DMAnc.org

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Facebook is one of the largest social media sites with more than 936 million daily users worldwide. With such a large user base, Facebook marketing strategies are a great avenue for marketers to promote their company’s brand, products, services, and build up a following of loyal fans. In fact, 42% of marketers report Facebook is a critical part of their business. A large part of successful posting and marketing on Facebook is accumulating the largest number of user interactions possible, such as views, likes, comments, or even shares. We’ll share how you can get the most out of each of your Facebook posts by optimizing the timing, content, and frequency of posts. (https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/)

Timing Is Everything

Every minute on Facebook about 510 comments are posted and 293,000 statuses are updated. Every day over six million likes are accrued by daily active users. One would think that with all this activity, any time would be a good time to publish a Facebook post. According to statistics published by Track Maven in their guide “The Marketing Mavens Guide to Facebook,” this is not exactly the case. (https://trackmaven.com/resources/facebook-advertising-budget-report/)

Most marketers post during the weekday, with Thursday being the most popular by a small margin, and then the number of posts drops nearly in half over the weekend, with only 9.04% of posts being published on Saturday. Post interactions, on the other hand, have a completely opposite trend. Facebook post interactions actually decrease during the weekdays and then increase sharply upward during the weekends. According to Track Maven, posts that are published on Sunday have 25% more interactions then posts made on Wednesday, making them significantly more effective.

(https://trackmaven.com/resources/facebook-advertising-budget-report/)

Of course, you don’t want to only publish posts only on the weekends. Good Facebook marketing strategies maintain a healthy posting schedule throughout the whole week. So is there a best time slot to get the most out of the weekday posts? The answer is yes. The majority of weekday posts occur during the workday, 9:00am-5:00pm. The highest average peak of interactions, however, is found during after-hours from 5pm-1am with an average of 2.49 interactions. This means that posts that are made during, or close to, 5pm-1am are more likely to receive the highest number of views, likes, or comments.

(https://trackmaven.com/resources/facebook-advertising-budget-report/)

Words, Words, Words

Now that you know the best time to publish a post, you have to write one. Since Facebook has no limit to how many characters can be in a post, the writer has the freedom to make a post as long or as short as they desire. Most writers go for the “‘simpler is better”’ approach, but is that really the best policy for Facebook writing?

(https://trackmaven.com/resources/facebook-advertising-budget-report/)

More than half of all Facebook posts consist of fewer than 20 words. Posts that consist of fewer than 10 words were the next most common number. However, it may surprise you that posts with a word count under 20 receive the least amount of daily user interactions. What may surprise you more is that Facebook posts consisting of 80 words or more will receive twice the amount of user interactions than posts with a smaller word count. Several theories exist about why this happens, but most seem to agree that people are more willing to interact with a post that requires a time investment.

Call-to-Action

The goal of a call to action is to cause the reader to take a specific action that helps increase the viewership of a post. Track Maven examined four of the most common call-to-action words (Share, Please, Like, and Now) used on Facebook to determine how effective they were at increasing user interaction. All four of these call-to-action words increased the interaction of posts compared to posts that did not have a call to action, with Share garnering twice as many social interactions than the other three words.

When marketing on Facebook marketers must bear in mind there is a potential pitfall attached to using a call- to -action word. Facebook changed its news feed algorithm to penalize pages that engage in like-baiting. Facebook defines like-baiting as “when a post explicitly asks News Feed readers to like, comment or share the post in order to get additional distribution beyond what the post would normally receive.” (https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/04/news-feed-fyi-cleaning-up-news-feed-spam/) The best way to avoid being penalized by this algorithm change is to use call to action terms sparingly, and find alternative ways to encourage interaction from readers.

What Is a Picture Worth?

Words are only part of creating an effective post. Most marketers prefer to add an image to increase the power of their chosen message. Facebook has one of the largest collections of online photos in the world, and as of February 2014 350 million photos (on average) were being uploaded to Facebook every day. Over 88% of all Facebook posts include an image of some kind, but does including an image in your post increase the frequency of user interactions? The answer is yes; posts that include an image saw 2.35 average user interactions per post while those that did not include a photo only saw 1.71 interactions.

 (https://trackmaven.com/resources/facebook-advertising-budget-report/)

How Many Hashtags Are Too Many?

Hashtags are a relatively new part of Facebook, with their use starting to pop up in June 2013. (https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2013/06/public-conversations-on-facebook/) Facebook decided to make hashtags a clickable part of a post in order to allow people to indicate they were a part of a larger conversation or group, and find others who were posting similar content.

