Google Analytics: Run an Experiment

At any time, you can have up to 12 experiments per profile that are running, in the process of being setup, or that are calculating your final data. Experiments that have ended do not count toward the limit of 12.

To create a new experiment:

In Google Analytics, open the profile in which you want to create the experiment.

Click the Standard Reporting tab.

Expand the Content section, then click Experiments.

If this is your first experiment, click START EXPERIMENTING.

If you have already created other experiments, click Create experiment above the list of current experiments.

When you create an experiment, Google Analytics assumes that you have already taken time to prepare. That preparation includes identifying the goal of your test, choosing your conversion page, choosing your original page, creating your variation pages, making sure the Google Analytics tracking code has been added to all pages, and determining the percentage of visitors you want to be included in your experiment.

1. Name Your Experiment and Select the Pages

In the Experiment name field, enter the name you want to use for the experiment. This name appears on your experiment list and in the experiment report. The name is also used to refer to your experiment in emails and notifications.

Next, identify the pages you want to include in your experiment.

In the Original Page URL field, enter the URL of the page you want to use as your control (for example, your existing home page, or the existing landing page for a product), then press Enter. If that page is live and publicly accessible, you see a snapshot of the page.

In the Name field just below the URL, enter a name for the original page so that it's easy to identify in your experiment report.

You can then specify variation pages, which should also be publicly accessible, by entering their URLs and giving them names. To add more variations, click + Add Variation near the bottom. To delete a variation, click the X next to that variation's name. You can include up to five variations of a page.

If your variation pages do not appear in the preview and you're sure they're available on your web server, investigate the known reasons for pages not appearing.

When you have identified all the pages you want to include, click Next near the bottom of the page.

Learn more about using URLs with dynamic parameters for your original or variation pages

2. Set Experiment Options

Under Google Analytics goal to improve, select one of your Analytics goals.

If you have not already created Analytics goals, or you want to create a new one now for the experiment, click + Add new goal.

If you create a new goal, click your browser's back button when you have finished, or click the experiment name in the list to continue with this step.

Under Visitors included in experiment, select the percentage of visitors you want to include.

Remember that your original page is also part of your experiment. If you choose, for example, to include 50 percent of your traffic in an experiment with only one variation page, then 25 percent of your overall site traffic will see that variation page, and the remaining 75 percent will see your original page (half of the visitors included in the experiment, plus half of all your visitors).

In the Notes field, enter any pertinent information you want to keep for yourself and your collaborators.

Select Rewrite variation URLs to original in Content reports to consolidate all traffic to your original and variation pages under the URL for the original page in your Content reports. This option lets you see all traffic to the URL of your original page. You can still see traffic to the individual pages (original and variations) in your Experiment reports.

What happens when URLs are rewritten

When you’re ready to go to the next step, click Next near the bottom of the page.

3. Add and Check Experiment Code

In this step, you have two options for adding the experiment code to your original page:

Add the Code Yourself

Have Your Webmaster Add the Code

If you’re comfortable with HTML and have access to your original page, you can add the experiment code yourself. Otherwise, you’ll need to contact your webmaster to help you add the code.

Remember that all the pages in your experiment need to have the Google Analytics tracking code installed.

The experiment code is synchronous. The Analytics tracking code is either asynchronous (newer, preferred version) or synchronous (older version). The experiment code works with both versions of the Analytics tracking code.

Check Your Code

Once you or your webmaster had added the experiment code to your original page, click Next to verify the code. At this point, Content Experiments checks to make sure the experiment code has been added correctly, and that each page contains the Analytics tracking code. For each page that is coded correctly, you see a green checkmark. If a page is not coded correctly, Content Experiments explains the mistakes and suggests remedies.

When you've successfully coded your pages, you can proceed to Step 4.

If validation for your variation pages fails and you're sure the experiment code has been properly added to your original page, it may be due to your web server not allowing unknown URL parameters.

4. Review and Run Your Experiment

In this final step:

Click Preview all to verify that your pages are being displayed properly, and that all pages are being displayed.

If You Can't Preview a Page

Check your experiment settings.

To start your experiment, click Run experiment now.

If you don’t want to launch your experiment right away, click Save and run later. Return to this step in the experiment by clicking the experiment name in the list.

5. Modify Your Experiment

Up until the time you run your experiment, you can make changes to any of the options you chose.

To modify an experiment before you run it, click the experiment name in the list, and then use the Back and Next buttons to navigate through the wizard.

Once you have started an experiment, you can modify the experiment name, the names of the variation pages, the percentage of visitors who are served experiment pages, your notes, whether email notifications are sent, and you can disable specific variations.

You can also copy an experiment by clicking Copy experiment.

To modify a running experiment, click the experiment name in the list:

To disable a variation, click Disable Variation, then select the variation you want to disable. You cannot disable the original page.

To modify your experiment, click Edit settings above the Explorer tab.

The Impact of the Internet and Social Media on Travel [INFOGRAPHIC]

 

Best PPC Account Setup Strategies for Small Business: Questions & Answers

1) Organize match types by ad groups for greater visibility & control 

2) Only start with Exact Match, then build out for Phrase & Broad match 

3) Create regional campaigns 

Questions 

1) If I separate out match types by Ad Group, do I need to include the other match types as negative keywords in the chosen match type ad group to insure proper targeting? 

For example, in an Exact match ad group, I include Phrase & Broad match keywords as negative keywords. 

2) Do you have any other small biz PPC best practices you'd like to share? 

Answers

1. No need to add other match group in negative keywords, because you already going with exact match targetable kws... 

2. (a) Best practices nothing about segregating the kws & ads according to their global & local geotargeting.. 

(b) Don't start with exact kws, i know you are on tight budget to not waste more on clicks. But you did'nt get more audience & traffic to your site. 

(c) Better you get on with Broad type with more irrelevant (-ve) kws for every adgroups...Broad kws only reach more audience & traffic to your site. 

(d) Add your google maps listing with your campaign by Ad extension 

(e) Add 1-3 related strong business kw's under site links extension, it'll increase more clicks. 

So, organizing the match types the way you describe is called "mirrors" or "silos" and it works like a charm. You can do it with ad groups, but suggest you do it on the campaign level, leaving your ad groups for the actual organization of keywords that ad groups are designed for. 

Basically, make your exact match ad groups in one campaign, sorting them by themes, etc., then make two copies of that campaign, one for broad and one for phrase. Per your question, yes, you should negative exact those terms in the broad and phrase match mirror campaigns, lest you compete with yourself. 

On budgeting, take your budget and give 60% to exact match and split the rest across phrase and broad. 

Once a week, run the search tem report from the keywords tab and move any converting terms from broad and phrase over to exact and then negative exact them out of broad and phrase. While you're in there, look for terms in broad and phrase that are just wasting your money and negative exact them out as well (your line in the sand for this should be based on a hard number, like CPA goals, lifetime value, etc. and not just an arbitrary number like $100 or something goofy like that). 

Basically, now you've created a machine where your exact match campaigns do most off the heavy lifting and your broad and phrase match campaigns are on a constant hunt for new keywords that are based on useful, real metrics rather than hopes and dreams. 

You can take this mirror concept in other directions as well by separating out things like devices, geo targets, and so on

Facebook: Marketing Resources You’re Not Using Yet

1. Facebook Studio

If you’re looking for examples of successful social marketing, turn to Facebook Studio for inspiration. Studio curates game-changing campaigns that have appeared on the social network. In addition to a gallery of marketing efforts, the site presents Facebook Studio Awards to exceptional campaigns. You can even submit your own. Studio highlights campaigns from all over the globe, so you can see what works in other cultures, too.

2. Success Stories

Think of this tool as a helpful supplement to Studio. Success Stories highlights innovative Facebook campaigns from all over the world. The site breaks down the individual goals and results of each campaign, alongside some pretty stunning images, we might add.

