Paul's SEO & Internet Marketing TIps For Small Businesses: July 2015

Friday, 31 July 2015

The Importance Of Goal-Directed Behaviors To Buyer Personas

In nearly every walk of life, goals are a major influence on what we do, think, feel, and the actions we take on a daily basis. For example, we may decide to skip the fudge brownie desert in light of health goals we are pursuing. On a much larger scale, goals are at work influencing choices and high stake decisions such as investments in new technology or services.

One of the largest influences on the conceptual development of personas has been the body of work and research on goals. More specifically, on what is referred to as goal-directed behaviors. A major theme in the social sciences, prior to and since the introduction of personas, is attempting to understand how individuals and groups make choices. It has been predominantly found and recognized that the pursuit of a choice or choices is largely goal-directed.

When Alan Cooper first introduced the concept of personas as an archetypal representation of users, it was in the context of goal-directed design. Whereby, the focus is on goal-directed behaviors within a usage context. Zeroing in on the premise that usage behaviors are driven by a variety of either single or multiple goals. This profound concept led to the development of a very precise goal-directed methodology for design. Whereby user personas represented an archetypal representation of users and their goal-directed behaviors and choices. Which, after being introduced nearly twenty years ago, has led to growth in the field of Interaction Design.

The Pursuit Of Choice

It is under this same premise that buyer personas were introduced. Primarily, focusing on the premise that choices and decisions are driven by a variety of underlying goals. In the pursuit of a choice or choices (decisions), buyers and customers are driven by as well as motivated by goals. These goals reside both on the conscious as well as the sub-conscious level.

This goal-based conceptual framework is the bedrock foundation of buyer personas. It has also led to a very precise and robust goal-directed methodology for buyer persona development. This methodology is designed to uncover goals and goal-directed buying behaviors customers and buyers exhibit in their pursuit of a choice or choices (decisions). Resulting in a modeled archetypal representation of buyers and their goal-directed behaviors leading to choices and decisions.

Goals Have Been Largely Ignored In Marketing And Sales

In the world of traditional marketing and sales, much of the focus has been on attempting to understand the “buying process”, or of late, the “buyer’s journey.” In the modern digital world, this continued focused on process leads to some very inherent problems. Which, accounts for many of the reasons why businesses continue to struggle in connecting with buyers.

We can break down these inherent problems into several areas:

For much of the past few decades, with the focus on buying processes and journeys, the focus has been on trying to understand business decisions via comparable options. For instance, should we purchase software package A from Company A or software package B from Company B? This comparable options perspective spawned comparable competitive analysis on product criteria, buying criteria, SWOT analysis, Key Performance Indicators, Key Success Factors, Win/Loss analysis, Objections Handling, and more. The intent on isolating and influencing decisions based upon Company A or Company B being the better option. What has largely been ignored through this approach is the powerful influence of goals on decisions.
The focus on buying process or buyer’s journey presumes the buying process is static and preferences remain the same. In the modern digital age, we are seeing multiple goals and choices emerge in multiple contextual situations. These multiple contextual situations result in multiple buying paths and decisions. Companies wishing to succeed today in a fast changing environment will need to attain deep understanding of the influence of multiple goals within multiple contextual situations pertaining to multiple decisions.
We have seen a major shift in buying behaviors due to digital technologies. Whereby, an increasing degree of how people take actions and make choices is through self-directed behaviors. Businesses have largely attempted to understand this shift in buying behavior through the lens of “process.” With marketing, for instance, believing they now “take on” a higher percentage of the “process.” Ignoring the shifts in underlying goals and motivations reshaping why and how choices and decisions are being arrived at.
There has been a growth of buyer profiling, miscasts and mislabeled as buyer personas, which are focused on process orientation as opposed to true understanding of specific goal-directed behaviors and choices. Most troubling to see are mislabeled buyer personas emphasizing a process-oriented focus on comparative options. For example, still focused on product and decision criteria from a comparative sense. Missing entirely the deep value obtained when you focus on goal-directed behaviors and the narrative of buyers attempting to fulfill their goals.

