Natalie’s Blog

I think we can all agree that managing an online presence is challenging. In the internet era, your business must be found online in order to be successful. But it seems like just when you have the hang of things, more communication channels are appearing and in this omnipresent space, it can be hard to control what folks are saying about your brand.

While you can optimize your website, create valuable content, and engage on social media, there are a variety of sites with user-generated content that you can’t control. Often, those end up ranking on SERP’s the same as your owned media for all consumers and stakeholders to see. PR articles, social media, forums, review websites, and blogs are all places where freedom of speech reigns thanks to Section 230. Communication channels like these can even end up creating a bigger digital footprint than your owned media. That’s great news for your brand’s PR and SEO if what they’re saying is positive. But what happens if they catch wind of dreaded “Fake News” about your brand? Or maybe you had a minor slip up that was blown out of proportion? If the 20-teens and “cancel culture” have taught us anything, it’s that the internet is the spark for word-of-mouth wildfire. Have no fear though, there are several ways to be proactive and bolster you online reputation management (ORM) strategy.

Online Reputation Management

Online reputation management is all about taking proactive and reactive measures to what people are saying online about your brand by listening and responding in a timely and transparent manner. There are a variety of approaches to manage and maintain your brand’s presence online and plenty of software programs to help sort through endless content. Here, I’ll list a breakdown of the proactive and reactive ways to manage your business online.

Stand behind your product or service.

This seems straight forward enough, but the most surefire way to be proactive and protect your brand image from harm online is actually being a quality, ethical, product or service that customers and stakeholders trust. From manufacturing materials to the treatment of employees and anything in between, have a clear set of standards and share them through your owned media. Transparency here is key both to hold your business accountable and strengthen your relationship with your consumers.

Identify where your customers hang out online.

If you haven’t already created a few buyer personas for your business’s marketing strategy yet, I cannot stress enough how important they are. Not only do they help you know what to communicate to your consumers through social, email, and blogs, buyer personas also help you find out where to find them online and engage with them effectively. Joining online forums dedicated to your industry is a great way to monitor and converse with consumers.

Use tracking software.

Speaking of monitoring, depending on the size of your business and how much of an online presence it has, implementing software tools for SERP keyword tracking and social listening are incredibly helpful for filtering relevant content and conversations happening about your brand. Google Alerts, Moz.com, Radian6, Reputation Defender, and Hootsuite are a great place to start.

Create stellar support.

Customer service is at the heart of every business and now more than ever, businesses can leverage customer support to build a strong online reputation. But take it a step further, customer support isn’t just at the decision stage of the buyer’s journey. By creating relevant tools and resources for consumers in every stage of the buyer’s journey, you come across as helpful, knowledgeable, and trustworthy. Plus, loyal customers can become your brand advocates and attract new customers for you.

Play the offensive, not the defensive.

When bad reviews come out about your brand, come up with a concrete PR strategy for resolving depending on the scale and channel in which the information is being shared. If the statements are true, don’t get defensive. Listen, then share the actions that will be taken to mitigate the issue. If false, use your owned media and leverage other online channels to spread the truth to counteract misinformation.

Don’t give bad press your SEO.

How you word your response is just as important as the timeliness and respectfulness of the response. If you respond by mentioning your brand name or product/service associated with it, you’re creating more opportunities for search engines to crawl on the negative sites, identify keywords relevant to your brand, and show up when people search for you. Most importantly, your response should involve action to resolve the issue offline to minimize searchability. I’ve highlighted that transparency is key and I stand by that, but so is minimizing unnecessary damages in a time where fact-checking isn’t our strength.

Digital marketing and online channels are an exciting arena for businesses as we enter the new decade, yet there are many pitfalls if you aren’t careful. I hope this list can guide you and encourage you to create a proactive online reputation management strategy for your brand.

Sources:
Johnson, Zac. “9 Ways Online Reputation Management Can Boost Your Brand.” G2, 6 Feb. 2019, learn.g2.com/online-reputation-management.

Larson, Jeff, and Stuart Draper. Digital Marketing Essentials. Mimic Pro Bundle.

