Now On Demand: Webinar: 2012 Online Marketing Trends

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Aubrey Gross

Missed last week’s webinar on 2012 online marketing trends? Never fear! It’s now available on demand for you to watch at your leisure. Enjoy!

Speaker:

Aubrey Curry, Marketing Manager, Apogee Results

Description:

The landscape of online marketing is changing–there’s no denying that fact. Those changes, while foreseeable, often come with their own set of questions. How do I implement that? How do we address this issue? What the heck IS that? Join us for a lively discussion on what we think the 2012 online marketing trends will be, and how you can embrace each of those trends in order to have a successful 2012 that’s full of great leads, improved ROI and happy clients.

watch webinar on demand

 

 

 

 

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Google Asked You to Use Google+ Nicely. Now It’s Done Playing Nice.

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Tom Harris

google+When I first wrote about Google+ in this hallowed space, the social network had been around for about a month, and I speculated about its long-term success. I’m sad— but not particularly surprised—to say that we are no surer of its prospects now than we were when I first wrote that post back in August.

Sign-ups for the service were initially stratospheric, and Google+ gained members at a faster rate than any other social network to date. And yet, total membership figures are still dwarfed by those of Twitter or Facebook, the two predominant players in the space. Even more worrisome, user engagement for Google+ is far lower than it is for more mature networks, which suggests that people signed up for it, poked around, realized nobody else was using it, and never signed in again. With these mixed signals in mind, it’s safe to say that, though we’re no closer to knowing whether Google+ will be a stupendous success or a miserable failure, we’re reasonably certain that people aren’t going to switch to Google+ en masse and become regular users without a good reason, a good incentive.

It seems that, after an initial burst of idealistic (or overconfident, depending on how charitable you are) hope, Google has come to this conclusion as well. And though it is good that they finally get this, it is odd how the organization has chosen to incent people, which is by more or less forcing users of many of its other services (particularly Buzz and Reader) to abandon those ancillary products and to interact with Google+ instead.

Sounds like I have a horse in the race, doesn’t it? As it happens, some of my friends and I used to maintain a lively ongoing discussion group using Google Reader’s social sharing feature. It was, at turns, informative, hilarious, argumentative, and inspiring. It was an excellent source of curated content and it was always there. Until it wasn’t.

On Halloween, Google redesigned Reader and stripped out its standalone social element. If my friends and I wanted to share anything in the future, we’d have to do it through Google+ from now on.

We in our little Reader circle did not like this at all. We complained about Google’s insensitivity, marveled at its tone-deafness, and railed against its arrogance. Then we started using Google+. Daily.

Now, if I had to be honest, I’d say that our day-to-day engagement and overall satisfaction was undoubtedly higher with Reader’s social element than it is with Google+. Our little group was our own, hermetically sealed and comfortable, and the older design was much easier on the eyes and more conducive to sustained reading (and I’m not just saying that because I was used to it). But the fact is, my friends and I are now regular Google+ users, even if we’re not entirely happy about it.

Our dissatisfaction can be traced directly to how Google made us users: If the search giant was, say, a restaurant instead, its promotion of Google+ would be equivalent to a restaurateur forcing everyone to buy the new menu item by removing all other menu options. And forgive the inelegant simile, but forcing a “choice” by removing all other choices is, frankly, an inelegant solution.

Yet sometimes inelegant solutions are effective solutions. (Hello, duct tape.) Google got my ragtag bunch of Reader refugees to check and use Google+ daily. And who knows? If the search giant guts enough of its programs, maybe more lost travelers will hop on board.

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SEO Question Series Part Four: What is the silver bullet to SEO success?

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Josh Butler

There are several ways to slice this question, however we are going to focus on mid-sized businesses that are looking to get more from organic search.

The silver bullet to SEO success is … alignment.

When I say that the silver bullet to SEO success is alignment, I mean alignment of key people in your organization. There are so many times that great SEO plans do not get implemented, or take too long to implement and fizzle out because of that lack of alignment. In organizations that are larger and compartmentalized, alignment is not an easy task.

