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4 Components of the Marketing Funnel and how they relate to Social Media Channels

November 16, 2010 By

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of marketing is aware of the AIDA funnel – Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action.

Even in the age of SEO and social media tools like Facebook, this marketing funnel is still extremely relevant although some slight modifications are required. Each section of the AIDA funnel represents an important component of your marketing process. They help you set expectations and even determine metrics to measure your goals against.

Continue reading for a breakdown of this marketing funnel along with some additions in the new age of social media.

Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action

Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action

Awareness

Awareness is the bread and butter of any social media channel – whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or any of the minor networks. Rather than being your point of sale, they’re more like your communications and outreach tools…think of them as the spokes of a wheel that lead back to the hub. The hub in this case is your blog, landing page(s), shopping cart and other places designed to convert visitors into customers.

Conversation frequency, increased mentions and sentiment are a few of the metrics to consider with awareness. Remember, you have to let people know you’re out there and that you can solve a problem they have.

Interest

Once you have their attention, you have to pique their interest. You can do this by offering something special like buy one, get one free, free shipping or some other offer. Provide compelling reasons as to why you’re better than the competition and how you can solve the visitor’s problem. If you’re talking about a specific product or service, link to a specific landing page rather than a homepage.

Click-thru rates (CTR), retweets/Facebook status updates and conversations about your products are a few of the metrics to consider.

Desire

Social media can also help build desire for your products and services. However, your corresponding site needs to be easy to use in order to carry that desire all the way to the end. If your site is hard to understand or navigate, then you’re likely going to kill any desire your visitors may have. Move your customer from interest to desire by having a clean, navigable site with lots of information.

Bounce rate, time on site, pages viewed and incoming links are some of the metrics you can use to determine the effectiveness of your efforts.

Action

At this point, your site is the primary tool. You’ve built the desire so all that’s needed from here is for you to close the deal…social media isn’t going to have much influence here. Therefore, like desire, you’re going to have to be sure you have a usable site that’s easily navigable.

Metrics like conversion rate and ROI will give you a full picture of how well your efforts are working…and the ones your boss will be most interested in.

Two More Levels to the Marketing Funnel – Loyalty and Advocacy

Loyalty and advocacy are two components that should be added to the AIDA funnel to better reflect the realities of social media and marketing online. Maintain loyalty by thanking customers through Facebook and Twitter and let them know you’re always available to answer questions or address concerns.

Advocacy is another important component of social media marketing, and the most desired. Customers who are happy with your products/services will let their friends know. But to make this happen, you need to make it easy for them to share your brand. “Like” and “Retweet” buttons in convenient locations are a great way to help this along.

The AIDA funnel certainly isn’t perfect and not all of the steps are required. You don’t need to live and die by this funnel…people can skip a level or go through multiple levels at once.

But it’s important to factor the AIDA funnel into your online marketing strategy. It should help you focus and prioritize your efforts for success.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, Social Media, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

SEO Advantage Added to List of Top Content Creation Firms

November 8, 2010 By

Tooting our horn and saying how great we are isn’t one of our favorite things to do. We just like creating functional websites that look great, include lots of informative content and rank high in the search engines.

But sometimes, we do like to announce when others recognize us for these attributes.

Topseos.com is an independent authority that helps consumers identify major players and better understand the industry. They regularly provide a top 10 list for different areas of marketing a business online.

Coming in at #10 on topseos’ Content Creation list, SEO Advantage’s premier copywriting and content development services are being recognized by this independent authority.

Since 2002, topseos has been evaluating online marketing firms’ customer service, pricing, innovation and performance to come up with their list. They also interview clients of the company in question to gauge customer satisfaction among other things.

This isn’t the first time Topseos.com has included SEO Advantage on its ranking list. Our web copywriting firm has also appeared on the group’s social media list in the past as well.

“We’re once again proud to be recognized by one of the most independent organizations specializing in web marketing services,” comments Stone Reuning, president of SEO Advantage, Inc. “Regardless of our position on any lists, we strive everyday to provide businesses with all the tools they need to successfully market their products and services online.”

Learn more about SEO Advantage’s inclusion on the Top 10 Content Creation list and check out our expert web copywriting services to learn how we give your site a voice and build your reputation and rankings today.

Topseos - Independent Authority on Search Vendors

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, SEO Advantage, SEO Technology Tagged With: , , ,

5 Common Mistakes that Stop Press Releases Cold

November 4, 2010 By

Writing press releases to announce an event or upcoming special at your company takes time and much thought. Remember, you’re not trying to sell something necessarily but rather inform journalists, bloggers and other media of something at your company that may be of interest to their readers.

Well written press releases can be an invaluable tool in generating attention for your company, if they’re done right.

If not, your press release will be relegated to the trash bin of any editors you send it to. Not only that, you won’t see much online impact either…in short, relegating what’s important news to the dust bins of irrelevance.

Continue reading for 5 common mistakes that stop press releases cold along with ways you can avoid these mistakes.