Misra, Animesh. “No Room for Error: How to Manage Brand Reputation.” The Economic Times, Economic Times, 13 Mar. 2019, economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/marketing-branding/branding/no-room-for-error-how-to-manage-brand-reputation/articleshow/68387407.cms?from=mdr.

Throughout the MBA Marketing course of Digital Marketing 584 at Oregon State University, I was tasked with the assignment of completing a digital marketing certification of my choosing. If you’ve ever taken the time to browse all of the avenues to get certified in this industry, you know that there are many to choose from and it’s difficult to know which one works best for your career goals. After careful consideration and research, I landed on the HubSpot Inbound Marketing Certification.

What made Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing Certification stand out to me?

What drew me to a marketing career in the first place: storytelling and relationship building. To me, a successful marketing campaign is really a great story told by the brand to build long-term connections with its consumers. The Inbound Marketing Certification by HubSpot is all about creating the right content for the right person at the right time in their buyer journey. When you can hit that content sweet spot, your business is perceived as helpful, knowledgeable, trustworthy, and thus the relationship can be formed!

Here’s a brief breakdown of HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Certification:

The Inbound Marketing Certification is a ten-section course that covers marketing techniques that move consumers down your marketing funnel and range from creating content, using social promotion, converting and nurturing leads, to marketing to your long-term customers. The estimated time of completion for this program is technically four hours through 34 videos and nine quizzes. However, with studying and general time balancing of everyday life, I’d budget at least a week to fully absorb the content. For this part-time student/full-time employee, it took me a little over a week to fit it all in and be ready for the exam.

Some of the basics include I learned include…

The Inbound Methodology. This was drilled into my head throughout the course as a simplified version of the buyer journey or marketing funnel we’re all familiar with. Attract by building trust, engage by discovering more about your consumer, and delight by empowering people to grow with your business as a co-resource.

Creating content and conversation strategy that hits each stage of the methodology. Topics included best practices for optimizing blogs, better conversation strategies on social media, and how to create effective pillar pages and subtopic clusters with a clear call to actions on your website.

Conversion and lead nurturing. Not every sale happens immediately. Optimizing your conversion strategy and creating an effective lead nurturing system allows consumers to easily move down the marketing funnel and coexist with the sales team. Timely feedback between marketing, sales, and customer service teams is essential for these to be successful.

For the full list of course topics, click here.

Should You Take HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Certifiaction

Overall, I found this certification to be incredibly helpful. Some of the content is familiar if you’ve worked in or studied materials related to digital marketing which makes this program easily digestible, and some of it will provide supplementary value you didn’t know you needed. What really stood out to me about HubSpot’s learning center is the organization of the courses. Sure, I already knew topics like best practices for website optimization, but the way they take all of that information and deliver it through videos, slides, downloadable study guides, and additional blog resources creates a clear path for how inbound marketing all fits together in the bigger picture. My one frustration was that by the end of the course, some of the topics became a bit repetitive, although I can see why because each component is integral and overlays with another topic in the marketing strategy.

On a scale of 1-5, I’d give this course a 5. If you’re starting out in your career and considering taking a digital marketing certification to strengthen your resume, I highly recommend HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Certification. It is a great starting point for up and coming marketers looking to increase their skillset in a variety of topics. From here, you could easily jump into a social media, email marketing, CRM, SEO, or a sales management certification and be a step ahead. If you’re a more seasoned digital marketer, I still recommend it. It would be an easy way to stay up-to-date with inbound best practices and won’t take you very long to complete. It’s a win-win!

Email marketing is one of the most popular forms of communication from businesses to consumers. It’s estimated that 87% of businesses use email marketing over other forms like social media, display, or PPC according to Larry Kim, founder of WordStream. The great news here is that email marketing is clearly a cost-effective way to reach consumers, but what happens when the inbox is overflowing with promotional emails from all of these businesses taking the same strategy?

Consumers tune out the noise and filter the literal thousands of emails to a promotions folder in their inbox, meaning your product or service goes unnoticed – lost in the sea of email campaigns. But how is it that some companies remain so successful in email marketing and how can you compete? The answer is delivering content that stands out above the rest. Content that has value. Content that relates to the consumer. The one sure-fire way you’ll be able to achieve this is by creating a consumer persona that identifies who your consumer truly is. So let’s dive into why personas are quintessential to email marketing and how you can create them yourself!

