Facebook recently announced that they are starting to group related news items on user’s feeds by topic as shown in this example below.

It seems that, as usual, a percentage of people are unhappy with the change. I think it’s a good thing, with more and more information being pumped through our news feeds it only seems sensible and also user friendly to group relevant topics. Facebook has been doing this for a while by grouping Twitter posts that are fed through to a user’s Facebook profile. Although it tends to group Twitter posts from any friend as a posed to Twitter posts from that one user which doesn’t seem intuitive.

We’ve just received a company newsletter in our inbox. Nothing unusual I hear you say, except when you take a closer look at the CC’d field you find hundreds of other customer’s emails sitting there. What’s more shocking is it comes from a national courier company! A very well known one.

We have returned the email to the sender advising them of the mismanagement of their email communications with their customers. Being such a large company they should know better but perhaps the sender is new to mass emailing or to the company? Whatever the reason if you’re thinking of sending out a bulk email from your email software to your customers follow these 8 tips:

1. Get permission: when sending someone an email they must have consented to receive that email. if not, you are sending spam. Make sure you remove people when they unsubcribe. Email marketing services will automatically manage this for you.

2. Don’t send emails from your email software: there are plenty of paid and free solutions on the market. Brighton based Pure360 offer a great solution for a fee. Some companies such as mailchimp offer a free service provided you have a small number of subscribers and only send a few communications a month, perfect for smaller businesses.

3. Don’t mass CC: If you are going to send via email software don’t do what this courier company did! As we’ve seen in this example their customers have been exposed to one another’s email addresses. Okay, so this isn’t the worst breach of privacy but it’s not good and could potentially open customers up to more spam.

4. Keep a separate email address specifically for that purpose: once that email goes out you will get hit with a flurry of out of office replying and unsubscribe requests. Having a separate email address will stop your inbox from being clogged up so you can manage the flow better.

5. Don’t overload: Make sure your messages are targeted toward the right customer base at the right time and you don’t bombard them with lots of emails. This will depend on how much you have to say but we’d say once a month is good for the average business but some might find themselves sending one a week. Gauge customer reaction through the amount of people who unsubscribe and reel it in if you get too many.

6. Segment your customer base: this happens when you start compiling your list. Make sure you are collecting only relevant information (to comply with Data Protection Act) and detailing any specific interests they might have. For example, our client, Arundel Jailhouse run a series of different events so they would mark up against each subscriber which events they have attended. This helps target different messages to different people, thus increasing the response rate.

7. Be consistent: if you are going to commit to a monthly newsletter, make sure it is monthly! Put a regular reminder in your diary to write and send your email each month. Once you get into the habit it’ll become second nature.

8. Test and refine: using email marketing tools will always be of huge benefit even if it is for the analytics. Make sure you monitor the performance of you campaigns. See how many people opened the email, who clicked through. You can then start to refine subject lines and content to increase this.

If you want more of this then sign up to our digital marketing newsletter. And if you need any help getting your email marketing right then feel free to get in touch!

This week’s question comes from Andrew who asks: “What do you do when you’ve picked the wrong agency to design, develop and market your site??”

There’s nothing worse! You’ve spend days and weeks searching for the right digital marketing agency to build your website and half way through the project you regret the choice you made. We don’t have the details but the answer does depend on the type of contract you’ve signed with them and what stage of the build you are at. We’ll assume that for whatever reason you want out? If that is true then you have to gather all the evidence you can to approach your agency to terminate any contract and any outstanding bills.

Here are some of the reasons why you might find you’ve picked the wrong agency and how to prevent it happening again:

They have over promised and under delivered – it’s easy to get excited when you start talking about the possibilities of web and what it can do for your business. Try not to get carried away! Divide your project up into stages. Get the fundamentals right in stage one and then you can start to add fancy bits later.

You didn’t get what you agreed – sometimes the sales person isn’t aligned with the development team. The sales team are so keen to win the business they might promise you the world without checking this with the development team. Make sure that someone from the development team is present at any initial meetings and you get their agreement.

They are taking too long – make sure you agree a solid project plan upfront with agreed timescales then tie payments to agreed milestones. This will help spread the cost of the project for you and give the agency motivation to get the project done on time.

The quality is poor – the danger with digital is that its low barriers to entry mean “everyone’s an expert”. We’ve seen people with shockingly poor knowledge of how the web works calling themselves “social media experts” because they’ve used Twitter and Facebook. Due diligence is needed to ensure the people you will be working with know what they’re talking about. Check them out on Linkedin or Google to see if other people have commented on their work or check their experience.