Use Success Stories to get inspiration for your own marketing plans. For example, P.F. Chang’s free lettuce wraps campaign might convince you to try your own couponing or customer outreach.

3. Brand Resource & Permissions Center

Just like the media needs to follow guidelines when using certain types of content, so brands need to be aware of specific Facebook provisions. Access the Brand Resource and Permissions Center to ensure your business is abiding by the social network’s requests.

For example, the company asks, “Do not use Facebook, or any other of our trademarks, as a verb.” It also shares the types of logos and artwork your brand has permission to use.

Did you know your cover photo can’t include a phrase like “Get 50% off” or “Enter the contest below!”? These call to actions go against Facebook rules, and your Facebook Page could be suspended if you’re found to be in violation of them.

4. Facebook Demo Tool

If you’re considering Premium or Sponsored Story ad placements, use the demo tool to preview their appearance. Choose to either simulate an example brand’s ads or test your own. The tool will generate a template that displays page post content as seen from a user’s perspective, whether a sidebar ad or sponsored story, helping to remove the guesswork from your next social marketing campaign.

5. Facebook Marketing Page

Facebook’s official marketing page shares tips and resources to guide your business in becoming more marketing-savvy on the platform. The page posts events and updates users with the latest in Facebook marketing news. Keep an eye out for webinar and live Q&A announcements that train Facbeook page admins to connect with fans and reach wider audiences. Plus, Facebook constantly seeks engagement from its users, asking for feedback and case studies surrounding your business.

Email Marketing: 10 CTA Tricks Real Brands Are Using to Grow Their Email List

When we discuss calls-to-action (CTAs) in marketing, we often look at them as a key driver of lead generation. After all, they are mostly used to send incoming traffic to your landing pages and lead-capture forms. While CTAs are great for generating lead conversions, they can also help contribute to a different goal: growing your email list.

A lot of companies also find it beneficial to use calls-to-action to expand their email database and list of contacts (which they will later nurture and follow up with). And in some cases, this can be even more effective than using a CTA to promote a lead-gen offer. In fact, some businesses are doing this exceptionally well! So in this blog post, which is an excerpt from our new ebook 101 Examples of Effective Calls-to-Action, let's review some awesome examples of how companies are effectively using calls-to-action for email list growth.

1) The Combine

The best calls-to-actions don’t look like flashing ads, but instead are paths toward valuable information discovery. The Combine offers a great example of that. The text above the email opt-in box conveys the action readers need to take, and it's clear and direct. The layout of the page is clean and simple, helping the reader focus on the most important action here -- entering his or her email address and signing up for email updates.

 

 

2) Crowd Track Gent

Another great approach when collecting emails and contacts to grow your database is to use subtle text that shows readers what information they need to enter. In this case, Crowd Track Gent is not collecting email addresses, but it surely provides a good lesson on how to design your call-to-action effectively. In the screenshot below, you'll see that the subtle text within the blank boxes instructs visitors to enter their “First Name” and “Surname.” The play button to the right of the "Surname" box sends users a signal that the element is interactive and makes the result of the action more tangible.

 

 

3) Gilt

When you collect email addresses, make sure you're setting clear expectations. What are your recipients going to get? How often? Gilt, for instance, features a call-to-action that includes a hyperlink to the company's Terms of Membership. The sentence is right beneath the main call-to-action button.

You can take a different approach of setting expectations and mentioning that your email updates will be about product discounts, new offers, events, etc. The takeaway here is, let your new contacts know what they will start receiving from you so they stay subscribed.

 

 

4) Gojee

Even if your site visitors are interested in downloading your resources, some people will still experience form anxiety. Therefore, you need to reassure them that their personal information and privacy will be safe with you.

Reduce people’s anxiety by guaranteeing that you will keep their privacy and send them only content and information they care about. Check out how creatively Gojee achieves this: "We swear on our finest bottle of scotch that we won't spam you."

 

5) GraphEffect

Experiment with adding background images to your email opt-in calls-to-action to increase readers’ desire to sign up for your offers and convey positive emotions of efficiency, enjoyment, success, etc. GraphEffect provides a good example of a CTA using a background image and also incorporating a semi-transparent black box on top of the picture in order to increase the readability of the text.

 

 

6) Jetsetter

You can increase the visitor’s incentive to sign up for your communication if you mention that access/membership is free. Don’t be afraid to brag about your strengths—confident and hyperbolic language helps boost conversions. Jettsetter, for instance, tells people that by signing up for their email updates, they will "get access to the world’s greatest vacations."

 

 

7) LaunchRock

Another great call-to-action tactic is to address the speediness of the sign-up process. Your CTA message should convey that setting up an account offers a lot of benefits and is no hassle at all. Check out how LaunchRock accomplishes this by telling visitors they can launch a page "in minutes." This no-hassle process increases the user’s motivation and facilitates the conversion.

 

 

8) Shopify

Consider experimenting with the layout of your form fields. Are they laid out vertically or horizontally? Does that impact your conversion rates?

By presenting all required fields in one spot, you are transparent with visitors, reinforcing the simplicity of the action you’re asking them to take. Here is how Shopify set up its account registration:

 

9) Skillshare

As a general call-to-action best practice, you should try to remove distractions from your main CTA and help people focus on what’s truly important – conversion! Skillshare has done a great job of this by using a simple white background and creating a clean, spacious experience.

 

 

10) TaskRabbit

You might also consider using the Facebook login option to gain more insights about your users. In this way, you allow visitors to sign into your website by using their Facebook credentials. While this one-click process might save people time, it might also make visitors anxious about their privacy. That is why TaskRabbit makes it an option to sign up with Facebook login – not a necessity.

 

Original Article

Agencia 365

Como hacer un Business Plan de una tienda Online

Cuando empecé a vender hace unos años por internet, simplemente…. empecé, no hice ningún plan de negocios. Yo sabía lo que era un plan de negocio, pero no había hecho nunca uno real, pero cuando me senté delante de un proyecto eCommerce, no tenía ni idea de como se hacía.

Un plan de negocio de un proyecto eCommerce, no tiene nada que ver con un plan de negocio de una tienda tradicional, ni tiene nada que ver con otro tipo de proyectos de internet.

El problema principal que me encontré, fue la “creencia popular” de que vender por internet es muy barato, y de que el mercado es muy grande, y vas a vender mucho.

Esta “creencia popular”, que venía de la burbuja de internet del año 2000, sigue vigente hoy en día, y a menudo me encuentro a mucha gente que sigue pensando que vender por internet es fácil, y barato.

Pues bien, he tardado 5 años, en enterarme como analizar si un proyecto de una tienda online es viable o no, y hoy los quiero compartir con ustedes.

No les voy a dar una fórmula mágica que les diga si el negocio es factible o no, esto depende de cada factor, pero sí les voy a detallar el trabajo de investigación que tienen que hacer antes de vender por internet, en la mayoría de los casos, no hará falta ninguna fórmula, ustedes mismos saben si el negocio es rentable o no.

Tamaño del mercado

El tamaño del mercado es un factor muy importante, he visto negocios online muy buenos, realmente buenos, pero… no había mercado, y si no hay mercado, no hay ventas.

No es lo mismo vender pañales, que vender insectos disecados. En el primer caso, tenemos un mercado objetivo de millones de clientes potenciales, en el segundo caso, el mercado, puede no llegar a los 10.000 clientes potenciales.

Una de las tareas más complicadas que vamos a tener, es determinar el tamaño del mercado. En algunos casos podremos acceder a informes del INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas), o a informes sectoriales a través de las Cámaras de Comercios, asociaciones, etc…

Pero de todo este mercado, ¿Cuantos se conectan a internet?¿Cuántos compran por internet? Hay herramientas de Google, como AdPlanner, Google Insight, Google Trends, que nos ayuda a determinar cuántos usuarios están interesados en un tema específico.