What Is A Persona?

A persona is essentially a fictitious person meant to represent a segment of customers that takes all of the information compiled from a target market for your product or service and brings that to life. Beyond the target market demographics, a persona provides more specific information to help identify who your consumer really is and what their needs are.

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Target Market vs. Persona

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From your target market, you should be able to create multiple segments with one persona to represent each. The more specific you can get in these segmented personas, the easier it will be to write to their needs, and the more successful you’ll be able to create relevant, valuable content that will capture their attention. Most importantly, personas allow you to keep customers engaged, acquire new customers, and improve conversion rates. One study by MarketingSherpa found that implementing a persona strategy to email campaigns can result in a 7% conversion rate. That’s huge!

Let’s Get Started – Implementing Personas

So now that we have a solid understanding of what a persona is and why it matters in the success of email marketing, let’s dive into how we can create and implement them for your product or service to get your emails noticed and most importantly – convert customers.

1. Do Your Research: Before you even begin creating your beautiful email template or start writing copy, do the research. Ensure you have enough quality information to create a few effective personas. You want to know what goals your customers have, what motivates and frustrates them. You also want to identify the tone of voice that resonates with your personas before you get to writing.
   
2. Strategic Segmentation: Personas give you the opportunity to personalize your messaging and value proposition to your consumer, but that won’t work if you haven’t segmented your database. The further you can segment your list, the more detailed and relevant you can be in your emails. This is how you grab the attention and engagement you’re looking for in the swamped inbox.
   
3. Become A Copy Master: Compelling and relatable copy is key to a successful email marketing campaign and getting more opens. By researching your personas and segmenting your database, you should be able to write to the individual’s needs and provide an intriguing solution. If you’re having trouble transitioning from a copy apprentice to a copy master, utilize writing tools like Grammarly, StateOfWriting, or MyWritingWay to leverage better copywriting skills.
   
4. Emphasize The Action in Your CTA: By now as a marketer, you’ve probably had the importance of the CTA drilled into your head. But are they relaying your message effectively and more specifically, are they compelling your personas to take action? Ask yourself – what does your persona want and how can you hook them? Get specific and don’t leave your consumer wondering what to make of the information provided in your email. Creating personas will allow you to identify the best call to action for that segment – i.e. a tech-savvy millennial may not resonate with a “Call Now” CTA, but rather a “Schedule Online” CTA.

Now that you’ve dialed in your personas and know who you’re trying to reach, the messaging should become clear for how you’ll deliver the solution to their needs. Don’t be afraid to get specific. In fact, the more specific you get, the easier it will be to implement the steps of an effective email marketing campaign, stand out in the inbox, and increase conversions!

Sources:
“5 Ways to Create Super-Effective Emails with Buyer Personas.” WordStream, 13 Dec. 2018, www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/01/31/email-marketing-with-buyer-personas.

Carter, Grace. “5 Ways to Align Marketing Campaign to Your Personas.” UXPressia Blog, 14 Mar. 2019, uxpressia.com/blog/5-ways-align-marketing-campaign-personas.

“Create a Website.” Quicksprout, 18 Apr. 2019, www.quicksprout.com/customer-persona/.

Kim, Larry. “Video: The New Way of Email Marketing.” Stukent, www.stukent.com/expert-sessions/the-new-way-of-email-marketing/.

Larson, Jeff, and Stuart Draper. Digital Marketing Essentials. Mimic Pro Bundle.

Lee, Kevan. “The Beginner’s Guide to Creating Marketing Personas: Buffer.” Buffer Marketing Library, Buffer Social Blog, 30 Nov. 2018, buffer.com/library/marketing-personas-beginners-guide.

Business Ethics has become an oxymoron. We can look back at companies like Enron and scrutinize their shady accounting practices that ultimately left thousands of people unemployed in its collapse as a case study of business ethics. Surely we can grow and learn from ethical scandals, and develop checks and balances to prevent future corruption and harm, right? Perhaps so, but in the fast pace boom of tech companies, data collection, and digital advertising, we’re seeing a new set of complex ethical dilemmas surface at an unprecedented pace. And more are yet to be uncovered. It’s difficult to keep up with and truly understand the implications of something that is constantly developing and changing every day, and unfortunately companies like Facebook took advantage of that. Now that we’ve had a glimpse behind the curtain after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and we’re working towards privacy protection, it’s time to assess if this new(ish) method of online advertising is truly dangerous for society.

