Transform Yourself into a Digital Marketer this Summer

According to Adobe, 40% of marketers want to reinvent themselves for the Digital Age only 14% know how to do it.  If you think you have room to improve in digital marketing, at +Aurora University  we can help.  As we launch our Digital Marketing and Analytics Master's of Science degree, we are focusing on creating graduates who understand principles of digital marketing management and are aware of the basic tools to not only implement digital marketing but measure the results.   The first steps in the program are staring this summer.  I am teaching Digital Marketing Management, a three credit course on Tuesday and Thursday night from July 8 to August 7th from 6:00 pm to 9:45 pm in Aurora.

Four Foundations of Digital Marketing Form Focus of Summer Class

Learn the Four Foundations of Digital Marketing

The course will focus on the four main foundations of digital marketing.  These 'pillars' are Search, social, email and web design.  We will cover material from a new book I am writing on Digital Marketing Management for Business Experts Press and we will practice our skills with a student simulation from Stukent.  This simulation allows the students to create paid search campaigns for a company telling Tablet PCs and to create customize landing pages for the campaigns and associated email marketing programs.  My students in the day program are testing the simulation right now and it is working well.  

Learn How to Plan AND Implement Digital Marketing Programs

Students will also present a digital marketing program for a company of their choosing.  We will also cover current topics from the news, especially the Wall Street Journal Technology section.  After taking this course you will have a solid foundation for planning and implementing a Digital Marketing program.

I hope some of my readers who have been asking for years if I would teach a night course so they could take digital marketing from me will be interested.  To sign up for the course you must have an undergraduate degree.  Apply to be a student-at-large in the program at this link.  I hope to see you soon!

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

Cross-Device Marketing Tips and Challenges

SEMPO Chicago Cross-Device Marketing Panel Hosted by Microsoft

On Wednesday March 26 I attended a networking and informational event sponsored by +SEMPO Chicago and held at Microsoft's +Microsoft's local headquarters.  The topic was "Why Cross-Device Marketing is Important & Charting the Course for Success".   Panelists were Matt Maroon, James Colborn, Felicia Gardner, Rebecca Keen and Bob Tripathi. The moderator was +Josh Dreller SEMPO Chicago VP.  The panelists each offered a unique perspective on the state of implementing mobile technology for marketing purposes.

The group consensus was that although responsive web design, design that is available and accessible to the user across all platforms is important, typically budgets are still in 'silos', often making it difficult to free up the funds for mobile marketing.  Most of the attendees said that only about 20-30% of their traffic was coming from mobile usage, so perhaps the issue of responsive design will be more pressing in the future and force departments to work together.  The bottom line is still to make it easy for your customers to access your web site and to dialogue with you.

SEMPO @Microsoft Cross-Device Marketing Panel

Responsive Web Design is Just the Beginning

Cross-device marketing isn't just about responsive web design.  For example, people search differently on mobile devices than desktops.  Mobile devices tend to be more social so when customers search for 'hood' on a mobile device, they mean their neighborhood.  When they search for 'hood' on a desktop device, they often mean 'hoodie' or an article of clothing  This difference has implications for web design, search and social media marketing. 

Analytics Enhance Effectiveness

Cross-device planning is greatly enhanced by analytics.  Rebecca mentioned that when marketers are reluctant to create applications for a certain device, she returns to the data and shows which devices and operating systems are driving traffic to the web site.  Usually data helps overcome any reluctance to develop for a particular platform.

Challenges Abound

Many marketing challenges remain in the mobile world however.  One of the audience members thought that too many marketing channels meant she could not be as nimble in response.  Certainly marketers will b e continuing the cross-device and cross-platform juggling act for many years to come.  Devices will continue to proliferate and marketers must meet the challenge.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

Secrets of Search Marketing from Practice

+Thom Disch, President and CEO of Handi-Ramp, spoke in my Internet Marketing classes this week at +Aurora University about pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO).  Internet Marketing is a class in our Digital Marketing Minor.

The timing was great as this is the week that the students are really getting into their PPC campaigns for the +Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC). The day students have prepared their pre-campaign reports and are ready to submit to Google next week.  Evening students are just starting their eight week class but have already picked their candidate companies.  Students will receive a $250 budget to create a campaign for a company and will have three weeks to optimize their campaign using the marketing analytics available in AdWords.

