With brick and mortar stores, it’s easy. If a customer comes in and makes a purchase, that’s a sale. While ultimately that’s still the goal, the process of getting to the sale is much more involved now than simply putting an ad in the Yellow Pages. With all the new ways to spread the word, how do you know you’re improving conversion rates from interest to sale and having an impact?

One of the best ways is to track your communication, ideally through an employee working in social media monitoring productivity. Metrics like how many questions have you received through your channels, how many positive/negative interactions have you had and how many thank you’s have you received are valuable, as is how those interactions have grown or changed over time. These twitter tactics and Facebook practices show that you care about your user/customer base.

As well, utilizing link, shortening services such as bit.ly or tinyurl allow you to track the number of clicks over time as well as the source of those links (and where they’ve been shared,) allowing you to track how your customers interact with each other.

So how does this translate to your business growth? It’s all about what people are saying, and if your business is a positive contributor to the social media world (marketing on twitter or Facebook) and considerate of the way your customers access you, word of mouth will take over on its own.

Lou Perseghin lives in Providence, RI and works for a non-profit managing volunteers, recruiting members and handling marketing efforts.

Image from sbsearchmarketing.com

It oughta be a law, or something. As a simple condition of their continued existence, internet merchants should be required to buy all of their material needs online. I’m talking everything: from toilet paper to shoelaces, and from DVDs to food (Omaha Steaks serves up an absolutely delectable Chocolate Lover’s Cake). In my opinion, it’s an idea that’s been way too long in coming.

Think of the positive implications. First of all, it’s never a bad idea—always a great one, in fact—to support the local economy. And if that “local” economy just happens to be the world wide web, so be it. Same principle, right? But there’s actually an even better reason for it. It’s something that could be easily filed under “educational purposes” but would really be more of a “public service” issue. Because maybe (just maybe) if online merchants really knew what it was like to live a day in the shoes of us cybershoppers, life would get a lot easier for everyone.

Believe it or not, shopping cart abandonment is a serious deal. And it actually comes as a surprise to some online merchants that upwards of 75 percent of their shoppers are walking away (clicking away is more appropriate) before finalizing their transactions. It’s become a point of controversy so severe that some have even hired help to try and figure out why their shopping cart abandonment rates are so high. They should have asked me. I’d only have charged them $20.

The secret? Don’t give me an opportunity to change my mind! If your checkout process is so long and tedious that I actually have time to get buyer’s remorse before finalizing the sale, your process needs a serious overhaul. A smart merchant compares their checkout process against all others, and wastes no time making improvements.

Vince Font is a freelance writer with a burning desire to teach the world the difference between there, they’re and their. He currently resides in Utah with his wife, two dogs and a mouse he’s convinced the D-Con didn’t get rid of.

Image from www.grokdotcom.com

Memes are fun, but aim higher. Image from Askville.com

Those who work in a marketing agency or marketing department of a company have likely encountered a client, colleague or boss who was very excited about Internet trends. Some examples of these trends, called memes, include the whole keyboard cat series and women writing their bra colors in their Facebook statuses. While every meme is unique, they all managed to capture the attention of masses of people in a short period of time.

Because of the popularity of a meme, some companies and agencies strive to purposefully create one. While I understand the appeal, it’s important for any content marketer or social media manager to know the difference between a meme and a marketing campaign that goes viral.

Why? Well, take a look at this awesome video from the good people at Current’s SuperNews and see how many memes you remember enjoying at one time or another:

Now that the trip down “Memeory Lane”  is over (sorry, couldn’t resist the opportunity to pun), ask yourself:

• Do I know who created those memes?
• Did I buy anything as a result of those memes?
• Did a bunch of people copy those memes without referencing the person who started it all?

Your answers were “No”, “No” and “Yes”, right?

Instead of thinking about becoming a here-today-gone-tomorrow Internet craze, work toward a content marketing strategy that solidly connects people to your brand in an interesting way. With some creativity, even well-branded, product-heavy content marketing can go viral. Just ask the people at Blendtec about the success of their online “Will It Blend?” campaign. They:

• Made their product the star of their videos and used it in an interesting way
• Gathered feedback from the audience on what they’d like to see next
• Utilized smart SEO tools and keyword strategies to drive people to their videos and site
• Involved public relations to take their concept mainstream
• Appeared in the news and even did in-person demos on the Today Show and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
• Saw a major lift in sales. As early as 2007 (the same year the campaign launched), Blendtec’s revenues increased five times over.