We’ll outline the typical scenario of contributing groups to a successful SEO plan implementation:

  • Marketing: Marketing has the responsibility for planning, organizing and reporting on the SEO contribution to company revenue. Marketing should vet the SEO plan with their search agency. Marketing should also be the coordinator of SEO training within the organization. Bring in the resources you need to get the knowledge spread around. The SEO basics should be understood by all the contributing groups.
  • Public Relations: If you have a good SEO plan, it should include public relations as part of the equation. It’s all about how the public should think of your business. Public relations is more than a link building ploy, it’s also a way to help build awareness of the terms you rank for, and to give searchers the words they need to find your website.
  • IT: The IT department is responsible for ensuring the website and supporting infrastructure is online and functional. IT should also help with the site structure coding, content management system changes, cms template changes, and server side changes such as the .htaccess (for LAMP users) file updates. IT needs to be aware of the SEO basics and best practices for semantic markup in the site code.
  • SME (subject matter experts): Subject matter experts can come from anywhere in the organization as long as they have useful knowledge for your clients. A good SEO plan includes great content. You can get great content ideas from your internal experts throughout your organization. All your customer facing people should help you with content ideas for the website. They will know what your customers are looking for, and they should know what the website isn’t doing well because they have to make up for the lack of the website’s content. Do you have engineers designing widgets? They should also be interviewed for content ideas.
  • Executive (CEO/President): The leadership’s role is supporting the organization and planning of the marketing executives to ensure timely implementation of SEO plans. If the CEO is on board with the SEO program it will help to align all the players.

Alignment requires that you have a solid SEO plan. Your search agency should provide a comprehensive SEO plan that integrates and supports all your online marketing initiatives including your social outreach, paid media, and email marketing.

The silver bullet is not as simple as it is to write about it. It takes a lot of communication time and training within your organization, however once everyone is aligned, the implementation of the SEO plan will happen much faster.

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Upcoming webinar: 2012 Online Marketing Trends

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Aubrey Gross

Thursday, January 12, 1 p.m. EST

Speaker:

Aubrey Curry, Marketing Manager, Apogee Results

Description:

The landscape of online marketing is changing–there’s no denying that fact. Those changes, while foreseeable, often come with their own set of questions. How do I implement that? How do we address this issue? What the heck IS that? Join us for a lively discussion on what we think the 2012 online marketing trends will be, and how you can embrace each of those trends in order to have a successful 2012 that’s full of great leads, improved ROI and happy clients.

Register Now

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Reputation Management: Using SEO to Defeat a Negative Reputation

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Justin Smith

image of frustrated manIn today’s day and age, reputation can make or break a business. With information so readily available online, it is essential to keep an eye on what people are saying about your business. Hopefully it’s easy for you and your business alike to keep up a positive reputation, but sometimes getting a bad review, unkind words from a disgruntled customer, or exaggerated claims from an ex-employee are inevitable. In the event that this happens to you or your business, don’t you worry, that’s where reputation management comes in! There are ways to get your positive citations to outweigh the negative.

Using search engine optimization to combat a negative citation can be costly and time consuming, but in the scheme of things, getting negative listings off of search results can be far more valuable than the money spent on a reputation management campaign. The same techniques that Search Engine Optimizers use to get their clients higher rankings in search engines can also be used to push negative citations further down in search results.

Areas of Focus:

Shelf space

Increasing the amount of shelf space you rank for a certain key term can help push negative listings down

Linkbuilding

Linkbuilding can be used to increase the rank of search results that you want to appear in SERPs

Blogging

Blogging efforts can be implemented to get people talking about you and your business in the positive manner you want them to.

Press Releases

If you have the chance to brag about the wonderful things that your company is doing, DO IT!

Social Media

Use social media to get people talking about your business

Implementing these techniques into a reputation management campaign can greatly increase your chance of success. Don’t let harsh words get you down. Defeat negative citations with SEO!

Posted in B2B, B2C, Blog, eCommerce, Online Marketing, Online Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Apogee Helps Warm Austin

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Lindsey Harper
lindsey and danielle at coats for kids

Cheese!

Each quarter at Apogee Results we choose a volunteer project. Traditionally, the fourth quarter is always reserved for Coats For Kids. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Coats for Kids is an annual community project that collects and distributes warm winter coats to eligible children and teenagers in Central Texas. Each year, KVUE, The Junior League of Austin, Jack Brown Cleaners, and KASE 101 partner to bring the community together to ensure that the children of Central Texas stay warm. Last year Coats for Kids distributed 35,157 new and gently used coats. Donations come in from individuals, businesses and groups, and may be in the form of new coats, used coats or monetary donations.

