Smart Travel Online: The Noob Guide to Online Marketing by Steven Chester - HTML preview

April 1, 2011 Posted By Smart Travel Online– Steven Chester

“Get me to page 1ofGoogle, while emailingour customersa bi -week ly newsletter, engaging influencers on Twitter, maintaining a captiveFacebook audience, capturing newleads,and putting out 3blogpostsa week.” Harsh? Yes. Familiar? Definitely.

Everything a Non-Marketer Needs to Take a Business from Zero to Hero Online

What youare aboutto read might be a little shocking.Why? Because it’s so freakishly long. It contains a 6 -month action plan for marketing your business online and if you can read itallin one go you’rea hero or a raging insomniac. I’d recommend bookmarking it to use as an ongoing reference guide. Let the story and the course begin...

A typical marketing storyline

You’ve just beenput in chargeof “Internet marketing” at your newsweatshopstartup (don’t worry, I live there too replete with rusty sewing machines and fake Nike stitching patterns). What do you do? Where do you start? There are so many elements to online marketingthat it’s hard to know where tobegin.

It’s much more than just one job. At the veryleast it’s 8 distinct disciplines. I know because I try to do them all and I’mstretched to my limit.
With that in mind, I’d like to presentyou with:

· A 15,000,000 pixel infographic(that’s fifteen million coloredsquares, which could make it the largest infographic in history). Note how thegraphic looks like a giant “i” (which is also the first letterof the word infographic). *Taps self on shoulder for the clever artistic reference.*

· Part 1 is a cogged wheel showing 50 tasks broken down by discipline. If you print it out you can tear off each cog or mark the little check boxes as you complete each task.Part 2 is a six month course to teach you how to become an internet marketerwhether you’vedone it before ornot. Compress the timeline if you’re a workaholic. It also contains a traffic timeline showing the effect certain actions will have on your inbound traffic

growth.
S M A R T T R A V E L o n l i n e

Steven Chester
Broker for ZamZuu, Inc.
Email: smart2travelonline@gmail.com Phone: 484.354.2014

For more on our Broker opportunity please visit: www.zamzuu.biz/smarttravelonline

 

S M A R T T R A V E L o n l i n e

Steven Chester
Broker for ZamZuu, Inc.
Email: smart2travelonline@gmail.com Phone: 484.354.2014

For more on our Broker opportunity please visit: www.zamzuu.biz/smarttravelonline

It takes a lot of work - although not as much as writing all this - so no whining please. In order to be successful you have to plan for the long haul. Read it, absorb it and put it into practice. Also remember to give a shout out on Twitter (using the hashtag #noobmarketing) as you progress through your marketing marathon (and join the discussion with other noobs).

Landing Pages as Marketing Glue
You’llnotice how landing pages havebeenpositioned inthe wheelas what I callthe“marketingglue” thatholds your activities together. They sit in the middle of many marketing and sales funnels and do a great job of focusing your customers on what theyshouldbe doing. You don’t always needthem(12/50 tasks here callon them), but when you do they can make a big difference in the your conversion performance. I covered the reasoning and purpose of landing pages in an earlier guest post called “The 12-Step Landing Page Rehab Program” so I won’tdelve into thatagain, instead I’ll just point out where, when and how you should be using them.

The Wheel of Marketing
8of the corecomponents of an Internet marketingstrategy are covered here (there are more,but I have my limits). I’llgive you abrief overview of each and why it’s important. As an alternative to following the 6-month course you could tackle each of these channels as an independent track by following the task lists.

· Social media marketing (SMM)

The new darling of the marketing community still gets grumbles from the old -schoolers. Ignore them for they know not what theysay. SMM is a massive topic,so for the noobguide we’llfocus ona few key platforms:Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. And a few key strategies: developing a style and how to convert your social traffic.

#1 - Claim your brand
#2 - Set up your Twitter account
#3 - Have something to say - define your style #16 - Build a following on Twitter
#23 - Time your tweets
#30 - Create a conversion oriented Facebook fan page #31 - Connect your blog to Facebook
#32 - Seed some facebook fans
#39 - Start networking on LinkedIn

S M A R T T R A V E L o n l i n e

Steven Chester
Broker for ZamZuu, Inc.
Email: smart2travelonline@gmail.com Phone: 484.354.2014

For more on our Broker opportunity please visit: www.zamzuu.biz/smarttravelonline
#45 - Stay in the conversation: Leave Twitter tabs open for "live" social interaction #46 - Create a social media contest page with viral features
· Email marketing

Email can be tough and unforgiving compared to other online mediums (once you hit send, your message is committed to the ether, never to be undone except throughthe use of the apologetic “Iscrewed up” follow-up email. Instead oftalking about writing emails, I’ll focus your noob experience on cooler concepts like drip campaigns - which can make the difference between an actively engaged audience and a legion of prospects who’ve forgotten what youdo.

