other things could they encounter:

• review sites
• blogs
• forums
• videos
• maps
• images
• news sites
• vertical industry search directories
• white papers
• press releases
• everything else that the internet is made of

If you are fortunate, this user may visit your website but why should they stop there with so much more information close at hand.  Would you? The reality is that every day people either encounter (or fail to encounter) your brand through all of these areas listed above.  A content marketing strategy that creates valuable, useful stimulating and helpful content in a variety of forms that flows socially into the fabric of the layered search experience that I describe above is the best way to attract and influence your target audience.  Obsessing only about where your site sits on a specific set of SERPs seems so narrow a consideration.

How does this work in action?  I recently shopped for a refrigerator.  This falls into the category of a considered purchase.  I searched for fridges and found that a website with helpful decision-making tools on it.  I narrowed it down to a type that I preferred.  On an ecommerce site I found some options.  On their corporate site I saw some specification and sometimes a helpful product tour.  On blogs I saw discussions and reviews.  My mind changed.  I settled on a brand.  I saw other helpful videos about the product by organizations other than the brand.  I was now romanced into the state of high gadget lust that I needed to be in.  Pennies are now being saved and product will soon be purchased.  What role did traditional SEO play in that?  A very small one.

Search engines are intentionally trying to make the SERPs more about answering questions than just scanning the web for keywords.  Your audience is going create an experience for themselves when they search in your space.  The more deeply woven you become in that experience, the better your brand will perform.  It’s not just about keywords and rank.  It’s about the totality of the search experience.  Is that what you are seeking to influence today?  If not, could it be?  Please?

Since the widespread adoption of the tablet as the content consumption platform of choice, the industry has been eagerly anticipating the rise of the Internet TV as the next disruptive platform to change the way we thing about digital content consumption.  Is it happening?  Sort of, but not as quickly or with as much innovation as we had hoped.  With the drop in price of the Logitech Google TV set-top box and the announcement by Viewsonic that it is deep-sixing its plans to build a Boxee powered TV, there is growing evidence that the marketing for this technology is softening.  Or is it just that the right forces have not yet come together to make this technology take off?  I once saw an attempt at creating a solid-body electric guitar that was build in the early 1930s.  That was the wrong time for that technology to take off.  Musical styles (content) had not evolved, manufacturing processes (technology) had not become cost efficient enough, and the demand was not there because people did not know what to do with it (user experience).  Internet TV is that same moment where the content, technology and user experience pieces have not yet come together in a moment that will drive consumer adoption.

Sure you can buy Internet TVs but as Van Baker, Vice President of research for Gartner recently observed, “In most cases consumers are buying a television with Internet connectivity as insurance. In other words, they are buying them just in case they need it in the future.”  There are also plenty of price-accessible ways to get a non-ethernet TV connected, not the least of which is my personal favorite the Sony PS3.  The problem is once you are connected, what can you do?  Or more appropriately what can your connected TV now do better than the myriad of other devices that surround us every day.  The answer is that beyond on-demand streaming the user experience is not yet fully developed.

Do consumers want to use browsers on a TV screen?  Despite the fact that the TV screen is large it does not offer a very conducive browsing experience.  But some things do work?  Have you seen the YouTube and Netflix apps designed specifically for the TV?  They have large buttons that are easy to navigate to and click.  They have a display that is almost devoid of text (hard to read on a TV) and heavy on seductive visuals (fun to look at on a big screen).  But until there are more apps and user experiences that are built specifically for the TV, the usefulness of it as digital device is somewhat limited.

However, the promise is still there.  As companies like Adobe help hash out digital rights access with its Adobe Pass offering and as more of these devices continue to end up in consumers’ homes, if for no other reason than the current crop of product is coming equipped with the technology whether consumers demand it or not, the groundwork is being laid for enterprising content providers to realize that there is a new opportunity to wrap bigger and bolder user experiences around their content and make it accessible in ways that best suit the TV as an interface.  I’m still bullish on the technology and anxious to see how this next wave of digital user experiences will evolve.  In fact, I think this is the time for publishers and media companies to take the lead and prove what this technology can be good for.

As I have had the opportunity to experiment with an increasing number of Facebook ad campaigns, I feel like I’m starting to get a feel for how to use the platform to best effect.  I’m sure that we could get some great input from all of you as well but the approach I’d like to talk about has to do with taking a layered approach that includes fan page enhancements, regular facebook ads and sponsored story ads used in combinations.  I think this layered approach is the best way to address the issues of new fan acquisition, engagement and leveraging a fan base in one concerted effort.1.  Develop a content marketing strategy: This can be as simple or as complex as the project demands but take some time to figure out what you can say and do with your audience(s) that is likely to have value to them while also serving the needs of allowing you to communicate what you need to communicate.

2.  Use fan page enhancements and apps to offer higher levels of engagement to the audience(s): There are wide range of great apps and a variety of price points that can create whole new user experiences for your facebook fan page.  Some of the functionality you can add include contests, coupons, like gates, custom landing pages, sign up forms, galleries, downloads and a whole variety of other experiences.  Don’t just rely on the wall and the like button.  Give people more ways to interact with you.