Goal-Directed Buying Behaviors Define Buyer Personas

Buyer personas and the development methodology can be very powerful in informing strategies on how to best connect and market to buyers. That is if they are truly developed within the intent and context of understanding the underlying goals driving people to make the choices and decisions, which are before them. It involves the use of a goal-directed methodology to understand buyers within this context.

A simple yet profound declaration can be made here. Which is, buyer personas are rooted and founded on the principle of understanding the influence of goal-directed buying behaviors. Within a larger context, buyer personas are an element of a human-centered approach to marketing focused on fulfilling goals. It involves using a goal-directed research and modeling methodology. If buyer personas are not developed within this context – then they truly are not buyer personas. Simply stated, what they represent is factors-based as well as process-based profiling of buyers.

This post originally appeared on TonyZambito.com

The post The Importance Of Goal-Directed Behaviors To Buyer Personas appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.

Yahoo Buys Social Commerce Site Polyvore

Yahoo announced this afternoon that it was buying social shopping destination Polyvore. Yahoo said in its release that the acquisition would “strengthen Yahoo’s digital magazines and verticals through the incorporation of community and commerce, and together Yahoo and Polyvore will power...

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Stories are the most powerful data: The secret of business ethnography

In this video, we talk with the Bad Babysitters about how business ethnography turned Benjamin Moore's understanding of their own business upside down.

Business ethnography is the science of turning human stories into powerful business lessons. In an era where we're trying to quantify every interaction, it's a very different approach to understand our customers and how our products fit in their lives.

Historically, ethnography has been used as a spark for innovations - a hunt for ideas in the wilds of customers' real lives.

Why Content Marketing Trumps Advertising

Why content marketing trumps advertising? People actively avoid advertising. Here is the data and charts to help you craft your content marketing. 7 tips.

The post Why Content Marketing Trumps Advertising appeared first on Heidi Cohen.

Thursday, 30 July 2015

The 5 “Must-Do’s” For A Profitable B2B Social Media Strategy

Would you like your social media strategy to help increase website traffic, leads and sales? These five things can help make that happen.

Despite social media’s ubiquity and adoption by people, there are a lot of B2B companies that have not done much to leverage its power. Most of those companies want to do more, but haven’t had the time or are uncertain of how best to get started to use social media to increase traffic, convert leads, nurture those leads toward a sale and delight their customers.

Avoiding “Ready, Fire, Aim”

That hesitation is not a bad thing, actually. A lot of companies want to avoid the “ready, fire, aim” approach to social media. What’s worse, actually, is companies who take the “ready, fire, aim” approach, get lousy results (if any) and then sour on social media and its potential to help grow their business.

So what’s the best way to avoid a “spray and pray” approach to social media that irritates people, makes your company appear clueless and unprofessional and, worst of all, doesn’t generate results?

You Do Have Content, Right?

First things first. Before building a social media strategy, you need to have great content on your website. Content that is helpful and of interest to your ideal customers just when they want it during their increasingly non-linear buyer’s journey. Content examples include a blog, videos, ebooks, webinars, etc.

Without your own content as the foundation of your social media strategy, you’ll being throwing bait to the fish without it being connected to your fishing line. The fish will appreciate it, but there won’t be much return for your company.

With content, however, your social media strategy will be much more likely to succeed. Social media can vastly extend the reach of your site’s content, get it shared and draw more traffic back to your site. As marketing expert and author Jay Baer famously says, “Content is fire. Social media is gasoline.”

So before firing away with a social media effort, here are the five “must-do’s” to ensure you’ll have proper aim and profitable results:

1. Research Your Buyer Persona

In Adele Revella’s “The Buyer Persona Manifesto,” she offers this definition of a buyer persona:

“It’s an archetype, a composite picture of the real people who buy, or might buy, products like the ones you sell.”

Think about your ideal customers who don’t know your company. What information would they find helpful that you can provide? Keep in mind that they are much more interested in themselves and their problems or aspirations than your company and its products.