Search Marketing is Top Lead Source

Thom talked about using paid and organic search as key forms of digital media to bring leads to his small business. He bought Hand-Ramp about a decade ago on a 'shoestring' budget.  The company sells wheelchair and van ramps to assist entering vehicles, among other products.  The firm specializes in products for accessibility but can also help people get their dog in their van more easily with its pet ramp line.

Thom Disch from Handi-Ramp Helps Students Optimize PPC Campaigns for AdWords

Research and Plan Before Implementation

Thom emphasized the importance of planning before developing the AdWords plan and encouraged the use of tools like Google Trends and the Keyword Planner to understand search patterns before bidding on key terms.  He also warned that certain industries have terms that are quite expensive. The term "mesothelioma," for example, is bid on by plaintiff's attorneys in personal injury cases. The payoff from these cases can be quite high and therefore the search terms can run in the hundreds of dollars per click.

Monitor and Adapt to Optimize

Thom also said that keyword prices can change as the campaign progresses.  He urged the students to monitor their campaigns carefully and make good use of the marketing analytics tools in AdWords.  If possible, he suggested using a specific landing page for each campaign and linking Google Analytics to AdWords to get more insight into the results of the campaign. Thom also suggested the students set their budgets at a lower rate in the first week and then spend more money as they learn about what is working in their campaigns.

We thank Thom Disch for visiting our class and wish him continued success at Handi-Ramp. Thanks for making yourself available to the classes for future coaching. We look forward to working with you.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

How to Take Charge of Multichannel Metrics

Multichannel Marketing is Multidimensional

One of the challenges of multichannel marketing is measurement. The reason measurement is a challenge is because the multichannel experiences occur across a variety of dimensions. It is difficult to capture in just a simple chart or matrix everything that is going on in the multichannel process. In this post I want to focus on the firm's capabilities versus customer preferences using consumer marketing as an example. For example, the customer base has a certain communication channel preference, such as email or mobile.  We have certain channel strategies in place and our priorities are reflected by the resources we allocate..

Customer Preferences vs. Our Strategy

The first step in measuring a channel strategy is to take an honest look at our channels versus those preferred by the customer to ensure that there is a match. The first question to ask is are we spending our money where our customers are spending their time?   If the customer is primarily focused on mobile devices and we communicate rarely over that channel, then there is a mismatch of resources that the analysis will highlight. The overlap in customer channel preferences and our strategy in the figure below represents an opportunity to develop our communications in those preferred channels.

Take Charge by Aligning Channel Preference with Channel Strategy

For example, recent studies indicate that consumers are spending more time online but that advertising budgets are still focused on traditional media. This chart illustrates the time spent versus total ad spend for a variety of channels in 2011. There is a clear disconnect between the time spent on mobile devices and ad spend. This trend is only going to be more prominent as users have been flocking to mobile devices in even greater numbers since that time. Our suggested analysis would show the time spent on channel by the consumer and and the corresponding resources we have allocated to that channel.

Maximizing Channel Strategy:  Don't Overlook Emerging Channels

Another  example of an opportunity for maximizing channel strategy could be tablet devices.  Tablets are rapidly outperforming mobile devices for shopping. The screen sizes are larger and allow for easier shopping. Not surprisingly, average order values, retail traffic, and conversion rates are higher on tablet.  Yet again the spending on tablets lags the activity on the tablet by the consumer.  So the first step to developing multichannel metrics is to develop a strategy that is consistent with customer preferences.  Only by understanding first where the customer is spending time and how they like to communicate can we hope to develop an effective multichannel measurement program.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

The True ROI of Search and Display Advertising

Paid and organic search can work together

In Internet Marketing class this week we are talking about paid and organic search.  I have noted in the past that paid and organic search work together.  In classes, we have seen that overall interest in a company increases when they start running paid advertisements.  Phone and other inquiries increase after a few weeks and then stop when the paid search campaign ends.  I have also seen information on this effect presented at practitioner conferences.  While I have not seen a good study that is able to measure the offline impact of search, there is also some academic evidence that paid and organic search work together.

From Harvard Working Paper, Do Display Ads Influence Search, by Kireyev, Pauwels and Gupta 2/9/13

Paid and display ads can influence each other

This graphic from a Harvard Working Paper indicates that the paid search and display ad budgets can also work together to create results. I found this reference to a recent academic study in a Search Engine Land blog post by +Greg Sterling.  The authors are Pavel Kireyev, Koen Pauwels and Sunil Gupta.  These academics found some interesting results using data from a U. S. bank that used display advertising to obtain new checking account customers.