#4 - Choose an online email provider
#5 - Create a branded email template
#17 - Set up a drip campaign for acquisition, education & retention #24 - Segment and create lists
#40 - A/B test your emails

· Lead Generation

How do you do email market ing if you haveno one to email? That’s where leadgen comes in.We’lldiscuss methods forgrowing your email lists by writing eBook’s,presenting webinars andsimply byaskingpeople to follow your blog.

#6 - Set up a Feedburner account to capture & track RSS readers #7 - Gather emails for a product launch
#25 - Answer questions on LinkedIn & Quora
#33 - Give something away in exchange for customer data

· Organic search marketing

I have to tread carefully here as the SEOmoz community is probably the most engaged and knowledgeable SEO crowd on the planet (yes I’msuckingup). Here I coversome of thetechniques that I’veused to besuccessfulat managing my organic search and building a natural ecosystem that encourages link building success.

S M A R T T R A V E L o n l i n e

Steven Chester
Broker for ZamZuu, Inc.
Email: smart2travelonline@gmail.com Phone: 484.354.2014

For more on our Broker opportunity please visit: www.zamzuu.biz/smarttravelonline

#8 - Set up Google Webmaster Tools
#9 - Research and define your core organic search keywords #18 - Architect your blog for search - choose targeted categories #19 - Use SEOmoz campaigns to track your search progress #41 - Link building

· Conversion rate optimization (CRO)

Think of 5 lanes of traffic driving across a bridge. This is your inbound traffic (often paid for) wanting to cross boundaries just to reachyou. If your intendeddestinationpage isn’t optimized for their specific needs, you may as well knock 2 lanes out of the bridge and let the cars fall into the river. CRO is all about making sure the other side of the bridge leads tooptimizeville, where there’s onlyone thing to do and it's really obvious how to do it.

#26 - A single purpose and CTA for every page
#34 - Rate your pages with the conversion scorecard #42 - A/B test your landing pages
#43 - Try a 5 second test
#47 - Learn from your users using feedback widgets & live chat #48 - Segment inbound traffic sources

· Analytics

There’s a reason analytics is represented bygrey inthe wheel. It’s dull. Untilyou get it right that is. Analytics contain so much hidden awesomeness, that when you get it hooked up everything else becomes much easier including getting buyin frommanagement to do “fancy-pants”things like CRO above.

#10 - Set up a Google Analytics account
#11 - Establish conversion goals and funnels
#12 - Annotate important events in Google Analytics #20 - Add custom reports to your Google Analytics dashboard #35 - Discover under-performing areas of your site

S M A R T T R A V E L o n l i n e

Steven Chester
Broker for ZamZuu, Inc.
Email: smart2travelonline@gmail.com Phone: 484.354.2014

For more on our Broker opportunity please visit: www.zamzuu.biz/smarttravelonline
· Content marketing

Content isn’t kinganymore it’s more like the emperor. Content is thestart, middle and end of your online marketing story and is critical to virtually everythingyou do. By theend ofthis courseyou’llbe writingonyour corporate blog, guest blogging, writing eBooks, getting your publishing schedule organized with an editorial calendar and even attempting the mighty infographic.

#13 - Start a corporate blog & give your knowledge away for free #14 - Submit your content to social hubs
#15 - Bookmark your content on delicious
#21 - Set up an editorial calendar
#22 - Enable social sharing mechanisms
#27 - Write an ebook
#36 - Write guest posts for other blogs
#44 - Write about others to build relationships
#49 - Create an infographic

· Paid search marketing (pay-per-click or PPC)

PPC is the fastest way to get instant traffic to your site. However, it's hard to do well, s o we'll wait until month 3 to tackle it. The majorityof Google’s AdWords users go bustontheir free $100 voucher with nothingbut asour taste in their mouths. I’llgive yousome tips ondoing it right and abackup plan for letting theexperts takeover if you can’t figure itout.

#28 - Create a Google AdWords account
#29 - Send traffic to landing pages - not your homepage! #37 - One landing page per ad group
#38 - Improve message match for a high quality score #50 - Get some help from a PPC expert

YOUR 6-MONTH MARKETING ACTION PLAN Ready? Set? Go.......!
S M A R T T R A V E L o n l i n e

Steven Chester
Broker for ZamZuu, Inc.
Email: smart2travelonline@gmail.com Phone: 484.354.2014

For more on our Broker opportunity please visit: www.zamzuu.biz/smarttravelonline

 

Getting started is all about establishing your network base. Registering accounts and defining your style (always a good idea before you start yammering in a tone unbefitting your brand). This might well be the busiest month of the course, but that’s how itshould be. Take your excitement and enthusiasmand kickthings off as fastas youcan. Thesooner your infrastructure is in place the sooner you can start marketing your business and that’s why we’reallhere.