En el caso del sector de juguete, el % de clientes que buscan algo y que acaban comprando, es del 1/10.000, es decir, que para llegar a 1.000 pedidos/mes, tienen que realizar 10 millones de búsquedas al mes. Cada sector tiene su porcentaje, aunque suele ser similar.

Otra forma de medir el tamaño del mercado, es medir cuánto vende la competencia, a menudo con técnicas que son poco éticas, pero que sin embargo TODOS las hemos usado alguna vez, incluido Amazon.

Coste de Adquisición del cliente

Una vez que tenemos identificado al cliente, necesitamos saber, cuánto nos cuesta adquirir un cliente. Que también depende del sector y la competencia.

En mercados con poca competencia, nos podemos mover en torno a los 3€ ($18 ARS), y en mercados con mucha competencia, podemos llegar a 100€/cliente ($600 ARS).

Estos costes de adquisición, van a depender directamente de cómo llegan los clientes a nuestra tienda, vía publicidad en AdWords, FaceBook, Blogs, etc…

Cosas a tener en cuenta:

Frecuencia de compra: Si vendemos cartuchos de impresora, sabemos que el cliente puede repetir fácilmente cuando se le acabe el cartucho que nos acaba de comprar (cada 2-3 meses). Pero si vendemos baterías de coche, probablemente nos compren una sola vez, o cada 2-3 años (se olvidará seguro de dónde la compró). Si la frecuencia de compra es alta, podemos invertir mucho en adquirir al cliente, y repercutir el coste de adquisición en varias compras. En mi caso, estimo que el cliente va a comprar de media 3 veces en 2 años.

Margen de beneficio: Si el margen de beneficio medio por pedido es de 5€ ($30 ARS), no podemos tener un coste de adquisición alto, no tiene sentido. Pero si el margen por pedido es de 80€ ($480 ARS), entonces, podemos permitirnos invertir mucho más en captación del cliente.

Coste futuro de adquisición del cliente: Cuando yo empecé a vender, el coste de adquisición estaba en 4€ ($24 ARS), ahora está en 10€ ($60 ARS). Que en un momento dado no tengas competencia, no significa que no lo tengas el año que viene, yo siempre tendría en cuenta que la competencia en eCommerce se va a multiplicar por 2 cada año.

Competencia

Aunque esta pregunta parece trivial, no lo es. Hay que hacer un análisis exhaustivo de la competencia, y no vale con decir “hay competencia” o no “hay”, hay que estudiarla muy bien.

Estos son los casos que debemos estudiar:

No hay competencia: En este caso, nuestra probabilidad de éxito es casi nula, tenemos que tener MUY claro, porque nadie lo ha hecho, y por qué yo sí puedo hacerlo, y no vale decir: es que soy mejor, es que a nadie se la ocurrido, es que voy a vender más que los demás, etc… Busca cosas concretas como “es que yo tengo un acuerdo de exclusividad que me va a permitir ofrecer….”

Hay competencia, pero sin líderes: Esta es la situación idónea, hay mercado, hay clientes, hay competencias a las que copiar, pero nadie ha conseguido hacerse líder. Analiza el porqué, y convierte tu negocio en líder de mercado.

Hay mucha competencia, y uno o dos líderes: Es la situación más desfavorable y compleja, los años de experiencia en internet cuentan mucho más que en el mundo offline. El know-how adquirido vale mucho. Si quieres desbancar a un líder, necesitaras a un equipo con experiencia, acuerdos con proveedores, y mucha financiación. En algunos casos, en líder online, no tiene apoyo en el mundo offline, y un player offline puede convertirse en líder en poco tiempo.

Había competencia, pero han cerrado: Cuidado, si han cerrado, es por algo, y tenemos que investigar porque han cerrado, incluso podemos negociar con ellos, para comprarles la empresa, junto con la base de datos de clientes. En todo caso, una llamada por teléfono, nos puede dar muchísima información sobre el negocio.

Cosas a investigar de la competencia:

• Plazo de entrega
• Precios
• Rotación de stock (no os puedo decir como, tenéis que pensar un poco…..)
• Atención al cliente
• Formas de Pago
• Comentarios en foros, etc…
• Visitas (Google Trends for Websites, Alexa, etc…)
• Tiempo que llevan vendiendo.
• Origen de la tienda
• Artículos en prensa, revistas, radio, TV (ya le estoy dando ideas a mi competencia)

Stock

En el Junio del 2008, uno de nuestros proveedores, nos dijo que ya no suministraba más mercancía hasta Marzo del año siguiente. ¿Que haces sin mercancía 9 meses?

El stock es realmente importante en la venta online, no tiene nada que ver un negocio que requiere un gran stock, de uno que se puede pedir bajo demanda.

Cuando Amazon empezó a funcionar, trabajaban sin stock, cada vez que vendían un libro, lo pedían a la editorial o distribuidor, y después lo enviaban al cliente. Al poco tiempo se dieron cuenta de que no era práctico, y tuvieron que almacenar un 10% de sus referencias en stock. Hoy en día, tienen uno de los mayores almacenes del mundo.

Generalmente, en negocios en los que hace falta stock, hay que hacer una provisión económica del 30% sobre ventas para comprar mercancía. Esto va a depender del sector, del margen de beneficios, del plazo de entrega, etc…

Tenemos que estudiar cómo funciona nuestro sector, cual es la urgencia de nuestro cliente por el producto, requiere envío 24h, o es suficiente con una semana.

Proveedores

Desgraciadamente, hay muy pocos proveedores preparados para eCommerce, y en Argentina menos. Incluso algunos, están haciendo lo posible para que no se comercialicen online sus productos.

Esta situación, hace que algunas veces sea prácticamente imposible trabajar con proveedores nacionales, y hay que acudir a otros mercados, llegando a tener conflictos con las marcas.

Los distribuidores que son conscientes de cómo funciona la venta online, nos proporcionan un plazo de entrega razonable, incluso pueden enviar directamente al cliente en nuestro nombre (DropShipping).

Como norma general, en sectores donde los proveedores apoyan a las tiendas, hay más competencia, y en sectores, donde el proveedor es una barrera hay menos competencia (trivial, pero es la verdad).

Logística

La logística es otro de los puntos que tenemos que mirar, ¿se puede transportar el producto? ¿Tiene un coste de envío razonable?

Hay determinados productos, en los cuales, la logística es tan compleja, que puede hacer inviable el proyecto de tienda online. Por ejemplo, los productos que necesitan transporte frío (No congelado, sólo frío), tienen unos costes de envío muy elevados. Otro ejemplo, son los productos voluminosos, en los que el transporte es más caro que el producto en sí.

A parte del envío, también tenemos que tener en cuenta los costes de almacenamiento y empaquetado, y tenemos que mirar si es mejor hacerlo nosotros mismo o subcontratarlo. El coste medio de almacenaje y empaquetado, puede estar entre 3-5€  ($18-30 ARS) por pedido. ¿Este coste entra dentro de nuestro margen de beneficios?

Es decir, si el cliente nos cuesta 5€ ($30 ARS), la logística 5€ ($30 ARS) , con un margen del 30%, empezamos a ganar algo de dinero en pedidos superiores a 40€ ($240 ARS).

Amenazas y Oportunidades

Hay sectores, en los que no hay competencia, hay mercado, y los proveedores están dispuestos a aportar, pero que sin embargo tienen una gran amenaza. Por ejemplo, el sector de renovables, en algunos países actualmente vive de las subvenciones, que empiezan a agotarse el año que viene, el sector tiene los días contados, tal y como es hoy.

Otra de las amenazas son los cambios legislativos, que pueden hacer que una determinada actividad se prohíba en un futuro, como pueden ser los suplementos dietarios.

Por otro lado, tenemos las oportunidades, que hacen que en estos momentos un negocio no sea viable, pero que en un futuro, sí lo sea, por ejemplo, la iluminación LED, que en estos momentos, por costes no es rentable, pero que en el plazo de 2-3 años, entrará de lleno en los hogares (sobre todo por la subida del precio de la energía).