On a scale of one to five, five being high “2016 rigged election” threat, I would rank our current position at a 3.5. Frankly, there is still too much uncertainty and lack of transparency for me to confidently say that these companies will operate more ethically after the Cambridge scandal. Post-Cambridge, rather than seeing companies like Facebook be more transparent about how their data collection and use their algorithms, the fear is that it could mean less transparency in policy shifts, particularly for marketers interested in using Facebook as an ad network to reach consumers. Why? Simply because they can and not enough people outside of the tech bubble truly understand how to operate in the hot commodity of data. The likely argument is that transparency puts intellectual property at risk, but when you’re facing as much mistrust as these leaders are, there must be checks and balances to regain consumer trust.

However, in all of this negativity, I am an opportunist and believe that there are still methods to conduct ethical online marketing to reach your consumer and it’s up to the rest of us to speak louder and influence through ethical marketing behaviors. So, how do we find the fine line between awareness and annoyance? How do we get in front of target consumers most likely to buy, without overstepping and giving off a creepy impression of always watching?

Do Your Research

One of the cornerstones of any successful marketing campaign is understanding the segment or target audience of your product or service. Get to know your audience and their shopping behaviors. This will allow you to be present in the right time while not overstepping and becoming the creepy omnipresent online marketing we’ve seen lately.

Self-Regulate

There’s always time to course-correct, receive feedback, and ensure the data gathered for targeted advertising isn’t breaching consumer privacy as you try to reach your target audience. Never work in auto-pilot mode. Assess your strategies at every step of your campaign and implement consumer protection policies.

Be Transparent

A great way to make sure you’re keeping in check and self-regulating is by being transparent with the consumer and how you’re intending to protect them. Share privacy policies and let the consumer decide how and when they want to share info with you and how you get your data.

Be Authentic

If you truly believe in your product or service, do your market research, and develop a marketing communications plan, you don’t have to use deceptive or manipulating language to sway consumers. Tap into your consumer base with testimonials and build trust without cutting corners or spreading misinformation.

Tell the Brand Story

Everyone has a story to tell, what is yours? Tying into transparency and authenticity, streamline those characteristics into a killer story about the brand that is consistent across all online ad channels for recognition.

Stay Proactive

Digital advertising and pretty much anything in the online universe is moving faster than any of us can keep up with right now. Rules and regulations are constantly shifting, and so are the perceptions of privacy as a culture. We’re building this plane as we’re taking flight, so stay on top of how these shifts affect your business.

Understand Third Parties

Even if you’re proud to say your business isn’t actively participating in big data collecting and sales, using third party sites still runs the risk of them collecting data unbeknownst to you. Know who you’re working with and research software that helps prevent this.

Don’t Cut Corners & Focus on Your End Goal

Tying into authenticity and telling your story, there are many opportunities in online advertising to “cheat the system” so to speak. Some have established consequences like “keyword stuffing” in search engine optimization, others are only in the process of being established. If you build your business on sup par or murky standards, it will inevitably catch up to you as we’ve seen with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Is that how you want to showcase your hard work in the end?

Sources:
Jumpsix. “Ethical Issues in Digital Marketing.” JumpSIX Marketing, 29 July 2019, jumpsixmarketing.com/ethical-digital-marketing-part-1-issues/.

Samuel, Alexandra. “The Shady Data-Gathering Tactics Used by Cambridge Analytica Were an Open Secret to Online Marketers. I Know, Because I Was One.” The Verge, The Verge, 25 Mar. 2018, www.theverge.com/2018/3/25/17161726/facebook-cambridge-analytica-data-online-marketers.

Shewan, Dan. “Ethical Marketing: 5 Examples of Companies with a Conscience.” WordStream, 28 Nov. 2018, www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/09/20/ethical-marketing.

Steimer, Sarah. “The Murky Ethics of Data Gathering in a Post-Cambridge Analytica World.” American Marketing Association, 5 Jan. 2018, www.ama.org/marketing-news/the-murky-ethics-of-data-gathering-in-a-post-cambridge-analytica-world/.

