Trust Your Brand in the Hand of Social Media

July 19th, 2010 by Rochelle Latinsky

Social media is a great way for companies to leverage their customer interaction and engagement opportunities .On an almost daily basis companies of all shapes and sizes are turning to tools like Twitter to help establish a social media presence.

The first thing they are faced with is the best ways of using Twitter. Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networking tools out there. There is almost instantaneous interaction with followers with full transparency being the ultimate goal.

When using Twitter, think about how you want to engage with your customer base. Do you want to use social media as a marketing tool for your business, as a forum to field questions or complaints, or do you simply want to hop onto the latest trends? These are all critical things to consider.

It’s important to have faith in your company or brand, especially with regards to an online presence. Twitter is a great way to help cull negative feedback and to reinforce positive brand recognition.  Being able to effectively use Twitter can only help your businesses.

A recent example of the use of Twitter as a social media tool was when I posted a question on my own personal Twitter account about a Social Media Monitoring tool.  I received a near instant response from the company asking how they can help. While I know this is not always a realistic response time, that extra level of service, made possible through the use of Twitter, put me at ease over applying this tool to my daily use.

In this day and age a simple question posted for the public to see can gain huge momentum. This is most evident in the recent campaign by Old Spice who by developing a social media strategy managed to take over nearly all online social media tools to get their brand message out in a unique and interesting way. They turned to platforms like YouTube and Twitter, to answer fan questions through their well recognized spokesperson, Isaiah Mustafa. In the end this campaign is being regarded as one of the more successful viral marketing campaigns spread through Twitter, YouTube and other social networking sites. By creating a social media presence, Old Spice reinvigorated their brand with a whole new generation of potential customers.  I leave you with my favourite of the series:

Rochelle Latinsky, Account Executive – Search & Web Marketing Services

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Are You Inline with Social Media Changes?

July 12th, 2010 by Nima Asrar Haghighi

We have all heard about social media and its growth.   Online social media platforms are fundamentally changing the way consumers behave, connecting millions of people to each other through a social web.

In a social world, consumers and their social networks online have a major influence on the businesses and economy as a whole.  Online word of mouth and the power of peer influence have already created challenges for some traditional marketing strategies.

Today’s businesses and marketers need to learn how social media is impacting their reputation and profitability.   Brands can now be strengthened or get hurt by the use of social media.

If social media marketing is not a part of your marketing mix, you have most likely fallen behind some of your competition.

Social media is rapidly changing the way businesses market their products/services and how consumers and businesses interact with each other.

Erik Qualman, the author of socialnomics, has put together some interesting stats on social media that shows the amazing growth of social media websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Nima Asrar Haghighi, Group Account Director – Search & Web Marketing Services

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PayPal Online Payment – Benefits for Not-for-Profits

July 5th, 2010 by Heather Campbell

PayPal is a secure service for sending and receiving money via the Internet. Purchased by eBay in 2002 and integrated as eBay’s preferred billing solution, PayPal has continued to grow ever since. There are currently over 220 million PayPal account holders worldwide in approximately 190 countries and territories[1]. Canada represents the third largest market for PayPal after the US and UK. In addition, 2 out of 3 online shoppers have a PayPal account, which represents more than 9 million Canadians. This Canadian PayPal populace purchases more than $2.4 billion online annually via PayPal and the rate of PayPal sales is growing at twice the rate of all Canadian eCommerce sales.[2]

PayPal is starting to focus on Canadian not-for-profit organizations as candidates for offering the PayPal payment method option on their eCommerce sites. Currently, few Canadian not-for-profits are using PayPal. However, the use of this payment method is being adopted by US not-for-profit organizations in increasing numbers.  During 2009 over 100,000 not-for-profit organizations processed a total of $1.2 billion USD online via PayPal.[3]

Setting up a PayPal merchant account can provide benefits to both your donors and your organization alike.  Reasons include[4]:

  • Security – Offering PayPal as a payment option allows donors to make purchases without ever entering their payment information into your online solution. All payments are processed within PayPal’s secure environment.
  • Fast and Easy – The PayPal payment method seamlessly integrates into the online check-out experience. When it is selected as the payment method, the user is prompted to log into their PayPal account on a PayPal hosted page and then they confirm the transaction and are forwarded back to your eCommerce or donation thank-you page.
  • Choice – Providing customers with another payment method choice adds convenience to their online purchasing experience.
  • Found Money – PayPal users often have excess balances sitting in their PayPal accounts that they consider “found” money. What better way to put that excess money to use than by using it to make charitable donations.

