Everything I Learned about CRO I Learned from Direct Response Marketing

Direct Response Roots of Conversion Rate Optimization Revealed

Next week at the Conversion Conference in Chicago, +Brian Massey  and I will give a talk on how CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) principles really had their roots in Direct Marketing Response.  We will talk about the discipline of conversion’s roots in direct marketing and how these principles have been used in traditional direct mail and can be applied to the web. We plan to introduce you to some of the names in the direct marketing and advertising field that you may not know and to share some of their wisdom. I use this wisdom in my classes and will share some of my examples of how to apply these techniques effectively.

This semester my students were creating paid search ads for real companies.  Usually about halfway through the exercise, they would say to me, “We have the right keywords and lots of impressions, why aren’t we getting any clicks?”  The answer of course is that the ads were not well-written, not compelling and did not encourage response. 

Just by adding to word “free” to an offer, using the principle of reciprocity, dramatically increased results.  Using the scarcity principle “act now while supplies last” also dramatically improved click through rates, which was our conversion measure.  So if you want to see and hear more examples and words from the wisest in direct response, come hear our talk on Tuesday at 10:30 am at the +Hyatt Regency McCormick Place.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

Act Now Before All the May Grads are Taken!

May Interactive Grads Doing Well in the Marketplace 

This is the happy time of year when my students are reporting daily that they are accepting jobs and internships with interactive agencies and client companies.  +Rebecca Mensing  is going to work at Resolution Media and both +Taylor Staus  and +Brittany Sarkisian were accepted into the Dotomi management rotation program.Thanks to board member +Neil Brown for hiring former IMB student board President +Mike Glassberg for an internship.

Post Your Job on Huskies Get Hired

Sorry there is not time to mention everyone.  If you are still looking for an intern-to-hire or a full time grad versed in social media, SEO and SEM, and other aspects of direct and digital marketing, check out the Interactive Marketing Portfolio on the NIU Huskies Get Hired web site.  You can post your jobs there as well.  Since the semester has ended, this is the best way to reach out to recent graduates and the close to 300 program graduates we have.

Spotlight on Kevin Simon: Interactive Generalist with Psychology Minor

One student still seeking a job with the best fit is this week's guest blogger, +Kevin Simon .  Kevin writes that he just received "a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing, a certificate in interactive marketing and a minor in psychology from Northern Illinois University. I was accepted in the Marketing Honor Society last semester which was a great honor.

In addition to my academic studies, I have been a member of the Sigma Nu Fraternity for four years. I have held three positions within the fraternity, one on the Executive Board for the past two years.  These leadership roles allow me to communicate with other members on a daily basis and improve my charisma and delegating abilities. I held the alumni relations chair position for two years maintaining a database of almost 500 alumni, designing and editing semi-annual newsletters, and updating our website.

I also just stepped down as the treasurer of the Circle K International community service organization which has allowed me to learn money management skills as well as earn over fifty hours in community service not including opportunities with the fraternity. I have also had many opportunities to work with other groups on campus including the Campus Activities Board, Financial Management Society, as well as many intramural sports.  These diverse and well rounded roles have helped me develop excellent communication and teamwork skills."  

Kevin is seeking a full-time position in the interactive marketing field after graduating. His Interactive Marketing classes have helped targeting specific areas he finds most interesting.  He would like to find a generalist position in interactive marketing where he could use his psychology minor and his leadership and planning skills.  Good fits would be online marketing research, social media management, website usability and testing.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

How to Have Fun While Learning Marketing Technology

This video describes what we do in Marketing Technology 470 at Northern Illinois University.  It is the advanced course in our sequence, the 'capstone.' Students plan, implement and measure a paid search campaign using Google AdWords and Analytics and also developed a personal social media campaign. This semester we also did a a corporate social media marketing plan for the companies we have been working with all semester.  These firms are Ideosity and AllWorld.  Thanks to +Nicole Gault and +Mike Glassberg for putting this information together.

Congratulations to them both and to all our Spring 2013 Interactive Marketing graduates!