Costes asociados

Este punto es común a cualquier negocio, no sólo al eCommerce, pero me gusta dejar una lista aproximada de los gastos:

Gastos de personal

Asesoría

Alquiler de local

Limpieza

Seguridad

Instalaciones (las estanterías cuestan una burrada…..)

Equipos informáticos

Software

Cajas

Precinto

Consumibles; Toner, papel, etc…

Teléfono

Internet

Gastos bancarios

Impuestos…. 

En resumen

Con todas estas variables, debemos montar nuestro plan de negocio, en el que resumimos:

Cuanto vamos a vender

Cuánto nos cuesta adquirir un cliente

Como y quien es nuestra competencia

Cuánto dinero necesitamos para stock

Cuales son nuestros costes

Que margen de beneficio vamos a tener

Qué oportunidades y amenazas vemos en el sector

Como he comentado antes, no hay una fórmula general, que nos permita saber si el negocio es viable o no, pero estoy seguro, que después de analizar todo estos puntos, tendrán una idea general sobre la viabilidad.

Y para terminar, un dato: el 90% de los proyectos que he analizado NO son viables.

Agencia 365

¿Cuánto pago por mi tienda online?

Ya está en boca de todos el crecimiento que está viviendo el comercio electrónico en España y la cantidad de oportunidades que brinda el e-commerce en este escenario de cambio tan profundo que vivimos. Por ello, cada vez más empresas y emprendedores se interesan por montar un negocio de e-commerce y buscan un partner que les ayude a crear su tienda online.

Precios desconcertantes

Como ya comentamos en un post anterior hablando de la importancia del modelo de negocio en e-commerce, existen varias posibilidades para crear una plataforma de venta online, desde soluciones low-cost basadas en widgets o servicios de pago por uso, hasta soluciones a medida mucho más potentes. El sentido común y la falta de recursos en la etapa inicial de lanzamiento de un proyecto hace que en muchos casos probemos primero con una plataforma low-cost, pero si quieres construir un negocio sólido y escalable, tenemos que irnos a soluciones más a medida, bien sobre desarrollos propios (como Zara, El Corte Inglés, etc.) o bien sobre desarrollos OpenSource como OSCommerce, Prestashop o Magento, mucho más asequibles para la mayoría de los negocios.

Llegados a este punto, es la hora de pedir presupuestos a empresas que desarrollen a medida tiendas online, y ¡sorpresa!, te encuentras con un abanico de precios desconcertante. Conozco un caso muy reciente en el que las ofertas de diferentes empresas para montar una misma tienda online (con los mismos requerimientos), iban desde los 1.200 € hasta los 40.000 €. ¿Cómo es posible?, ¿cómo elegir el mejor para nosotros en ese caso? No es tarea fácil.

Hablamos de un servicio con valor añadido

En primer lugar, hay que entender que cualquier desarrollo a medida basado en software OpenSource como Magento o Prestashop, no tiene ningún coste de producto (la licencia es gratuita), así que se puede decir que se trata de un servicio puro y duro, y su valoración debería hacerse principalmente en base a la mayor o menor implicación en el proyecto de un equipo de personas expertas en diferentes disciplinas como diseño, maquetación, programación, usabilidad, marketing, etc.

Por tanto, si nos preguntamos: ¿qué se puede ofrecer por 1.200 €? Seguramente hablemos de un software pre-instalado con una plantilla de diseño mínimamente personalizada y con poca implicación de personal experto. A partir de ahí, nos tocará pagar más para que nos dejen la tienda lista para vender o tendremos que hacérnoslo nosotros a costa de dedicarle muchas horas y algo de gusto. Esto terminará llevándonos al conocido caso de Juan Palomo, yo me lo guiso y yo me lo como.

Y ahora es cuando volvemos a hacernos la pregunta: ¿cuánto pago por un desarrollo a medida de mi tienda online lista para vender? Existirán multitud de opiniones al respecto, por ejemplo esta que aparecía recientemente en la revista Emprendedores: ”Lo único que te podemos decir es que una buena plataforma web para vender, como poco te puede costar unos 6.000 euros. Claro que puedes hacerlo por menos, pero es difícil encontrar una plataforma seria por menos. Si lo quieres hacer bien, lo primero es tener una buena plataforma”.

Por mi experiencia, estoy bastante de acuerdo con ellos y diría más: el precio medio de una tienda online básica, profesional y lista para vender, desarrollada a medida sobre Magento o Prestashop, por una empresa experta, estaría más bien entorno a los 9.000 €. Lógicamente, cuántas más complejidades haya que incorporar al proyecto (ERP, logística, envíos, países, etc.), más costes habrá que añadir al proyecto.

El precio no lo es todo

Una vez que sabemos lo que queremos y lo que hay que pagar por unos mínimos de calidad, ¿cómo elegir al proveedor o partner tecnológico adecuado para desarrollar mi tienda online? En mi opinión, tenemos que tener en cuenta otro tipo de consideraciones a parte del precio:

- Elegir una empresa con experiencia real en comercio electrónico. Una cosa es hacer páginas web y otra muy diferente es hacer proyectos de e-commerce.

- Contar con una propuesta técnica solvente y detallada, con un alcance claro y ejemplos de otros e-commerce realizados, son una garantía más para el éxito del proyecto.

- Es mejor abordar el desarrollo de la tienda online por fases y lanzar una primera versión de la tienda lista para vender cuanto antes. Un mes puede ser algo razonable para una empresa experta.

- Una tienda online no es más que el principio, es como abrir el telón, así que conviene elegir a alguien proactivo, que nos aporte ideas frescas y se implique en el negocio. Para ello, tendremos que seguir invirtiendo en desarrollo de producto, optimización del catálogo, mejora de la experiencia de usuario, etc.

- No basta con subir los productos a la Red, no se van a vender por sí solos. Habrá que crear una tienda online capaz de atraer tráfico, crear campañas actuales para promocionar productos o capaz de soportar herramientas de fidelización, devoluciones ágiles… Lo que viene siendo el commerce sin E.

En definitiva, es fundamental acertar en la contratación de la plataforma tecnológica porque cambiarla después puede resultar prohibitivo.

Agencia 365

Email Marketing: You Need to Clean Your List & Re-Engage Subscribers

If you're hip to the popular email marketing statistics, you probably know all too well that your email database slowly dies over time. In fact, 25% of your list will expire every year as readers switch jobs, email providers, or unsubscribe from your emails. As your list depreciates, it’s important to not only make sure you’re keeping your list clean, but also that you’re not throwing away active contacts. So what’s the solution? A re-engagement campaign!

What Is a Re-Engagement Campaign?

A re-engagement campaign is a systematic method for re-awakening inactive subscribers, while also identifying which email addresses in your database you should let go of. The campaign only involves your stale contacts -- people who have been on your list for a long time who may or may not still be opening, reading, and clicking on your emails. The goal of a re-engagement campaign is to identify which portion of your list you should retain, and which portion you’re better off removing.

Why Is This So Important?

There are several reason why you would want to execute a re-engagement campaign:

1) You're Emailing an Old List or Switching ESPs

A re-engagement campaign is critical if you’re going to start emailing an old list, or if you’re moving over to a new email service provider (ESP). Batch-and-blasting an old list can get you into some pretty hot water! Your email provider would likely suspend your account if you exceed a certain threshold of bounces. And once you’re suspended, most email providers will reach out and ask you about your list source in order to determine how much of a risk you are to their network. Senders with continued high bounce rates can hurt that ESP’s sending reputation, or even result in them getting added to block lists. It’s similar to borrowing the keys to your friend’s car -- your buddy is going to be mighty angry with you if you crash his beloved wheels!