About 83.93% of posts do not include hashtags, so it is not the most popular addition to posts. However, posts that do include one or two hashtags saw a user interaction increase of 60%. Posts that had three or four hashtags also had a larger user interaction than posts without hashtags, but the percentage was lower than the posts with only one or two hashtags. Posts that included seven or eight hashtags experienced the largest amount of user interactions, but it is good to note that posts using a lower number of hashtags usually contain better content and do not need to rely on so many hashtags.

Putting It All Together

Posting on Facebook is one of the key ways a company can build and maintain a powerful social media presence. By planning a healthy posting schedule during peak viewing hours, and keeping in mind the different aspects of a post such as word length, image use, and additions such as hashtags, a marketer can greatly increase how much attention they get out of each of their Facebook posts.

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This post was authored by Elizabeth A. Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Elizabeth Beasley serves as an account manager at Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc www.BeasleyDirect.com.  Elizabeth manages new client on-boarding and accounts, social media, corporate presentations, corporate website, and database maintenance. She also serves as an account manager for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org, managing event logistics, registration and promotion. She holds a B.A. in Communications from National University.

The post How to Get the Most Out of Your Corporate Facebook Marketing Strategies appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Twenty-five is a number with a lot of significance in our world. It is the atomic number of manganese, it is the number reserved for the player deemed the best “slugger” on a baseball team, and it is the name of the national board game of India. To the hardworking men and women of the Beasley Direct and Online Marketing agency, however, twenty-five carries a much higher level of significance.

A Walk through History

The Beasley Direct and Online Marketing agency was founded in 1990 by Laurie Beasley after a successful career as a marketing manager for Borland International. After leaving Borland, Laurie began to consult for other software and hardware companies who all recognized the need for an upgraded revenue model. This was rewarding consulting work; however, Laurie began to recognize that companies were having trouble executing the plans. Direct marketing is both science and art, and companies were struggling with both aspects. Eventually, Laurie decided to switch from just being the consultant who built models, to a full-service agency that built the model and executed it using database marketing.

In 2001-2002 the U.S. experienced the dot-com crash. Many agencies went out of business then, but Beasley Direct and Online Marketing thrived by adding a full set of services to help companies get their digital marketing programs up and running, including websites, email programs, and online advertising.

In 2008 the world experienced the Great Recession. Many more agencies went out of business during that year and the years which followed. The members of Beasley Direct jumped in and helped companies shift a heavy proportion of their marketing budgets to online, including search and social media.

Beasley Directs Growth along with Marketing Advances

Despite the challenges of the past, technology moves ever forward. With the arrival of the Internet, a huge shift occurred in marketing. To stay ahead of the curve, Beasley Direct added creative and technical services for developing websites and online advertising. As Internet marketing has progressed, Beasley Direct fought to stay ahead with the addition of sophisticated email and search marketing services, and more recently content marketing and social media services.

“Marketing managers must understand and use a wide array of tools…. We help clients avoid letting the tools replace or hinder good strategy, and to the relief of most of our clients, we help in the day-to-day optimal use of the tools.”–Laurie Beasley, President of Beasley Direct and Online Marketing

With all these advances in marketing technology, a huge need grew in the industry for training marketers to keep up and stay ahead of changes. To meet this growing need, Laurie Beasley created and managed a Certificate in Direct and Online Marketing at San Jose State Professional Studies, and then cloned this program at UCLA Extension, UC Santa Cruz Extension, UC Berkley Extension, and the Online Marketing Institute. Many of the Beasley Direct consulting staff members now teach in these programs.

What Does the Future Hold for Beasley Direct and Online Marketing?

“I believe the future of marketing will evolve with social media and the internet. Mobile marketing will continue to force innovation on marketers to keep their websites, search and social media effective for the mobile user. The introduction of mobile apps, kiosks, and third screen interactivity will provide many more avenues for marketing messaging and lead generation.”–Laurie Beasley

A Message to Other Marketers

“Marketing never stands still, and you need an agency that will keep you ahead of the curve. Beasley Direct has stayed far ahead of the learning curve, adding technical and creative skills to an ever-growing list of media channels.”–Laurie Beasley

With a future that includes wearable technology and a technologically desensitized population, the fight to stay ahead of marketing curves will never be over. However, you can bet that Beasley Direct and Online Marketing will be at the front lines, ready to provide absolute top notch services.

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Elizabeth Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by Elizabeth A. Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Elizabeth Beasley serves as an account manager at Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc www.BeasleyDirect.com   Elizabeth manages new client onboarding and accounts, social media, corporate presentations, corporate website, and database maintenance. She also serves as an account manager for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org, managing event logistics, registration and promotion. She holds a B.A. in Communications from National University.

