Marketing masters leverage blogging, SEO, branding, and design to captivate their audience and put themselves miles ahead of the competition. But harnessing the many hands of marketing takes a little time and a lot of support. Chances are, you do everything you can to magnify your marketing and stretch its positive effects on your business. However, if your company isn’t in the business of marketing, you might not have the luxury of having a full-fledged marketing team in-house.

Your Marketing Manager might be killing it with your social media strategy, SEO, and keeping up with the company blog, but what happens when you’re ready to take your marketing efforts to the next level? This talented employee is already doing the job of three people! So it might be a bit of a stretch to assume they have the bandwidth and skills to build a new website, shoot and edit a new promo video, design an updated company logo, and so on, so forth.

When you’re daydreaming of keeping up the marketing momentum and continuing to soar in your brand awareness efforts, that dream can suddenly lead to a rude awakening when you realize the lack of marketing bandwidth available within your organization.

It is at this very moment you might consider investigating outsourced marketing services. As you should! No matter which business function or department you’re looking to outsource (marketing, IT, accounting, etc.), getting more hands-on-deck allows your internal employees to continue focusing on what they do best. All the while avoiding the pressure of being stretched too thin. You can also leverage a wider pool of incredible talent and skillsets when it comes to:

• Social Media
• Content Marketing
• Advertising
• Email Marketing
• Paid Ads
• Messaging/Branding
• Graphic Design
• Web Design
• UI/UX Design
• SEO
• Web Development
• HubSpot
• Business Strategy

Let Us Get To Work For You

What Is Outsourced Marketing?

Our workloads are ever-evolving, and there are times when we can barely keep our heads above water. Outsourced marketing is one of the smartest ways companies can expand the temporary marketing power they have under the hood. For instance, if your company only has two graphic designers working on multiple projects that require a hefty illustration workload, you could take on outside help without having to hire another permanent graphic designer. Additionally, outsourced marketing can add some much-needed skills to your teams. None of us are good at everything. So, hiring an outside agency to provide expertise in a particular marketing niche is one of the best ways to get stellar deliverables in front of your clients or customers. Outsourced marketing broadens your horizons. And it allows you to seek more opportunities with a greater project scope. Companies today are adapting to new workflows and a unique talent pool. Luckily our new ways of working have made it easier than ever to hire outside of our companies in a growing pool of freelance, contract, and agency talent. Most simply put, outsourced marketing provides the advantage of temporary and expert help when it comes to working on a variety of difficult marketing tasks.

Why Consider Outsourced Marketing?

Outsourcing marketing efforts is one of the best ways to reduce burnout while helping to maintain an intensely focused workforce. It can bring in knowledgeable new talent to provide fresh insight into your marketing efforts with more specialized experience. If your staff is struggling to service accounts during high-volume seasons, it may be the best idea to start looking for partnerships with marketing agencies that specialize in providing top-notch overflow help. This could be a much more cost-efficient option than taking on more permanent salaried positions.

In-house vs. Outsourced Marketing: Pros and Cons

What are some of the benefits and disadvantages of outsourced marketing? We’ve highlighted some of the main advantages and pain points we’ve experienced ourselves and have heard from our clients over the years.

Pros:

• Can provide specialized and dedicated relief to certain areas of your marketing plan
• Less overhead expenses and baggage than hiring more full-time employees
• Offers the increased flexibility of by-project personnel with fresh insights
• Provides calculated, expert help when you need it, with no strings attached

Cons:

• The marketing agency doesn’t understand your culture or brand as well as a full-time employee. However, with branding guides and project briefs, you can communicate your company message well.
• It can be expensive to hire a reputable marketing agency — expert help comes at a premium. But it is much less expensive than burning out your existing teams and hiring new talent on staff.

Is Outsourcing Just Working with an Advertising Agency?

Outsourced marketing isn’t just a fancy term for hiring an ad agency to take care of the creative customer-facing workload. Although marketing and advertising share a few services like graphic design and copywriting, they are different in a few major ways. Advertising agencies are very good at creating advertisements, jingles, copy, and other creative deliverables. However, they can’t provide the same benefits as a full-service marketing agency. Marketing agencies specializing in outsourced work, like Direct Online Marketing, can deploy specialists to work on email campaigns, paid ads, SEO strategy, web design, and the nitty-gritty details that advertising pros won’t touch. Marketing agencies go beyond providing the loose assets that are a part of marketing campaigns. They build strategies, monitor data, code websites, manage outcomes, and much more.

When is the Best Time to Outsource Your Marketing?

The answer to this question will be different for every company. If your teams have too much on their plates and are struggling to meet project deadlines, it could be time to consider outsourcing a particular task to a marketing agency. Here are some other key indicators that could mean it’s time to hire some outside marketing muscle:

• Your in-house marketing team doesn’t have experience in a niche specialty such as web development or email marketing.

• Your marketing team isn’t able to keep up with the workflow during a particularly busy season.

• You want to hire on a contract basis for projects to keep your company as lean as possible.

However, outsourced marketing can also help keep a consistent marketing effort year-round for companies with smaller in-house teams. The flexibility of outsourcing is one of its key benefits.

What Projects Call for Outsourced Marketing?

When your marketing team has too much work to handle reasonably, it’s time to seek out targeted relief. If you have team members working long hours on SEO and content marketing, but they don’t have the bandwidth to write a series of blogs, it’s time to outsource a content team. The same could be said for website design, UX overhauls, or almost any other time and labor-intensive project. If you aren’t seeing the kind of results you like from a project, it could also be time to hire expert marketing help from the outside. Maybe your staff doesn’t have a decade of SEO experience, and that’s okay. You can hire an outside SEO master that can show them a thing or two while boosting ROI for your business.

Is Outsourcing Cost-Effective?

