SEO, SEM & the SME

SEO in its early days was a fuzzy concept to me, without proven results to have a case for management.   It seemed like anyone with some IT knowledge could pick it up.   So I recruited one with an offer to learn SEO on the job and to experiment on our websites, so long as he did not resort to ‘black hat’ strategies or harm our online reputation.  He focused on the “technology” while I did the content.   I wanted to try in-house expertise even though we were only an SME.  I was fortunate to have a boss who let me experiment.  

My bet paid off.  We went from SEO to SEM to display ads.  We were an early adopter in the industry, and enjoyed first page search results for a long time, until I started receiving calls from vendors.  They helped educate the market fast and soon smaller competitors appeared alongside us.  We were ousted if we did not keep up.  I reckon ‘first page’ propositions were easy to sell.  It was amazing how competitors got on first page quickly (some had basic web content).  More vendors pushed SEM in later years.  Perhaps it was faster to show results.

On display ads, I encountered an SME boss who declared his campaign a failure after only 4 days - there were no calls. It did not matter that 14000 impressions were served, with 84 clicks.  

Though studies show that web-surfers’ eyes are ‘programmed’ to avoid banners, I feel display ads have a role to play in search results, and conversions.  Search has better ROI than display for obvious reasons.  Display helps in reinforcing brand awareness or to drive specific offers. 

In measuring returns, measures like CTR, impressions, web traffic are the norm.  Other metrics like revenue from specific channels or ad spend per sale are tricky if we employ various channels, including off-line, in integrated campaigns.   Without clearer ROI metrics tied to actual sales, it appears SMEs are driven to go and stay online by customers and peers, and are content with metrics on their online presence, reach and share of voice for now.

My learning points so far are:

-         Content is important.  So is constantly keeping up with the evolving landscape and technologies.

-          Digital marketers must educate and manage the expectations of SME bosses

-         SEO, SEM, display ads – I will use all.  These, plus social media engagement and mobile advertising perhaps justify in-house digital expertise in SMEs.  There is synergy and efficiency to work alongside traditional marketing. 

However, talent is challenging.  According to a study*, 59% of marketers in Singapore find their current employees lacking the right skills set while 30% have difficulty retaining such staff.   Considering the study polled larger companies, what does that leave for SMEs?  Agencies fare no better: only 11% rate their agencies as excellent.   Larger agencies with good talents are often beyond the reach of SMEs. 

I had thought the Internet supposedly levels the playing ground for SMEs, especially with its cheaper advertising platforms.  Regardless, I think it is worthwhile to get on, DIY if necessary, experiment and it can only get better.

Well, the staff I recruited quit after learning the ropes in one year, to set up his own firm. 

*Adobe APAC Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard 2013

Snapchat me

Snapchat banks on the sense of impermanence when users send images to each other it lasts for mere seconds before it disappears.. brining with it a sense of urgency and focus. 

The excitement this precious fleeting moment bring to the beating heart... Similar to life, a moment passed cannot be relived and all it remains is the fleeting memory and experience. 

This sense of impermanence where a photo disappear is what founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy underlined since the launch of the app. 

Founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy 

In view of digital marketing, this quality may bring benefits to marketer's message, adding anticipation and a fun element to engaged audiences. 

But also disadvantages, as it may reduce the measurable value-add to the core brand building efforts of the brand.  As images get erased, so may the message, it may be difficult and time consuming to engage in followup with your audience, who may not be receptive to adverts in the first place.

However Snapchat has more to offer, with the introduction of Stories, competing with the likes of Facebook's newsfeed, this feature is gaining popularity. Available for 24 hours, a story is made up of a compilation of snaps/ pictures, recounting the day of a celebrity for example.. 

Users may prefer using Snapchat as one can be more true to oneself in expression. 

Content is king. As long as Marketers remember to tell an engaging story and make content interesting or value-adding to its audience, spam becomes a story which sticks. 

Marketers may use this tool/ feature to complement their existing marketing campaign website or Facebook platform, to get closer to their targeted audience, share videos, run short contests or blasts of quality messages to the population of snap chat users. 

Since all messages ultimately may get deleted/ forgotten anyway why not in your 10 seconds give it a good shot.

Smartwatch and Digital Marketing

One of the most successful project ever launched on Kickstarter, the Pebble watch, crowd-sourced more than $10 million from 85,000 backers. This indicates that there's an interest and great potential in smartwatch, which is a piece of wearable computerised device with features such as connectivy to the internet, running of mobile apps, cell phone, text/video messaging, GPS navigation, and more.

Data is the most important component of a marketing approach and everything we do online generates data. More relevant and detailed data about a person's lifestyle and habits could be obtained through the usage of wearable devices such as a smartwatch. While a phone would be able to tell you where someone's from and what they're doing, a smartwatch will be telling you how they are feeling, how healthy they are or how hard they are working out. By combining location with lifestyle data, marketers will have a much more granular understanding of a person's behaviour and they can then enhance their targeting of customers and better engage them with personalised marketing programmes.

For example, a fitness gym could then send out targeted push notification to people who work out, rather than those who read fitness magazine while coupons for food could be offered to someone with medical condition when their blood sugar level is low. In these instances, context drives a more relevant message, which is better for both the marketer and the consumer as more effective marketing campaigns could be created. Marketers will then be able to build a long-term relationship with their customers.

Smartwatch is also more accessible than smartphone as it's easier and quicker to take a look at your wrist or roll your wrist over a sensor than pulling a phone out of your pocket or bag. These devices usually comes with 4G connectivity, Wi-Fi and GPRS and using these features with NFC, Bluetooth LE or geo-location based maps would make them more than ideal for location based advert and promotion information.

