Objectives: The web marketing process (part 4)

This article is part 4 of a series. You'll find part one here. And part 3 here.

Get live updates as each new part is released: Follow on Twitter.

What can this Information Tell You?

In our example from parts 3, we expect to achieve the campaign target if we're able to send 1,980 people to the web site. But how likely is this?

Most business web sites already get visitors. Let's say our demo site gets 20 visitors per day, and that we plan to run our first campaign over a 30 day period.

That gets us 600 visitors that cost nothing. This means we have to find another 1,380 visitors from somewhere.

We have £1,000 to spend, which is a budget of 72 pence per lead. It might be possible to generate all 1,380 visitors using Google AdWords. It's worth checking with Google's KeyWord Analysis Tool to see whether or not this is likely.

The point is, we now know how much we can invest per lead. In the case of Google AdWords, you can set a maximum bid of 72 pence. You only pay per click, which ensures the campaign will come in on budget.

If your ratios are too conservative, you'll beat your target ROI. If they're too optimistic, you won't achieve your target. Once the results are in, you can use the hard data you've collected to adjust the ratios you're using.

Over time, you'll find you get better and better at accurately predicting the outcome of a campaign.

You can even use this data to predict whether or not any given advertising is likely to pay off. This alone can save you thousands of pounds by telling you when advertising is too expensive for your particular campaign.

Doing the Math

The campaign budgets and ratios I've described here can easily be tracked using a spreadsheet. In fact, the maths is so simple it can easily be tracked on paper. Another alternative is to use a campaign calculator.

A better approach is to create a plan for each campaign you do. In part 5, you'll find a handly campaign plan you can fill out and use as a basis for your next web marketing campaign. It contains everything you need to plan the Objectives phase of a campaign.

Backlink Builder - The uber useful SEO tool

There are 3 main tasks in SEO. They are research, content optimization and backlink building. The last (backlink building) is by far the most difficult. It requires a combination of dogged determination and endless patience.

One of the main challenges is finding places willing to link back to your site. It can take hours (literally) of searching to find a single site that...

• Will publish a one-way link to your site
• Is actually worth getting a link from

Fortunately, help is at hand. A handy SEO tool called Backlink Builder does much of the hard work for you. Simply enter a keyword phrase into its Keyword box, and click the Submit button.

Backlink builder then searches a wide variety of sites that accept new links, and are willing to do so using the keyword you specify (i.e. a contextual link). It then returns hundreds of candidates within minutes, saving you hours of "search and explore" misery.

Going Local with SEO

There are times when a website owner is better off avoiding the most popular keywords. By focussing on geographically targeted local keywords, a business owner...

• Saves money
• Saves time
• Is more likely to succeed

This Battersea Dentist is a case in point. They're better off competing for the modest keyword phrase Battersea Dentist than more contested terms such as London Dentist or cosmetic dentistry. Here's why...

• The client has a limited budget
• There isn't the funds to engage in link-building activity
• People entering "Battersea Dentist" into search engines are likely to be very good prospects
• Some people use this term will need a dentist immediately

In other words, this is a term appropriate to the client. They can compete for it, and are highly likely to secure new clients as a result.

As the competition for keywords grows, geotargeted locally-orientated SEO is likely to gain traction.

Measuring Social Media

Measurement is at the heart of all successful direct marketing. The same goes for web marketing. If you can't measure it, how do you know it's working?

Social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) presents some interesting challenges when it comes to measurement. These challenges are generally thought to be unique to the medium.

This article on MediaPost purports to provide 100 ways to measure social media. It makes for interesting reading, and may well present a convincing argument to many. Anybody with a background in direct marketing, and a healthy disrespect for the way brand advertising is measured, will immediately recognise social media measures for what they are.

I do think you can measure social media. The things you can measure are the things you've always been able to measure. All you need is a way to track your content. And on the web, tracking can be automated from the initial content through to a sale. As a result, you can easily measure...

• Number of visitors
  
• Number of responses
  
• Number of sales
• Revenue
• Costs
  
• Net profit

Everything else occurs to me as an attempt to grab hold of smoke, and throw it in the eyes of the people paying the bill. That article I linked to above suggests a measure called buzz. But what does "buzz" actually mean? What does it tell you? How does it relate to profit? How is a "shift in buzz over time" useful in a financial sense? How do I relate it to the things that matter in business. Why is a "shift in buzz" a signal that my social media activity is helping the business?

I'm a sometimes crotchety direct marketer from way back, and all this talk of abstract measures remind me of "top of mind" and "share of mind". I think measuring "buzz" is a waste of time, useful only to ad agencies seeking to justify large bills and line managers with an eye on building an empire.

Objectives: The web marketing process (part 3)

This article is part 3 of a series. You'll find part one here. And part 2 here.

Get live updates as each new part is released: Follow on Twitter.

In part 2 we looked at...

• You have a budget of X dollars
• You're looking to generate a return on that budget of Y percent
• You expect to earn Z dollars per sale

You can use this information to work out how many visitors you need to get to your site to achieve your web marketing revenue target. Here's how...

Number of sales required:

If our revenue target is £1,100, and we expect to make £100 per sale, we need to make 11 sales. That's...

£1,100 ÷ £100 = 11.

Now we can take that figure, and estimate the number of appointments we'll need to achieve the desired return on investment.

Number of appointments needed:

Most of us probably have a rough idea of how many people we have to see to make one sale. If you don't know, start with a conservative ratio such as one in 10.

You can then adjust it as the results come in, and you get a better idea of how many appointments your company converts. In the case of our example, let's go with a conversion rate of 1 in 3. So we expect to make 1 sale per 3 appointments.