Outsourcing is not only a smart play when your teams are backed up — it’s a cost-effective solution that you can use to free up your MVPs. Often, marketing agencies will package services in a way that will reduce your costs and provide a more holistic solution. This is a great way to avoid charges for any add-on items that quickly stack up. Of course, you will have a variety of cost options when it comes to choosing a marketing service. You will want to choose a company that provides quality results at the lowest possible price point, but this can be tricky. Not every outfit will be able to handle your project. Chances are, if you are the marketing department for a high-profile tech company, a small-time agency won’t cut it—as much as they would love the opportunity. It’s all about the balance of marketing aptitude and cost savings. Direct Online Marketing has some of the brightest minds in marketing working to bring you marketing solutions. We have competitive pricing for any project and work with you to provide the best mix of time and budget.

Doing Your Research on Outsourced Marketing Providers

It’s important to do your research on outsourced marketing providers to find the best fit. It’s ideal to find an agency that has worked with similar companies in your industry as they will understand some of your unique problems. Perhaps the biggest drawback to outsourced marketing is a lack of product or service understanding. You will want to make sure that if they don’t already have a rock-solid understanding of what you do, they will study up on what your company offers.

• Online searches will be able to tell you a lot about an agency. Their website should be clean, modern, and most importantly, it should include case studies and a portfolio of past experience that should impress you. However, if you are looking for a quick project fix, you might just need an individual freelance marketer.
• Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful marketing tools there is. When marketing agencies do a good (or bad) job, word gets out. Ask around for recommendations from your peers. Chances are they will be able to provide you with help they’ve used in a pinch when it comes to copywriting, graphic and web design, or any other services.
• Social media and review sites like Clutch will sometimes give you a great lead on an outsourced marketing agency. Also, it’s possible someone has already tried to reach out to you via LinkedIn or email with their services! Now could be the time to revisit your inbox to take an agency up on an offer.

Don’t make the mistake of going with the first outfit you find, unless they really are the best fit. The only way to be sure is to consult with a few companies and ensure you get the best deal when it comes to a balance of price, time commitment, and experience.

How Will You Know Good Marketing Help When You See It?

When you know, you know. Good marketing help will fight for your business and show you all the ways that they align with your project. They have all the credentials, experience, and knowledge to run with a briefing and provide excellent deliverables. A good marketing agency will have a portfolio handy of case studies that show how they helped companies like yours in the past, the end results and ROI.

What Should You Look for in an Outsourced Marketing Agency?

You should look for a marketing agency that can provide specialized services that will help you finish marketing projects as soon as possible. Often, marketing departments will come to an agency with a tight deadline. A good agency will be able to take on the project quickly and get deliverables to you as soon as possible. Turnaround times are a big part of projects. There are always drafts and redrafts and edits that need to take place to ensure a finely finished product. You should ensure that the agency you are looking at can work within your time constraints. Of course, you may need to pay a premium for a bump up on their priority list, but that can be expected.

Keeping An Eye On ROI

ROI is one of the biggest terms in marketing. Word coming from above always wants to hear about return on investment. Outsourced marketing teams can provide a better ROI while keeping costs low and providing more insight and expertise than your in-house teams originally had. An outsourced marketing team shouldn’t only be able to provide you with the results you need, they should be able to measure them and give you numbers that reflect the value of your decision. At Direct Online Marketing, we carefully measure project ROI so you can see your results in hard data and plain English. Once you find the stellar ROIs that we offer our clients, we are certain you will come to us again when your projects demand it.

Final Thoughts

Outsourced marketing can be the perfect way to free up your in-house marketing teams to perform at their peak. It is a cost-effective strategy to improve your workload while bringing extra expertise onboard to provide their secret sauce. There are a huge number of projects that are ideal for seeking outsourced marketing. If you have a large marketing department or a small in-house team, outsourced marketing can help you deliver better results faster and more cheaply than hiring on more permanent staff.

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The post Your Guide To Outsourced Marketing appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

As time has passed and two more debates have taken place, tuning in has not been something for the squeamish or faint of heart, and yet the whole world continues to get their popcorn ready to see what happens under the proverbial “big top.”

You probably don’t remember what you were doing when the first Presidential Debate took place, but I bet there are several things you DO remember, like . . .

• The number of people you have blocked or unfollowed due to your conflicting political beliefs
• The funny meme your friend shared on Facebook of that loathsome candidate from the other party
• The ad you had to view about the candidate you favor for days after the debate
• The incessant coverage of election analysis, and analysis of the analysis, in your social feeds

Since so much of the media we consume today is online, our presidential candidates (and their loyal followers) have taken to the web like never before to raise awareness of the issues they want to change, influence undecided voters, and drive donations to help finance their campaigns.

DonaldJTrump.com
vs.
HillaryClinton.com:

How Is Each Candidate Using Digital Marketing?

I’ve been pouring over the digital marketing campaign strategies deployed by the committees created to elect Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during debate season. This required a death-defying act of courage on my part because there was a lot to cover – the campaigns are both omnichannel and each has its own respective characteristics to reach the voting public.

As part of accomplishing their goals of keeping the other party’s candidate out of the White House, my eyes have been fixed on how each campaign has been using five key digital marketing strategies:

• SEO
• PPC
• Social advertising
• Retargeting
• Analytics

Below, I hope you’ll come away with a sound understanding of how each campaign is using the strategies documented above. What are they doing well? What are they not doing so well? What opportunities may they be missing out on?

SEO Strategies For The Presidential Nominees

Historically, search engine optimization strategies have not been a top of mind concern for presidential campaigns. With so much search volume done on the candidates centered around phrases that include their names, it just hasn’t been necessary.

This election season, however, things appear to be different . . . and each campaign is taking advantage of the opportunities presented to them through SEO. This time around, the two major presidential candidates are using SEO as a method to position content related to the major issues of their platforms. According to data analyzed from SEMrush, HillaryClinton.com and DonaldJTrump.com both have web pages that rank on the first page of Google (top 10 positions) for 157 keywords.