Appropriate metrics are complex, indicate high ROI

The display advertising generated more search volume, clicks and conversions but the effect took about two weeks.  The authors were also able to make some attributions regarding budgeting decision.  According to these calculations, a dollar invested in display ads returns $1.24 and a dollar invested in search ads returns $1.74, which would suggest a far larger investment (36% increase) in search advertising in this context.

As the authors note, standard measurements such as Click-through rate CTR and Cost per acquisition (CPA) are static measures that don't take into account what may happen over time.  This study suggests that managers need to step up their game in terms of metrics in order to capture these search effects accurately. The metrics are beyond those normally used in practice.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

What You Wish You Knew About LinkedIn Marketing

Social Media Marketing Classes Learn How to Market Themselves

Last semester in my social media classes at +Aurora University  my students developed LinkedIn Profiles with the goal of helping them in their job search upon graduation or to improve their careers if they were already employed. LinkedIn is the leading business networking site and is rapidly becoming THE clearinghouse for job applications.  We employed best practices in LinkedIn Marketing to achieve extraordinary results for the students.  I taught two sections of the class, one that was primarily adult learners and the other that was primarily traditional undergraduates.  This photo shows +Eric James  presenting his personal social media marketing plan to our class.

Eric James Presenting his Personal Social Media Plan
December, 2013, MKTG 4610

Search is Strategy:  Know Yourself

In both cases the students based their LinkedIn profiles on the principles of Melonie Dodaro, acknowledged expert in LinkedIn marketing.  Ms. Dodaro suggests, what I also believe, that search and strategy are 'linked' together.  Therefore, in developing the LinkedIn strategy, the first step is to go online and see 'who am I' and what message you present to the world.  You really need to figure out who you are, what your strengths are and then put those keywords in your LinkedIn profile.  Ms Dodaro suggests that keywords describing yourself and what you do should be favored over job descriptions in the first section of your profile.  Then these keywords should be used throughout your profile so you come up in the searches of those looking for people with your competencies and so LinkedIn can make suggestions about jobs that would be a good fit.

Results Came Quickly

The results in this case were striking.  Not only did my day students report that they were seeing more possible jobs and internships served up to them that were a fit with their interests, but the night class, adult learners, were actually getting contacted by possible employers.  The first week after we improved our profiles, several students reported getting calls for jobs.  As we continued to improve our profiles as the class progressed, one student actually accepted a job interview for a position with a Fortune 500 company. Another student reported that a her manager's manager saw her profile on LinkedIn and said that the company needed to bring her in to talk about upward mobility!  I also got contacted for several possible consulting and teaching projects.

Just by understanding who you are and what you do and putting keywords to reflect those competencies in your profile can lead to extraordinary results on LinkedIn.  This is just the first step to creating a great LinkedIn profile.  As an educator, this approach also allows me to reinforce strategic concepts in class and help the students understand how to market themselves for career success.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

How to Create Your Online Brand: A Content Marketing Blueprint for Students and Job Seekers

Virtual Andy Provided Personal Branding Tips!

Many thanks to +Andy Crestodina for hanging out virtually in my social media class last week.  Through a Google+ hangout, Andy shared some tips on content marketing and personal branding, particularly how shared content can be used for students who are seeking start their careers.  One of the things Andy suggested was starting a blog and posting content maybe twice a month.  The blog should be in a field in which the student is an expert or can establish credibility.  +LaNeysha Campbell  in my class is doing a blog on how to be a college student on a budget, for example.

Andy Crestodina addresses Social Media Marketing at AU on 10/31/13

How to Create a "Readable" Blog

Andy reminded us of good blogging practices.  These practices are designed for 'readability' and include:

• Use paragraphs of no more than three sentences
• Use a catchy title
• Use Headings and Subheadings to increase readability
• Pick a topic that interests people

A Quick Blueprint for Personal Content Marketing

Andy also shared a quick blueprint for content marketing as a personal strategy.   As we have discussed in class, Andy recommended creating and posting relevant content twice a week to groups/circles meaningful to your future career.  He suggested commenting on others' posts and connecting with those in your aspirational area of employment.

Sometimes, Just Pick up the Phone

One thing that I really appreciated was that Andy told the students not to forget about offline methods of communication.  He said, and I agree, that just picking up the phone to talk to someone you have met online will have a big impact, especially if you have something to contribute to the conversation.  Reaching out with a phone call after the relationship has been established can help further the relationship and lead to valuable connections and, perhaps, a job.  Attending offline events can also boost your online networking success.


By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.