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

Scholarship Awards Ceremony Honors Interactive Marketing Students

At our Scholarship Awards Ceremony last Saturday, April 13, 2013 at Barsema Hall at Northern Illinois University, we honored a number of graduates in our Interactive Marketing program.  Recipients of the Interactive Marketing Board Awards were +Sarah Harant and +Nicole Gault (shown above with +Dave Henkel and +Debra Zahay-Blatz.   The Zahay-Blatz Family Award went to +Sekou Noriega.  Joe Glaser from Glaser Direct presented his award, targeted for those interested in B2B, to +Nick Kochetta.  The Johnson & Quin Award was presented by President +Dave Henkel to +Amanda Forneck, who will be beginning a full-time position at Johnson & Quin in the Fall.   Thanks to the generosity of our Corporate Advisory Board members for these Awards.

These awards were given for scholarship and dedication to the Interactive Marketing Field.  Look for these talented graduates to make substantive contributions to careers in Search (SEO and SEM), Social Media, Email, Website Usability and Testing and other areas that are a focus for our Interactive Marketing Program.

Interactive Marketing students also receiving scholarships were +Jason Conklin and Allison Greco, recipients of the Michael T. McSweeney Endowed Direct Marketing Scholarship. Interactive Marketing Student Board President +Mike Glassberg received both the Marketing Achievement Award sponsored by the Department of Marketing Faculty and the Top Marketing Achiever Award. Student board member +Antonio Garay received the Always be Contributing Award.

A highlight for me was the fact we honored +Dave Henkel as an honorary Alumnus of the Department of Marketing at Northern Illinois University   Dave's company, Johnson & Quin, has recruited on campus most years out of the last 20 and has hired closed to 30 people out of the IM program and it's predecessor program in Direct Marketing.  Dave said the association with NIU is a good fit because our students are hard-working and come in well prepared.  Program graduates don't have to be taught the basic vocabulary of the direct and interactive business because they have already learned in in their Marketing classes and Interactive Marketing classes in particular.  Dave has been a corporate board member for almost ten years and this award was well-deserved.  Thanks to Dave for his service to NIU and the IM program and congratulations to all on their awards.
By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

Students create search/social campaigns for real clients

This semester my students in Marketing 470 are creating search and social media campaigns to help one not-for-profit (the NIU Marketing Department) and two for profit firms, Allworld Machinery Supply (a top machine tool supply firm)  in Harvard, IL and Ideosity, Inc. (a boutique web developer) based in Elgin, IL drive traffic to their site through PPC and social media campaigns.

The students work with the firm as consultants to develop the paid search strategy and then are given a budget and three weeks to implement their campaign (five for social media) for the three clients.   Both Allworld and Ideosity have NIU grads in key marketing positions.  Tim Yapp is one of the key contacts on the project for Allworld and Kalli Bravos is heading up the project for Ideosity.  Each former student is applying what they learned about search, social media, other interactive principles and general marketing knowledge on the job.  Both Rich Dase, one of the Founders and President of Ideosity, Inc. and Dave Koepp, the President of Allworld Machinery, are also intimately involved in the process.

The company presented to the students in September and the students just presented their plans for approval on October 18.  All the plans represented that the students have a deep understanding of Interactive Marketing.  I was impressed by their knowledge of the interplay between web design and search engine optimization.  The students were also able to apply their knowledge of the keyword bidding process in Google Adwords and keep in mind the companies' strategy and overall marketing objectives.  Results will be measured using Google Analytics and other key marketing metrics.

Of course, these hands-on courses are not new to the Department of Marketing or to its students.  In our Interactive Marketing courses we have done similar projects and in every course give the students a real-life learning experience. By helping students to plan, implement and measure the results of search and social media marketing campaigns, NIU gives the students a real-life learning experience that they can take on the job market and show that NIU really is "Where the Classroom Meets the Business World."

Read more about the project in the Ideosity, Inc. press release and more about our program at our web site.

Internet Marketing Impacts B2B

One of the most important and misunderstood areas of interactive marketing is the broad area of business-to-business Internet Marketing.  For example, Oracle estimates B2B ecommerce revenue is about one and a half times as large as business-to-consumer (B2C) revenue.  Yet the submissions to the journal I edit, The Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing are primarily studies involving business-to-consumer (B2C) issues.  It appears from what is being published in other journals that the situation is the same.  Practitioner sources are of ten the same, emphasizing B2C examples.