Based on the reports of what keywords each candidate’s site ranks for on the first page of Google, they want you to read more about their positions on the following topics as you make your decision:

• Immigration
• Healthcare
• The economy
• Childcare

Both campaigns are also interested in you viewing what influential leaders and celebrities have gone on record as endorsers. Research suggests this could have an impact on who you vote for, and it is well known to work as a tactic for increasing online conversions. Endorsements are a specialized twist on testimonials, which is an old school website trust signal traditionally used in online marketing campaigns.

Oh, and they want you to help them raise money by donating and buying apparel. Lots and lots of apparel. Clinton’s website and Trump’s website both rank in the top 3 positions of Google for phrases like campaign merchandise, campaign store, presidential signs, and presidential shirts.

SEO Campaign Strategy Suggestion

While there are only a few weeks left before the election, one thing each campaign may want to consider is publishing articles optimized to rank for searches related to their opponent’s platform. Over the next few weeks, undecided voters are likely to start researching each candidate’s position on the issues with a higher frequency.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see an article from Clinton’s website that outlines Trump’s plan for immigration, presents her plans as an alternative, and then explains why his position is not the better choice for the country? Trump’s campaign could do the same thing, and each campaign could then try to optimize their pages to rank for searches like:

• Hillary Clinton immigration plan
• Donald Trump immigration plan
• Donald Trump immigration quotes
• Hillary Clinton on foreign policy

During this election, there may not be many undecided voters left. But for those that are undecided, this may be a great way for each campaign to present its plans while voters are researching the other candidate’s positions.

PPC Strategies For The Presidential Nominees

While I don’t have personal access to the AdWords accounts of either campaign, data I reviewed in the Advertising Research Positions tab compiled for each domain using SEMRush makes it pretty clear how each campaign is using AdWords strategies for each campaign.

At the highest level, each campaign is using paid search advertising to drive donations. The downside to their strategies? Both are taking a “spray and pray” approach to this strategy. According to the SEMrush reports, Team Trump and Team Clinton both appear to be using a broad match bidding approach built upon the last name of each candidate. This means that anytime you do a search with the word “trump” or “Clinton” on Google, you are going to see their advertisements.

Check out the screenshot below of Trump’s Paid Search Positions . . .

. . . and now check out the screenshot of Team Clinton, which appears to be taking this approach one step further by even bidding broad match on her first name.

PPC Campaign Strategy Suggestion

Again, I do not specialize in running AdWords campaigns. However, why isn’t either party using the ambush pay per click approach that the John McCain campaign leveraged in 2008? While it obviously didn’t result in McCain winning the election, it did serve as a fantastic digital marketing strategy for trying to sway voters. In a campaign season where no rock seems to be left unturned, and no mud appears to be too dirty to sling, I’m very surprised this tactic is not being leveraged by either campaign.

Social Advertising Strategies For The Nominees

When it comes to advertising across social media networks, the strategy for both candidates seems to be two-pronged and very, very clear:

• Get voters registered
• Make the other candidate look bad

In addition to image and video ads on the major social networks, Hillary’s camp is also using Internet radio and other streaming audio applications to help spread the message. Truth be told, I heard multiple ads from her campaign on Spotify while listening to some of my focus playlists in the time it took me to compose this post.

I can also attest from personal experience that Trump’s camp is aggressively using advertising on YouTube. Is anyone else tired of seeing political advertisements and not being able to skip them before their YouTube videos load? I know my kids are!

Social Advertising Strategy Suggestion

Both parties are already taking an attack approach to their advertising on social media. That said, they seem to be sticking to showing ads like that to individuals who have already decided to give them a like or a follow.

If these campaigns were honest with themselves, just for a second – do they really believe showing an ad to someone who already supports their campaigns will have that much of an impact on their voting outcomes?

Instead of once again taking a “spray and pray” approach to their digital marketing, or catering their social advertising to voters who share their political beliefs, these campaigns should instead be focusing their efforts on personalizing their messages to undecided voters.

As close as we are to Election Day, it is probably too late to make such a swift strategy change. But if either one of these campaigns focused their visual content efforts on creating infographics for Pinterest, or custom graphics for social networks that spoke to the major issues keeping undecided voters on the fence, their efforts may come across as less frustrating, and more effective.

Retargeting Strategies For The Nominees

Did you visit the website of your preferred (or your despised) presidential candidate at any time during this lead up to Election Day? If so, then you have probably also seen their ads running constantly as you navigate the web. Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. is leveraging this crazy awesome advertising strategy in an effort to drive donations and stay top of mind with donors and voters.

While Team Trump is pretty actively using display ads in its retargeting strategy, the campaign appears to have been paused sometime in the month of September. According to data collected by SEMrush, these display ads were last seen around September 8.

Team Clinton, on the other hand, is not using retargeting as part of its digital campaign. Instead, they have relied on text ads as part of a Google display network campaign.

Retargeting Strategy Suggestion

For Team Trump . . . why did they stop using this strategy with two months to go? With the other campaign not using this tactic at all, they could have kept their visibility online with their strongest supporters and with influential undecided voters who visited their website at the most critical time of the campaign. Missed opportunity here.

For Team Clinton . . . why haven’t they created any creative for these campaigns? A major missed opportunity here, and hopefully they figure out how to enable this tactic at this critical time.

Analytics Strategies For The Nominees

Both campaigns are doing a thorough job of monitoring the site activity of their users. According to information collected by the BuiltWith Technology Lookup, DonaldJTrump.com has 11 different Analytics and Tracking tools included in its code. By comparison, HillaryClinton.com has 11.

Below, for your viewing pleasure, is a comparison of the tools each campaign is using on their sites to track your activity. In the interest of bipartisanship, the sites are listed alphabetically.