1. CLAIM YOUR BRAND

To avoid having your brand name taken by someone else (brand squatters with an egg avatar that are only followed by their moms are everywhere), you should set up branded accounts on the important social networks as soon as possible. Visit the following sites to claim yours, and do it today:

· Twitter.com/youryourbrandname
· YouTube.com/yourbrandname
· Flickr.com/yourbrandname (for storing your photos, graphics and infographics - for organic image search value) · LinkedIn/yourbrandname (as a business hub that's bigger than just you)
· Facebookcom/yourbrandname

S M A R T T R A V E L o n l i n e

Steven Chester
Broker for ZamZuu, Inc.
Email: smart2travelonline@gmail.com Phone: 484.354.2014

For more on our Broker opportunity please visit: www.zamzuu.biz/smarttravelonline
NOOB INSIGHT: Facebook is trickier than the rest as you have to complete a few other steps before you can be granted a brandedvanity URL. I’llexplain thenecessarysteps in tasks #30 and #32).

 

2. SET UP YOUR TWITTER ACCOUNT

 

Design a branded Twitter background: The new Twitter is considerably wider than it used to be (you'll notice a lot of branded backgrounds are covered up which looks a little silly), so the primary left side branding area of your background needs to be very slim. For screen resolutions of 1280p x (fairly commonplace these days) - you are limited to roughly only 108p x for the core part of your branded background design and messaging. More details on background designs for the new Twitter.

If you have a little more space (customers with larger screens), you could stretch to about 200px and do something like Shopify has done noticehowthey’vebalanced their topgreenstripetoalign tidily withthe Twitter app layout.
S M A R T T R A V E L o n l i n e

Steven Chester
Broker for ZamZuu, Inc.
Email: smart2travelonline@gmail.com Phone: 484.354.2014

For more on our Broker opportunity please visit: www.zamzuu.biz/smarttravelonline

 

They also do a great job establishing social proof by showing the logos of big name brands that use their platform.
Set up your profile: Describe your core value proposition in your profile description and add a link to your website in the available slot. You should use a few choice keywords in your bio as this will help people to find you via Twitter search.

Photo or logo for your avatar? If you representing your company on Twitter then how you use your logo for your Twitter avatar will depend on how many people in your company will be public representatives of theaccount. If it’s just you, you couldgo with your ownphotoor trycombining asmallversionof your logobeneath your photo. If you’llbe sharing the roleof chief tweetingofficer, then it’s best togo with the logoby itself. The typicalmethod for identifying who’s talking is to add your initials tothe tweet for me (Oli Gardner) I’d use ^og.

S M A R T T R A V E L o n l i n e

Steven Chester
Broker for ZamZuu, Inc.
Email: smart2travelonline@gmail.com Phone: 484.354.2014

For more on our Broker opportunity please visit: www.zamzuu.biz/smarttravelonline
In the past I used just the logo, but for a more personal touch (as my name has become better known in the landing page industry) I'm trying out the photo/logo mix as shown below.

 

What do you think of this approach?
NOOB INSIGHT: Nobody trusts accounts that have the default Twitter egg avatars. Change it immediately. It doesn't need to be perfect - just throw your logo or face up there on day 1.

 

3. HAVESOMETHING TO SAY - DEFINE YOUR STYLE

Ideally you will be creating content via your blog, which gives you the starting point of a conversation, or at the very least, something to talk about and share. There are a three main categories of communication. Your choice of approach will come down to how much of an expert you want to be on a subject, and how busy you want your content stream to be.

· Creators:people whoshare content they’ve written. Let’s you become known as a thought leader. · Curators: Curation in thesocialspacehas beendefined as “curation is the act ofsynthesizing and interpreting in ordertopresenta complete record of a concept” (Jamie Beckland). To help your curation strategy and become a valuable resource subscribe to lots of relevant content and use a service like feedly.com or Google Reader to consume it - then provide insightful commentary on the content as you share it to help people gauge the value of the links you are sharing.

S M A R T T R A V E L o n l i n e

Steven Chester
Broker for ZamZuu, Inc.
Email: smart2travelonline@gmail.com Phone: 484.354.2014

For more on our Broker opportunity please visit: www.zamzuu.biz/smarttravelonline

· Chatterboxes: are people who simply engage in conversation for the majority of their stream. I personally find this a bit old-school Twitter - when it was about what you were eating for breakfast etc. Unless you are a celeb, it's unlikely you can start out this way successfully - but you should still try to incorporate some personal aspects into your Tweets to remain human and interesting.

NOOB INSIGHT: Give your writing room to breath - Leave about 20 characters at the end of your tweets to let people retweet it without having to edit your literary work of short art. (Retweeting often entails inserting RT @yourname into your text which takes up some space).

What's your style?

What kind of style do you enjoy following? What worked for someone you'd like to emulate? You can't fake awesome, but it helps to define your intentions a little before you start pushing your personal and company brand. At the end of the day, it's best to do what comes naturally to you.

"Authenticity rules" as they say.

 

4. CHOOSEAN ONLINE EMAIL PROVIDER

If you’re thinking “Really? Ihave to open yet another account with another 3rdparty?” - then the answer is yes. Why? Because you only have two other options: build an in-house system or use Outlook/Gmail. The first makes you responsible for deliverability rates and CAN-SPAM compliance issues and the other has none of the power or flexibility to maintain lists and is not designed for serious marketing. Trust me, if you’re going do emailmarketing - go with the pros. It doesn’t have to bedifficult or expensive.