That means we need 33 appointments to reach our target ROI. Why? Because we need 11 sales, and we have to see 3 people to get 1 sale.

11 sales x 3 people = 33 appointments in total.

The next step is to find the number of leads needed to generate 1 appointment...

Number of leeds needed:

We now know we need 33 appointments to achieve our desired ROI. Let's look at how many leads we need to generate, to reach the required 33 appointments.

If you don't know your current leads to appointment ratio, use a conservative one in 10.

For the purposes of our example, let's go with one in 3. That is, we need 3 leads to make one appointment.

This tells us we need 99 leads to reach our target ROI (3 leads x 33 appointments).

From this figure, we can work out how many visitors we need to send to the web site to achieve the desired ROI in your Internet Marketing campaign.

Number of visitors needed:

The next ratio we need to know is the number of visitors required to generate 1 lead.

If you don't know this ratio, use a conservative one in 100. For the purposes of our example, let's go with 1 in 20. That's 20 visitors to get 1 lead.

This tells us we need to send 1,980 visitors to the site to achieve our campaign target of £1,100 (99 leads x 20 visitors).

The Ratio Recap

Let's take a look at our objectives and ratios from scratch...

1. We set a campaign budget of £1,000.
2. Our target return on investment is 10%.
3. Our campaign objective is to earn £1,100.
   
   
4. Our average income per sale is £100.
5. This means we have to make 11 sales to achieve the campaign objective of £1,100.
   
   
6. We expect to convert 1 appointment in 3 into a sale. So we need 33 appointments to achieve the campaign objective.
7. We expect to convert 1 lead in 3 into an appointment. So we need 99 appointments to achieve the campaign objective.
8. We expect to convert 1 visitor in 20 into a lead. So we need to send 1,980 visitors to the site to achieve the campaign objective.

Your ratios may start out as guesses. Once you've completed the first campaign, you'll have real ratios for the next lead generation campaign. Over time, your ratios will become more and more accurate. This is why I describe the web marketing process as a virtuous circle.

In the next part, we'll look at why this information is useful and what it can tell in advance of campaign (i.e. how it can save you money and eliminate mistakes).

I didn't mean that!

Human beings do it all the time. We say one thing, and mean another. Of course, it's not usually a problem. Whether intentional or not, there are times when every one of us has fallen fowl of the ability to assemble words that can be taken the wrong way.

It can even be funny. Consider the unintended humour in these signs (all seen by me in various places around the world)...

• No standing at any time (a no parking sign)
• This door is alarmed
• Do not use lift (elevator) in case of fire
• Cyclists use left shoulder
  

Unintended humour can also be a problem if it crops up in your advertising. Especially if it has you insult your target market, or lead to a PR blunder.

The only way to avoid such mistakes, is to have several people check your copy before it goes. And these people must be in your target market. That way, you avoid making a mistake through ignorance (e.g. not knowing a particular word has a different meaning among your target audience).

You'll also help your cause if you make sure every sentence you write contains only one sentence. Keep your eyes peeled for sentences that feature semi colons, or more than 2 commas.

Objectives: The web marketing process (part 2)

This article is part 2 of a series. You'll find part one here.

Get live updates as each new part is released: Follow on Twitter.

The key to success in web marketing is the objectives you set. As the saying goes, if you set out to achieve nothing, you'll probably succeed. I'm the sort of person who considers such sentiments to be nice in a theoretical way, but of little practical use. Especially when I'm busy.

Fortunately, in the web marketing process there are concrete benefits to be had from your objectives. The main benefit is that you'll make more money. Here's why...

• You know exactly how many visitors you need to get to your site to reach your profit target
  
• You know how much money you can invest to reach your profit target
  
• If the amount you can invest won't deliver your target, you don't spend
• If the amount you can invest delivers more than your target, you can reduce the investment (e.g. if it's needed for other things)
  
• As your ratios improve (over time) you'll develop the ability to determine, in advance, whether or not any given paid advertising is likely to return a profit
• You find out where you need to promote to best reach your target audience (get more from every dollar you invest)
  

I suppose a cynical person may feel it all sounds too good to be true. Let's get started, then you can see for yourself that setting objectives within the web marketing process is both useful and practical.

Your Campaign Budget:

First things first – how much money are you prepared to invest in your next marketing campaign?

If you're brand new to marketing, you may not be sure what you're willing to invest. In some ways, it doesn't really matter for your first campaign, as long as you can afford to lose the money.

The plain fact is, when a person starts out in web marketing, there's a good chance the campaign will make a loss. Consider any such loss to be an investment in your web marketing education.

For now, it's far more important that you pick an amount you can afford. Don't waste time trying to figure out what the 'correct' amount to invest might be.

Your Desired ROI (return on investment):

I take the view that marketing campaigns are investments. I expect them to deliver a return, and I like to set a specific target ROI. Here's how that looks using example data...

Campign budget: £1,000
Desired ROI: 10%
Target revenue: £1,100

As you can see, in this example I'm aiming to turn £1,000 into £1,100. Most of my campaigns run for 30 days, so that's 10% per month – a lot better than the return offered by my bank.

Average Income per Sale:

The average income per sale is the amount of money you expect to earn, on average, from each product sold during the campaign.

If possible, use your company's net profit on the product being sold. This net profit figure should exclude the cost of the campaign itself. Why? Because that's already covered by the campaign budget.

Let's Recap:

• You have a budget of X dollars
• You're looking to generate a return on that budget of Y percent
• You expect to earn Z dollars per sale

With these 3 figures, you can work out everything you need to know about your campaign. In particular, you can find out how many visitors you need to visit your web site to achieve the target ROI.

Sound good? In the next instalment, we'll take a look at how to do just that.