DonaldJTrump.com

• Google Analytics (and Conversion Tracking)
• Facebook Pixel
• Twitter Analytics
• TellApart
• DataLogix
• Lotame Crowd Control
• Rapleaf
• Adobe Dynamic Tag Management
• Omniture SiteCatalyst
• Krux Digital
• Bing Universal Event Tracking

HillaryClinton.com

• Google Universal Analytics (with Conversion Tracking)
• Yahoo! Web Analytics
• DoubleClick Floodlight
• Optimizely
• Facebook Domain Insights
• Fastly
• Yahoo Dot
• Quantcast Measurement
• Silverpop
• Heap
• Bing Universal Event Tracking

Analytics Strategy Suggestion

None. I mean, I know in the back of my mind the government is always watching, but the amount of Analytics and Tracking tools these sites have embedded in their source code is overkill, and a little bit creepy.

For comparison, BuiltWith reports that Amazon only has five different Analytics and Tracking tools in its code, and Facebook only has three.

Closing Statements On The 2016 Presidential Digital Campaign Strategies

Because we are now eight years removed from the dawn of a new digital marketing revolution on political campaigns, neither of the two major political campaigns are blazing any new ground with their use of SEO, PPC, social media, retargeting, and analytics to sway voters, raise money, and win the US Presidential Election. They do seem to be overanalyzing our activities on their site, but that is part of the digital marketing culture in today’s world – there isn’t much any of us can do to stop them.

Both campaigns have been very effective at positioning themselves through Google Search to drown out the mainstream media on the major political issues. This commitment to ranking for the issues should help any undecided voters make your decision easier when Election Day arrives.

With that said, their advertising strategies – both in paid search and social media – seem to be wasting donations because the data implies they are using a “spray and pray” approach in areas where personalization has become the norm for the voting public. Also, the absence of retargeting in the digital strategy of the Clinton campaign presents as a major missed opportunity for staying in front of undecided voters.

If their digital campaign strategists continue to work in politics following this election season, hopefully, they all continue to focus on the helping their candidates own the issues. They also need to figure out ways to better leverage personalization to sway voters to the candidate they represent.

If you’re interested in learning how you can drive better results with search engine marketing, schedule a digital marketing consultation. Or, to get more information on this topic, contact us today and learn more about our status as a Google Partner Agency before you reach out.

The post A Bipartisan Digital Campaign Audit Of Trump & Hillary appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Again, this is going to be very brief.  I didn’t have time for a longer post and didn’t want this to become stale.  You should see the terrific post I had going for how Herman Cain was handling online reputation management…and then he dropped out before I could finish and post.

Quick Beginner Notes on How Google AdWords Works

For those of you not intimately familiar with paid search marketing, a couple important notes that can be difficult to grasp:

1. Ads don’t necessarily display all the time.  With Google AdWords – and Microsoft adCenter for that matter – you may be advertising on a particular keyword, but not see your ad.  This can happen for a variety of reasons, but one of the most common is due to budget.  Usually you’ll set your account spend to be spread out evenly throughout the day, meaning that if you can only afford 100 clicks and Google estimates you’d get 150 if they ran you full force, you may only see your ad 2 out of every 3 times you check.*  To counteract this, I did run test searches multiple times, but that doesn’t mean I saw everything.
2. These are New Hampshire results.  Using Google’s Ad Preview Tool, I pulled searches specifically in the state of New Hampshire.  It’s possible candidates are targeting just certain districts (as we’re familiar with from running political search marketing campaigns).  So, if they only care about a particular part of NH for whatever reason, they could just be targeting that region and I wouldn’t be seeing their ads.  Also, the Preview Tool doesn’t let you open up links – I’d normally comment about landing pages as well.Update: Assuming he’s using the same tactics in NH as he is across the US, give Romney’s team credit.  Their landing pages are taking people to a donation page.

* Advertisers should also use Google’s Ad Preview Tool to weed out any personalization effects of search.

2012 NH Primary Search Engine Marketing

Alright, here we go.  In the interest of time, I ran only on exact candidate names (first name, last name) and just a couple phrases pulled completely at random.  Any proper AdWords campaign concerned with anything other than branding will have much larger lists of keywords.

The following is the search term and who I could see advertising on them, in order of Iowa results for candidates.  I’m including Michele Bachmann even though she ended her campaign just now because…well I already did the searches.

Update: Now two days after the primary, some more sites are cashing in.  New advertisers noted in green to distinguish.

• Mitt Romney: himself, followthemoney.com on a couple searches, then CSPAN later, then finally Rock the Vote. Now add gopmall.com.
• Rick Santorum: none the first day.  Now people jumping on board: Rock the Vote and livefreeordiealliance.com.
• Ron Paul: therealnews.com a couple times.  Later the Endorse Liberty YouTube channel (youtube.com/EndorseLiberty). BTW – did you notice the YouTube layout changes Google stealthily made over the holidays?
• Newt Gingrich: himself (newtgingrich360.com).  And now a new one, also from Gingrich – the awesomely named newthampshire.com.
• Rick Perry: followthemoney.com
• Michele Bachmann: followthemoney.com, Minnesota Public Radio (minnesota.publicradio.org).  Later CSPAN.  Now,the Endorse Liberty YouTube channel – seems like odd timing.
• Jon Huntsman: followthemoney.com

Takeaways

Here are a few things I found interesting, in no particular order:

• Interesting that in most cases the ads were showing at the bottom of the page, rather than the top where Google was showing Iowa Republican Caucus results in most cases (its own, bug with credit given to AP) along with news results and sometimes image results.  Speaking of which, some of these candidates are just getting destroyed still by Googlebombing image results.  Unless, of course, the Newt Gingrich photo of him posing in tinfoil hat with Nazi flag is an official campaign photo that I’m not aware of.
• Mitt was going strong earlier this morning, but now I’m having trouble triggering his ads at all.  Maybe he ran out of money in that campaign due to higher search volumes?
• Interesting how CSPAN has jumped into this advertising so heavily this afternoon.  They must be paying a pretty penny.
• No love for Rick Santorum?  Seriously?  The guy lost by 8 votes, which I can, like, count on my hands.  Quality Score issues aside, isn’t there an entrepreneur out there that can take advantage of the lack of competition and make some money here? Photo Credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay.
• Although, CSPAN surely hasn’t paid as much as followthemoney.org.  Fortunately for them, they’re paying only on a per click basis and not per impression.  (This assumes they’re not doing cost per acquisition bidding, which should be a safe assumption).  Curious why they’re not on all the candidates – would love to know if that’s a budget issue, oversight, part of their plan based on who they think has a shot at winning, or other.
• I know it’s early with Iowa just wrapping, but really surprised not to see more PACs there.
• Equally if not more surprised the political campaigns aren’t advertising on their opponents’ names.  Perhaps there’s a gentleman’s / woman’s agreement as being part of the party?  You wouldn’t guess it by some of the talk by the candidates themselves.

What stood out to you?

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as Google Partners before you reach out.

The post New Hampshire Republican Primary: A Look at Candidate AdWords Campaigns appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Among the topics covered were optimizing sites for branded searches, facebook, portfolio sites, and Google Tags.  Per the audience’s request, we specifically discussed reputation management for politicians and students.   We even talked about our old friend and favorite ORM example, Lois Feldman.

Enjoy.

The post How to Protect Your Online Reputation – Ohio State University appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Don’t get your dander up.  I realize Daily Kos is a very polarizing site and evokes visceral reactions on both sides of the equation.  We’re going to keep this right in the center of the teeter-totter.  The closest thing to saying something that could be perceived negative to one side that you might read in this post is that Democrats got into the internet marketing game sooner than Republicans, who mostly do now realize what online marketing can offer.

So if you want to learn more about how PACs, campaigns, and other organizations are trying to influence the 2010 midterm elections AND you promise to not attach nonexistent persuasions to this post, continue reading. 

The article from the Daily Kos is a touch long but well worth a read if you’re interested in either politics or SEO or both.  Otherwise, here’s an excerpt:

Campaign Goal and Theory
The goal of Grassroots SEO is to get as many undecided voters as possible to read the most damaging news article about the Republican candidate for Congress in their district. It is based on two simple premises:

1. One of the most common political activities people take online is to use search engines, mainly Google, to find information on candidates. (For more information, see the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s report on 2008 online political engagement.)
2. These results of these searches are always in flux based upon hyperlinks anyone posts anywhere on the Internet, including message board comments and social networking sites (but not email).

As a result of this, not only is it possible for us to use our hyperlinks to impact what people find when they search for information on candidates, but we would be foolish not to do so in a way that benefited our preferred candidates. We are already impacting search engine rankings whenever we post any hyperlink anywhere, so we need to make sure the way we use hyperlinks helps result in our preferred political outcomes.

When we did a Grassroots SEO campaign in 2006, we reached over 700,000 voters in 50 key congressional campaigns in the final two weeks of that midterm election.

The site then goes on to tell its readers how to identify the most damaging articles (and those that make it easier to promote to the top of the organic rankings) and provides an email address for where they can be submitted.  From there, Daily Kos will handle the rest in pushing those articles to the top of searches for candidate names in midterm races throughout the country.

There are a few major takeaways here:

1. Online Reputation Management Paramount.  Protecting your online reputation through owning the SERPs (search engine results) is paramount.  Start early.  If you’re even thinking about ever running for office (and even if you’re not, there are plenty of good reasons to), buy a domain with your name and put up some content / redirect it to your LinkedIn profile, and get as much exposure as you can now through social media properties.  SEO usually takes time, so it’s easier to do when you own a lot of the SERPs already.  There are people you’ve never met that will seek to tear you down just because of the letter next to your name.
2. Don’t Forget about Paid Search.  If you get caught behind (and really – you should be doing anyway), don’t forget about buying your own name in Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter.  Tailor the copy to the search query in question and answer negative claims if necessary.  And if you’re like most campaigns and PACs we know, you’ll probably be even more interested in buying your opponent’s name.
3. Empower Your Fans.  Whether you’re a campaign, political organization, business, or organization, you have a lot of people in your camp who like you.  Empower them.  Give them an action plan.  Tell them how they can help.  No candidate is an island.
4. Left Leading Right in Political SEO.  Liberals are still outpacing conservatives on search engine marketing.  They’re both doing it now, some campaigns and PACs on both sides extremely well.  But the fact that there’s a well-found mechanism like this already in place on the left side says they’re more organized to use individuals across the nation.  I know the GOP and other parties are making similar efforts before and in response to this article, but they’re not as coordinated on this front.  (If anyone has evidence to the contrary, please speak up in the comments.)

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a quick plug about our own political search engine marketing offerings.   It’s not too late.  If you’re running a campaign or a PAC and want to learn more about raising funds and increasing name recognition to get your candidate elected on November 2, give us a call at 800.979.3177.

We can get some campaigns up within hours of receiving payment and can get your ads hundreds of thousands or millions of impressions on everything from local newspaper sites to sports sites and everything in between for just pennies on the dollar.  The reach you get costs just a fraction of what you’ll pay for tv and radio.

The post Daily Kos: SEO Political Strategy for Grass Roots Constituents appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

With that, let’s take a fairly extensive look into what the candidates are doing today in their paid search campaigns, shall we?

Before we go any further, check out Manny Marrero’s (aka Steaprok)’s excellent post on online marketing throughout this election season (hat tip: Brett D. Payne).  Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200.

Update: Also check the very bottom of this post for a list of articles related to internet marketing and the 2008 Presidential election.  I’ll update as I find them.