2) To Keep Your Domain's Reputation Healthy

Another reason to execute a re-engagement campaign is to keep your domain’s reputation healthy. If you repeatedly email people who don’t open, read, or click on your emails, you run the risk of tarnishing the reputation of your company’s domain. Domain reputation is a big factor when it comes to getting into inboxes. And, most importantly, your domain reputation can follow you to different providers. So even if you hop from one email provider to another, you’re not fooling anyone if your domain reputation is tarnished.

3) To Stay Budget-Conscious

Lastly, executing a re-engagement campaign will enable you to make sure you’re not wasting your money. As your list gets older, you'll end up getting less bang for your buck if you don’t clean out the stale contacts. A re-engagement campaign will ensure that you’re not wasting precious marketing budget on email sends to dead addresses.

How to Launch a Re-Engagement Campaign, Step by Step

Ready to launch your first re-engagement email campaign? Follow these 5 steps, and you'll reap the benefits of a successful email re-awakening!

Step 1: Give Each of Your Contacts an Age 

First, establish a way to assign an age to each of your contacts. There are several ways you can do this, depending on what data is accessible. For example, you could either use the date the contact became a subscriber, the last interaction date, the date of the contact’s source, or any other indicator of age.

Step 2: Decide When Contacts Become Unengaged

Once you’ve established an age for each of your contacts, select a cutoff point where you suspect your list starts to become unengaged. Your cutoff can start anywhere between 3 and 6 months old.

Step 3: Segment Your List

Choose how granular you want to be about segmentation. The more granular you are, the more value you’re likely to get out of this campaign. That is, you can pinpoint your "dead" contacts more accurately if you group your list in 3-month segments versus 6-month segments. The idea is that there’s a cliff -- i.e. there's a certain point in which all contacts beyond a certain age are too cold to continue emailing. The question you want to answer is, at what point does the number of bounces, SPAM complaints, and dead addresses outweigh the benefits of the emails sent? The more refined your segmentation is, the better you'll be able to pinpoint that age.

When building your segments, you should aim to keep them around 5,000 contacts or fewer. This number is based on the fact that aside from bounce rate, the actual volume of bounces matters too. Depending on your ESP, it may be okay to have a high bounce rate if the volume of bounces isn't too high.

Step 4: Design Your Emails and Craft Their Copy

The next step is to design your emails and develop the copy for the campaign. Create one email for each segment you're trying to reawaken. You can either send the same email to each segment, or if you've decided to segment more granularly using other variables in addition to just age, you can choose to cater the content/offer and copy within that email to the interests of that particular segment of contacts. The one key component you can't afford to ignore is that you should be offering something your unengaged contacts will think is highly valuable. Consider this to be your last chance to engage these stale contacts before you cut them loose. And ultimately, your goal is to try to get them to interact with the message. A good method for choosing the content/offer to include in your emails is to analyze the performance of past email sends, and choose something that you know already performs well.

Engagement is critical, because it's a metric used by email providers to evalute whether or not to deliver email into an inbox. They’re actually looking at what subscribers are doing; for example, in the Gmail client, how many people archived your email without reading it? If they did open it, did they spend time reading it? Actions, like clicking "Reply," signal positive engagement to email services, and strengthen your sender reputation as a result.

Step 5: Systematically Send Your Emails

Once you have your segments and emails prepared, start by sending your email to the youngest segment. Wait 24 hours, and then check your success metrics. These include: (1) bounce rate (2) complaint rate and (3) click and opens rates. If all of these numbers look healthy, proceed to send the email to your next segment. Repeat this process until the numbers start to look dicey.

You're probably wondering, "What qualifies as dicey?" Here is a rundown of what you should be keeping an eye out for:

1) Bounce rates over 5% are cause for concern, as anything over 5% can get your account shut off by some ESPs. For more info on what an acceptable bounce rate is, you should check with your ESP. Most ESPs publish such information in their acceptable use policy.

2) SPAM compliant rates should be 0.1% or lower, although the actual threshold that most ISPs publish is 0.3%. Anything over 0.3% would likely result in a chat with your ESP's abuse desk. In addition to the bounce rate, 

3) Open and click-through rates are more subjective. The best way to determine a threshold for these is to think in terms of dollars. That is, ask yourself, "Is it worth it to continue spending money and time to email these people?" If you're not getting a suitable conversion rate from a given segment, it's time to let them go.

That's all there is to it! Once you notice that your metrics are reporting some pretty dismal numbers, it's safe to assume that any segment of contacts who are older than that should be removed from your list.

Hubspot Original Article

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Google Analytics: Understanding And Using Page Value

When Google launched Google Analytics many moons ago (2005 to be exact) there was a metric named $Index. It wasn’t your standard analytics metric, like pageviews or visits. It was a calculated metric to help businesses understand value of content. Unfortunately $Index was removed from Google Analytics version 5 due to some technical limitations.

But now it’s back as a new metric named Page Value!

How Page Value Is Calculated

Page Value is calculated using the value of your transactions and your goals. So even if you don’t have an ecommerce website you can still use Page Value. Just make sure you have defined some goals and assigned them a value. (If you need more information about defining and tracking conversions check out our Getting Started Fast with Google Analytics webinar).

Here’s the exact formula of how Page Value is calculated:

Page Value = (Transaction Revenue + Total Goal Value) / Unique Pageviews for the page

Page Value can also be calculated for a group of pages, like a directory. In that case the definition changes slightly.

Page Value = (Transaction Revenue + Total Goal Value) / Total unique Pageviews for the group of pages

Remember, a unique pageview is just a count of visits that include the page. If a page is viewed five times in a single visit, Google Analytics will count five pageviews but one unique pageview.

Now there are a couple of things to be away of. The calculation does not include all transaction and goal revenue for the entire visit. It’s only the goal conversions and transactions that happen after the page is viewed, not before the page is viewed.

Enough of the math and description, let’s look at an example. 

Here are two hypothetical visits:

Visit #1 activity:

Visit #2 activity:

Here’s how Google Analytics would calculate the value of Page 1, Page 2 and Page 3.

Page 1: ($100 revenue + $40 revenue + $0 goal value) / 2 unique pageviews = $70

Page 2: ($100 revenue + $40 revenue + $0 goal value) / 2 unique pageviews = $70

Page 3: ($100 transaction revenue + $0 goal value) / 1 unique pageviews = $100

How to Use Page Value

Page value is a measure of influence. It’s a single number that can help you better understand which pages on your site drive conversions and revenue. Pages with a high Page Value are more influential than pages with a low Page Value.

Get started by reviewing the Page Value column in the Content > All Pages report.

Your site probably has a lot of pages. Here’s a tip, use the Advanced Table Filter in the content report to remove some of the noise from this data. You can set up a filter to exclude pages with a Page Value of 0 or less than 30 pageviews. 

If you’re an ecommerce company you’ll immediately notice that the most valuable pages on your site are your checkout pages. This makes sense because everyone needs to view the checkout pages before converting.

Start by looking for pages that get a lot of traffic (pageviews) but have a low Page Value. Why don’t these pages help conversion? Should they? Use some of the other metrics, like Avg. Time on Page, Bounce Rate or Exit Rate to get a better picture of the user experience on this page. 

If people are using the page, but not ultimately converting you may want to use some of the other content tools, like Flow Visualization, to get a better understanding of their experience after using a piece of content. 

Also look for pages that get a low volume of traffic but have a high Page Value. These pages are influential but don’t get a lot of attention. You might consider promoting them more via an external marketing campaign (email, PPC, social media) or an internal campaign (homepage banner, etc.).

If you work in SEO then you should definitely check out the Page Value for the content you are optimizing.

Page Value is not a silver bullet. It does not magically generate more conversions for your business. But it is an actionable metric that can help you understand the behavior of your visitors.