Take for instance, a shopper could be walking into a large shopping mall to get a pair of socks and the watch would vibrates to send him a notification. A quick glance at the watch would inform the person that his favourite brand of shoes is on sales in one of the stores. Payment for his purchases could be done with a quick tap on the sensor with his watch. Another shopper that had expressed an interest in getting a new television set through his browsing and search history will be able to receive an alert on his watch with a coupon for a special deal as he walked pass the eletronics store. All this done without the need of reaching into one's pocket or rummaging through one's bag to reach for their handsets.

While we're still at the early stages with the smartwatch technology, the smartwatch would be able to provide great opportunities for digital marketers to reach customers with more relevant advertising via a device that is permanently attached to the hand.

Can Snapchat Add Value to Marketers?

Snapchat’s Current Value to Digital Marketers

A picture says a thousand words. Businesses are beginning to use Snapchat to promote themselves through this new short-term visual message format. The best part for Digital Marketers is that it is a cost effective way to gain brand visibility and carry messages to massive amounts of audiences. Here’s a preview of how a recent Snapchat promotion run by New York City based yoghurt shop 16 Handles worked:

How I think Snapchat can enhance their business model and value add the marketing community

Snapchat recently rejected a proposed buyout of $3Billion made by Facebook which sparked off a firestorm of commentary criticizing Snapchat’s lack of a sustainable business model to move from generating eyeballs to generating revenue.

Instead of operating as a standalone OTT Social Media Mobile App, Snapchat might be more valuable if it works with Telco Providers to provide Location Based Services (LBS). Snapchat now becomes a mobile marketing tool. So for example, to boost traffic to 16 Handles’ new stores or stores which are losing human traffic to nearby competitors eg. Sour Sally Yoghurt Parlour, marketers can now use Snapchat to send the discount coupon to potential customers in the Telco’s subscriber base who are in the vicinity to influence impulse buying. Alternatively, they might even consider sending the discount to potential customers who are in Sour Sally’s Yoghurt Parlour across the street to influence their buying decision (for those who have not purchased).

Snapchat can then generate revenue by charging marketers for Real Time Customer Targetting based on Cost Per Thousand Impressions. Snapchat splits the revenue with the Telco based on Partnership Agreement

For a start, this is what I can think of. Do share too, what you guys think can be a viable business model for Snapchat.

SnapChat for Digital Marketers

Is Snapchat Another Platform for Digital Marketers?

Snapchat is an application that allows users to exchange photos among their friends and the photos disappears within 10 seconds once they open it.

Snapchat works differently from Facebook and Twitter. It works more like a stress-free program where people talks to each other privately, and no trace thereafter, and nobody judges anything. Unlike Facebook where your message is being "broadcast" to all your friends and you feel "stressed" and would only want to show the best of you instead. Probably this is one of the reasons people loves Snapchat.

Snapchat is easy to use and the concept of self-deleted images is very new. Many social-networking application or chat program does not have this concept and users will still need to go through housekeeping there and then. Snapchat's users do not need to worry about this.

People can post anything and laugh it off and no trace after 10 seconds (unless the receiver takes a screenshot). Snapchat is considered as a very "safe" program.

It is also "safe" because Snapchat only stores very basic information regarding the users like username, password, emails, phone number and age. Users are not tracked while using Snapchat, no profile is being built to identify the users.

Currently, Snapchat is a free application but to continue as a free application business model, it will need to consider one of the options such as delivering advertisements to their users.

Having a very "safe" program for users proves to be a hard time for marketers as we will not know the demographics of the users and it will be difficult to reach out to the right audience.

Due to its user base which is currently age between 13 to 23 year olds. The users are still very young and they probably turn out not to have high spending power. Marketing using Snapchat may not be a good platform for many industries except F&B like fast-food joints, apparel or the entertainment sector.

Furthermore, Snapchat works like a “gossip” program. Marketers will find difficulty in reaching out to the users as they probably would not be interested in seeing the ads at all.

In conclusion, marketing using Snapchat probably will probably work for industries like F&B (e.g. fast-food joints). Other industries may not find advertising in Snapchat suitable.

The Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) in marketing

In this digital age that we are currently in, our shopping journey resembles less like a funnel but more like a spider web. Often we are likely to go back and forth multiple information channels before we finally make a purchase. Additionally, we may become more fickle minded with the choices that we may make as we do multiple points of comparison with our friends and conduct multiple price or product comparison before we finally decide. 

(Source: http://www.google.com/think/collections/zero-moment-truth.html)

Thus, as marketers, we are subjected to new challenges as how we can impress our potential consumers in order to convince them to make an actual purchase. The First Moment of Truth (FMOT) which was first coined to describe the initial moment when a consumer first encounters the product was once the Holy Grail for marketers as it defines how successful one is in making the sales.

Today, the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) holds more valid. ZMOT refers to the moment prior to FMOT when consumers research about the product and exchange experiences with friends before making a purchase.

Hence, it has become more relevant that marketers try to maximize ZMOT in their campaign. Research has shown that a large percentage of viewers use another device while they are watching TV. Due to this, marketers need to be aware of consumer technological usage patterns (eg: more people use tablets in the evenings than in the day) when considering marketing activities so as to maximize returns. Furthermore, as single-channel marketing plan will no longer be as effective as compared to one which utilizes the various channels, the marketer must be up-to-date with the latest technological trends and platforms so that he/she can utilize them in his/her campaigns. All in all, marketing campaigns need to be more multi-faceted to cater to an increasingly complex and informed consumer.