It’s a very thorough post on how both John McCain and Barack Obama have implemented internet marketing strategies and where each is strongest and weakest.  Pertinent to this post are the following:

• Going back to February 2007, the candidates had already spent well over $7 million in online advertising by September, not counting search.  Let’s overestimate what they probably spent and say the total figure with search is $9 million.  Pretty impressive, except that $9 million would represent only about 3% of their overall ad spending.  Problem is, US advertisers in general spend about 7% of their budget online.
• Update: Borrell Associates pegs the 2008 political advertising pie slice devoted to online marketing at only 1% (although that’s for everyone, not just the Presidential candidates).
• Both candidates are using some paid search best practices, including using multiple ad copies and landing pages specific to their keywords.
• McCain is spending a lot more and generally doing better on the pay per click side (even on Obama-related terms); Obama much better on the natural listings / seo side.
• Search volume is heavier for keywords with “Obama,” but many of those searches are not necessarily pro-Obama searches (the 4th most searched for term, for example is “Barack Obama birth certificate.”

Paid Search Political Advertising on Election Day

With that background, let’s take a look at today’s paid search landscape (methodology / ranking system at bottom – it’s a doozy!)*.  Keep in mind that this is a snapshot and not necessarily indicative of the candidates’ paid search campaigns over the last few months.  But if you’re not going full bore today for whatever reason and running til the coffers are empty, I have no sympathy for you.

So let’s go.  By coin flip (seriously, we did one), Obama’s up first:

How Obama Ranks for Paid Search Marketing

Anti-Obama Search Terms: 19.5
– Barack Obama birth certificate
– Bill Ayres and Barack Obama
– is Barack Obama Muslim

McCain-Neutral Search Terms: 5
– John McCain
– all about John McCain
– John McCain’s views

Anti-McCain Search Terms: 1.5
– McCain old man
– McCain Bush
– McCain oil

Issues Pro-Obama Search Terms: 0
– Iraq war end
– affordable health care
– alternative energy

Issues Pro-McCain Search Terms: 0
– spread the wealth
– government spending
– offshore drilling

Deductions: -3
For not keeping budgets high enough on election day.  See Methodology #11

Total Paid Search Score for Barack Obama: 23

Of special interest: The DNC did a pretty nice ad / landing page / campaign just for Pennsylvania – thought it was a nice way to show “politics is local.”  Only saw it one place for Obama and nowhere for McCain.  Also, Obama does some really great Fight the Smears advertising – goes to the same Web site (well, subdomain now) that I wrote about before.  In this area, he does a really great job of matching up keyword, landing page, and ad text.

How McCain Ranks for Paid Search Marketing

Anti-McCain Search Terms: 10.5
– McCain old man
– McCain Bush
– McCain oil

Obama-Neutral Search Terms: 14
– Barack Obama
– Barack Obama biography
– facts about Barack Obama

Anti-Obama Search Terms: 5.5
– Barack Obama birth certificate
– Bill Ayres and Barack Obama
– is Barack Obama Muslim

Issues Pro-McCain Search Terms: 10.5
– spread the wealth
– government spending
– offshore drilling

Issues Pro-Obama Search Terms: 4.5
– Iraq war end
– affordable health care
– alternative energy

Deductions: 0

Total Paid Search Score for John McCain:45

Of special interest: McCain seems to run a much more robust campaign, especially on Microsoft adCenter and especially on terms related to his opponent.  Obama is not invisible, but very hard to find on terms related to McCain, generally.

And 2008 Presidential Winner is…

John McCain by a score of 45 to 23. Now go out there and vote if you haven’t already!

I’ll go ahead and put a wager out that these numbers will be much higher on both sides in 2012.  Any takers?

And a final note – boy is Yahoo! the biggest loser in this race.  I didn’t see any official McCain advertising and very little by Obama / related groups or the GOP.

* Methodology

I wouldn’t get an A in my sociology courses (yes, I graduated from Vanderbilt University with the ‘athlete’s degree’) for experimentation, but this isn’t exactly flying by the seat of my pants either.  Here’s my madness’ method:

1. I’m in West Virginia, although sometimes my ip address gets read as Ohio (here’s Wheeling on a map – an hour from Pittsburgh, it’s situated across the river from OH and 15 minutes from PA).  Most pundits think West Virginia is not in play, so I’m going to trick Google AdWords into thinking I’m from Pennsylvania for my searches.  If the candidates are doing any geo-targeting, surely they’re putting dollars there.
2. For Obama, I’ll pick three terms that seem anti-Obama, McCain-neutral, anti-McCain, issues based (pro-Obama) and issues based (pro-McCain).  Then I’ll do the equivalent for McCain.
3. If you disagree with the issues based terms I have, let me know.  I’d love to know what I should have used.  Just don’t accuse me of being for one side or the other – I tried to pick stuff that was highlighted by the candidate or his opponent in debates and advertising.  Obviously some of these could have been put on the other side or not selected at all.
4. A case could be made that it’s inappropriate for candidates to advertise on certain (but not all) anti-opponent terms like “is Barack Obama Muslim” and “McCain old man”.  Because of that, I’m devaluing their listings by 50% of whatever the normal total would be.
5. Not doing any positive terms for either candidate or any neutral terms for that candidate.  Why?  They may still be advertising on those terms, but that seems like wasted money to me so I’m not going to knock a guy for not advertising on them.  That approach was more appropriate during the primaries.
6. Will rate each candidate on the following:
   • 1 point for having a listing in each of the three major search engines (extra point if #1, extra half-point if #2 or #3)
   • 1 point for having ad text related to the term (may deduct or add half a point at my discretion depending on keyword insertion tool usage and manual ad copy)
   • 1 point for a landing page specific to the keyword
   • Bonus points available for useful features on a landing page such as voting booth locations, ability to donate, etc.
7. I’m checking all three major search engines for ad listings, but not going to go through and check each one’s ad copy, destination urls, etc.  That’s just too much time.  So I’ll only use Google AdWords for the digging deeper parts of the point scale.
8. No bonus points for having multiple sites listed, and for the purposes of this report, a site that either the party or another clearly pro-candidate entity puts out will count for that candidate.
9. The results are probably a little skewed by the fact that someone might be doing a broad match and show up for all keywords that contain a candidate’s name, but A. the candidates should probably be doing this anyway, so shame on them if they’re not, and B. I’m hoping this gets tempered somewhat by whether they took the time to do related ad copy and landing pages.
10. Would like to rank based on testing and some other pay per click best practices, but the campaigns didn’t give me their passwords to dive in and check.
11. I only made one manual adjustment and that was deducting 3 points from Barack’s overall score.  The reason is that his ads were showing up only part of the time.  I know that could do some with how Google displays searches to me specifically, but my experience leads me to believe it’s more to do with how their budgets are set.  Not running full steam on election day merits a deduction.
12. Tried very hard not to do double dipping, e.g. giving bonus points out for the same landing page used for different terms.