The post Beasley Direct & Online Marketing Agency Celebrates Twenty-Five Years of Great Service appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, Beasley Direct Marketing

It can be a disappointing experience to set up a PPC (pay-per-click) account on Google AdWords or Bing! and see initial success—but then when you try to grow the program You see no improvement (or even a reduction) in the results. Sometimes there seems to be an invisible barrier that allows you to achieve early, easier successes. But, it won’t let you through to the big returns.

When this happens, you need to perform a PPC Optimization Audit on your PPC account. This is to analyze the setup and tune it for maximum performance. But don’t rush to a PPC audit too soon. You need to have your account up and running for at least three months. Six months is even better—or there won’t be enough data to be meaningful.

That being said, it is important to perform a PPC Optimization Audit before you get desperate. You don’t want to wait until things aren’t working to look at how to improve overall account performance to grow your business.

The person who set up the account should not be the person who audits the account. Fresh eyes are needed to catch some of the things you might be missing, question assumptions, and revisit decisions.

Day-to-Day Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

First, revisit the larger issues. Such as, where are your ads are serving, how they are set up, and your goals for the account (and have these goals been achieved?). This will allow you to judge whether or not the account is performing according to expectations. Additionally, it will indicate where the account needs to be tweaked if expectations have not been met.

The big three KPIs are click-through rate, cost per click and cost per lead or sale. All three are important, with cost per sale being the top concern. This is a good place to start, and where a lot of people put their focus.

Click-Through Rate:

Do an in-depth analysis to improve your overall click-through rate on the account. First, start to look at click-through on a keyword-by-keyword level. Often you may have keywords that are high volume but low click-through, dragging down the entire campaign. Identifying these high volume/low performance keywords and segregating them into separate ad groups and campaigns will allow you to focus on the top-performing click-through keywords to maximize potential. Because high volume/low performing keywords generate so many impressions, they can steal funds from more productive, lower volume keywords. There are times to outright kill these high volume keywords, and times to sequester them in different AdGroups where you can control how much you spend on them.

The higher the click-through rate you are able to achieve by doing this, particularly on the most valuable keywords, the higher your Quality Score will be, driving down cost per click and improving your average position.

While driven primarily by click-through rate, there are other factors involving Quality Score (which we will discuss in a future post). Quality Score is important because it determines where you appear on a search page. A high Quality Score results in higher page position and usually lower cost per click. We will be discussing Quality Score in depth during an upcoming post.

Cost per Click:

While it appears attractive and simple as a KPI, it isn’t necessarily the most accurate way to measure your account’s performance. Cost per click is often viewed in the aggregate, whether at the ad group, campaign or account level. Again, cost per click is most valuable when analyzing it on a keyword-by-keyword basis. Cost per click needs to be viewed as part of the larger cost per sale/lead equation. It’s important to know how valuable your keywords are on a keyword-by-keyword basis and how that relates to the eventual cost per sale/lead. Some high CPC keywords will attract more qualified customers, while lower CPC may attract more clicks, but convert fewer prospects. The average cost per click of the keywords reflect this; high-frequency/low CPC keywords can sometimes be more expensive than the lower frequency, higher CPC keywords with a stronger conversion rate. Focusing strictly on cost per click doesn’t tell you the whole story about how keywords are actually performing.

Cost per Sale or Lead:

We view this as one of our core metrics. Understanding cost per sale is vital to running an effective campaign over the long term. However, not all sales or leads are equal. As you are performing the account audit, look at the various units in your account—AdGroups, keywords, the ads—and map keywords to your cost per sale metric. Also consider the value of the sale. Is it a one-off or does it have higher value over time? Even if it is a one-off, is it a low revenue sale or high revenue sale? Figure out how to restructure your account to get good, smart, easy-to-use units that you can aggregate into one AdGroup. Give it a budget that will reward that value and form other groups with lesser-value keywords where you can control the costs.

Other Factors To Consider

Overall Impression Share:

Looking at all impressions for a single keyword, what percentage of these are you getting? Having a low Quality Score for the keyword can impact this. Quality Score reflects how relevant a given keyword is, based on its click-through rate, its relevance to the language of your ads and the final landing page(s).

Conversion Rate:

This is the conversion rate once people get to the website. Many people look only at the wide end of the funnel metrics (CTR, CPC, etc.), where the traffic starts, but forget to look at the narrow end—how the individual landing pages perform once a prospect gets to the site. There may be landing page elements that are causing drop-offs in conversions, which you can observe as partially completed forms and abandoned shopping carts. A good, hard look at landing page performance will often allow you to dramatically improve conversion rates and make your marketing dollars work more effectively.