Now that we’ve covered how to make the perfect landing page to increase conversion, it’s time to ensure people will actually search and find that landing page you’ve carefully crafted. All too often, we invest time into building a beautiful, customized, content-filled website, but after a few months, we’re staring at the analytics page and it’s just not getting the traffic needed to get those sales. What’s happened? Well, a couple of things come into play. Search engine optimization (SEO) is quintessential for leading organic traffic to your webpage. In a world where Google has become a colloquial verb for searching or looking things up, a webpage must be optimized to rank high on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Here are some staggering facts just to highlight how important ranking on the SERP can be (Quicksprout):

• 93% of experiences on the internet start with a search engine
• The very top result on Google has a 33% chance of getting clicked
• 75% of people won’t click past the first page of Google

If you’re not number one or at least in the top 10, your chances of getting discovered or getting any kind of clickthrough rate start to drop a third just by not ranking first and continue to drop at an exponential rate the further down the list your webpage lives. Thankfully, there’s no reason to lose hope – there are tons of great ways to improve your webpage’s ranking just by taking a few strategic steps for SEO optimization.

Let’s start with On-site SEO

While we’ve all heard that content is key, using updated, relevant, and unique content will get you a whole lot more. Even further, it’s important to implement a relevant keyword strategy when developing this new wonderful content for your webpage. First, identify what you’re trying to share with the world and then get specific on what kinds of phrases people will use to search for similar content. The more specific you can get, the less likely you’ll find yourself competing for keywords and the more likely you’ll hit a consumer in a later stage of their buying cycle. This strategy of specific keywords is often referred to as using “long-tail keywords.” At this point, you might be thinking about all of the keywords you’re ready to implement on your webpage but before you dive in, you’ll also want to consider placement. Where you put your keywords plays a big part in ranking and relevancy as well!  

URLs and title tags are heavily weighted by search engines when calculating relevancy. An example of keywords being implemented in a URL is from media website Unofficial Networks’ recent article about a new ski pass. I might be a little bias because I happen to work for said ski pass, but it’s a great example all the same. The URL reads: https://unofficialnetworks.com/2019/09/19/best-ski-pass/ which then links to an article about a new pass entering the market this season. Now when people search for “best ski pass” our likelihood of showing up on the first SERP is much higher. While this isn’t a landing page on said ski pass’s site, it also contributes to SERP ranking which I’ll expand on in a bit. Search engines also use header tags <h1> and <h2>, image data (alt text and file name), and anchor text as ways to calculate relevancy and should be thoughtfully chosen in optimizing a webpage. Finally, while it seems like the simplest strategy for maximizing keyword optimization would be the body of the content, it can actually work against you. Search engines will ding you for trying to “keyword stuff” if you overdo it, so there’s a careful balance between all of the places keywords can be used. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.

Off-site SEO

Search engines look at more than just relevant keywords and updated content when ranking a webpage, however. Off-site SEO is equally important and encompasses a strategy of “backlinking.”

Linking to reliable, high-quality websites will back up your claims and even better, getting those high-ranking sites to link back to your page boosts your ranking through the search engine too. In my example URL above with the ski pass, having a long-established website reference and link to a company website that just launched this year significantly helps SEO for the newer site. In order to increase your webpage’s rank, it’s highly recommended to develop a link building strategy and identify what kinds of high-ranking sites you want to be referred by and decide how you want to leverage from each other. This can come in a variety of forms resource, PR, and guest posting.

So start strategizing how and where you want to be searched. Identify keywords, sprinkle them accordingly on your webpage, and leverage other well-established sites through backlinking!

Sources:
Larson, Jeff, and Stuart Draper. Digital Marketing Essentials. Mimic Pro Bundle.

“34 Ways To Improve SEO Rankings in 2019.” Quicksprout, 29 July 2019, www.quicksprout.com/ways-to-improve-seo-ranking/.

Jones, Kristopher. “4 Reasons Why Your Content Isn’t Ranking.” Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Journal, 26 Aug. 2019, www.searchenginejournal.com/why-content-isnt-ranking/317917/#close.