3.  Use Facebook ads as a fan acquisition tool: Facebook ads suffer from high impressions at low CTRs.  However, they are also not terribly costly so that even at low CTRs you can generate enough impressions to create some activity.  I think this makes them useful for acquiring new fans and building out a base of awareness but read on….

4.  Use Sponsored Stories to leverage fans: Don’t let your facebook advertising stop at fan acquisition.  Sponsored stories based on the actions that the fans take on your newly enhanced fan page is the secret sauce that makes all the rest of this work worthwhile.  In the most basic sense, they offer you the ability to leverage your fans to reach their friends in generally more impactful ways than simple post liking achieves. Here’s a link to a PDF from facebook on the subject.

So how have you been combining these tactics together?  Anyone have any additional thoughts or examples of recent projects that showcase how this all works?

We are moving rapidly toward a version of the internet in which a large portion of the user experiences exist outside the web browser.  A recent article by EMarketer cites research by the Boston Consulting Group suggesting we are on the edge of a big leap forward in tablet purchases.  Most interestingly is that the impetus driving this consumer lust for tablets is its emergence as the platform of choice for consumers when it comes to accessing digital content in all its forms. In the U.S. 34% of the audience surveyed indicated an intent to purchase a tablet device in the coming year while 54% indicated a willingness to purchase within three years.  In reviewing the analytics across the many sites that I manage I can confirm that tablet access of websites has quadrupled since the same time last year.  However what interests me is that websites are not really want consumers want to access on tablets.  According to the study, the driver is that consumers prefer the tablet for consuming content like articles, videos, galleries, audio etc.  We need to understand that the tablet allows us to create non-browser user experiences around this content that elevate it, make it more accessible, more enjoyable, and more engaging.

This does not mean that everyone should race to build an app.  In fact, it opens up many more opportunities than apps alone.  But is an app is on your mind, now may the time to look into the recently released Adobe Digital Publishing Suite that allows for the creation of tablet apps from within Adobe InDesign for CS5.  No programming knowledge outside InDesign is required to create highly immersive experiences and load them into a variety of app stores.

Regardless of what technology you choose, the key is to generate content that is ideally suited to the advantages of the tablet.  Think in terms of experiences that unfold or collapse based on the users input.  Think about rich media.  Think about how people browse publication as opposed to the very self-directed way they use websites.  Create experiences that enrich the content rather than just making at accessible. Very shortly your consumers will be wandering the earth clutching their little storytelling devices and spending hours a day diving into them.  What stories do you want to tell?  What will they want from you?

One of my favorite thinkers concerning things web-related is Avinash Kaushik.  His most recent blog post contains the text of a speech he gave to a gathering of Canadian marketing executives. The point of it is that we fail to take advantage of the promise of Internet marketing because most of us find “shout” marketing and interruption advertising to be more comfortable.  It is brilliant.  It is controversial. It challenges us all.  I just really like it.  Take the time to read it here.  Send your comments.

The concept of marketing to people based on where they are at any given time took a big leap forward as Facebook and Twitter recently announced the introduction of geolocation features to accompany user posting activity on their services.  Combining their efforts with those of the already established players in the space such as Yelp, Foursquare, Latitude, and Gowalla, it seems that 2010 will be a year of great experimentation for this feature.  Time will tell whether marketers and application developers can make this feature useful enough to consumers that they will want to enable it.  However, it seems likely that we will soon see software platforms that allows us to monitor social media for people who are nearing our location and message to them thereby combining real-time search with real-time marketing.

We are only a baby step away from a day when a retail store can monitor the locations of it fans and followers and send them a little announcement of a special they are running today on that brand of running shorts you like to buy from them. Or perhaps your favorite restaurant by the sea can know that you are driving nearby and message you that the sunset looks great tonight and you have to come see it from their deck. Used well, this capability could be appreciated by consumers and could create additional reasons for users to want to fan and follow their favorite businesses.

However, it is not difficult to imagine this capability being over-exploited in intrusive ways such that users will flock to their account settings to turn it off. Not mention the fact that letting the world know where you are at any given point in time has its own drawbacks to our precious anonymity and privacy. I’m intrigued by these new capabilities and will be anxious to see how they impact our digital lives in 2010.

I’d be eager to know your thoughts on geolocation features in social media.