Network Settings, Overall Account Settings:

Some of the elements you should examine include:

• The default setting for new campaigns is “Display Select.” This means that your ads will be displayed next to content on a publisher site along with being shown next to search results on Google. This generates a lot of traffic, but can drive down click-through rates overall because content ads are by nature interruptive; they requires diversion of the user’s attention from the content users are interested in. When your ads appear on the “search” network, they will be more productive because they appear in front of a person who is actively looking for what you are offering.
• If you want to be on the Display Network, examine where your ads are actually appearing and assure that the sites are relevant to your offer. This may curtail reach (and therefore traffic), but this is likely to result in lesser reach with better results, which is desirable.
• When using the display network, some graphic/display ads will work better than text results alone. Focus on immediately attractive offers. You need attention-grabbing graphics and copy to be effective here.

Are You Taking Advantage of Different Device Types?

If your ad is designed for the generous real estate of a desktop computer screen, it will probably not do as well on a mobile pad or smartphone. If you are targeting mobile devices, be sure to include location-specific ads, click-to-call and other techniques designed to optimize mobile ads.

Timing and Seasonality:

Analyze your account performance through the lens of whether your business is 24/7, or if there are days of the week and hours in the day that achieve better results. If the latter is the case, you may be paying for ads appearing on days or at times that don’t produce results. Adjust the timing, save money, and get more out of your investment.

If you have a nationwide business, you need to assure that your ads are set to run at appropriate times in each time zone. Remember that Google sets up the time zone on your account at its inception and this cannot be changed. Every ad you run under a schedule will be served based on this original time zone. You have to consciously set ad timing for other zones so that they are serving when your customers are looking for your products.

Localization:

Google rewards advertisers who go the extra mile by localizing their ads. For example, if you are advertising in France, Google will prioritize French language ads first. Your English language ad will trail far behind. This is a natural reflection of Google’s focus on delivering the best user experience possible—because that is what makes the most money for Google. Make sure that your landing pages are in the local language as well.

Using Ad Extensions on Google AdWords:

Ad Extensions will allow you to add a number of features to your ads, including click-to-call and location-based extensions that tie into a retail store. You can also set up ads so that online reviews show up next your ad. Site Links Extension can allow for additional pages from your site to appear with your ad if it is in the top two ads on the search results page. These often get double-digit click-through rates.

Using Google’s Upgraded URL Structure:

You can apply a template tracking tag set across the entire account that automatically appends to all URLs. This feature is very new, having rolled out on July 1, 2015.

A periodic PPC Optimization Audit of your PPC account will be highly beneficial. You can trim the deadwood activities, focus your dollars on the most productive areas, and lower your cost per lead or sale. More important, you can gain greater insight into what is driving your business and how best to approach it.

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This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, of Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact John at jthyfault@beasleydirect.com.

John has more than 19 years of marketing, sales and product development experience, and he brings a proven track record of successful campaign, program and product development expertise. His knowledge of search engine optimization and marketing, combined with an in-depth understanding of customer identification, market analysis and segmentation, allows him to deliver high returns on our client’s marketing investment for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

Prior to working with Beasley Direct, John was Senior Client Services Project Director at ThirdAge.com, a first wave baby boomer lifestyle and community website. At ThirdAge he successfully led major client sponsorships for Fortune 100 companies in healthcare (Tylenol), financial services (American Century), technology (Intel & IBM) and consumer products areas (Revlon & Viactive). He was responsible for strategic and tactical goal setting, project management, new product creation and web site production. John previously worked in Channel Marketing and National Account Sales for IDG Books Worldwide, the publishers of the immensely popular “…For Dummies” book series. Additionally, he managed the wholesale distributor sales channel for Tor/Forge Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

John is active in local marketing associations, including the Direct Marketing Association, the Business Marketing Association and is currently serving on the board of directors for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

John has taught search engine marketing fundamentals extensively. He has led workshops for the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, Northern California Direct Marketing Association (DMAnc.org) and the Business Marketing Association. He also teaches Search Engine Marketing at UCSC’s Extension in Silicon Valley.

The post How To Do a PPC Optimization Audit on Your Account appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

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Before there was such a thing as search engine optimization (SEO), copywriters were a wild and crazy bunch who sat around dreaming up ever-cooler and more creative ways to command the customer’s attention and drag him or her to the cash register.

Those good old days are gone forever. Now copywriters have to understand online copywriting, which includes keywords, understanding metadata, and abiding by the continuously shifting rules of search engines. It feels like the creativity and spontaneity of the profession are gone.

