MarketingSherpa Blog

The ways to market real estate online seem endless. Blogging is a major part of the equation among the successful online real estate marketers I spoke to for a MarketingSherpa special report on the topic.

What I found, though, is that these marketers face major challenges when it comes to tracking the number of leads coming from blogs. Unless a Web visitor offers an email address to receive more content, there is little real estate marketers can do besides waiting for leads to call and asking how they found them. Read more…

When talking to search marketers, I often hear grumbling about Google’s commanding influence in the search world, and its increasingly mysterious internal workings. I was reminded this week of just how powerful and inscrutable Google has become when I saw AdGooroo’s second quarter Search Engine Advertiser Update.

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We love debating words in the office. We discuss whether an ad was “changed” or “manipulated” or if a marketer “destroyed” or “smashed” previous records. And we try hard to write in the language of marketers.

We particularly love to debate “marketing-speak.” Marketers like making nouns into verbs, or adjectives into nouns. It’s our job to decide where to draw the line. Here’s a quick list of some of our favorites:

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Should you file copyright for your online videos, webinar presentations, email newsletter articles, blogs, SEO-ed Web pages, podcasts, white papers … and the rest of the “content” your marketing department produces? Yes and no.

First of all, make sure all your templates (e.g., PowerPoint slides, landing pages, brochures, images, and podcasts) include a formal copyright line. Do this routinely at least once a year. It’s disgustingly easy for the line to get outdated over the years, or to be eliminated during a revision or another format “upgrade.”

The copyright line can be as little as “© 2008, Company name Inc.” Double-check to make sure the copyright line is as impervious as possible being cut off. If someone copies a great data chart, a short video, or a photograph from your marketing materials, will the copyright line show up there too? Or can it be cut off easily? I make sure copyrights are included inside borders of charts and images for that reason whenever possible.

These measures should deter or, at least, help battle situations when competitors, fraudsters, phishers, jokers making derivative material, and even unwitting consumers break copyright in ways that could hurt your brand. It helps you because you can say legitimately, “That material is copyright-protected and we’d appreciate if you didn’t copy it in this particular manner or situation.” A simple cease-and-desist letter can work wonders.

However, if your content is critical to your bottom line, then, you might consider taking the next step and officially registering a copyright with the US Copyright Office (link below.) What’s critical? You sell it as your product, it’s heavily search-engine optimized and look-alike pages could hurt your rankings or, perhaps, it’s the foundation of your brand differentiation vis-à-vis competitors (especially if you market substantially online).

The disadvantage is that it costs $35-$75 per filing, and you have to register each “publication” separately. There’s also a bit of administration work involved. The good news, however, is that you can register copyrights online. Also, once you’ve registered, your lawyers have a much easier time going after troublemakers and seeking damages.

I’m not a lawyer, so you should ask your legal team about copyright. In the meantime, here are some useful links:

US Copyright Office
http://www.copyright.gov/

Past Sherpa articles on copyright:

Blog Copyright Theft on the Rise Part II: Readers’ Advice & 5 Useful Hotlinks:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=27228&pop=no

Interview: How to Stop Plagiarists From Taking & Using Your Valuable Content as Their Own:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=30030&pop=no

Legal Spotlight: Copyright & Trademark Primer – 6 Tips to Protect Your Assets
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30102&pop=no

We just published a Case Study about how eBillme ran an online video contest with extraordinary results. They got millions of YouTube views and gobs of media attention. Read more…

Trust is a large part of marketing. You know that. Customers will not spend their money with you if they do not trust you.

Few things can shatter trust faster than a major data breach, and data breaches are up this year. Once customers find out that their credit card numbers, addresses and birth dates have been compromised, say “sayonara,” because they’re leaving.

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A story about toxic shower curtains was catapulted to national news because of a well-crafted, well-timed press release, according to The New York Times. The story, loaded with tips on writing better press releases, show the power of PR.  Read more…

As I noted in our keyword research tool user guide, published last week, the fate of the old Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool had been a bit of a mystery. The mystery is now solved: Yahoo confirmed to Search Engine Land that it has decommissioned that tool once and for all.

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The number-one way to raise profits during a recession is to increase the percent of customers who are repeat buyers. Repeat buyers are nearly always far more profitable accounts because they’re cheaper to market to and easier to convert than anyone else. Nearly every marketer can improve repeats with a few simple steps, no matter how tight their budget is right now. Here’s a real-life story to inspire you:

A few years back, Leon Osborne, President Osborne Wood Products, conducted a quick research project to find out how many customers of his table-leg division were repeat buyers. He told MarketingSherpa, “The majority of our customers were first-time customers. Although our business was growing and everything looked good, that was alarming to me.”

So, he decided to run a test. “We hired someone to come in and go through the last 1,000 invoices and talk to customers… to ask basic questions.” None of the conversations was formally scripted, but typical questions included: “How did we do? Did we treat you courteously on the phone? Was the price good? Were you satisfied with the quality of the product? Was the packaging good? How do you feel about our company? Do you have anything that you’d recommend to make us a better company in the future?”

Responses were almost unanimously positive: “Great company. Wonderful prices. Customer service is wonderful.” Then, why didn’t Osborne have a higher percent of repeat buyers on the books?

His theory: “We felt that probably our competitors were doing a good job, and we were doing a good job and people were not ordering based on who did they order from before. Instead, they were ordering based on who did they perceive they did business with before.” Past customers might not remember the company name or how to reach Osborne. Instead, whenever they needed more table legs, they’d flip open a magazine or go to a search engine looking for likely ads to find a supplier … and wind up ordering from a competitor by mistake.

To combat the problem, Osborne decided to dedicate a customer service rep to follow up satisfaction calls. He hoped that adding a touch of human contact will enable new customers to remember the firm’s name and buy from Osborne again. “Sherry Chucci worked here for three years; she knew the business. She’s like an evangelist for the company.”

Sherry called each new account a few days after their shipment arrived. If she couldn’t reach anyone, she left a pleasant message on their machine and put a printed one-page survey in the postal mail with a postage-paid envelope. The conversation and survey were simply about satisfaction, never a sales message or promotion.

Results were outstanding. Osborne says that, currently, “5% of our customers are first-time customers whereas, before, it was 60% or 70% first-time customers. Within 6 months of bringing that program into play … we saw those numbers just change.” It went down to half and half, then 30%, then 20%….” The bottom line grew in reverse proportion. “Our business has grown 10% to 20% each year.”

My suggestion — in most companies, satisfaction phone calls are silo-ed far away from the marketing department in either customer service or product management. However, this story proves that satisfaction calls and surveys can actually be a successful marketing initiative. Why not conduct a test campaign, just as Osborne did, by phoning a slice of your new customers? Then, track the repeat buying habits of that slice compared to the main body of customers over the next six months (or however long repeat sales generally take.) Finally, use the resulting data to sell upper management on starting a routine satisfaction contact program under the auspices and budget of the marketing department for late 2008 and all of 2009.

Plus, of course, let Sherpa know how this works out for you.

By the way, if you need table legs, Osborne Wood Products is at http://www.osbornewood.com/

If you’re a B-to-B marketer who hosts lead-generation webinars, you’ve probably asked yourself that question. The most recent newsletter from webinar services vendor Bulldog Solutions offers some guidance.

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