That’s it.  Let me know what I missed or give any feedback below.

The post Election Day Paid Search Comparison: How do Obama and McCain Rate? appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Pig fat – great for indoor or outdoor use!

Anyway, me and Steph were sat at our table sipping our sodas, when the owner – some ancient native Magyar woman who probably arrived some time after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution – waltzed over and started gently stroking Steph’s cheek with the knuckle of her right index finger proclaiming what a pretty thing she was. Perhaps a touch odd, but nothing too bizarre considering Hungarian women aren’t known for their reticence and the influence of America may have emboldened her in not being backward at coming forward.

In the same breath she turned her still crooked finger towards me and asked Steph, “Who’s this, your father?”

I tried to smile politely, but soon turned quite a shade of pink ham as Steph let her know that I was in fact her husband.

The look on the Gypsy interrogator’s face will forever be burned into my mind’s eye as an expression of disbelief on the first take made way for revulsion on the second. You could tell that her general busy-bodyness was getting the better of her as confusion began to reign and meddle with her mind as she obviously pondered getting out while the going was bad or really digging herself into some cesspit.

But, she did what every Hungarian woman I’ve ever met would do and felt the need to comment just a little bit more. In order to qualify what in her mind must’ve been the type of relationship she felt ought to see me put on some sex offenders’ register, she managed to pluck up enough fake decency to say that it didn’t really matter so long as I looked after her.

The day had already beaten me. This could wound no more.

And as we discuss the dirty-old-man-with-woman-young-enough-to-be-his-daughter dynamic, thoughts move swiftly to John McCain. Or, to be more precise, the Obama campaign’s launching of their own mud pie yesterday – the Keating 5 Scandal Video and accompanying mini-site.

In microcosm, this is a perfect example of how to launch something like this online.

Essentially, from a search perspective, they’ve done a simple one, two. Not only is it nearly impossible to start ranking for organic searches as soon as you launch a site, it’s even trickier if you don’t know exactly when, if ever, you intend to launch said site. (However, they do rank #1 for the term ‘keating economics’ which is the keyword phrase contained within the URL.)

So, let’s look at what happens when you do a search for Keating five in Google.

First up after the news results, you’ll see the Wikipedia entry which somebody has edited to add a link and explanation to another Wikipedia entry about Keating economics – the name of the Website being www.keatingeconomics.com – that in turn talks about the scandal and links to the site itself.

The Obama campaign has also bought PPC keywords related to the scandal, which are going to be dirt cheap considering they’re the only ones bidding on them. Take a look at the search link again and you’ll see the sponsored link sat atop everything else.

So there you go, you’ve cornered the top informational organic query by proxy while you’re paying a pittance for your PPC.

Easy. Although, it might be an idea for somebody to explain to McCain’s campaign that a bit of online reputation management wouldn’t go amiss. You know, a counter video with your own take on events and buying the same keywords to show up in the sponsored results and adding a paragraph or two on Wikipedia.

Even if it is just a video of Sarah Palin winking. The base should love it.

The post Like Pig Fat Slinging Mud appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Now here’s the closest thing I could find to a pitbull wearing lipstick, and probably a reminder why you don’t leave pooches alone with your make-up bag. I mean, it’s the wrong color for its fur-tone and everything.

Although I did find this chavette pikey pic of a pitbull wearing a hoodie languishing in Google’s image search:

I shall avoid any political reference to Ms. Palin, and I’m only mentioning her at all to point out that since she’s been plucked from relative obscurity last week, she’s (to quote fivethirtyeight.com) generated more US-based internet search traffic than Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Michael Phelps and Barack Obama combined:

Yes, ironic isn’t it.

Anyway, you can go and play around with Google Trends and put in the names of you and your competitors to see who has that certain flavor of the month edge. Or you can throw some keywords related to your business or industry and see which are generating more buzz than a beekeepers convention.

Chances are, you’ll be flatlining in comparison to Jerry Springer+Palin.

The post Sarah Palin Most Searched For Term on Internet Since Al Gore Invented It appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Friends, you’ve already lost control.

Blogging and Control

I’m not going to delve into a larger discussion of online reputation management in this post since I’ve covered it a lot recently.  Instead I want to focus on one specific idea: commenting.

Note bene: I don’t think all blogs need to allow comments.  The Direct Online Marketing Blog didn’t at first.  But way more often than not, you get a better, richer experience for everyone when you allow your readers to contribute.

The thing to keep in mind is that the conversation will happen somewhere.  The only question is: Do you want your Web site / blog to be a part of that conversation – a place where you have great influence and some minor degree of control (e.g. using the bully pulpit in choosing what topics to write about, which comments to expound upon)?

Comments are such a blessing when they come.  Trust me – it can be difficult for those of us not posting sex tape videos of Mini-Me to get comments.  If they’re positive, you’ve just gained some powerful advocates.  If they’re negative, that can be great, too.

Negative Blog Comments

Let’s assume for a second that any negative comments are legitimate and not a competitor fake commenting.  We’ll come back to that in a second.