This may be true on one level, but it also opens up fresh challenges. Working with these challenges can be a creative activity as well. For some of us, however, a quick reminder of best practices for digital online copywriting might be helpful.

Important SEO Stuff Over Which Copywriters Have No Control

You can write the best copy in the world and it won’t be effective if the website for which you are writing is one of the Internet’s seedier neighborhoods. You can’t control this, but it is best to be aware of it. Here are some factors that cause search engines to downgrade sites, assuring that they will not come anywhere near the top of a search:

• Poor-Quality Content: Search engines parse the writing quality of content. If content is poorly written, not relevant, self-promotional to the exclusion of value to the customer, or unoriginal, the site will be downgraded.

• Poor-Quality Design/Graphics: Badly designed sites and sites with inappropriate or poor graphics are also downgraded.

• Irrelevant or Broken Links: Sites with links to unrelated sites or with lots of broken links raise a red flag.

• Un-curated Directories: Directories that are just a compilation of unrelated businesses or services, or with broken links are a warning sign to search engines.

• Lots of Banner Ads, Calls to Action, Frequent Popups: These also signal sites that may be less than savory places to hang out, and search engines don’t like them.

You might be writing for an entirely honest, well-intentioned firm, but if the website features any of the above problems, it’s going to be difficult to get any SEO traction with your brilliant copy.

Understand Domain Authority

Search engines give a higher ranking to sites that are rich in original content. It is also important that the content be rated high in quality and of specific interest and value to your customers.

This means that re-using content from other sites should be kept to a minimum compared to content that is original to your site. The content also needs to be consistent in branding, tone and use of keywords.

The more you adhere to these guidelines, the better your ranking will be (assuming there are none of the issues addressed above getting in the way). This is known as domain authority, meaning that your site has original, valuable, high-quality content to offer your site visitors.

Keywords

When researching keywords, think about and use the actual language that your potential site visitors use when looking for information on what your site offers. Remember that most people use a search engine because they are looking for a specific answer to a question or a solution to a problem, so finding a site they already know about is generally a secondary concern. Keep this in mind as you begin the keyword discovery process.

Step One: Leave Your Pre-Conceptions at the Door 

Yes, you are the expert on your site and what it contains, but remember that the rest of the world does not necessarily speak your internal language when discussing your products and services.

Step Two: The Storm of Brains

Sit your communications, marketing, sales and support team around a table and start throwing out ideas. Each group will bring its own unique insights into how people discuss your products and services, some of which will be a surprise to the rest of the table. At this point, there are no wrong ideas; encourage the outlandish and crazy to come up with the gems that will drive the traffic to your site.

Step Three: Mix It Up and See What Else Comes Out

You have your base keyword list. Now start pouring it into various online tools to see what you may have missed and to garner some potential traffic and competitive data. There are a number of excellent tools online that can help you with this. Most of these will come up with suggested keywords and keyword variations, as well as give you the traffic competition data.

Our favorites at Beasley Direct are WordTracker.com, Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner (requires a AdWords account), Keyword Discovery, Google Suggest (those fun little suggestions that drop down when entering a new search term in Google and Google Trends) for the latest hot searches and comparative data on your potential keywords.

Enter your base list of keywords into these tools and harvest the results. Use this data to compare the traffic potential to the number of other sites competing to appear for this word. The ideal is a highly relevant word to your product or service that has limited competition and good traffic. Remember the more sites with which you compete for a key word, the harder it is to achieve that rank.

Step Four: Time for a Haircut

Once you have the data in hand, you need to select the top 20 to 30 keywords for your site and start to assign them to individual pages and sections of the site, ideally selecting three to six keywords per page.

Step Five: Putting the Right Word in the Right Place

Now look at the pages, the file title, the page titles, headlines, picture/video captions and meta descriptions and start to work your selected keywords into the copy. (If your site is is missing this metadata, then it’s time to introduce this to your site along with your new copy.) Remember that well-written copy is essential to any successful site and you need to prevent your keywords from overwhelming your copy. People like copy that reads naturally; “keyword stuffing” just to get the keywords on the page can hurt your site more than help. See Figure 1 for examples on where your key words should appear on every page.

Figure 1: Using Keywords on a Page

Step Six: Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Keyword development is an ongoing process that reflects changes in your marketplace and the larger web as a whole. You cannot just set it and forget it. Set aside time on a quarterly or bi-annual basis to re-examine your assumptions and perform fresh research.