Over the next several months Cornerstone Fundraising Services will be working on integrating PayPal as a payment option into our donation processing and eStore products. Artez Interactive already offers this payment option on its software. Despite the additional fees involved, depending on your organization’s eCommerce transaction volumes, if the US trends play out in the Canadian marketplace it may be a payment method worth exploring.

Do you have any experiences to share related to the implementation of PayPal as a payment method option? Any thoughts on its Canadian market potential for not-for-profits?  I’d be interested in hearing from you.

Heather Campbell, Account Director – Online, Cornerstone Fundraising Services

[1] As per PayPal web site – https://personal.paypal.com/ca/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=marketing_ca/what_is_paypal&nav=0.0.0

[2] “Introducing PayPal” presented by Jolie McMillian, Director Strategic Partnerships – PayPal – April 2010

[3] “Introducing PayPal” presented by Jolie McMillian, Director Strategic Partnerships – PayPal – April 2010

[4] “Introducing PayPal” presented by Jolie McMillian, Director Strategic Partnerships – PayPal – April 2010

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Email Privacy Do’s and Don’ts

June 28th, 2010 by Susan Oliver

Email is an important marketing channel for many businesses. Not only is it cost effective and provides marketers with impressive speed-to-market, it is also an important way to connect with your customers. So what are the privacy rules that impact email marketing? Email privacy is complex, particularly given the way email travels across borders making complying with multiple laws a requirement for responsible marketers.

So what are the do’s and don’ts regarding email marketing?

Do make sure you abide by the laws in every country where you email. Or better yet, review the rules for each country and abide by the law that reflects the highest possible standard for your email communications.

Don’t forget to include a functioning opt-out mechanism in each of your emails. All email privacy laws include this requirement.

Do collect consent to email at the time of collection if you plan to email Canadian consumers. This is the current requirement in Canada under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and is also the rule under a pending new anti-spam law the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act (FISA).

Don’t use words like “save”, “free”, “cash” or oversized graphics with large or bright fonts. These kinds of trigger words or gimmicks are often used by spammers and can land your email in the junk mail folder. Keep in mind that these triggers are constantly changing so staying abreast with the latest developments is important to keep your email in the inbox.

Do make sure to include a header/footer on your email to identify the origin of the email and provide opt-out instructions.

Don’t rent email lists that are collected without appropriate consent. A lot of list owners will claim that they’ve got opt-in consent but opt-in practices are often different from one list owner to the next. Make sure that the approach they take is consistent with your corporate standards.

So while email marketing can be very effective, following the rules and conventions of the prevailing privacy laws can make sure that your message is well received and that you stay on the right side of the regulators.

Susan Oliver – Vice President Marketing, Chief Privacy Officer

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2010 SES Toronto

June 17th, 2010 by Nima Asrar Haghighi

As planned, Cornerstone exhibited at Search Engine Strategies Conference here in Toronto. SES Expo was held in Hyatt Regency on King Street.

As predicted, the exhibition hall was much busier than last year as the buzz about social media and search engine marketing brought in over 1,000 marketers to the venue.

Below is a video from Byron Gordon’s (from SEO-PR) interview with me about Cornerstone and search engine marketing.

Maile Ohye, senior developer programs engineer at Google, was the one of the keynote speakers. She started by illustrating some features of Google Webmaster Tools and then touched on some interesting points on Google Mayday update as well as Google Caffeine.

Mayday is a pure ranking change in Google`s algorithm which happened in May 2010.  The objective was to give higher quality sites a boost as opposed to sites with little content or keyword-stuffed content.  

Caffeine on the other hand is a huge infrastructure change.  Now Google can take our entire index and update it one document at a time rather than in batches.  It gives Google the scalability that they didn’t have before.   Furthermore, with caffeine Google can attach more Meta data to each document and push a document out faster and get it indexed quicker. 

Maile also confirmed the importance of Meta Description in the SEO process specially for the purpose of increasing CTR.

She also touched on the reason why Google incorporated speed to their search algorithm (currently only in US and not in Canada).  According to Maile, the site speed update was purely from Google`s user metrics where they tested slowing results by half a second which resulted in less people searching.  Faster sites can potentially outrank you.