Welcome to the era of instant stimulation and accessibility in digital marketing, advertising, and eCommerce. At the click of a button, you can have pretty much anything you want delivered to your front door without ever having to leave your house! As a marketer or advertiser, this leaves a huge opportunity for leveraging stellar websites and landing pages to entice consumers and ultimately lead to conversion. Conversion is the quintessential goal of a landing page, yet it doesn’t always mean to sell. If you’re familiar with Alec Baldwin’s character in Glengarry Glen Ross and his famous ABC line “Always Be Closing” in reference to sales, landing page design should “Always Be Converting.” Continue to ask yourself, “What are you offering? Why should I pick you? What do you want me to do next?” (Larson)

via GIPHY

If you hop on your favorite search engine (let’s be honest, it’s Google) and look for ways to increase landing page conversion, you’ll find an endless supply of advice and the latest “hacks” for optimization. Whatever Buzzfeed-like list you land on, ultimately all of those latest tips and tricks can be boiled down and segmented into to five concepts that every marketer, advertiser, designer, or web developer should have memorized:

Purposeful and Popping Design

There are a lot of elements to unpack when it comes to designing a landing page, but let’s face it – design matters. It is the first impression, a psychological motivator to stay engaged, and even helps remind consumers why they’ve landed on the page in the first place. Some key things to consider in designing an effective landing page include:

• Simplicity: Embrace white space and don’t overwhelm/clutter the viewer’s experience. (Simon) They need a place to rest their eyes and process the content. With that, comes scanability i.e. icons and bullet-point lists over lengthy copy blocks. (Larson)
• Stand-out CTA buttons and directional ques: Along the line of simplicity, CTA buttons should be front and center, clear as day, and never a guessing game for where it’ll take you. Straight forward labeling and high contrast buttons lead consumers down your sales funnel and remind consumers why they’ve landed on that page. (Quick Sprout)
• Hierarchy: Ensure that all the important content you want to stick with your consumer is above the fold. (Simon)

Favor Form Fills

Forms are a great way to convert and capture consumers in your database and help them return to your site again at a later date. They don’t have to be boring either. Adding imagery and clear CTA buttons can entice consumers to engage and give information. Here’s a great example of a form refresh that helped increase cellphone donations by 53%! (Quick Sprout)

Share Your Cred

In the digital era, word of mouth marketing still holds strong. Consumers are more likely to trust like-minded individuals and friends before trusting your online business. How do you navigate that online presence and get consumers to believe in your brand? Trust symbols, video demos, testimonials, social media presence, and return policies all play into how a consumer perceives your brand and if you’re worth their dollar. A great example of credibility implemented on a landing page is Backcountry, a third-party retailer for outdoor wear brands. Below the displayed product, they have a variety of customer reviews plus a section that displays what customers ultimately bought and why so as the consumer, you feel safe knowing you’re getting the best product.

Get Visual

Humans by nature are visual beings and we’ve all heard the saying “A picture is worth 1,000 words.” We process messages in images quicker than a copy block and that is only expedited in video media. Professional-looking imagery and videography can significantly increase conversion, video alone can cause an 86% increase in conversion rates! (Simon)

Test and Test Again

The key to a successful landing page is continuing to test out what works and what doesn’t in a strategic way through A/B Testing. As you drive traffic to your landing pages, examine certain elements in the data gathered to see what is successful and what is not. It may be tempting to scratch the page and start over completely, however more likely than not a single tweak to a CTA button may end up being a more effective solution! There are several ways and resources available to test out your landing page including heatmaps and Google Analytics. (Quick Sprout & Simon) There are a lot of ways to take the above advice and turn it into something great, and there are just as many ways to take that advice and turn it into something not so great. The only way you’ll know if you’re landing page is successful is to test and test again as you gather data!

Sources

“Create a Website.” Quicksprout, 16 Jan. 2019, www.quicksprout.com/landing-page-optimization/.

Larson, Jeff, and Stuart Draper. Digital Marketing Essentials. Mimic Pro Bundle.

Simon, Sha Drena. “The Top 11 Landing Page Optimization Best Practices (2019).” Yokel Local Inbound Marketing Agency, 11 Dec. 2018, www.yokellocal.com/blog/landing-page-optimization-best-practices.