Using Keywords in Copy

Now that you have your list of key words, the temptation is to sprinkle them like salt over everything you write. This may not be the best approach—remember that quality of writing is also a key aspect of writing for the Web. Cramming in keywords to achieve “density” will not improve your writing, and may make it worse. In any case, search engines don’t give points for keyword density.

This may not work for you, but my approach is to write what I want to write. Then I eyeball the keyword list and make sure I have used the right ones at least once in every piece.

The title is perhaps the one exception. Using the right keywords in the title is critical. However, don’t sacrifice “people-bait” for “machine bait.” People will be attracted to an interesting title even if it doesn’t have just the right key word. Search engines don’t care much about creativity, but people do.

Use subheads with keywords if possible. Apart from organizing the page in the reader’s eye, subheads are another opportunity to send the right signals to search engines.

Incidentally, search engines are smart enough to understand synonyms, related language and grammatical variations. So the precise keywords don’t have to be used 100% of the time.

Graphics Count, Too

Once upon a time, copywriters didn’t have to worry about graphics, but graphics have become increasingly important in search engine rankings. Search engines evaluate how well graphics are used, how relevant the graphics are, and their quality. Try to assure that the graphics are original (if possible), that keywords are used where relevant in captions, and that there is keyword-rich, descriptive alt copy in the graphic’s file name.

Walk the Fine Line Between Too Short and Too Long

When it comes to copy length, the writer is caught between the machine and the man. People have increasingly short attention spans. According to a recent study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the human attention span is now eight seconds—one second less than goldfish. However, the average web page that appears on the first page of a Google search is 2,000 words. This poses a quandary for the poor copywriter. Write for the mayfly-mind of the human or the coldly analytical mind of the machine?

The best solution is probably to use as many words as are required to tell your story in a compelling fashion—and not one word more or less. Sorry not to be more specific, but the best length is probably between 300 and 2,000 words.

Get Your Content Out There

Getting your content on other sites is an important way to build your search engine ranking. It will help drive traffic to your site, it results in links pointing back at your site (be sure you have these links embedded in the text you send out), and it indicates to the search engines that others value your content.

In addition to using social media to distribute your content, look for re-blogging opportunities, industry forums, online magazines, newsletters, and so forth. Every content share boosts your domain authority.

For more information on how to research and use keywords for search engine optimization, read our free guide: Boosting SEO with an Organic Site Review.

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Kathy Keenan, Social Media Marketing Manager

This post was authored by Kathy Keenan.

Kathy brings a depth of experience in business and high technology communications, having worked in public relations, marketing communications, and social media for clients ranging from semiconductors and networking equipment to consumer goods. She worked as a senior writer/editor for Cisco Systems, Inc., developing thought leadership for C-level executives across industries ranging from health care to telephony. Before Cisco, Kathy worked for 10 years as a freelance writer and editor, working on marketing materials for a variety of clients.

Before becoming a freelancer, Kathy was CEO of Oak Ridge Public Relations, Inc., an award-winning PR agency in Silicon Valley, with clients such as IBM, Solectron, Philips Semiconductor, Bay Networks, Epson, and Xilinx. Kathy founded this company and managed it for 13 years.

Kathy was vice president of Tycer-Fultz-Bellack (now BBDO), formerly one of the largest advertising and PR firms in Silicon Valley. She managed a team of professionals who delivered strategic communications services to clients such as Informix, Exar, and Monolithic Memories. She started her career in PR at Acurex Corporation, an aerospace technology firm.

Kathy is a published novelist, writing under the name K.D. Keenan.

The post Best Practices for Online Copywriting in the Digital Age appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

MORGAN HILL, CA

News Facts: Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. of Northern California, a local SEO company, has been appointed as the search marketing agency of record for Focus Product Design, Inc. (www.FocusPDM.com) of Menlo Park, CA. The initial work will be search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising to increase qualified leads coming into the company. Specific SEO tactics will be to optimize the website architecture for better search visibility, keyword and key phrase research, and website content and copy optimization. Beasley Direct will also create and optimize PPC ad campaigns and landing pages to increase clicks and decrease cost per click and leads.About us:

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.  is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley Direct provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct Marketing is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

Focus Product Design, Inc. www.FocusPDM.com is a custom product design and manufacturing partner located in Menlo Park, California — in the heart of Silicon Valley. Focus specializes in taking a new product idea from concept, through design and testing, and into production.

Focus is a one-stop shop built to guide entrepreneurs and companies along every phase of development and is manufactured with precision and brought to market based on a foundation of real-world research. For more information contact Rocco Santoro, VP of Innovation 650-300-4375 or rocco@focuspdm.com.