The B2B sales area is positioned to be transformed by Internet marketing in at least the following four areas, all of which would be candidates for further examination by both practitioners and academics:

      1) The search process.  Business customers, like most customers, are relying heavily on the internet when   making purchase decisions.  Business customers conduct searches, visit industry social media sites and blogs (increasingly on mobile applications), talk to their colleagues and have a lot of information at their fingertips when the salesperson arrives at the door.  I have tried to illustrate what is happening in the graphic above, which shows all the places the B2B customer can collect information before the salesperson arrives.  In fact, I have seen estimates that the salesperson might now be only involved in two percent of the sales process.  Certainly it is time to explore how we might redefine the B2B search process and to consider extending the concept of the buying center to beyond the limits of the firm.

      2) The role of the salesperson.  This trend toward collecting more and more information before the salesperson arrives diminishes the critical role of the salesperson as the provider of information but potentially increases his/her role as consultative advisor and service provider.  However, lead nurturing systems such as those provided by Marketo now make automated decisions and hand the lead off to the salesperson at the exact right moment to close the sale http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2011/11/08/death-of-the-salesman-marketo-is-automating-sales-relationships-and-growing-like-crazy/

The relative effectiveness of these automated and their impact on salesforce size and structure are issues that need to be discussed in industry.

3) The role of content marketing.  The role of content marketing is another under-researched area of business-to-business internet marketing.  B2B marketers tend to rely on presentation and downloading of content for nurturing relationships.  The suggestion is that effectively placed content on a web site can lead the prospect through the sales process, educating and answering questions along the way.  However, many questions need to be answered about content marketing, including what types of content are most effective in each stage of the customer lifecycle.  For example, the relative effectiveness of webinars versus whitepapers and which content is most effective in what context.

4) The role of social media.  Business-to-business marketers are successfully using social media but the role of these new media is also largely unexplored in academic research.  We know intuitively and from practitioner studies that Linkedin and Twitter are more likely to be useful in B2B contexts than Facebook but we need to understand why and in what context each type of social media marketing tool should be used.  What companies like IBM are doing with internal social networks could also be productive areas of study and replication.

I want to close by noting again that there are also a lot of opportunities for growth and research in the area of B2B internet and interactive Marketing and ecommerce beyond what we have time to mention here. 

Reference:

Oracle White Paper (2012), 2012 B2B E-Commerce Survey:  Results and Trends.

By Debra Zahay-Blatz.
You can find Debra on Google+ and Twitter as well as LinkedIn.

NIU IM Grad uses PPC, social media skills on the job

Eric Castellucci, who graduated in Spring 09', writes, "I have been doing Online Marketing for a company called Wrigleyville Sports; we sell merchandise for all the Chicago Sports teams. The job dabbles in everything from PPC, to Blogging, to Social Media. Pretty much, any online channel that has the potential to bring in sales. Much of what I learned in the IM Program at NIU helped me get this job, especially PPC.

Wrigleyville Sports was previously outsourcing their PPC to a third party in California, but they were not pleased with the results they were receiving. When they discovered I had experience with PPC through school, they hired me on full time. It has been a good match for both of us.

From what I've seen in the IM industry, the knowledge IM Graudates possess is GOLD to companies. I believe that at this moment, the demand for individuals with an IM background is much greater than the supply of knowledgeable graduates. Plenty of companies are learning the immense value from Social Media, and they are more willing to hire someone straight out of college who uses these Social Media tools on a daily basis."

NIU IM Grad contributes as search intern at iProspect

It is always great to hear from former students. James Kelley graduated in May (2010) and worked hard to get a position as a Search Marketing Intern with iProspect. James writes, "I had little time to get aclimated as on my first day the company landed a big client and had to launch the campaign ASAP. The atmosphere is pretty laid back...I STILL GET TO WEAR JEANS! WOOT! I haven't been on the job for too long but have already been involved in some big projects.

I have written ad copy for the PPC Ads on Google, and am excited to think about how mwny people will see them. I have also been given a spreadsheet of over 7,000 keywords and links to check to see if the link to the landing page is relevant to the keyword. That task took a while and was repetitive but quite important. How chaotic would a search be if the landing pages had nothing to do with the ad/keywords in the search?!!