No results – despite being fast paced things in the digital world can take their time. Especially if you’re talking about search engine optimisation! But don’t let this be an excuse for poor performance of lack of results. Any agency worth their salt will keep timesheets and audit sheets which they should be happy to share with you. Have regular update meetings to check progress.

Once you’ve built a case then there should be little argument for you parting company. If on the off chance they still won’t budge then it’s time to find another agency for help. Keeping in mind what we discussed go out and find another agency to work with. Once you’ve found the right agency you can seek advice from them about their practice and get them to help you build a stronger argument for leaving them.

We wish you the best of luck Andrew!

Jeremy

Have you got your Google+ (Google Plus) profile set up yet? The digital marketing industry is ablaze with talk about Google’s answer to Facebook/Twitter and generally on the whole the conversation has been good. I myself have been impressed with Google’s offering so far. It’s still early days and there are a few things they could improve but they’ve release an overall good product.

One thing you’re going to have to get to grips with is Circles, the topic that’s got a few people in muddle. For those who aren’t aware Circles are Google’s way of helping you to organise the people you connect with on Google+ into groups. You cannot add someone into your Google+ network without assigning them to a Circle but the good news is that you can assign them to more than one! My personal opinion is that Google has got this right from the start something that Facebook and Twitter have added in too late.

The main issue comes from the increasing level of information being thrown at us through all these channels of information. We need a way to manage this flow effectively. Facebook reinvented their Groups functionality which I am yet to use and Twitter added Lists. Whilst these might be effective ways of managing a huge hoard or people it was added after I had set up and added a bunch of fans/friends/followers. This meant having to go back and re-organise! Not good!

Google+ is encouraging new users to organise their circles of friends/acquaintances as we set them up. Now I’ve heard a number of people grumble and suggest they don’t have time to do this. Someone even suggested they dumped everyone in one group for organising later! But there’s good reason for making sure you organise your followers from day one as how you set up your Google+ Circles will define how easy the system is to use in the future.

Why Organise your Google Plus Circle?

Better control over privacy: a subject which is always at the forefront of people’s minds when using social networks. They want to control who they share personal information with; fair enough! By organising you friends into tight knit groups you can easily choose who gets to see what. I am very much up for this as it means I can be a little more frivolous with what I share and feel more confident only the people I want to see it actually do!

Control your stream: You’re not going to want to hear what all the people you follow have to say all of the time. If I am in business mode I check out the latest goings on in the digital world and when I am thinking about my loved ones I can check out my family’s latest updates. This can be done easily through the use of Circles! This is nothing new as you can do this through Facebook and Twitter; I just haven’t got the time to retrofit the lot! And Google make it so easy to flit between each Circle with a handy drop down on the left hand side!

Easier to hangout: Google+ has a feature it calls “hangouts” which allows you to have set up quick video conferencing sessions with your Circles. If this is something you feel you might use then it’s worth getting this right from the start. Frankly until they build in a filter that makes me look less hideous on a webcam I am steering well clear!

Ignore the above? Some people might find all of this too much fuss but there’s no reason why you can lump everyone in one circle and just use it like Facebook or Twitter (shame on you!).

Organising your Google+ Circles

Getting your Circles right from the start is going to save you a big headache in the future. And if you change your mind at a later time there’s no reason why you can shift things about. I believe Google’s interface makes this a darn sight easier than any other system I’ve used! Here’s some suggested categories to get your started:

Close relations: These are the people you would trust your life with, close family and friends that you don’t mind them finding anything out and you can trust them with your more intimate details. This gives you more confidence in sharing family images and those posts that you might not want to share with a wider audience!

Social friends: Those people who you speak to on a regular basis but perhaps mainly over social networks or places you both like to hang out. You might not want to share more intimate details than with your close relations but you still want to share more social information such as what you are up to at the weekend.

Acquaintances: The heading says it all really. The people you’d have a friendly chat with when bumping into them in the street but that you might not actually want to have any deep or meaning relationship with. These are the kinds of people you might want to keep the private information away from; something that’s always been a chore on Facebook or Twitter.

Interests: Group together people that have a similar interest or work in a similar industry. This is a great way to easily keep up to date with the latest developments.

Geographical: Keeping a circle with people within your local area might prove useful. One the great things about social networks is the real-time responses you get to questions like “Can anyone recommend a good restaurant?” or “Has anyone got a tent I can borrow for the weekend?”. People in your local area are a great resource pool when you need help or advice.

Ex-work colleagues: This circle could serve two purposes. If you’re still in the same industry but working for a competitor this might help you keep abreast of their developments and also wider industry developments. It also means you can keep an eye on all the juicy gossip from your ex-colleagues!

Ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriends: Find out who their dating now an cry if they’re better looking than you…?!?

Please share with us your suggestions, be interested to see how people are grouping their followers.

As part of a good paid search marketing strategy you should always be monitoring and refining the performance of you ad copy. Google Adwords now ensure that only the best advertisers appear at the top of the search engine listings by enforcing a minimum quality threshold advertisers have to meet to appear in the top on the left hand side of the search engine results.

A recent addition has seen the first description line being moved up next to the title to further enhance the listing. As you’ll see from the screen shot below it’s obvious that whilst your competitors have not caught on your ad will stand out and gain more clicks.

The only way that this can happen is if the first description line is punctuated correctly. Google Adwords editorial guidelines do not you require to punctuate the end of the first sentence although they do encourage it. You might find that you want to write one long sentence over the two description lines. This is perfectly acceptable but you can clearly see that there is a benefit to doing this.

Here’s an example of the ad without a full stop and with a full stop:

Without a Full Stop

With a Full Stop

It does make me smile a little inside when I see BIG companies doing their own thing badly.

Take this example of Google Adwords coming up against the search term “web design brighton“. Some of you might argue out there that this is OK. It’s a related service and they are trying to increase brand awareness. I don’t disagree, they do after all have bottomless pockets of budget to splash out on such frivolous broad matched terms.

I do take issue with the point that they really don’t need to be advertising against such an irrelevant term. Mainly because it drives up cost for small business owners on terms which are already heavily competitive and thus expensive. It’s be interesting to get their feedback on this as to whether they’re not using their negative keyword effectively or if this is part of their strategy. Hopefully it is not the latter.

That said Google Adwords in littered with big companies with campaigns so badly targeted that if they were in a darts match I would not be placing money on them to win! Which is why it’s even more important for smaller advertisers to spend their digital marketing budgets more wisely and make sure they are well targeted.

Marks and Spencers recently had their wrists slapped by the European courts after a ruling by the Advocate General found in favour of Interflora who is suing M&S over use of its trademark terms on Google Adwords advertising platform.

There have been a number of cases in the past between brands but these tended to focus Google’s role in allowing trademark infringement. Recently Louis Vuitton took Google to court because they felt Google was themselves infringing on trademarks by allowing this activity. The landmark case ruled in favour of Google stating their role in this was “neutral”.

Google has been left out of this court case which has helped reaffirm it’s own terms of advertising which clearly state that trademark issues should be resolved between advertisers. This has sparked mass debate over whether Google should be doing more to stop this activity. Furthermore it highlights that advertisers should be steering clear of bidding on their competitors keyword. Not only that but actively ensuring that it does not happen.

We already know that Google will allow advertisers to bid on competitor’s trademark terms but NOT allow to use them on their ad copy. Also that courts are ruling in favour of the plaintiff in cases where there has been some form of infringement.

This is a decision for the business owner and not for one of the agency. I have been asked many times in my career what the best course of action is. Naturally I’ve not wanted to touch the subject but pushed for an answer I’ve always advised against the practice of bidding on competitors keywords. It’s clear from this that business owners and advertisers should go one step further by implementing a set of negative keywords around their key competitors to prevent this occurring and to show due diligence.

Overall, the practice is unethical and you’ll find on the most part your results from such campaigns to perform poorly on click through rates and conversions.

Read the press release.

A weird thing happened to me today that gave me a bit of a shock. I referred to paid search marketing as “traditional”! When we think of traditional forms of advertising in today’s market we think of things like television and printing advertising. I know that they say things evolve much faster in the 21^st century but I thought it would be a long time before I started calling pay per click marketing traditional!

It came to me when I was writing some content for www.thedigitalconsultant.co.uk on social media marketing. I recall first writing about social media optimisation, as it was referred to back in 2005, during an update for my search engine optimisation training course. We now know it better as social media marketing, a more generic term to reaching your target audience through social media networks. Whilst the battle continues online about how brands can master and measure the ROI from social media by accumulating likes, fans and followers there is more direct and quicker approach to reaching your audience though social media advertising.

Social media advertising as a term has started to trend recently despite being able to advertise on social media networks like Facebook for around two years. Social networks have been figuring ways to monetise their traffic; the simplest way has been to sell advertising space. Facebook has been doing it for a while but it’s only recent developments to their interface which has mean it’s been easier for advertisers to control their ad spends and pull decent data to monitor performance. Whilst they are light years behind traditional paid search systems such as Google Adwords or Microsoft Adcenter they are way ahead of other social media networks such as Linkedin and Twitter which are just opening up their offerings.