Apogee had a hand in those 35,157 coats last year and we are excited to hear how many Central Texas children are going to be warm this winter thanks to this amazing program.

having fun at coats for kids

Having some fun

On Saturday, December 10th, 2011 from 8:00am to 3:00pm coats were distributed at the Palmer Events Center (900 Barton Spring Road) in Austin, TX. In preparation for the event, Apogeeans spent their time sorting and hanging large boxes of coats. There are some pictures below (some of us having fun), feel free to visit our Facebook page for more photos from our other volunteer events and team building activities.

the group at coats for kids

The Group

 

 

 

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Persona Non Grata The Online Marketing Secret Weapon Part 1

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Craig Tomlin

Persona Non Grata: Part 1, The Online Marketing Secret Weapon

Persona non grata graphicThis is Part 1 of a multi-part series that expands on the recent webinar I provided: Persona Non Grata: The Online Marketing Secret Weapon. In this series, we will review Personas and how to use them for online marketing.

Using Personas can provide you with a significantly better online marketing campaign, because your targeting, messaging, content and user experience will all better match the needs and expectations of your target audience. This provides improved conversion, meaning a better ROI for each and every campaign you run.

Personas are fairly well known in development and usability circles as critical tools without which a project might be far less successful. That’s because Personas, which are fictional representations of typical users, help design teams create easier-to-use, more satisfying user experiences.

In online marketing circles, Personas are not yet commonly used, a trend I fully expect we will see reversed in the next few years. For the moment however, Personas truly are the online marketing secret weapon, because using them puts you at a distinct advantage vs. your competitors, who most likely are not using them.

Personas and Increasing Use of Customer Insight Data

But the Persona secret may be out already. According to a recent eMarketer article regarding a survey of intended use of Customer Data by CMOs, Chief Marketing Officers plan on greatly expanding Customer Analytics and CRM technology in the next 3-5 years. A whopping 81% of surveyed CMOs indicated those were the top technologies they planned on increasing!

CMO Planned Technologies for the next 3 to 5 years

By the way, isn’t it interesting that one of the best sources of conversion for online marketing–Email Marketing–came in dead last? Hmmmm! Perhaps there’s another opportunity for a smart online marketer to get ahead of the competition.

Leading Marketing Priorities and Personas

Another interesting data point from the article points to the fact that according to surveyed marketers, the number one marketing priority is “Improving Segmentation and Targeting.” The best way to improve segmentation and targeting is by carefully developing Personas that help marketers better position communications, products and services for targeted audiences.

CMO Marketing Priorities

Direct Marketing Requires Personas:

As Lester Wunderman, considered by many to be the Godfather of direct marketing wrote in his book “Being Direct,” it’s all about knowing who your target audience is, so you can communicate with them better, and thus improve sales:

“One must understand what motivates people to make decisions and what tools can best be used to focus attention and generate reactions. We must know how to create and deliver messages that are relevant, meaningful and stimulating.”

The Book Being Direct by Lester Wunderman

In my opinion, the best way to know what motivates people to make decisions and to create and deliver meaningful messages to them is by using Personas to map your communications to your target audience’s needs. Using Personas to base your communication and interaction decisions ensures you are closely aligning your communications to the needs and expectations your prospects have. Thus the odds are much better that you will be able to reach and interact with meaningful communications that stimulate action with your prospects.

Personas are both behavioral and targeted data

When we think about the data available to us today as marketers, we can generalize the types of customer data into four groups:

1.       Generalized Metrics – Generalized metrics include typical online marketing data received from website metrics, email opens, click-throughs and related analytics. This data, although plentiful, is not very targeted and is not behavioral in focus.  Yes, you know that 4% of your visitors clicked on a button or link, but you don’t know why, and you don’t know whom they were.

2.       Personalized Metrics – As with generalized metrics, personalized metrics are analytics coming from websites, emails, social pages etc. However, in this case there is more information available about the visitor, perhaps due to the visitor being logged in, or because the visitor has been specifically targeted via marketing automation or related personalization tools. The problem with more personalized metrics is although there is unique individual targeting data, the “why” of the visitor’s behavior is still not known.

3.       Demographic and Psychographic Metrics – Many marketers cluster their target audiences into segments based on geographic, demographic or psychographic data. This is data that revolves around the “why” of visitor behavior. Information such as location, household income, and prior purchase behavior may be available. However, typically this data is an aggregate view into a large groupings or clusters of visitors, thus is not targeted toward specific needs and activities of individuals.

4.       Personas – Because they are fictional representations of visitors who share common critical tasks, Personas provide both the motivational “why” of behavior, along with the targeted analytics of the tasks that individual is trying to accomplish. This gives the best view into behavioral AND targeted data, enabling marketers to make decisions with much greater certainty and efficiency. Because this is actionable data, Personas are an important tool to use when creating and deploying targeted communications.