Maile also hinted on Google’s plans to go after microsites that are only created for SEO purposes and add no value to the web ecosystem.

Here is a picture from our booth.

2010 SES Toronto Exhibition - Don Lanage & Nima Asrar Haghighi

Nima Asrar Haghighi, Group Account Director – Search & Web Marketing Services

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Mobile Marketing to Help Green our Planet?

June 14th, 2010 by Don Lange

I read a very interesting article in The Toronto Star that talks about the waning popularity of the car culture among today’s youth (Olive: Youth steer clear of car culture). Essentially the premise is that there is such an overwhelming urge to be connected to mobile devices that people don’t want to be distracted (seems like a contradiction if you think about it).

Above and beyond the fact that this will make environmentalists cheer because presumably more people will turn to public transit, it also means that marketers who have not yet dipped their toe in the mobile waters really need to get wet soon. If you’re not convinced look around you in any crowd setting and count the people who are on their phones texting or browsing.

Even if you don’t have mobile figured out yet here’s an application that you can put into action immediately. Every time you do an email marketing campaign you should include a link that invites the recipient to view the email on their smart phone. The link when clicked would trigger a mobile version of your creative to be sent to the smart phone and suddenly you can engage a customer or prospect with a better visual experience. That mobile creative can of course be embedded with calls to actions such as a click to call, or a click to a mobile enabled web site if you have gone that far.

At Cornerstone, we have been looking at mobile for years and are beginning to see the early promise of mobile marketing become realized.  Stay tuned for some new innovations in the mobile space that you will want to explore.

Don Lange – Senior Vice President, Cornerstone Search and Web Marketing

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Cornerstone is Exhibiting at SES Toronto, 2010

June 9th, 2010 by Nima Asrar Haghighi

If you would like to learn about Search Engine Marketing & Optimization strategies & hands-on best practices including Canadian-specific search challenges, SES Toronto is the place to be this Thursday and Friday (June 10 – 11, 2010).

This year the SES conference is being held at Hyatt Regency Toronto located at 370 King Street West.  During the conference, you are welcome to come and see us at booth #5 on the exposition floor on Thursday June 10 from 10:00 to 6:00pm & Friday June 11 from 9:00 to 5:00pm.

This event is a great opportunity for networking with like minded individuals while learning about the latest search engine marketing and social media optimization trends.

Among the topics being covered at SES Toronto are:

  • 21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites
  • Information Architecture, Site Performance Tuning & SEO
  • SEO Super Tools
  • Twitter Nation
  • Eye-Tracking Research Update
  • Search, PR & the Social Butterfly
  • Meaningful SEO Metrics
  • Video: The Next Marketing Frontier

We also have a contest going on where the winner will have the chance to win a Kobo eReader.

Look forward to meeting you all at SES.

Nima Asrar Haghighi, Group Account Director – Search & Web Marketing Services

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Last Click Conversions Often Have Accomplices

May 31st, 2010 by Nima Asrar Haghighi

In search engine marketing, traditionally marketers had been analyzing, optimizing and measuring the success of PPC campaigns solely based on the last click conversion.

Even though last click conversion analysis is important, ignoring the attribution of other keywords that have contributed to a conversion (e.g., the first click) can prevent marketers from seeing the full picture.  This is due to the fact that people perform multiple searches in their progression along the customer life cycle.

Google AdWords recently introduced a new report called Search Funnel that helps search marketers make more informed decisions regarding their bidding or managing the status of a keyword in the account by giving them insight into the steps their audience goes through before converting to a customer or lead.

Without knowing the attribution of a keyword to the conversion path, you might delete a keyword and hurt your overall performance.  Also, you might reduce the bids and consequently reduce exposure for assisting keywords.

Google AdWords Search Funnels reports include Top Conversions, Assisted Conversions, First Click Analysis, Last Click Analysis, Time Lag and Path Length reports.

In addition search funnel reports can help marketers better understand the contribution of long tail and non-branded keywords to the conversions coming in from the branded phrases.

Nima Asrar Haghighi, Group Account Director – Search & Web Marketing Services

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Capitalizing on Personal Event Donations

May 13th, 2010 by Ossie Hinds

I have a friend who was a senior fundraiser for a number of years.  While she has moved on to other things, she continues to raise funds by staging, on her own, an annual event – and it’s not insignificant – she raised $40,000 last year and is on track to raise $100,000 this year.  To facilitate her fundraising activity, she uses an Artez personal event template through Cornerstone Online Fundraising Solutions.