I often quote my old boss’ father who used to tell him, “You only get two chances to make a first impression: the first time you meet someone and the first time you screw up.”**

If someone brings up a legitimate complaint or other opportunity issue (some might use the word “negative” in place of “opportunity”), that means you’ve just won half the battle.   You now have the opportunity to respond to them in your house!  [cue any stupid Under Armor commercial circa 2006 – “We must protect this…blog”]

I guarantee if you’re able to take care of the issue – whether it was 100% your fault, 0%, or anything in between – you’ll come off smelling as sweet as Frosty-dipped honeysuckle rolled in cookie dough.  If someone keeps hammering you about something that’s been resolved, typically your community will come to your rescue.

Now, let’s go back to every business person’s favorite paranoia – competitors fake commenting.  Seriously, I know my share of snaky business people out there, but why is this what seems to keep 75% of people with whom I speak up counting sheep at night?

If folks are attacking you unfairly, you’ll have your chance to respond and likely will have the community backing you up to tell folks to shut their yappers and quit threadjacking (taking the comment trail to an unnatural place off topic).

Remember, you also have all the administrative controls.  You can decide that commenters must be approved for the first comment (strongly recommended), approved for all comments (like we’re doing for the WV Jobs Blog), or never (bad mistake unless you love comment spam).

You can even edit or delete comments, but you need to be very careful here.  If folks think they’re having their speech censured unfairly (and almost every time is seen as unfairly as the Constitution clearly mentioned blog comments in the Freedom of Speech section), they’re likely to rebel. If you’re a high traffic blog with lots of passionate commenters, it’s a good idea to have a comment policy spelled out clearly.

Federal Government Blogging

Think recognizing that you have no control and posting a blog with commenting functionality on your Web site is difficult for your organization? Consider federal agencies, who by their very nature are bureaucratic, hierarchical, and very large. The US government should be the last place to adopt blogging.

Yet many government blogs (with commenting) are running right now as a way to reach out to us taxpayers. Here are just a handful of ones that are active and writing in a conversational tone:

• TSA’s Evolution of Security. Comments galore, which one might expect from angry air travelers, which is exactly why it’s important for TSA to have one. Good on ya, mates!
• AIDS.gov Blog. This blog and the site as a whole are really addressing and utilizing new media.
• Library of Congress Blog. They’ve even partnered with flickr. Check out the cool old photo of America’s pastime.
• Gov Gab. This blog from the Office of Citizen Services and Communications utilizes multiple posters (one sure-fire way to alleviate the time needed to blog).

Note bene #2 – we do some federal contracting work, but not currently with the above agencies.

It’s not just limited to the US, either. You never know what world leaders are out there blogging.

** I keep meaning to do a full post about this, but want to touch on it before I forget.  I used that quote about screwing up in the Next Generation Marketing conference series this past May.  A couple days after we did the Huntington, WV seminar, one of the attendees sent me an email.  Adam Daniels of First State Bank said that he created a standard form letter for mistakes.  Now whenever someone at the bank does and oopsie, they have a process to follow and a form letter they can customize for a quick response.  How brilliant is that?!?  I already told Adam I’m stealing that idea.

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Often times, my talking of online reputation management turns to government. We seem to like talking politics a lot around this here blog. I’m proud, though, that neither Paul nor I show our cards and our readers don’t know whom we support. Except of course that we obviously don’t like Barrack Obama since we’re a bunch of racist, redneck West Virginians. </condescending sarcasm to national media and The Daily Show> Yes, Paul, I’m including you – you live here now.

And every time I talk about it, I bring up examples of how it’s managed poorly or just completely ignored (which is usually worse). Examples are endless.

Examples of proper reputation management, however, are rare. That’s why I got a smile on my face when I read this article in Time (emphasis mine):

Will Obama’s Anti-Rumor Plan Work?

As long as there have been rumors in politics, there has been one widely accepted way for a candidate to deal with them. Basically, it’s not to. Otherwise, according to prevailing wisdom, all a candidate achieves is to elevate the rumors to a legitimate story for the media to feast on. That don’t-go-there approach was Barack Obama’s plan for months until, on the candidate’s first full day of campaigning as his party’s presumed presidential nominee, a reporter from McClatchy Newspapers who was traveling aboard his plane asked him about a particularly toxic bit of hearsay that was zooming around the Internet about his wife Michelle. Obama lost his cool. “We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails, and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it,” Obama said, bristling. “That gives legs to the story. If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it.”

That night, in a conference call, Obama told his top aides it was time for a more aggressive solution to the rumors that have been popping up on the Internet about him and his family for months. And so the Obama campaign has built what might best be described as a Web-based rumor clearinghouse, located at fightthesmears.com, in which it hopes all the shady stories about Obama’s faith, his family and his rumored connections with controversial figures can go to die.

Obama is enlisting his millions of supporters to help him hunt down and quash these stories….

Go check out the site. It has just about everything I would have suggested:

• A clear purpose (fight rumors it says are false)
• A clean, simple layout
• 4 calls to action. In many cases it’s best not to have more than 1, but it’s okay here. They are:

1. Spread the word, e.g. send emails out to others debunking the “smears”
2. Donate cash…since politicians on both sides of the aisle are so poor </condescending sarcasm to our political system>
3. Sign up for email alerts – even geotargeted to zip code, a very nice touch.
4. Be proactive and send in rumors to the campaign to be debunked

• Nice use of video

Sure it could be more interactive (although that would require an immense amount of monitoring and could potentially make it less effective just as it could make it more so) and I might write the copy a little differently, but those are minor quibbles. Seriously, this site is darn near perfect for its purpose.

It’s no wonder this site – one of the first and best examples of its kind – came in the political arena given all the money tied up in politics. Considering the documented attention to paid search and its effectiveness; the use of blogs and online video; social media campaigns and email marketing, I think it’s safe to say that online reputation management has arrived. Surely corporate America is the next to follow.

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