The final word is this: Memes are for fun. Viral and content marketing are for businesses that are serious about making money.

Dude, Dell's got a new revenue stream!

Cutsie blog post titles aside, we’re not suggesting that you copy another company’s every move – rather that you understand and learn from them. In this case, if there’s anyone in your company who is still bah humbug’ing social and content marketing via Twitter, you might want to direct their attention to Dell.

Why? Because Dell recently announced that they made a total of $6.5 million in revenue through their Twitter activity over the last three years. And what is the media buy to have a Twitter presence? $0. How you like them apples (err … Dells)?

Dell has been a leader in corporate Twitter activity, jumping in with both feet early and steadily. With several Twitter accounts associated with their brand (I stopped counting at 70), Dell has been able to engage directly with consumers on several different levels. The most popular Dell Twitter account, the @DellOutlet provides daily deals and customer service to its nearly 1.5 million followers. Other accounts include the faces behind the brand – like @Kara_atDELL (who handles small and medium business communications/ PR for Dell) and @ChrisBatDell (Dell’s Digital Life blogger) – various departments at Dell’s headquarters and a slew of campus and regional customer service reps.

So how has Dell been able to find success on this still emerging social networking site? We’ve been stalking them and have found the following to be true:

• Commitment. While not every account that bares the Dell name gets continually updated, the main accounts are quite active. There’re no toes in the water with Dell’s Twitter push – it gets full attention from the staff behind it.
• Responsiveness. When someone asks a question, Dell answers. The engagement on the @DellOutlet is particularly impressive. Not only does the customer receive a response, the demonstration of customer service is for all to see. If anything is going to give a consumer confidence in doing business with a company, it’s by seeing a business’s abilities and accountability in action.
• Specializations. If Dell just had one account, it probably couldn’t deliver the personal service it does now to so many different people. Instead, each account serves a special purpose and gets the job done well. This not only allows Dell to work more efficiently across Twitter, but different accounts appeal to different audiences (i.e.: people who are looking for deals vs. people who want to talk about tech upgrades), thus expanding Dell’s reach.
• Transparency. If someone on Twitter is employed by Dell, you know it. While other brands might be paying people to act like unbiased fans (boo!), Dell pays employees while growing good reviews and enthusiastic consumers organically and genuinely. There’s no confusion or dishonesty.
• Personality. Related to the above, we see who’s behind the account and behind the Dell logo on Twitter. While conversations are hardly jumping to hot-button topics like religion and politics, you’ll see some pretty informal and personality-infused chats about technology, the day-to-day and life in and out the Dell offices. Go figure, people like chatting with people.
• Tracking of ROI. How does Dell know Twitter is worthwhile? They monitor their activities, links to their sites and track how promotions spread across Twitter. At the end of the day, they can claim the $6.5 million in sales as a reason for their social media activity to continue.

Twitter is currently free for companies to use (there’s rumblings this won’t always be the case) – so isn’t it time for your company to take advantage of this content marketing tool, too? If you’re not sure how to get started or are looking for freelance writers, a content marketing company can help.

• Random Online Initiative
• Revenues only Imaged
• Responsibility of Interns

You know this, and yet your venture into content marketing perhaps seemed a bit like those not-the-kind-of-ROI-you-were-after examples listed above.

Without a clear path for identifying how your content marketing or social media efforts are going to directly improve your conversion rates – or how to track effectiveness along the way – how can you expect to find success? Measuring, adapting for and actually attaining ROI (that’s Return on Investment) from your content marketing and website efforts require more than the Field of Dreams approach (“I built it – now the money will surely just roll in.”). We’re afraid that only happens in the movies.

Come on down to reality – and start doing business for real!

Join us TODAY at 1pm EST for free webinar on this very subject: Tracking Content ROI.

Learn how to measure the impact of content assets you deploy on your website and how to optimize content for real results. The webinar, led by our Byron White, will include live demonstrations of the secret content console we’ve developed to track the impact of content assets we create and deploy for clients.

