Integrated Marketing Consultant, SEO & Social Media Strategy

50+ is the HOT Social Media demo

August 28, 2010 By clinthughes 1 Comment

At times like this I love to say, “I told you so!” Those of you who have been reading my blogs and/or have attended one of my workshops will NOT be shocked by this news. Social Media use within the 50+ demographic has nearly doubled according to the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. In April of 2009 just 22% of the 50+ demo were using sites such as Facebook – in May of 2010 that jumped to 42%. In the 50 – 64 demographic 47% are using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

The results I obtained through the research I conducted for the University of Texas – Dallas Ph.D. program for the School of Arts and Technology were also reinforced by this study. “Young adults continue to be the heaviest users of social media, but their growth pales in comparison with recent gains made by older users,” said Mary Madden author of the Pew report. “Email is still the primary way that older users maintain contact with friends, families and colleagues, but many older users now rely on social media platforms to help manage their daily communications.”

This proves that Social Media is NOT all about 18-24 year-olds. You have to:

1) Develop an Integrated Marketing Strategy. How are you going to bring together your “traditional” marketing channels (TV, Radio, and Print) and these “new” digital marketing channels (SEO, PPC and Social Media)?

2) Think about WHO is going to “quarterback” your marketing department or company down the digital field – a “walk-on” quarterback from a Division II school OR an All-Pro who knows what it takes to find your target customer and make your cash register ring.

I’m sure there are marketers with a few grey hairs that have experiences similar to mine. I’ve been involved with eCommerce since the early days of the Internet. I’m certified in SEO and Social Media Strategy. I’ve seen CRM evolve from a mailing list for postcards and coupons to psychographic databases for targeted digital inserts.

I’m sure there are CFOs that started with a ledger book and a calculator who are now using complex back office software programs to balance the books.

We have a saying here in Texas, “Fish where the fish are!” Make sure you have an experienced “fishing guide” to teach you the right bait to use. Look for someone who “has been there, doing that.”

That’s the News
From Clint Hughes

Filed Under: Marketing, SEO, Small Business, Social Media

Testing email marketing campaigns

August 24, 2010 By clinthughes Leave a Comment

Here is a great blog from Kristen Gregory about testing your email campaigns.

9 Tips for Testing Success

Want to make sure you’re conducting the best tests you can? Keep these tips in mind:

1. First, always run tests more than once. Flukes happen. You can’t try something one time and be certain of anything. I recommend running a test AT LEAST three times (if not more!) to determine an actual trend.

2. Stick to one test variable. When you test more than one element, results get fuzzy and which element really made an impact becomes more difficult to determine.

3. Make sure that you are testing segments of your list that are large enough to make the test valid. If you’re sending to a list of 300 people, how valid is a 5% test segment? As a rule, I say go larger with test segments if the list is on the smaller side. The larger the test segment, the more valid the results will be.

4. Focus on the right – or all – data points to determine winners. Typically, subject line tests are designed to drive opens, though they can drive clicks by being more call-to-action-oriented. If boosting revenue is your ultimate goal, make sure you’re looking at the full picture.

5. Give the test enough time to run before declaring a winner. If you send out test segments at 9 am, you probably don’t want to declare a winner by 10 am and send that creative out to the remainder of your list. You need to be sure that subscribers have had enough time to see, open and interact with your messages. Allow as much time as you think would make sense, and, at absolute minimum, a few hours. Recognize that a test segment that looked like it was “losing” when you declared a winner can pull ahead in the end. Always take a second look when more time has passed.

6. Be smart about WHEN you send test segments. I’ve seen some marketers send test segments at 2 am and the winning creative at 7 am. I would argue that unless you’re assured that your audience is comprised of early risers with plenty of email-browsing time, this isn’t the best way to test.

7. Choose the right kind of split test. Some platforms, like Bronto, enable marketers to send tests to a smaller portion of a list and then automatically send out the winning version (based on most opens, clicks or conversions) to the remainder of the list later that day or the next. This is a really fantastic way to optimize within a single send. At the same time, I believe some testing works best if you let it run its course and evaluate afterward. For example, when evaluating major creative changes or offer options, I think it’s more valuable to see the full results (rather than exposing a small test segment for a small amount of time) and be certain you’re making the right choices for the future.

8. Always be testing! Make testing an integral part of your everyday program. If nothing else, run a simple subject line test each time you send.

9. Actually look at results and adjust future tactics. Make sure to review what’s working best so you can play off of lessons learned and continue to improve.

Filed Under: Marketing, Small Business, Success Stories

Social Media Etiquette

August 19, 2010 By clinthughes 2 Comments

Being an SEO and Social Media Consultant is like being a doctor – whenever you go to a party people pull you aside and ask you how to cure their ills. It is “the Wild West” out there right now – a lot of “snake oil salesmen” profess to be experts and make promises that can not be fulfilled.

SEO and Social Media are the physical fitness regimens of your corporate marketing body. You can’t get off your couch after years of inactivity and run a marathon. You can’t magically start an SEO and Social Media Strategy and jump to #1 on all the search engines.

Let me give a quick overall answer to one of the questions I am asked most often – “What do I say on the Social Networks?”

Here’s is what happens:
Imagine the Social Media world as a big high school reunion/family reunion/neighborhood block party. What would you think of someone who went around interrupting every conversation trying to sell anyone who would listen a “super magic drink?” People would tune them out and then before long run away whenever that person approached.

Social Media is like that. If you are constantly trying to sell to anyone/everyone who might be reached by your Twitter Feeds, Facebook updates or blog, people will tune you out!

Here’s the general rule of thumb:
90% of your Tweets and updates should be informative and/or conversational – 10% should be self promoting. Go back to the reunion/party theme: if you have interesting stories and helpful ideas people will engage you in conversation – your social networking is working. If you ONLY talk about yourself you become a pariah.

