Monday, April 6, 2020
Validate Your Marketing Success!
ExpertClick's Ten Ways – You can use in all of your sales & marketing campaigns.
1) Add your e-mail opt-in to your news releases, and pages – as important as your phone number. Send your opt-ins to a different e-mail and tag as from us so you can tell which ones we bring to you. Ask us to send a history file of your news releases, then you can re-issue the ones that got the best results – you've got an evergreen forest of content for continual harvesting.
2) Use Google Analytics to track keywords from your Press Room Page to your website, and the actions they take on your site.
• Use Bit.Ly to validate click on your new release links – url to link to with Bit.ly and then Bit.ly will tell your traffic.
• PDF and Linked releases do not get picked up as well as text and html.
• Releases need at least 300 words.
• They should not have duplicate content from elsewhere on the net.
• Please check the include dateline box.
• Google picks up images more often when square...
• Think about using full HTML – for you can have better control – and if you have an email newsletter you can use that HTML as a news release.
4) You can host images in your plain text releases by storing the images at IMGUR.com and picking up the embed HTML.
5) Keep track of your inbound links – they are a key way that search engines like Google rate sites for top search presentation. You can see who links to you with tools at Alexa.com (and see who links to your competitors – to find new sites to contact for links.)
6) See who else is spending how much.
• See what other words they are using.
• ... and, most importantly, see how they are using conversion steps to attract to their sales pyramid. Yes, emulation not imitation is the key to bringing best practices to your business.
Get Oded Shenkar's book: "Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic Edge" – you don't have to re-invent the wheel.
8) Check the keywords in the headlines that you've already used at Keywords Spy to find other related Keywords, and perhaps you'll see a relationship between the unique high-value keywords you use, and their value as judged by what others pay to promote.
9) Everything you do should be to engage and prompt visitors to your news releases and web page to surrender their e-mail address – yes, clearly offer bait, lay out the salt lick, to ensure you can get back to them. Just like when a trade show exhibitor asks for your business card, and, when you give them your card, you are giving permission to be contacted. See more about "Permission Marketing" in Seth Godin's books. For example see the new "Join-as-a-expert" page at ExpertClick.com where we ask prospects to surrender a bit of information, to get an invitation to join. Three things happen:
• Immediately they get an e-mail with info,
• They land on the order form page so they can buy right now.
• Most importantly I get their e-mail and web site, so I can engage them in a personal conversation about what they are doing and in my conversation work to bring value and ideas to them. By attracting and engaging your prospects you can figure out their problems and learn the trigger events you can use to convert them. See more about "Trigger Events" at Craig Elias' www.ShiftSelling.com"
9) Examine every e-mail opt in and triage them for general reply vs. custom networking reply. When you create a dialog with the e-mail of those you attract and validate as an ExpertClick gained opt-in, you can move the best leads up your sales ladder Push those e-mails into search or a site like
http://www.spokeo.com/ or simply go to their web site when you see:
Joe@BigCompany.com opt-in – often you can know the "who" just from their email. Then engage them by asking a question – do pitch yourself first.
10) Know your sales pyramid and know the steps to move people up the ladder. One participant told me he's getting 500 opens on each e-newsletter he sends out – so he's got the eyeballs of good leads seeing his stuff again and again. He simply needs to move them up his sales pyramid. From the message of a news release and other message distribution options, a pyramid model sets specific benchmarks for client awareness, interest & engagement. A good example is the Mequoda.com Media Pyramid with steps of: web visit; advertising, products; subscriptions; memberships; events; services. What are the engagement steps you envision your best leads climbing? Many times this is based on how your current best clients came in.
Mitchell P. Davis is a marketing expert and graduate of the Georgetown University School of Business, he has published the Yearbook of Experts, Authorities & Spokespersons since 1984.
Broadcast Interview Source, Inc www.ExpertClick.com (202) 333-5000 April 2020