Sign up for the webinar now and get some invaluable insight today at 1pm!

Forget the beef - where's the ROI? Image from Wendy's

We’re familiar with this scenario: It took a while, but your boss finally doesn’t look at the content marketing plan you proposed like it’s a handful of magic beans. You’ve stated the case, earned the trust, got your marketing machine running and the numbers are coming in. The good news: There’s more website traffic and “buzz” about your brand. The bad news: Buzz doesn’t pay the bills. Sales numbers haven’t really lifted. What gives? Where’s the ROI? And how do you find and fix the issues before your boss tells you to take a hike up that beanstock?

Link Like Your Business Depends On It (Because It Does)
You’ve written or posted interesting material, promoted it using social media and other methods, used the very best SEO techniques and people are finding their way to your website. Once they’re there are there links to take them to other sections of your site (related info, your successful case studies, information about what your business does)? If not, you’re missing the opportunity to draw the connection between content potential clients are paying attention to and services you can provide.

If you do have links within your content – how often are they being clicked? Where are people most often being directed to? And once they’re there, do they keep searching within the site or do they move on? Your metrics should involve ways to track the activity of each user.

Love The Loiterers
Hurrah – you received 500 website hits from your one Tweet. Boo – 80% of the visitors stayed for under five seconds. Your metrics can (or should) see how long people are staying on your website. The longer the stay, the more likely that they’re engaged in the content you’ve produced. If they’re engaged, you have a better chance of selling yourself to them (both in a soft sell and a more direct approach later on). If your metrics indicate that your website is a victim of a click and run, you likely have a fair amount of work ahead of you. The content might not be right (too long, too technical, not delivering what the social media marketing promoted it to be, etc.), the design might be unattractive or perhaps you have too many ads or scripts running.

Pander To Repeat Visitors
Within your tracking mechanism, you should be able to spot (and even label) people that visit your site more than once. It’s normal for people to do their research and check back a few times before making a decision to contact you. Find out what these readers are searching for, returning to or responding to and find ways to add a little more of what they like to the site (or better yet – market your services more toward those interests).

The Last Exit
Where are you losing people? When you track the activity of visitors to your site have you noticed that they lose interest after x amount of time? Or perhaps you keep pointing people to a section of your site that people look at for two seconds and then close the window? If that’s the case, you may need to change up your methods or scrutinize what might be turning people off. Did you get them all the way to the e-store, see they’ve started selecting items only to discover they left before completing the transaction? Check out our tips on shopping cart abandonment.

Make Contact
How many hits (directly or through linking) is your contact page getting? There’s a good chance that if people are making the decision to find out how to get in touch with you, they’re very interested in your services. Take a look at your contact page – is it clean, easy to understand and contains the relevant info people need? Do you offer a contact form, direct e-mail addresses or generic e-mail addresses? According to Seth Godin, this could have an impact on peoples’ willingness to contact you:

…I visited eight sites. Six of them hide their email address. They use forms of one sort of another. One firm refused to accept more than 500 characters in the “how can we help you” box, while three of them wanted to know what state I was in, etc.

Email contact is like a first date. If you show up with a clipboard and a questionnaire, it’s not going to go well, I’m afraid. The object is to earn permission to respond.

Um, oops?

If people are going to your contact page but not contacting you, a revamp of the page might be necessary. And if people are contacting you but you’re not getting sales out of it – the problem may be your sales team, the product, the pricing or an issue of having identified a wrong customer base to market to.

To butcher a perfectly good metaphor: Social media and content marketing can lead a horse to the water. But if the water is unappetizing, you can’t blame the content marketing for the horse’s unwillingness to slurp it down.

Our writers begin by crafting an article that introduces the client’s TAC, and our SEO specialist sprinkles it with links back to TAC web pages. We have relations with hundreds of article submissions services; the client gets to select a few dozen services from our extensive list that are most relevant to their business. An ideaLaunch staff member keeps an Excel spreadsheet for each client, recording which services were selected, when we submitted the article and when the article was published. WordVision keeps track of the client’s website listing position both before and after the article is published, measuring the impact of the service on page rank. That’s some solid ROI for our clients.

If you’re interested in how the service can work for your website, email me at Carolyn@ideaLaunch.com.