Posted by Google Analytics Advocate Justin Cutroni

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Foursquare 'Promoted Updates,' PPC for Local Businesses

Looks like Foursquare has been a busy bee lately, announcing the second of two new features in just one week's time. Today, the location-based social network is launching 'Promoted Updates,' similar in nature to the "Promoted" features we've seen from Facebook and Twitter.

But because we never covered Foursquare's other launch of 'Local Updates' last week, let's do a quick summary before we move onto Foursquare's latest announcement.

What Are Local Updates?

Local Updates allows businesses to share updates with the Foursquare users who frequent their business. So if a user has checked in to a business often -- or liked it -- they'll be able to access the latest updates from that business via their 'Friends' tab whenever they're in the same city as the establishment. This enables users to get the latest news from places where they're loyal customers about things like new specials, products, or other promos. It also enables businesses to better connect with and cater to the customers that repeatedly bring them business. Local Updates is now available to all companies that have claimed their business on Foursquare.

 

 

What Are Promoted Updates?

Okay, now that we've gotten last week's update out of the way, let's talk about Foursquare's latest announcement -- Promoted Updates.

Whereas Local Updates provide Foursquare users with a better way to keep up with the updates from businesses they already like, Promoted Updates help them discover new places. These updates look similar to Local Updates, except they can be found in Foursquare users' 'Explore' tab, and businesses have to pay to promote them there. Get it? 'Promoted Updates'? These updates can include anything from a money-saving special, news about a new product line, or a photo of a restaurant's latest menu item.

How Promoted Updates Work

Foursquare compares the way Promoted Updates work to the way Google AdWords works. In other words, if I searched for "Mexican food" in Google, I might see an ad for a Mexican restaurant in the PPC results. In Foursquare, similarly, searching for "Mexican food" in the 'Explore' tab might result in a Promoted Update from a local Mexican restaurant about its new summer menu items.

 

 

Foursquare explains that the algorithms used to power the 'Explore' tab's normally personalized recommendations are the same ones Foursquare uses to determine which Promoted Updates get delivered to each user. These Promoted Updates could come from businesses that are on the user's lists, places their Foursquare friends have visited or liked, or places a user might want to check out depending on their location or the time of day.

For now, Foursquare is testing Promoted Updates with a group of pilot partners including both local businesses and nationwide brands such as Best Buy, Gap, Walgreens, and Dave & Buster's. Over the upcoming months, Foursquare will be tracking how businesses use them and how users interact with them in order to make improvements, eventually rolling the feature out to all businesses on Foursquare. Companies looking to learn more about Promoted Updates can sign up using this form.

Original Post

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El éxito en e-commerce se logra centrándose en el cliente.

Un primer aspecto importante es la navegación. Tiene que ser sencilla y sobre todo visual. Hay que tener en cuenta que se busca la compra pero con un “e-selling ceremony”. Las concept stores son especialistas en esta tarea   La página de e-commerce debe de estar centrada en el usuario, es decir, que no sólo tiene que enamorarle sino que también tiene que facilitarle las herramientas para lograrlo. El contenido visual es crucial y ha de proporcionarse toda la información posible sobre el producto.Otro detalle interesante es incorporar vídeos en la descripción del producto para poder ver la prenda desde todos los ángulos. Y por último, ¿por qué no facilitar y sugerir la venta cruzada como hace Zara con “Puedes Ponértelo con…”?   Otro punto fundamental es la fase de pago. Es la etapa más importante y peligrosa ya que un proceso largo y complejo hará que el usuario nos abandone.  Amazon y Asos son dos ejemplos de método payment sencillo y rápido que te permiten pagar con el rapidísimo Paypal o One Click, creándote un usuario que recuerda tu número de tarjeta. Una vez comprado el artículo hay que ofrecer un buen Order tracking, así como información sobre gastos de envío y políticas de devoluciones.  Un buen ejemplo es el Grupo Cortefiel que  te permite hacer un seguimiento exhaustivo y van informando mediante emails y sms con el estado del pedido.  Otra buena práctica viene de parte del Grupo Inditex que permite devoluciones en tienda física o C&A que tiene un convenio con Correos y asumen ellos los gastos de envío de las devoluciones. Y por último, ¿qué ocurre si el consumidor no tiene tiempo para realizar la compra? ¿Por qué no facilitarle un espacio para crear su wishlist que le guarde los artículos seleccionados para más tarde como hace la Fnac.es? Todas estas prácticas se centran en el cliente y desde ésta perspectiva se pueden realizar acciones interesantes. El verdadero reto de toda tienda online es general ventas pero también lograr fidelizar al cliente para que vuelva y eso sólo se consigue con una arquitectura y una interfaz centrada en el usuario.

Google Hotel Price

Google Hotel Price ads now available to independent hotels

Constantly developing new ways for hotels to sell their rooms directly, WIHP has just launched Hotel Price Ads connectivity for independent hotels as a pay-per-click model (entirely commission free). Available as part of the DirectPack solution.

Google's latest foray into the travel market spurred excitement at many levels. Not the least of which was for independent hotels wanting a way to advertise and sell rooms directly on Google Hotel Finder, Google Places and within the top level search results.

Hotel Price Ads (HPA) is the platform that Google created which unifies hotel rates and availability across all Google's search channels. To advertise on those platforms hotel booking engines require extremely precise and tested communication to Google's servers.

After month of work and testing with Google's engineers, WIHP now provides the service to all hotels that are using the SynXis booking engine (more booking engines are being added as needed).

Through WIHP's interface with Google's servers, hotel's can now advertise their rates and get direct bookings straight from the Google Search results page or their Google Places page.

"Our purpose is to provide independent hotels with the tools to market their hotels at all levels, we want to give all hotels no matter their size the access to every level of marketing and Google HPA is a great opportunity to be visible where it counts." Vincent Ramelli, WIHP's President, said 

Note: This service is available as part of the DirectPack advertising plan not as a separate service. A complete advertising package for hotels that includes advertising on multiple channels. To find out if your hotel's booking engine is supported, please contact us following this link.

You Should Be Producing Content.

 Content is a huge driver for acquiring and keeping customers these days, especially in the B2B world. The ability to be a thought leader, write or shoot a video and get it out to the shareable world is all businesses are thinking about. The more content you publish, the more you help your customers, the more the search engines will pick you up and in the end, hopefully the more business you'll get.

At VerticalResponse, we publish a lot of content. We do this even though I didn't go to school for writing and neither did many people on my team who produce fabulous marketing guides about using PR, email marketing and even social media to help businesses grow. What I do know is that we get thousands of downloads per month for all of our great content, and the opportunity to engage with people who are interested in what we say.

How did it begin? I started the VerticalResponse Marketing Blog for Small Businesses back in 2005 after I attended a Blogging for Business conference and got inspired. I was a little nervous because I really wanted to "write like I speak" and every marketing tip had told me that being uberly professional is how one should write. One of my first posts was titled "How Often Should You Email?"and one of the paragraphs read:

Over-mailing your recipients is a very effective way to ... hello ... lose subscribers! An annoyed recipient is one step away from becoming an unsubscribe and you really don't want to alienate your subscribers.

It actually felt liberating to be myself and not some stodgy, tech-speak, brochure-like writer. After that, all of our marketing materials started to relax a bit, from our website to the datasheets we produce, to even our "on hold" messaging when a customer calls us.

I want our customers to do business with someone like them because that's who we are - a small business constantly on the lookout to grow. In later years when other employees started to write for our blog, I found myself editing them quite a bit until they "learned" how to relax with their writing style. Now all of our blog contributors chill out and write exactly like they'd talk to a colleague or a customer. (I must admit I have found myself killing off a curse word here and there.)

Original Article 

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How Social Media is Changing Customer Service

CustomerServiceWhitePaper.pdf Download this file

Social Media Community : 26 managing

#1: Answer Questions

With more and more of your customers participating on social networking platforms, businesses need to be doing much more than posting their own updates. Companies must also be willing to answer questions.