You might ask – “What do I say? How often do I say it? I don’t know where to start!” Like a doctor would say, “Stop by my office for an exam and we will run some tests. I’m sure you will be fine.”

So go to my contact page and it will send me an email OR call me – my phone number is right there at the top of the page. Relax, now you have a professional “captain” to help you navigate the choppy seas of social media.

Filed Under: Marketing, SEO, Social Media Tagged With: Marketing Consultant, Social Media Consultant, Social Media Marketing

SEO – 10 Critical Google Ranking Factors

August 5, 2010 By clinthughes Leave a Comment

SEO – The 10 Critical Google Ranking Factors | ineedhits Slide Presentation: http://bit.ly/a4lFZj

Filed Under: Marketing, SEO, Small Business

Testing Your PPC Advertising

August 4, 2010 By clinthughes 1 Comment

I wanted to share a powerful marketing tip with you today. This is something that when done properly, can improve your results and increase your sales WITHOUT adding a single penny to your costs.

This may sound simple – but it is very important for your integrated marketing activities. Test, Test and Re-test!

Here is a simple example:

You run a PPC campaign on Google AdWords and you have one ad running. Let’s say you sell shoes, and here is the ad you were running.

Designer Shoes are Affordable
Women’s Designer Shoes
Big names, great prices

Now, let’s say your click through rate (number of people that click on your ad) is 4.2%. You are happy, because that’s better than you’ve ever done before. What most people do is keep running with that ad. What we want you to remember to do is Split Test.

All that means is create a second version of your ad, to compete against your first version and see who wins.

So, now look at version 2:

Designer Shoes are Affordable
Lady’s Designer Shoes
Big names, great prices

Do you see the difference? Only one word (more about that in a minute). In the first ad we have

Women’s Designer Shoes and in the second ad we have Lady’s Designer Shoes.

So, let’s look at the results.

Ad 1 – 4.2 click through rate
Ad 2 – 5.1 click through rate!

You just increased your response rate by 21.4%! No extra costs, simply changing one word and getting an improved response.

Why did more people click on Lady’s than Women’s? We don’t know, we may never know, but we also don’t care. All we know is have now improved our click through rate!

Now are we done? Not even close. Now we take Ad 2, and create another ad to split test against Ad 2. You can constantly test 2 ads against each other and incrementally increase your response rates.

What can you test? Anything and everything! Test your ads, test headlines on your site, test your pricing.

Test, test and re-test.

There’s so much more about testing that I could go into, but we’ll have to save that for another time. For now, just remember these 2 important points…

1. Test EVERYTHING!

2. Only make one change in each test for accurate results. If you were to change the headline and the middle text on Ad 2, you wouldn’t know which was the cause of the higher response. So, take one thing at a time and test, test, test.

By the way, Google has a great tool (that is available at no cost) that allows you to set up these split tests easily. Check out Google Website Optimizer!

Filed Under: Marketing, Small Business Tagged With: Marketing Consultant, Social Media Marketing

Ethical SEO

August 1, 2010 By clinthughes Leave a Comment

SEO is complex. SEO is maddening. SEO is confusing. But more than anything SEO is EFFECTIVE.

It is unanimously agreed that SEO is the top source of driving targeted traffic to sites. Everyone wants top SEO rankings. The problem is, you look at the SERPs (search engine results pages) and you find sites there that you don’t expect to. You see sites that are filled with spam, you see sites with no content, you see sites with no inbound links.

And worst of all is what you don’t see – YOUR site.

It makes no sense – you’ve done everything you can, followed all the rules and still your site is no where. How are these other sites that don’t belong there holding on to your coveted spot?

The truth is, as smart as the engines are, they don’t catch all the garbage sites out there as quickly as we would like them to. There are 2 things we can do to help eradicate this problem.

1. Report any and all spam and garbage sites to Google (and the other engines you use). This is not being a tattle tale, this is not going out for revenge. This is simply asking Google to uphold the rules that they are asking you to follow. It is saying, “I’m playing fair here, so level the playing field so my competitors that are “less-than ethical” don’t rule the SERPs”. To notify

Google of a spam site, click here:
http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html

2. The second thing you can do is follow best practices 100%. Be aggressive, be proactive, but be ethical. The more people insist on “black hat” tactics, the more sites we’ll see that are sneaking by Google. Know that with active efforts Google is making daily to weed out spam – you have everything to gain by patiently, aggressively and ethically optimizing your site.

Filed Under: Marketing, SEO, Small Business Tagged With: Marketing Consultant, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO Consultant, SEO Marketing, SEO training, Social Media, Social Media Consultant, Social Media Marketing

Clint Hughes and The Tornado Featured on CNN Headline News

February 9, 2010 By webmaster 3 Comments

Clint Hughes appears on CNN Headline News part of award-winning multi-channel marketing campaigns for Consumer Electronics companies like DirecTV (driving $150 million in revenue) and Data Drive Thru (from pre-launch to millions in revenue in one year).

Filed Under: Marketing, Small Business

Clint Appears on QVC, Helps Set Record Sell-Out of “The Tornado”

January 9, 2010 By webmaster Leave a Comment

Click to watch Clint on QVC

Clint Hughes appears on QVC and helps move 30,000 units of award-winning tech gadget “The Tornado” in one of the fastest QVC sell-outs of all time.

After all, it’s so easy a chimp can use it!

Filed Under: Marketing, Small Business

Testing email marketing campaigns

SEO – 10 Critical Google Ranking Factors

Clint Hughes and The Tornado Featured on CNN Headline News

Clint Appears on QVC, Helps Set Record Sell-Out of “The Tornado”

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