Chart of behavioral versus targeted data

Personas Not Yet Used in Online Marketing

According to a survey of the attendees of our Personas webinar, most online marketers are not yet using Personas on a regular basis. According to the survey, none of the respondents use Personas often. About 45% of those surveyed said they are familiar with Personas, and use them a little bit. Surveyed respondents who were familiar with Personas, but haven’t used them equaled 17%. But a whopping 38% of respondents were not familiar at all with Personas.

This data clearly demonstrates that there is an opportunity to get ahead of the competition by using Personas to better target prospects.

Personas chart showing number of respondents familiar with and using Personas

What is a Persona and how are they created?

In our next part of Personas, the Online Marketing Secret Weapon, we will explore what a Persona is (and isn’t) and how a Persona can be used to improve the effectiveness of any marketing campaign.

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Looking Back at 2011 and Forward to 2012

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Aubrey Gross

2011 2012 road signsThis week I decided to ask my fellow employees what their biggest takeaway was from 2011 (or alternately what had the biggest impact on them) and what they’re most looking forward to in 2012. As I’d expected, I got a variety of answers, along with getting to know my coworkers a little better. I wanted to share their answers with you all, though, so that you could get to know us better as a company of individuals, and because I thought that as a whole the answers truly represented who we are—a company full of bright people who have interests and passions that span a wide spectrum, and who bring all of that intelligence and interest in the world to the table when solving our clients’ problems.

Our answers:

Emily:
Takeaway from 2011: You can’t be afraid to fail. Not all of your campaigns will go the way you want, but you learn from that and make future campaigns better.
Looking forward to in 2012: Taking more chances, trying new campaigns and incorporating more mobile strategies.

Alan:
What impacted you the most in 2011: Moving into a creative workspace. I’m used to being in boring, structured places. Apogee isn’t boring or structured in a traditional sense.
Looking forward to in 2012: As cliché as it sounds, success. Before the world ends.

Brionne:
Takeaway from 2011: “Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication.”
Looking forward to in 2012: Going to France for study abroad. There’s nothing I’m not looking forward to in 2012.

Lourdes:
Takeaway from 2011: I was very impressed with the Arab Spring and the use of social media for the greater good rather than just sharing what you had for lunch.
Looking forward to in 2012: I’m looking forward to seeing where social media goes and how people use it.

Josh:
Takeaway from 2011: Google has changed a lot in 2011. They’ve made so many changes that make them a moving target, so gaming Google has been a lot tougher. Not just in their algorithm, but in their products and services.
Looking forward to in 2012: An even more obvious war on SEO from Google. I think Google’s going to attack SEO even harder, which means that having a really good content promotion strategy will be key. Promoting through social media and personal networks will be key. Google user info on SERPs is going to impact the algorithm even more, too.

Tom:
Takeaway from 2011: It seems like Google’s losing its touch a little bit, plus being a bit of a laughingstock regarding Google+. That, and the tone deaf decision to block information of logged in users in the name of privacy (and yet Android phones were found with Carrier). The redesign is ugly, and there have also been some pretty public internal rumblings. My real concern is with Google no longer championing net neutrality and open source development, there’s no longer a large organization with a vested interest in an open internet.
Looking forward to in 2012: Well, I don’t see the Google issues getting any better. Given the right initiative there’s still plenty of opportunity to educate and better yourself more so than any time in history.

Rachel:
Takeaway from 2011: It was a pretty good year and it flew by. I picked up a hobby (started painting), didn’t keep my New Year’s resolution and I increased my online marketing skills and knowledge.
Looking forward to in 2012: The party the night before the world ends. I also want to learn guitar and get healthier.

Kami:

What impacted you the most in 2011: I moved to Austin.
Looking forward to in 2012: Getting healthier and paying off some debt. Cooking more. Learning more about paid media.

Susonnah:
Takeaway from 2011: It was a big change for me. I graduated from college, started working at Apogee and moved in with my boyfriend. Not being a student anymore is a big change.
Looking forward to in 2012: Getting a hobby, maybe getting a dog, expanding my marketing knowledge and exercising. Maybe running with the maybe dog.

Dee:
Takeaway from 2011: I have to work for a company that’s passionate about their culture.
Looking forward to in 2012: Knocking it out of the park in my new role.

Lindsey:
Takeaway from 2011: I enjoyed the progress we made in 2011 and I’m looking forward to the growth in 2012.