A recent survey organized by InSites Consulting found that eight out of ten American companies answer client questions and complaints via social media. The survey shows that US companies are very successful in answering questions via social media: “83 percent of companies indicate they always deal with questions or complaints sent to them via social media. Still, only 54 percent of the companies in this survey also talk to and actively participate in online conversations with consumers.”

What about your business? Are you answering or avoiding questions?

#2: Bring People to Your Website Through Social Media

Sometimes with all the talk about social media, businesses may briefly forget one of their original goals for initiating a social strategy—namely, bringing customers and prospects to your company website.

Silvia Pencak writes, “If you are a small business owner, social media will be greatly beneficial in attracting customers to your website… Very few consumers make a purchase the first time they view a website. The initial visit may be enough to capture their attention, but you also need to gain their trust and convince them that your product is a better buy than that of your competitor.”

Silvia offers two recommendations: 1) keep your customers informed by updating your information regularly and 2) communicate with your customers. “If a consumer posts a comment or question on your page, be sure to answer back as quickly as possible. Not only will this show them that you can provide them with excellent customer service, but speaking to them directly will also help to gain their trust, showing them that there is a person behind the business.”

#3: Cultivate Stories on How Customers Use Your Products and Services

You’ve followed the advice on monitoring your social media activity. You see that a customer tweeted about your product or posted a photo on Pinterest. They like you! They really do! Well, that’s all really exciting. And maybe you’ve even retweeted the message for the world to see. But why stop there? Why not be more of a brand storyteller and share those experiences further?

Karen Lyon, vice president of brand marketing at IdeaPaint, says her company not only retweets and reposts blogs and social mentions from customers, staff members also share customers’ photos of their products that they’ve culled from social media sites to use as success stories. “We are much more interested in talking about who our customers are and how they use the product than we are about just talking about ourselves.”

How can you use social mentions to tell your success stories?

IdeaPaint's blog post about how Skiver Advertising was using their product after coming across an article online.

#4: Divide and Conquer

Depending on the type of products and services your business provides, you may actually benefit from maintaining more than one Facebook page or Twitter profile.

Wakefly points out the benefits of social media segmentation in their whitepaper with a discussion about candy manufacturer Mars.

“Mars manufactures the candy brands M&Ms, Snickers, Dove and Mars… all of the brands are positioned together on the same corporate website, creating branding that is confusing because the subpages are each dedicated to a single brand. Consequently, the overall message is also confusing because the Mars corporate brand overrides all the others.

“The good news is that M&Ms, Snickers, Dove, and Mars can each have a page on Facebook and Twitter that is completely independent of the others with its
own branding as well.

“Web 2.0 has created a marketplace that is highly segmented and marketers are well advised to take this into account. As a result, B2B companies have an opportunity to optimize their online marketing strategies by not only creating a page for the umbrella brand, but also by creating individualized social networking pages for each of the products and services that they offer.”

Companies with diverse products can use social media to segment and target the communication for their brands.

#5: Elicit Responses

We’ve all probably heard it said a zillion times that engagement is key to social media community management. But the question we may find ourselves struggling with day in and day out is: What will be most effective? Conversen sums it up very nicely with this advice: “A social campaign should ask questions that cause consumers to stop, reflect and respond.”

When you look back at the questions you’ve posed in articles, tweets, or Facebook updates, which were the ones that generated not only the most responses in numbers, but also qualitatively, the most reflective and insightful answers? Can you do that again tomorrow? And the day after that?

#6: Fans and Followers, Really?

Someone may have once told you that having more fans and followers should be one of your key goals for managing your online communities. After all, numbers matter, don’t they?

Jay Baer hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “Your customers don’t innately want to follow your company on Twitter or friend you on Facebook, or read your blog, or watch your videos. There are mountains of great content online unencumbered by a corporate dynamic. Thus, embracing your company and its content is not a high priority.”

Jay says it’s about rationale. Companies that can create compelling reasons for their customers to connect with them will succeed on the social web. And those that don’t emphasize helpfulness and relevancy will fail.

How can your company be more helpful and more relevant? What can you say that will give your customers good reasons to connect with you?

#7: Generate Your Content Strategy Over Time

Let’s say your team sat down three months ago and created your content strategy to take you through the rest of 2012. And your analytics and demographic reports from recent weeks all look good. End of story? Not so fast. Your community may be moving and reacting to something that happened yesterday or better yet, tomorrow.

As Rich Brooks writes, “A keyword analysis and social media demographics will only take you so far. You’ll need to evolve your content strategy over time, based on what’s going on in your industry, with your audience and in the world around you.”

Revisit your content strategy frequently and be flexible about what and when you post.

#8: Honesty is Still One of the Best Policies

Deborah Ng writes, “Your community members invest a lot of time in your brand. You owe it to them to treat them as equals and to be honest with them.”

Deborah offers three best practices for being transparent with your community:

• If you’re not sure how to respond to something or don’t know whether you’re even allowed to address it, discuss it with your team and your superiors first.
• Address criticism and rumor head on without sweeping them under the rug.
• Respond to questions and inquiries honestly. At times, you may have to reveal information that hasn’t been released to the rest of the world in order to rectify a situation.

Deborah Ng's book is a valuable resource for smart community managers!

#9: Ingenuity is Memorable

In Phil Mershon’s article about creative social media marketing case studies, he shows how seven companies have used their ingenuity to create memorable community experiences.

The eight key lessons we can learn from these businesses are:

• Take advantage of photos and videos.
• Showcase your customers.
• Enable social sharing on all of your content.
• Google+ will impact search results.
• YouTube is far more advanced than you may realize.
• Optimize your content for mobile readers.
• Give people a reason to engage.
• Think about starting a LinkedIn group for your industry or niche.

Sharpie was one of the seven companies profiled for creativity in Phil's post.

#10: Joke in Good Taste

Jason Miller offers tips for using humor in your social media activities. As he says, “Humor can be a great way to get people’s attention.” But humor can also be a little tricky.

Jason writes, “The target market must always be considered. Running tests and focus groups to gather feedback is always a great idea. Try to use an online survey to test your attempt at humor against an internal audience before you send it out. Comedy is subjective, so don’t expect to please everyone.”

#11: Kick-Start with Good Content

Getting started on a new platform? Still testing the waters to see whether it’s the right place for your business to be?

One suggestion that many seasoned social media marketers will tell you is to come out of the gate with loads of good content before you start promoting your new presence.

Let’s say your blog is shiny and new. Wait until you have a respectable number of good-quality posts (e.g., 3-5 thoroughly researched and well-written articles) before spreading the word. Take some time to generate momentum.

#12: Leverage Your Networks

Community managers need to know what’s happening on all of their networks. Even if you’re not the Twitter manager, for example, you should have a good idea of the conversations, tweets and hashtags taking place that involve your company and industry. At this point, social platforms work hand-in-hand with one another.

Conversations flow freely from one network to another and in order to be effective, social community managers need to be able to leverage their networks and bounce off one another.

#13: Marketing Isn’t a Bad Word

Community managers often have to work extra-hard to avoid marketing faux pas—being perceived as using social networking platforms exclusively for business marketing purposes. But let’s call a spade a spade. When social media marketing is done right, it’s not a bad word nor out of line. Ultimately, it’s how businesses need to communicate in the 2010s.

When Jeff Bullas was asked, “What should be the ultimate goal of social media participation for businesses? Is it to create awareness, drive traffic to your website, sell product, branding, or something entirely different?”

He answered, “Businesses have different goals they want from each element of marketing. It’s no different for social media, as it is just another marketing tool and medium. Marketing fundamentals still apply. For some, brand awareness is paramount. For others, it’s increased sales.

“Any marketing strategy and the resulting tactics should keep in mind the two key fundamentals: 1) the target audience and 2) the goals. Social media is not a magic bullet and should be used where appropriate just like television, radio or email marketing.”