Which social media platforms do they tend to use? Think about fishing. Don’t chase the fish; fish where the fish are. Gain a presence on those social media networks where your ideal customers already gather.

Does your buyer persona use one of the big social media networks or perhaps a niche site targeted at people in the same industry or with a similar interest? You may not need to be on as many social media platforms as you think.

Why do they use the social media platforms that they do use – business or pleasure? What sort of content do they tend to consume and share?

2. Optimize Your Profiles

Each social media site that you use is a brand embassy, and should represent your home country (i.e. website) to the fullest extent available. Include your company’s logo and get all the related graphics and dimensions correct for each platform.

Just like with your main website, use keywords to get your social media profile found via search. Search engines crawl most social media networks. And always include a link back to your site to make it easier for visitors to find out more about you.

3. Build Reach

“Reach is a measure of potential audience size,” according to Kissmetrics. So, it’s not just how many follower you have, but how many followers your followers have.

That’s why you’ll want to start following and connecting with prospects, customers and thought leaders. Keep in mind, however, that your social media presence is only as good as your engagement and your content.

Let’s talk about “engagement.” Have you ever been to a cocktail party and met a guy who only talked about himself and never showed any interest in you? Don’t be that guy on social media.

Instead, follow the 80/20 rule: share helpful, interesting content at least 80% of the time. Post pictures, videos, ebooks, blog posts, contests, and questions. The other 20% of your social media posts can direct people to offers and other more promotional content.

4. Customize Your Content For Each Social Media Platform

No matter how great your content is, when it’s distributed on social media it’s only meaningful within the context of where it appears.

Have you ever seen a Twitter post with hashtags that has been posted to LinkedIn? Or perhaps a tweet that was cut off because it was autoposted from Facebook? It demonstrates laziness, a deaf ear for social media (and customers?) and resembles a foreign movie with really bad voiceover dubbing.

For each social media platform, present your message in the context of the platform on which you’re communicating. Here are examples of the types of customization you should do for some of the major social media networks.

Twitter – Think of Twitter as a living, breathing conversation. Keep your tweets short, engaging and easily shareable. While you get 140 characters, your posts should be less than 115-120 characters. Use hashtags to connect with an audience or tap in to relevant trends. Also, don’t start a tweet with an @ symbol because it will only be seen by mutual followers of the sender and receiver, thus diminishing your reach. And as with so much of social media, make it visual. Tweets with pictures have 50% higher click through rates.

Facebook – This is where you can show more personality than just about any other social media network. From a frame of mind, visitors to Facebook generally want to have fun and be entertained. This is not the place for serious content. And while there’s no limit on the number of characters, keep your posts under 250 characters. Use as many visuals as possible (but make sure they are properly sized for Facebook).

LinkedIn – Looking to find and share serious content? Here’s your network. If you think about the body language of someone on Facebook, envision someone leaning back in their chair. For LinkedIn, they are leaning forward, searching and ready to learn. It’s OK to provide more in-depth content here. You can post content to your company page and to relevant LinkedIn groups. But when posting to groups, it’s best to listen first to the questions and conversations before offering up your content. Again, keep the context (and the cocktail party rule) in mind.

Google+ – Google plus is great for posting images, video and educational content. And while it may not have the engagement levels of other networks, it can help with getting your content found through search engines like no other social media platform. The +1 buttons showing up next to results can improve your click through rates on Google searches.

5. Analyze To Refine

That which can be measured can be improved! That’s how you will know if your content and social media strategy is on the right track in support of your business goals.

Some basic metrics to monitor include:

How many visits are you getting from social media?
How many leads are you generating from social media?
Which of those leads became customers?

More important than the number of social media followers you are gaining is their level of engagement:

How shareable is your content? Think of shares as votes.
Which posts are getting the most clicks?
Which posts are generating the most interactions? Look particularly at shares and comments.

This post originally appeared on the Artillery Marketing B2B Blog.