I hate the click.  We obsess about clicks.  We track clicks.  We pay for clicks.  We want more and more clicks.  We are click-absorbed and it is time to make online marketing about more than this.  This week marked the 15th anniversary of the first online banner ad so I have chosen this time to launch a revolt against the single-minded click-only metrics that prevail today.I recently read this great article by Scott Severensen that suggests 5 things you can do today to start moving beyond clicks.  Here’s why I think this is important:

• If you track online marketing conversions back to the nearest click that precedes them it will always make things like search and email marketing campaigns look like they are tactics driving revenue.  They may be but they are more likely to be just the only thing you are tracking.  Many steps usually lead up to that precious moment wherein a user types your name into a search engine, finds you and buys your thing.  Be careful not to over-attribute revenue generating actions to just the nearest measurable click.
• Benchmarking is forgotten yet it is a very valid method of tracking.  “My metric was X before I did these three things and now it is X+25%.  That means these three things are likely to be good things to keep doing…and doing them together.”  Maybe one of those three things was a search marketing campaign that got a lot of clicks.  If you had not done it in concert with the overall campaign might not have worked so well.
• Display ads (banners) don’t get many clicks.  That does not mean that they have no value.  You have to develop other ways of monitoring their impact on awareness, intent to purchase and the impact that they may have on overall site visitorship outside of the direct clicks they generate.
• Each click is actually a person..not a click.  Each non-click is also a person.  We are interested in engaging all people within our audience.  Clicking does not qualify you or disqualify from my consideration as a marketer.

I hate the click.

But I got this great click-through-rate on one of my PPC campaigns by making some changes to the offer and ad copy.  Let me tell you about it.

OK I know that acronym thinking is trite and that many of us have already heard about the POST methodology until we want to PLOTZ.  But, I have been speaking with many companies lately about their social media plans and I have to admit that this old methodology keeps coming up as the one of the best places to start.  Here’s a quick review of how it works and why it works so well for social media plans in my opinion.First of all POST stands for people, objective, strategies and tactics.  The order is important because it forms the basis of the planning process.

People: Spend time identifying,  finding and listening to your audience.  Where do they go online?  What do they do?  What are they saying?  What kind of online content do they like (articles, reviews, images, video games etc).  Do they like to create things or just watch?  If the web can be thought of as a playground, what toys does your audience like?  How might you best join with them in the play?

Objectives:  What is that you hope to accomplish by joining in the play?  What would you like your audience to do?  Though objectives are often linked to revenue generating activities you would be best served by having some objectives that are not.  The objectives will lead directly to the communications strategy and it needs to be focussed on the audience..not the sale.

Strategies:  This is where you develop a content and communications strategy.  How will you play with the audience.  What will you share.  What will they share with you?  Where will the content come from?  This step gets overlooked a lot.  Much of the time businesses just share their promotional information.  Blah.  No engagement there.  Spend the time planning the content generation and communication strategy and you will find much more success.  Make sure to bear in mind the sustainability of the effort based on whatever internal (staff) and external (agency)  resources you have to use.

Tactics:  All of the thinking in the previous steps should lead to this but it is amazing how frequently this becomes step one for many businesses.  Would this plan be best executed on an existing platform (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, dare I say MySpace etc.)?  Would it be best executed on your own site via a blog, game, widget or some other form of interactivity that you build. Don’t overlook this option. There is no law that says all businesses must be on Facebook or Twitter though it may appear so by the level of discussion about it. Also, this is is the step to develop your plans for tracking and optimization.  You may need to develop some specialized approaches in your web analytics  or you may need to use outside services as well.  What software and services can help you and your team administer this?  Finally, what sorts of training or coaching might you or your teams need to be able to carry this through?

I can’t believe I wrote a post about POST.  It works though.  Build a social media marketing plan and your prospects for success will be much higher than those who jump in by saying “Hey let’s post some special offers on Facebook and see what happens!”

The term “inbound marketing” tends to bring together the tactics of search and social media under one umbrella.  To me the theme that binds them all together is that they reach people during the natural course of whatever they may be doing online rather than interrupting that process with “Hey pay attention to me now” messages.  So here is my argument for a way to look at search as a social media activity.

1.  “Isn’t search a personal act, not a social one?” First of all, not all social media activities have to include interaction with others.  Search is a fundamental way that users interact with the web.  That is the social activity of search.

2. “Doesn’t search marketing place paid ads in front of users?”   Yes but for the most part these messages are helpful tools that reach people while they are in the process of looking for them.  If I’m searching for tennis shoes and I see a search ad for a great pair then the ad is helping me and adding value to my interaction with the web.

3.  “Isn’t social media about two-way communications?”  Yes but search has always been and continues to be a very subtle form of two-way communication.  Attentive search marketers have always looked closely at what forms of content win the elusive clicks of their audience.  The user’s decision to click or not to click is, in itself, a social act that “votes” for that content.  since the search marketer studies this data and makes content decisions based on it, the user’s decisions result in action by the marketer.  This is the two-way communication.  Ok this argument may be weak because we do the same things with paid ads online.  However, increasingly, search results pages give us the tools to actually vote for the content that appears on them.   On Google users can comment on, promote, or delete each organic listing on every page.  This definitely qualifies as a social activity.

The reason I focus on creating these linkages between search and social media is because we are in the midst of a marketing and communications transformation that will de-emphasize (though not eliminate) interruption messaging while placing greater emphasis on how we weave or communications into the fabric of people’s daily lives in helpful, entertaining, and interesting ways.  Maybe it it is wrong to argue that search is social media marketing.  Maybe we need a bigger concept to refer to non-interrupive communication.  The conept of “inbound marketing” comes the closest of any that I have seen but perhaps you have an even better way of referring to this game-changing trend.