1.         Not doing the proper research – Taking a look at how others in your industry and business in general prepare their press releases helps you find what works and what doesn’t. Just slapping something together will ensure your press release doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

2.         Making assumptions – In order for your press release to be successful, you need to put yourself in the readers’ shoes. Don’t assume they know about your products and services. Detail any specifics so the reader can effectively relay your company news to their readers.

3.         Belittling or talking down to someone – While we say in point 2 that you should provide as much detail as possible, be sure it’s done in a courteous tone. In other words, don’t treat the reader like they’re an idiot.

4.         Overselling products & services – Press releases are meant to inform people who write for your potential buyers. Think of the people reading your press release as your “re-sellers”, not your buyers.

5.         Over-writing or ‘bloating’ the release – Many press release writers are guilty of over-hyping their products/services. Keep fluff to a minimum and focus on details pertaining to what you’re announcing. In fact, it’s best you only include any flowery language when you’re quoting someone for the press release. Including any in the body may result in rejection by online outlets.

If you’re sending your press release to any editors directly through email, you will want to come up with a clever subject line to draw their interest. Think of how many emails you’ve deleted. We all get a lot of emails on a daily basis so be sure your subject line stands out above the rest.

Copywriters at SEO Advantage can help you announce your company’s news through our expert press release optimization services. Press releases are only one part of the larger content creation puzzle. They make your company look active as well as giving you great content to serve up to the search engines.

But to make sure your company news in more than just great fodder for the search engine spiders, consider the 5 points mentioned above when preparing your press release.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , ,

Test Headlines with the “Breath” Test

October 19, 2010 By

Web copywriters and bloggers like me constantly wonder if short or long headlines are better. We’ve been asking the question for years in the hopes of finding an arbitrary length for grabbing someone’s attention and encouraging them to read farther, which is what headlines are supposed to do.

In fact, there really isn’t a set amount of words a headline should be. The solution to this problem doesn’t lie in adding or subtracting a word…there’s no mysterious formula out there.

But you can test your headline to see if it’s too long by using the “breath” test according to Copyblogger contributor Sean D’Souza. Take this headline for example:

How To Recognize Six Difficult Telltale Signs Of Disinterest And Lack Of Motivation In Your Student  And     Customer

Kind of long isn’t it? If you didn’t run out of breath, you certainly struggled to read this headline in its entirety. And if you can’t say it easily in one breath, you’re not going to be able to easily hear it one breath either. This will just lead to confusion as to what the page is about.

If readers can’t read your headline in one breath, your message will be garbled.

But like we said above, adding or removing words doesn’t make or break a headline. Take this one for example:

They Laughed when I Sat Down at the Piano. But when I Started to Play …

You can’t say this one in its entirety in one breath either. But the key to this one as opposed to the longer one is the period separating the thought. A period (or comma, parentheses or dash) indicates the end of one thought and the beginning of another.

When you have this “mental pause” in your headline, a reader will instinctively know you have a pause built into your headline and read it as two separate thoughts.

So next time you’re writing a headline and think it might be too long, do the breath test. If you run out of breath or struggle to complete the thought, add some punctuation to separate your thoughts. If this doesn’t work, get rid of the headline and start over.

Giving your readers headlines and thoughts they can’t process in one breath will only lead to confusion, rendering a good headline completely useless.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , ,

Beware of Your Page’s Primary Purpose When Writing Content

October 13, 2010 By

We all have many reasons to write content for our websites – or hire a content creation company to do it for us.

Perhaps ranking for a certain long-tail keyword is the goal. Or the goal may be to fill a void in a certain subject area.  Even more, content can also answer reader’s questions or you can develop good content for distribution through social media channels.

Thinking of these kinds of reasons can make web copywriters lose sight of another purpose of a webpage beyond just filling up space…and that purpose is whether a webpage should be pushing or pulling.

If you’re working on a landing page or article or some other content on your site, you have to determine if your goal is to draw new readers and/or get existing visitors to keep coming back (pulling) or is the goal to “push” readers to take some sort of action.

In detail, the differences between the two are pretty stark.

Pages written to pull someone in are a gift of sorts to your readers according to Nick Usborne’s Web Content Café post.   Their purpose is to welcome and inform readers…content is great for search engines and social media and generally provide “how to” answers to reader’s questions.

Pages written to push someone have a much different tone and are more for driving someone to take action. They’ve usually already seen and been informed by other content on your site and are nearing the point of purchase. Copy for these pages is more persuasive as you’re trying to close the sale or click.

At this point, you may be asking – aren’t all pages a bit of both?

That is possible. In fact, every page should include a little push at the end because you don’t want someone just to land on a page, read it and leave your site.

But be aware of whether the primary purpose of your content is to push or pull…don’t just write things for the search engines to eat up. Are you trying to pull a new reader in? Or are you trying to get an existing reader to take action?

Be aware of the difference and write pages with this in mind.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , ,
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