The interesting thing about my friend is that the charity she is supporting this year is not the one she supported last year.  This got me to thinking about two things.  First, are all charities making it easy for potential personal events donors like my friend to stage events by making easy-to-use online tools available to them?  Second, are charities spending enough time garnering the long-term loyalty of those of its donors who are staging personal events?

With respect to personal events tools there simply is no excuse for any charity not to have them available, and prominently displayed on their web sites.  Organizations need to put the power to fundraise into the hands of their strongest supporters.

With respect to ensuring the long-term loyalty of their personal events donors, I suspect that not as much attention is being paid in this regard as could be.  Keep in mind that people wishing to raise funds for a particular cause often have more than one charity option.  If they feel valued by an organization and if their support is recognized early and often, they will likely be supportive forever.  If they don’t, they may move on to someone else.

Here’s what I’d suggest:

  1. Make sure you have personal event tools.  Period.
  2. When someone calls asking about staging a personal event be ready to help them.  And thank them.
  3. Call all personal event organizers a month after they’re set up to see how they’re doing and ask them if they need any help.  Thank them again.
  4. Call them after their event, or if it’s ongoing at the end of the year.  Talk about the amount they raised.  Thank them again.
  5. Have your Executive Director send them a year-end Holiday Card telling them how the funds they have raised have been used.  And, you guessed it, make sure the ED thanks them….and invites them to do another Personal Event in the New Year.

Retention of personal event donor-organizers is just as important as the retention of any other donor type and efforts in this area should be made accordingly.

Ossie Hinds – President & Chief Executive Officer, Cornerstone Group of Companies

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The Basics of Writing Google PPC Ads

May 4th, 2010 by Melissa Allen

When launching a new Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign where the goal is to sell a product or service or to acquire a lead, ad copy plays a critical role in attracting qualified visitors to your website and converting them.

Sales and lead generation PPC campaigns require taking into consideration many factors in writing PPC ads for search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing that helps attract the right customers, encourage them to click through to the website and act.

Below are some basic ingredients of successful ad copy. Keeping these ingredients in mind can help your Pay-Per-Click ads achieve their goals.

1.  Numbers Indicating Monetary Benefit

Consumers like to see specific numbers in their ads, specifically numbers that indicate some sort of monetary benefit such as “50% off” or “Buy 1 Get 1 Free”. When a consumer is immediately aware of the monetary benefit of purchasing your product or service through a sponsored ad, they are more likely to click through and make the purchase.

2.  Non-Monetary Benefit

If you are not selling products, but rather acquiring leads, introducing a non-monetary benefit to the user can entice them to click on the ad and fill out their contact information. Some examples of non-monetary benefits could be an offer of a free whitepaper, newsletter, or bonus gift.

3.  Call to Action

A Call to Action (CTA) asks the consumer or internet searcher to take the next step. While describing your product or services, you also want to encourage them to act immediately in order to boost your Click-Through-Rate (CTR) and conversion rate. Remember to keep your CTA short and sweet, some good examples are “Subscribe today” and “Buy now”.

4.  CTR and Conversion Rate – Striking the Balance

While a high having a high CTR is great, it is also important to have a strong Conversion Rate if the ultimate goal is to attract the most qualified prospects in order to sell a product or obtain leads. Ad copy that is too general may attract a lot of visitors but not many conversions and ad copy that is too targeted may result in a higher conversion rate but obtain a much lower CTR and Quality Score (a measure Google AdWords uses to evaluate the relevancy of ad copies). Therefore, it is important to strike a balance between the CTR and the Conversion rate.

5.  Punctuation

While exclamation points are a great way to emphasize the significance of your offer and generate excitement, overuse can turn off the consumer who could potentially perceive it as aggressive or insincere. Google AdWords limits exclamation points to one per ad and cannot be used in the ad title, so please use it wisely.

6.  Grammar and Spelling

Nothing takes away the credibility of an offer like bad grammar and spelling mistakes. Proofread your ad copy carefully and avoid using internet abbreviations such as “U” instead of “You”, “2day” instead of “Today”, etc.

Keeping these basic ad copywriting tips in mind will help you on your journey to creating effective PPC ad copy that attracts the right prospects to your website. Good luck!

Melissa Allen — Account Executive, Search and Web Marketing Services

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