Tracy:
Takeaway from 2011: You can’t take your health for granted.
Looking forward to in 2012: Getting a marketing automation platform for Apogee’s marketing efforts.

Connie:
What impacted you the most in 2011: My kids leaving was the biggest impact of my year.
Looking forward to in 2012: Lots of things. Trip to Germany, Apogee growing, my son moving here and staying healthy.

Craig:
Takeaway from 2011: The big change: Google’s many forays into social activity coupled with the continued explosion of mobile device acquisition and use.
Looking forward to in 2012: I’m really looking forward to more use of personas in online marketing campaigns. Companies will need to create and execute mobile plans and tactics. I think 2012 will see an increase in demand generation use and tactics, along with the use of marketing automation tools.

Bill:
Takeaway from 2011: Mobile finally arrived.
Looking forward to in 2012: Content creation is still a royal pain in the butt, so figuring out the correct content, medium and time to release that content.

Danielle:
What impacted you in 2011: Working with great people who are extremely intelligent and willing to share their time and knowledge.
Looking forward to in 2012: Branching out more into content marketing.

Gilbert:
Takeaway from 2011: Working more closely with a team because it made me depended on more, which made me take more responsibility and initiative when the team needed someone to step into that role.
Looking forward to in 2012: Making more progress with my clients and gaining more of their trust. I’m also looking forward to improving our service quality and increasing our value add. Oh, and marketing automation. Taking everything I learned in 2011 and applying those lessons to make things happen (and happen more effectively) in 2012.

Calandra:
Takeaway from 2011: There’s room for creativity in SEO.
Looking forward to in 2012: Learning a lot more and being able to incorporate what I learn into the work I do for clients.

Tish:
Takeaway from 2011: I feel like we’re making good steps in the right direction. We have a good foundation.
Looking forward to in 2012: 2012 will be exciting to see how we grow. 2011 was a little rocky, but we got through it as a team. 2012 is our time to shine.

Justin:
Takeaway from 2011: It was a blur. The takeaway has to be my own personal growth—it’s been a busy year.
Looking forward to in 2012: Progressing in my career.

Paul:
Takeaway from 2011: I thought we did an exceptional job building and refining cogs. I also couldn’t be working with a better team.
Looking forward to in 2012: I’m excited about assembling the machine and growing it, along with much success for all.

Dean:
Takeaway from 2011: The inability of governments and financial institutions worldwide to satisfy the people, as evidenced by: Obama and Congress’ 2011 approval ratings, the Obamacare debacle, the U.S. banking collapse, the impending Euro banking collapse, the London/France/Spain/Greece riots, the Occupy movements, etc.
Looking forward to in 2012: The second act of the U.S.-Euro banking dilemma. Resolution? Collapse? How dramatically will the U.S. be affected and in what ways?

Bonnie:
Takeaway from 2011: 2011 was a transition year on many levels, in that I moved from an administrative position into a CSS role, getting Google Analytics certified, increasing my knowledge base and participating in the Apogee Book Club.
Looking forward to in 2012: Going from Good to Great.

Todd:
Takeaway from 2011: Our politicians continue to be awful. I was hoping there was a ceiling on the awfulness of our politicians and yet their levels of sucktitude continue to increase.
Looking forward to in 2012: More companies adopting better in-office technologies—moving away from Office, Outlook and Exchange to Mac and Google-based apps.

As for mine? My takeaway from 2011 is that honesty and authenticity are always the best policy. The people who appreciate and respect your honesty and authenticity are the ones you want to align yourself with, and the people who don’t shouldn’t be in your life. As for what I’m looking forward to in 2012, I am most definitely looking forward to getting married and enjoying married life. Professionally, I’m really looking forward to stretching myself and learning new things, along with beginning to branch into speaking via webinars and my very first South by Southwest panel.

What about you? What did 2011 teach you and what are you looking forward to in 2012? Share your thoughts below!

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Infographic: Who’s Really Scanning All Those QR Codes?

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Aubrey Gross

Ever wonder who’s really scanning all those QR codes you see plastered everywhere? Wonder no more–our awesomesauce intern Brionne has broken it down for you!

small image of QR code infographic

Click on image for larger PDF

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Infographic: Anatomy of a Search Persona

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Calandra Buckner

We hope you enjoy Apogee Results’ latest infographic: Anatomy of a Search Persona. Got questions about personas? Check out our free white paper or our recent webinar. As always, feel free to leave questions/comments!

anatomy of a search persona

Click to open full size PDF

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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