Remember your target audience and goals, and you’ll be fine!

#14: Never Say Never

Some days the proliferation of social media feels as if it happened overnight. One day many businesses were claiming social media wasn’t the right strategy for them.

In a few short years, businesses of all shapes and sizes have active presences on multiple platforms. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc., went from not making sense to being commonplace destinations. Who knows what will come down the pike next? With that in mind, it’ll serve you best to stay open, flexible and go with the flow.

#15: Originality vs. Saying What Everyone Else Says

Vicki Flaugher writes, “A great content marketing strategy is key for social media success. You’ve probably seen people sharing others’ content, sometimes via RSS feeds, Paper.ly pages, retweets/shares, or by direct linking. Those are great strategies to provide useful content to your audience. They can be an adequate stop-gap measure while you build your own content, but it’s very very important in social media to provide original content.”

Vicki recognizes that not everyone feels that they have the time or expertise to create original content and offers these suggestions:

• Review a product, book, movie, event, research study or website.
• Interview an influencer.
• Create a video from a PowerPoint presentation.
• Be quotable by learning to say meaningful things in short blurbs.
• Don’t make it harder than it is (e.g., keep blog posts to single ideas, 150-300 words, keep your videos 30 seconds to 3 minutes tops, keep your interview to 15 minutes). Just start. You’ll get better as you go and you’ll be original.

#16: Power to the People—Write On!

OK, so maybe this isn’t what John Lennon meant when he wrote the lyrics to the song, “Power to the People.”

As a social community manager, you walk a fine line—being in charge of the content that your business posts and maintaining a number of presences, responding to and cleaning up inappropriate comments all the while, working your hardest to listen and respond to your community.

At the end of the day, after you’ve handled all of the necessary responsibilities, the company still needs to continue to develop content on an ongoing basis.

Pamela Vaughan provides tips for stellar social media community management and offers this sound advice regarding content: “Share remarkable, targeted content based on needs/interests of individual communities.

“Without remarkable content, your brand will have nothing valuable to share, and your community members will either dwindle, flock elsewhere, or not even bother to participate in the first place.

“This content should not only be remarkable, but it should also be easily shareable so your community members can expand its reach by sharing it with connections in their networks.”

#17: Qualified and Experienced Decisions

Marc Meyer points out that social media has matured. He writes, “Yes there are still lots of nuances to be learned and still lots of totally unqualified people screwing things up, but that’s in every industry, right?

“The difference between five years ago when I first started and now is that there are more and more qualified people out there who are able to make educated and qualified and experienced decisions on what to do with social media initiatives. And the results speak for themselves.”

Are the most qualified and experienced people involved in the day-to-day operations of your social networking communities? If not, how can you get them involved?

#18: Respect Cultures

Several months ago, National Public Radio (NPR) gave its journalists new ethics guidelines that included social media policies.

Jeff Sonderman wrote about his impressions of the policies and how they can serve as a blueprint for other news organizations.

As community managers, there’s a valuable takeaway message for all of us in this passage from NPR’s social media policy:

“To get the most out of social media we need to understand those (social media) communities. So we respect their cultures and treat those we encounter online with the same courtesy and understanding as anyone we deal with in the offline world. We do not impose ourselves on such sites. We are guests and behave as such.”

Great social media advice from NPR!

#19: Shout-Out and Give Thanks

Lightspan Digital has provided an insightful social media cheat sheet with loads of important daily social media workouts, including this one for Twitter:

“Give thanks—If someone retweets one of your tweets don’t forget to give thanks. Example: thanks for the shout-out @manamical ”

Check out their cheat sheet for more great advice.

Daily workouts for Twitter and Facebook.

#20: Things You Should Know About Your Audience

Pam Moore writes that many businesses have the problem of using social media tools without first doing their homework to understand their potential audience.

She says, “You must plan before you act in social media if you want to have a positive return on your investment. Random acts of marketing (RAMs) and social media (RASMs) will get you nothing but in the red come month-end!”

Pam suggests eight things you should know about your audience to create content that inspires:

• Who is your audience?
• What are their pain points?
• What does your product or service do to minimize or mitigate their pain?
• How can your product or service inspire and help them personally and professionally?
• How is your product or service positioned?
• What is your zoom factor? (We’ll discuss more in #26.)
• What is your competition up to? (We’ll explore further in #24.)
• What’s your audience up to, both online and offline?

#21: Update Frequently

We touched upon this point briefly in #2 about the need to update and create new content frequently.

If you ask ten people about what the right frequency of updates would be, you’ll likely receive ten different answers. What works for one business may simply not work for another due to a number of considerations such as staffing, type of products/services and a host of other reasons.

Bottom line here is that we all need to find what works best for us to keep the content fresh and the conversations going.

Ask yourself: What does your schedule consist of? Is it working? If not, what could you be doing differently? Have you looked at the frequency of updates your competitors are making?

#22: Verify Information

As social community managers, we often share information that others have published and pass it along to our readers.

It’s important to be careful and discriminating about the information we share; after all, it’s our reputation too that’s at stake. You’ll want to verify social media content.

Patrick Meier offers tips for how to do this by checking out the:

• Bio on Twitter
• Number of tweets
• Number of followers
• Number following
• Retweets
• Location
• Timing
• Social authentication
• Media authentication
• Engage the source and ask for the source of the report

Patrick states too that speed is often vital and trying to filter and triangulate (looking for multiple reports from unconnected sources) can be helpful.

#23: Wonder Out Loud

In the preceding tip, we talked about the necessity of verifying information. But at times, social media lends itself to wondering out loud. Speculating. Making educated guesses. Asking questions. Harnessing opinions. And, yes, as Dragnet Detective Joe Friday might have said, “Just the facts, ma’am. Nothing but the facts.”

There is a time and a place for making conversation, just as long as you don’t misrepresent it as fact!

#24: E(x)amine How Your Audience Engages With Your Competition

Pam Moore suggests that you can learn much more about your audience by understanding how they engage with and react to your competition.

She poses these questions:

• How is your audience engaging with your competition?
• What is your competition doing that you aren’t?
• What type of response are they receiving online and offline from your target audiences? Is it different than how your audience is engaging with you?
• Does your competition have a consistent tone, message and brand? If not, how can you enhance yours to zoom faster?
• Is your competition engaging in a way their audience expects them to? Casual when they’re expecting professional or opposite?
• Why are they doing such things differently? Do they have a competitive differentiator because of this or do you have the leg-up? Remember, different isn’t always better. You may be on the right track.

What are the weaknesses in how your competition is engaging and leveraging social media that you can use to your advantage?

#25: You vs. Your Customers

Steve Caputo says, “Sometimes we overlook the fact that brands and companies have a totally different perception of the role of social media—and how it can help their business—from that of their customers.”

He refers to the infographic of a survey conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value that shows the top reasons consumers interact with companies via social sites vs. why businesses think consumers follow them.

Consumers interact for:

• Discounts
• Purchases
• Reviews and product rankings
• General information
• Exclusive information
• Learn about new products
• Customer service
• Event participation
• To feel connected
• Submit ideas for new products/services
• To be part of a community

Steve whittles the message down to what he calls the “golden rule”: “The secret to marketing with social media is to always provide value.”

From the survey conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value.

#26: Zoom Agents Lead the Way

We touched on this tip in my last article about integrating social media activities, but it’s worth repeating here.

The social zoom agent, as described by Pam Moore, is “someone who takes on the responsibility for the success of becoming a social business. They will own the success of the engagement, content, approach, strategy and integration.”

As a community manager, you may be the sole zoom agent or one of many for your business. In any event, you’ll need to care deeply about your social communities.

Ideally you will feel invigorated and inspired and will have a sense of pride about the value of your work and what you’re able to contribute. Community management is a relatively new field and it’s an accomplishment to be in this role. Go on and lead the way!

What do you think? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

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