Social media advertising offers more targeting options which is particular useful for small and medium sized businesses that might have a smaller marketing budget. Facebook now gives advertisers the ability to drill down to very specific demographics meaning campaigns can be targeted specifically, increasing the chance of conversion.

We’ll be talking lots more about social media marketing on our blog and how you as a business can take their first steps into this new and exciting form of advertising. If you’d like to know more about how The Digital Consultant can help you, please get in touch.

Announcement today from Google that they have pushed further with the integration of social feeds into their search results.

Previously social feeds such as those from Twitter were kept quite low down in the search results. After today’s announcement social results will have more prominence and be mixed in with the search results. You have to be logged into your Google account but you will start to see more social results that are relevant to your search. Say for example your mate Jeff has recently posted a review on their blog of the latest smart phone release. If you then do a search, you’ll see his post come up in your search results.

So what’s the purpose? Well after Google’s failed foray into the social world with Google Buzz they’ve had their fingers burnt. This isn’t their attempt to take on social media rather a way of getting users to their search engine. Think about it, wouldn’t it be great if instead of having to go to numerous social sites to get your friends opinion (apparently actually asking them face to face is not on an option) you can just search in Google. That’s the theory here. It’s not really anything a game changing moving, rather a much needed update to their current offering.

Potential impact on your search results: probably not that great at the moment. This just emphasises the impact social is having on search marketing. Now the searcher will see comments, blogs or reviews on their friend’s recent experiences with your product or service. You just need to make sure that you are managing this correctly so it doesn’t have a negative impact on your business.

Read more about our social media consultancy services.

Google “Instant Search” – How will it affect my business?

Google recently launched its latest update to its main product, search. Touted by Google as a revolution it has seen luke warm responses from some industry analysis.

Google Instant Search throws you straight into the search results the moment you start typing and updates the search results as you type. Rather than go into detail, watch this short video which shows you how it works.

[flowplayer src='http://www.thedigitalconsultant.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/Google-Instant-Desktop.m4v' width=600 height=338]

After watching it, I thought…OK, it’s quick and cool but right now  it a new product that’s not going to knock the search engine industry sideways. The idea of Instant Search is to help you search faster and make it easier to find what you want; to predict what you are searching for and put it in front of you. Google uses personalisation (your previous searches) and data on the most popular searches to do this. As the technology gets more sophisticated the accuracy will improve.

You must be signed into your Google Account for this to work and users using iGoogle currently will not have access to this feature. You also have to be operating the latest browser version to get it work which leaves question, how many people will actually be using Google Instant?

The industry has gone wild is speculation, some even reporting that Search Engine Optimisation is dead! Let’s not get carried away, I mean you only have to look at the example of the Google Wave launch to see the possibility of a hype/nose dive of interest from a product release by Google.

How will it affect my business?

SEO real-estate has been reduced. The Google Suggest box now appears under the search box listing other potential search phrases. This may push the focus onto the paid listings, particularly for comparison or price driven searches. This is also going to mean that being number one for a search phrase in both paid and natural search is ever more important.

Action: Keep a focus on the search volumes for your shorter, more generic search terms. This could have a positive impact on your quality score as this may increase your Click Through Rate (CTR) but may also increase your daily spend. Test out increased positions on your top volume search phrases in paid and push hard in your natural search.

Reduce the reliance on long-tail keywords. There has already been a slow shift away from long-tail search phrases with the introduction of Google Suggest. Users are become lazier when it comes to searching and Google Instant is only going to make it easier for people to search by using the predetermined phrases presented to them. You’ll notice that you can easily flick through the suggested search terms using your up and down arrow keys making it much easier for users to try out a wide range of searches in seconds.

Action: Make sure you are listed highly for all variations of the relevant suggestions. Start typing your top keywords in and flicking through the relevant search phrases to make sure you are listed. If not, then add these keywords in as, at a minimum, exact search phrases.  It’s very likely that you will be listed for these as they will be your generic terms that you should be bidding against but it’s always worth checking.

Google Instant Impact

So Google Instant hasn’t changed the face of search yet. It’s not a revolution, but it is evolution. Lucky for you, you’re reading this article and are aware on Google Instant! That means you can start to monitor its impact and make changes accordingly. It’s an exciting change and one that will most definitely change the way we search, just not quite yet.

We’ve already started looking at our client’s reports, looking at the user experience whilst searching for generic phrases and making changes accordingly. Make sure you speak to your online marketing agency to do the same!

Please share with us your thoughts and experiences with Google Instant. Do you like it? Does it irritate and distract you? Have you seen any impact on your search engine marketing campaigns?