The post The 5 “Must-Do’s” For A Profitable B2B Social Media Strategy appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.

SearchCap: Google Home Service Search Ads, Right To Be Forgotten Challenged & Bing Emoji Keyboard

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: Google Home Service Search Ads, Right To Be Forgotten Challenged & Bing Emoji Keyboard appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Amazon Launchpad setup to help startups promote their products

The next hit product is always right around the corner, and if the world's largest online retailer has its way, you might just be introduced to it through Amazon.com.

With support from Silicon Valley powerhouses like venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and accelerator Y Combinator, Amazon this week unveiled Amazon Launchpad, "a new program that makes it easy for startups to launch, market, and distribute their products to hundreds of millions of Amazon customers across the globe."

Wednesday, 29 July 2015

SearchCap: Google AdWords Play Store, Quality Score Update & Bing Ads Windows 10

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: Google AdWords Play Store, Quality Score Update & Bing Ads Windows 10 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

#081: Employee Motivation and the Abuse of Interns

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Emma, Official Sponsor of the UnPodcast

On this episode of the UnPodcast we discussed problems associated with the practice of tipping, and how one restaurant actually increased profits when it banned tips.

We also talked about the abuse of interns and when it does or does not make sense to work for free as an intern.

Items mentioned in this episode

How a No-Tipping Policy Helped This Restaurant Triple Profits in 2 Months

A story from the UnMarketing Facebook Page

Goldman Sachs restricts intern workday to 17 hours in wake of burnout death

The Wolf of Wall Street

Video provided by: AtomicSpark
Audio recorded by: Wayne Cochrane Sound

What the Google+ changes mean for marketers

Earlier this week, Google unveiled some major changes to Google+, its social networking platform.

Since it launched in 2011, Google+ has been an integral part of the Google experience, as the search giant used it to unify its disparate services.

Change Your LinkedIn Profile From A Resume To A Reputation Destination

What does linked-in a good craft beer bar have in common with a great LinkedIn profile? Both are great destinations that get more visits based on their reputation!

If you’ve ever walked into a great craft beer bar, the bartender, or cicerone, can provide you an excellent customer experience by asking you a set of questions to lead you to what you should be drinking based on what you like. There is not a best craft beer for everyone, just like there is no one LinkedIn profile format or formula every should use.

The LinkedIn reputation lesson is that as a good craft beer stands out based on what one is looking for, then your reputation needs to describe yourself accurately so you stand out with the correct crowd. And you can get to the realization that you need to change your LinkedIn profile by asking yourself some very pointed questions.

I shared this question-approach with a fellow craft beer lover at one of my favorite watering holes. Acting as a reputation ‘cicerone’ I asked my new friend the following questions that ended up causing a paradigm shift in the way he looked at his LinkedIn profile.

10 Questions To Do Your Own Linked Profile Audit

Key questions to ask your sales teams, your leadership, your marketers or yourself about your LinkedIn profile

Does your profile pic look like it belongs on the Wall of Shame? Take a professional-like photo, so you stop the social smirking about your silly looking image.

Does your LinkedIn headline look like a job title that nobody really understands anyway? Why would you use this 120-character space for anything other than an elevator pitch to explain your value to separate you from the crowd?

Does your LinkedIn summary tell your customer how they are going to help you make it to Presidents Club, 21 Club, or Winners Circle? Make your summary about the customer and network and how you can help them.

Are you ‘Googleable'; including keywords throughout your LinkedIn profile that sum up your value that people are literally searching for on Google? If not, then include these ‘Googleable’ terms to your LinkedIn Endorsements section, Summary, Headline, Job Experience, Anchored Text to get found by those who are looking.

Are you using your formal, baptismal, confirmation or any other name that would only be familiar to your mother? Your mother may be in your network, however, you need to include the name which you go by in the work place so others can find you.

Are you employable? If you don’t have at least three current and past positions that include keywords and accomplishments to explain the value you added then add them immediately. The way in which you describe your job experience can add to the way that your network

Does your LinkedIn profile show that you play well with others? If not, then get some Recommendations, Endorsements and Awards listed to show others what your first-grade teacher knows!