I have also been through the Adwords Editor and recorded the ad groups/campaigns and their ad variance. Overall I am very happy with my decision to pursue SEM and very happy with iProspect, keep your fingers crossed for me that this turns into a full time hire! Good Luck at NIU! Thanks again. James"

Web site for search engine marketing jobs

Heather Priest, a May 2010 IM grad, found the website below the other day. The website tracks and posts job openings in SEO accross the country. There are a couple jobs here in Illinois that some recent grads might find of interest. A person must be a member of the site in order to receive e-mail updates (kind of expensive), but not to see the jobs and get the information on the them. Enjoy and Good luck to those on the job search! Website for Search Engine Marketing Jobs http://www.sempo.org/jobs/

Web site design

Web site design is a complex subject because there are so many different approaches to an effective web site. As always in marketing, think about the target audience and corporate objectives first. We looked in class at some ecommerce sites that seemed busy but yet were successful because that layout is what the audience wanted to see. In general, it is useful to have the purpose of the website and any relevant offer in the upper left hand 'golden triangle' area of the site. Often this area is a good place to put a search function as well as the reader's eye will go to the upper left first. We get this information from tracking eyeball movements for many subjects and displaying them on a 'heat map.' The heat map shows where people click on the site, that cearly 'above the fold' is where eyes are resting and how eye movements also form an "F" shape inside the Golden Triangle. The heat map of a Google web search shows why people want to be in the top three or four searches. http://www.ahfx.net/weblog/79 We looked at ideas on web design from Mary Lou Roberts, Jan Zimmerman, Amy Africa and finally, Dr. Zahay! Some independent sources for good web design and customer service are Forrester.com and Bizrate.com. Dr. Zahay likes sites that load easily, use breadcrumbs, are easy to naviagate, use 2-3, clicks, and have easily available contact information. Trust is an important part of web site design because the user must trust the site to exchange information or do business with the site. Even so, the students said they do not look at Truste or other trust seals on the web in deciding to do business with the site. Again, for marketing, web site design and usability are strategic and not technical issues. Web site development is often iterative as companies find out what works and what doesn't in web site design and make changes accordingly.

SEO and SEM

We learned about Search Engine Optimization, the process of optimizing a site for Organic or Natural Search and about Search Engine Marketing, the process of using piad search. Both processes are designed to drive traffic to a web site. Many people are amazed that by a few adjustments to a web page can bring dramatic results in terms of natural or organic search rankings. Making use of the blue title, linking in and out to relevant pages, making page content relevant to the title and subject of the page are all great ways to improve ranking. I shared the story that when I came to NIU the Interactive Marketing web site did not rank that highly and that I followed basic SEO principles to get the page ranked highly with natural search. Often we recommend that companies use a PPC, pay per click campaign thru google adwords or yahoo to understand which search terms are most relevant. It is easy to see by how much it costs to be listed under a PPC program which terms are going to get the most exposure for the company. A combination of natural and paid search usually works well in driving traffic to the site. The students enjoyed watching Cary Pearlman set up a live Google adwords campaign for them and I will go thru my Google Analytics next week.

Search engine marketing & Guests

We had two guest speakers in the past week and a half. One was Gimmepleez.com, relating to our project to produce a YouTube video. The other speaker was restaurant.com CEO and President Cary Chessick. Students enjoy hearing Cary's story of how restaurant.com started and how it had changed its business model over time and has evolved to the brokerage model it uses today. I refer students in the class to links to the video on these speakers. Students wishing to work on the Professional Sales Program who did not hear Dr. Weilbaker speak in class can feel free to set up a meeting with him or talk to either of us about the project.

We started SEM, Search Engine Marketing this week and will continue with the topic on the 20th and 22nd. On the 20th Cary Pearlman will teach our class in PPC (Pay Per Click) and we will have a lab on the 23rd. I introduced the area of SEM and we looked at a sample google search and pointed out the paid ads versus the natural search results. We talked about Gooogle having 70% of the search engine market and that almost fifty percent of internet advertising is in search engine advertising spending. For this reason even though online advertising spending has dropped this year Q1 09 versus Q2 09 by about ten percent, search engine spending continues to rise. We talked about SEO being the process of optimizing organic or natural search. There is a lot companies can do to optimize their organic search efforts and get high page rankings without spending money. these tactics include a descriptive title bar, text that matches the title bar and is descriptive of the subject matter, links to and from related, relevant sites and appropriate keywords (although the latter is less important now). Search engine spiders or crawlers use complicated algorithms as they search through pages to determine if a page is a good fit with a particular search term. Images need to be tagged and spiders have a hard time with flash intro pages as well. I always enjoy teaching this topic and look forward to the rest of the time we will spend on SEO and Paid Search.