Contacts:
Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.
Laurie B. Beasley
President
Ph: 408-782-0046 x21
Fx: 408-782-9604
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

Focus Product Design
Rocco Santoro
VP of Innovation
Ph: 650-300-4374
rocco@focuspdm.com

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Laurie Beasley, President, Beasley Direct Marketing

News Facts: Laurie Beasley, President of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.  was invited by the Western Independent Bankers Association to speak on email marketing at the 2015 Education Summit and Expo, September 21-23, 2015 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. Ms. Beasley’s session title will be “Optimizing Email for Desktop and Mobile Viewing: Keeping Email Users Satisfied and Engaged.”

Ms. Beasley’s session will discuss how email marketing is evolving from desktop to mobile viewing. However, financial services in all industries must not stop optimizing for desktop viewing. While 52% of email opens happen from mobile, only 2% click on links in the email from mobile vs. 11% who click from desktop. This means financial institutions must optimize emails for BOTH the desktop and mobile viewing if they are going to maximize click through. This session will cover the essentials of how to make sure desktop email marketing and mobile email marketing are effective no matter where customers are viewing. Also covered are responsive email design and cross browser compatibility.

About us:

Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. Beasley Direct is a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, and demand generation campaigns for nearly 100 companies. Ms. Beasley serves as President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org. Laurie manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern Californiawww.NorCalBMA.org. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institute www.onlinemarketinginstitute.org. Ms. Beasley frequently speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, AMA, Tech Council, and the Online Marketing Summit.

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.  is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley Direct provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct Marketing is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

Western Independent Bankers https://www.westernbankers.com/ was established in 1937 and is the premier networking and educational organization for community banks in the West, connecting leaders from a wide geographical area to engage in focused exchanges of experiences that typically don’t take place elsewhere. WIB informs, educates and connects community banks with the resources and services to achieve the highest standards of personal and organizational performance. WIB has 180 bank members and 130 community bank service providers.

Contact:
Laurie B. Beasley
Ph: 408-782-0046 x21
Fx: 408-782-9604
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

The post Laurie Beasley To Speak on Mobile Email Marketing and Desktop Email Marketing at Western Independent Bankers 2015 Summit & Expo appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

Laurie Beasley, President, Beasley Direct Marketing

News Facts: Laurie Beasley, President of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. was asked by the Direct Marketing Association to write the introduction to the Direct Mail response rates section of the newly released DMA Statistical Fact Book 2015. Several insights were included in Ms. Beasley’s introduction, including two key findings:

• Direct Mail response rates for most direct mail marketers have declined significantly since 1987, which accounts for a lower mail volume. But response rates for department store direct mail have increased 2.5 times during that same period. When mailing first class, both department stores and credit card marketers have seen their response rates double between 1987 and 2013.¹
• And when the DMA analyzed who “will read immediately”, positive intent by 22-24 year olds increased from 35.6 to 41.2 percent 1987 to 2013. Perhaps marketers have learned how to target emerging consumers with relevant messages and offers.²

Ms. Beasley concludes: A new generation is reading direct mail, and paying attention. Now it’s up to the marketers to train them and nurture them to become lifelong consumers and enthusiasts for direct mail marketing.

Find out more about the Direct Marketing Association here. Order The DMA 2015 Statistical Fact Book here.

¹ The DMA 2015 Statistical Fact Book, USPS Household Diary Study, 2014, p. 61
² The DMA 2015 Statistical Fact Book, USPS Household Diary Study, 2014, p. 68

About us:

Laurie B. Beasley is co-founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. Beasley Direct is a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, and demand generation campaigns for nearly 100 companies. Ms. Beasley serves as President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org. Laurie manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern Californiawww.NorCalBMA.org. She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institutewww.onlinemarketinginstitute.org. Ms. Beasley frequently speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, AMA, Tech Council, and the Online Marketing Summit.

Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. is known for bringing the latest marketing strategies to online and direct marketing. Beasley Direct provides services in email marketing, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, website design, media planning, direct mail marketing, lead generation and nurture campaigns, and database management. Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. helps clients in both B2B and B2C marketing. Beasley Direct Marketing is privately held and headquartered in the Silicon Valley suburb, Morgan Hill, California. For more information, go to www.BeasleyDirect.com or call Laurie Beasley, President, at 408-782-0046 x21 or email lbeasley@beasleydirect.com.