Does your LinkedIn profile pass the reading, writing and arithmetic exam? If you are not writing in first person, have typos throughout your LinkedIn profile, use poor grammar and do not include any publications, videos or SlideShares that you’ve created then you fail this test. And, you let your competition go to the head of the class.

Are you all dressed up (i.e., a polished profile at the LinkedIn dance, but acting as a wallflower would by not participating in the conversation? It’s one thing to get dressed up for a ‘dance’ with a great looking profile, but if you hang on the sidelines, then you are not helping your reputation – telling your story, your brand’s story or just being a part of the process. Get moving with LInkedIn group updates, daily status updates and asking people to connect with you.

Are you driving your LinkedIn profile like there is no reputation speedometer? If you are fine-tuning your reputation’s engine then pay attention to the speedometer – how many people are viewing your profile, does your network view and share your updates, are people asking to network with you and accepting your invites? Paying attention to your reputation dashboard will help you reach your destination.

Do you have another self-assessment question to help turn a LinkedIn profile from a resume to a reputation builder? If so, please share below. Or contact me directly at MarketingThink.com or on LinkedIn, Google+ or Twitter.

Did you notice I did not mention the term ‘social media’ once? Working on your reputation is not based on your social media expertise. Your reputation is about fishing where the fish are and having the right bait to be noticed and caught. LinkedIn is today’s reputation hub and you better be fishing there with the right bait. And we all know what goes best with fishing. A nice IPA craft-beer.

This article originally appeared on MarketingThink.com

The post Change Your LinkedIn Profile From A Resume To A Reputation Destination appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.

With Windows 10, Bing Ads Anticipates 10 To 15 Percent More Search Volume By September

High hopes for Windows 10 to deliver search volume now that Bing and Cortana are built right in. The post With Windows 10, Bing Ads Anticipates 10 To 15 Percent More Search Volume By September appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

App download interstitials drive users away: Google

With millions of apps for consumers to select from in popular app stores, many companies struggle to drive installs of their mobile apps.

Companies with websites frequently use interstitials in an effort to convert mobile web users into mobile app users, but according to Google, these efforts could come with significant risk.

The Best In Energy Content Marketing

Editor’s Note: Much of our work in content marketing strategy consists of defining content marketing best practices. And then showcasing brands and sites that act as examples of great content marketing.

This help us demonstrate what best practice content marketing looks like in real life and helps our customers to really see what is possible.

Then we’re able to get into the discussion on how to implement a content marketing plan for their business.

One thing that really helps with that process is showcasing great content marketing examples in the exact industry you compete in. We also typically showcase examples outside the industry as well. But it always helps to see who the real competition is when it comes to the battle for customer attention.

The Best In Energy And Utilities Content Marketing

The energy industry has a perception problem:

61% of us have negative feelings towards our energy supplier.
Energy companies are struggling to explain the complexity of their supply chains, and the raw demand they are facing.
Consumers are just looking for energy companies to be real, transparent, innovative and conscious of the environmental impact of our energy use.

So check out this Slideshare on Content Marketing in the Energy and Utilities Industry, by Liz Bedor.

It’s no secret that the general public and energy companies don’t always see eye to eye.

The political complexity and historical environmental disasters (think BP oil spill), rightfully so, sets energy companies up for a steep challenge to change their public perception.

Based on our findings, lack of perceived authenticity, transparency, innovation and environmental responsibility are the core issues the public finds with these companies.

The good news for energy companies looking to change these issues, is that content marketing can help.

Trends + Trendsetters: The Best in Energy Content Marketing from Liz Bedor

This article originally appeared on LizBedor.com

The post The Best In Energy Content Marketing appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.

Search Ads In Google Play Store Rolling Out For All Android App Marketers

App install ads appear in search results in the Play Store. The post Search Ads In Google Play Store Rolling Out For All Android App Marketers appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.