Direct Marketing Association (DMA)
The Direct Marketing Association (thedma.org) is the world’s largest trade association dedicated to advancing and protecting responsible data-driven marketing. Founded in 1917, DMA represents thousands of companies and nonprofit organizations that use and support data-driven marketing practices and techniques. DMA provides the Voice to shape policy and public opinion, the Connections to grow members’ businesses and the Tools to ensure full compliance with ethical and best practices as well as professional development. In 2012, the Data-Driven Marketing Economy (DDME) added $156 billion in revenue to the U.S. economy and fueled more than 675,000 jobs. The real value of data is in its exchange across the DDME: 70 percent of the value of the DDME — $110 billion in revenue and 478,000 jobs — depends on the ability of firms to exchange data across the DDME..

Contact:
Laurie B. Beasley
Ph: 408-782-0046 x21
Fx: 408-782-9604
lbeasley@beasleydirect.com

The post Laurie Beasley Writes Intro for Direct Mail Response Rates Section of New DMA Statistical Fact Book 2015 appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.

The new “DMA 2015 Statistical Fact Book” is out. Laurie Beasley, President of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc., was chosen to write the intro to this year’s Direct Mail Marketing section. Here are Laurie’s key findings for effective direct mail:

For decades, direct mail was the workhorse of direct marketing. Then came the Internet, and some marketers migrated to far less expensive contact methods like email, online advertising and search marketing. The total number of direct mail pieces mailed each year steadily declined.

However, direct mail has been holding its own in recent years and some indicators point to a resurgence. According to the most recent USPS Household Diary Study, overall mail volume was down only slightly and standard mail volume actually increased. In fact, the percentage of total mail volume attributed to direct mail has steadily grown year by year, from 39.9% in 1990 to 56.9% in 2014.

Lower overall mail volumes should make it easier for a marketer’s piece to stand out in the mailbox. But since the decline is primarily in first class, the competition in standard class advertising mail has become more intense. To increase direct mail effectiveness, marketers might want to consider making their pieces less promotional and more “official looking” like increasingly rare bills and statements (since more and more transactions are done online) to get the attention of a busy consumer.

As in past years, there are some encouraging trends. Response rates for most marketers have declined significantly since 1987, which accounts for a lower mail volume. But response rates for department store direct mail have increased 2.5 times during that same period. When mailing first class, both department stores and credit card marketers have seen their response rates double between 1987 and 2013.¹

Department stores may have better geographic and customer information that allows them to target more selectively. Credit card companies may have better data on their best prospects, justifying the higher cost of first class mail. Does better data translate to better response? That hypothesis is supported by user diaries, where most retailers get very high scores for “read immediately” and “found useful”²

Better targeting with higher response rates makes direct mail more affordable. But the ultimate cost per order or per lead are always what count, and better response rates and better conversion with direct mail can offset the postage and printing costs that you don’t have with electronic media.

Direct mail is also one of the most trackable and measurable of all media, boosting the quality of analytics for the campaign overall. A multichannel marketer knows when mail is arriving, and can use this knowledge to turn on the tap for other touch points such as email and telemarketing. Thus direct mail benefits other media and can boost the overall effectiveness of the multi-touch campaign.

For a final bright spot, take a look at the “will read immediately” numbers on Figure 1 below. Positive intent by 22-24 year olds increased from 35.6 to 41.2 percent 1987 to 2013. Perhaps marketers have learned how to target emerging consumers with relevant messages and offers.

Figure 1

A new generation is reading your mail, and paying attention. Now it’s up to you to train them and nurture them to become lifelong consumers and enthusiasts for direct mail marketing.

Find out more about the Direct Marketing Association here. Order The DMA 2015 Statistical Fact Book here.

For more information on how to create more successful direct mail programs, download our guide 10 Ways to Optimize Direct Mail Campaigns.

¹ The DMA 2015 Statistical Fact Book, USPS Household Diary Study, 2014, p. 61.

² The DMA 2015 Statistical Fact Book, USPS Household Diary Study, 2014, p. 68

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Laurie Beasley, President, Beasley Direct Marketing

This blog was authored by Laurie B. Beasley, co-founder and president of Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc. Beasley Direct is a Silicon Valley direct marketing agency that has managed search, email, online, and demand generation campaigns for nearly 100 companies. Ms. Beasley serves as President of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. She manages the eMarketing Roundtable for the BMA Northern California (www.NorCalBMA.org). She is also an instructor of online marketing at UC Berkeley Extension and teaches for the Online Marketing Institute. Ms. Beasley frequently speaks on online marketing and demand generation topics for marketing organizations, including the DMA, BMA, AMA, Tech Council, and the Online Marketing Summit.

The post Effective Direct Mail Makes a Comeback: Why It Can Be More Effective Than Ever appeared first on Beasley Direct and Online Marketing.