How to generate leads using search and social

How to Generate Leads Using Search and Social Media

Twitter: @brianjcarroll @marketingsherpa

Twitter Hashtag: #b2bleadgen

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Background: How to Generate Leads Using Search Engines and Social Media Sites

Based on 2011 Search Marketing Benchmark Report – SEO Edition

2200 Survey participants

First time, published two editions: SEO and PPC

Follow Conversation on Twitter #b2bleadgen

How to Generate Leads Using Search Engines and Social Media Sites ‐ Agenda

Why search and social?Effectiveness of SEO and social media on lead generation and other business objectives

Actual benefits of integrating social media into search campaigns

Top 5 practices for integrating search and social for lead generation

Case study – Acoustics by Design

Utilizing search innovations for lead generationReal impact of search innovations

How to optimize for search innovations


Majority Integrating Search and Social MediaDoes your organization integrate social media with search engine marketing?

Not currently integrating search

and social? You’re in the minority

Marketers in strategic phase

much more likely to integrate

What’s the pay‐off?


The Effectiveness of SearchIn your experience, how effective has SEO been at accomplishing these

marketing objectives for your organization?

SEO is perceived as aneffective tactic in achieving a number of impactful marketing objectives

Improvements in soft metrics leads to improvements in bottom‐line metrics


The Effectiveness of Search and SocialIn your experience, how effective has SEO and social media been at

accomplishing these marketing objectives for your organization?

SEO perceived as more

effective accomplishing hard

objectives: traffic, leads, sales

Social perceived as more

effective accomplishing soft

objectives: branding and PR

As social matures,

perception will change


The Importance of Integrating Social Media Increases the amount of SEO friendly content on the web

Generates inbound links

Increases the number of listings in the SERP’s

Improves the quality of your website’s traffic

Improves search conversion rates


Social Impacts Organic Search PerformanceWhat is your organization’s conversion rate for organic traffic?

Search marketers who integratesocial media achieve a 59% better rate of conversion. Also…

Increase the amount of SEO friendly content on the web

Generate inbound links

Increase the number of listings in the SERP’s

Improve the quality of your website’s traffic


Social Impacts PPC PerformanceWhat is your organization’s click through and conversion rates for PPC traffic?


Search and Social Media IntegrationResearch of search and social marketing practices

Key finding: Search and social have incredible synergy

Must have a social media process in place prior to integrating with SEO

“First, we identify the social media platforms that our target audience is using. Then, we research what our primary and secondary competitors are doing in terms of SEO and Social Media.“


Best Practice #1: Coordinate Teams

Search Team Social Team

Target keywords

Social trends


Best Practice #2: Optimize Social Content

Optimize social media profilesSocial profiles will be indexed in search resultsDescribe your company using brand keywordsUse your brand name for your account name whenever possible

Consistency = recognition & results

Optimize social media communications

Optimize tweets, status updates, blog posts, etc. with target keywords


Best Practice #3: Generate Inbound Links from Social Media Sites

All link building begins with quality content

Useful, relevant, current & engagingEnable sharing

Syndicate your contentInclude links in social communications

Links placed on facebook and twitter are “nofollow” but there is still value you can realize by including the linkOptimized anchor textURL shorteners

Target social news and bookmarking sitesDigg, reddit, delicious

Empower brand advocates


Best Practice #4: Protect your Online Reputation

Manage PR through social AND search


Protect your Online ReputationUse a social monitoring tool

Free tools: SocialMention, Twitter Search, facebook Insights, Google Alerts and Real Time Search

Paid tools: Radian6, Omniture


Best Practice #5: Encourage Social Networking on your Website

Create company blogs

Encourage comments, ratings and reviews

Be open to search engines

Prevent link spam

Add a wealth of relevant content by hosting social features and fostering an online community right on your site


MarketingSherpa Case Study: Integrating Social Media to Reap SEO Gains

Acoustics by Design

Acoustical consulting firm withlimited marketing resources

•Healthcare•Education•Industrial

How they developed a blog strategy and corralled multiple authors to write timely posts


Integration Campaign Objectives

Create keyword rich content to improve SEO performance

Establish reputation as an industry though leader

Increase lead generation and conversion


Campaign Tactic: Planning Editorial Targets

Identify target audiences

Create keyword list for blog content that fills gaps in current web SEO

Create editorial calendar for a year of blog posts on keyword related topics


Campaign Tactic: Recruiting Authors

“After I pulled all the knives out of my chest and started talking about

doing blogs for which everyone would only need to prepare a post once

every 6‐8 weeks, the conversation went

a lot better.”– Kenric Van Wyk, President

and Principle Acoustical Engineer, Acoustics by Design

Creating sufficient volume of content a big challenge

Enlisted engineering teamto write blogs and gain thought‐leadership status

Won acceptance by minimizing workload


Campaign Tactic: Streamlining Content

Allowed authors to select from a list of relevant topics

Provided writing guidelines to streamline process

Assigned an editor to review writing and optimize posts


Campaign Tactic: Share Results

Recognize thought‐leadership status of bloggers with bylines

Analyze comments, inbound links, and other SEO gains

Include exceptional blog posts in company newsletter for recognition


Campaign Results

Blog generating 53% of natural search visits

Shared content positioning Acoustics by Design as thought leader on industry social media sites

Lead volume and rate of conversions increased


The Real Impact of Search Innovations on Lead Generation

Major search engines are responding to the rapidly growing popularity of social media as a marketing tactic by developing and releasing various search engine innovations to improve the experience of end users and advertisers alike

ld

“Our greatest challenge is getting high rankings for generic terms within our industry. Personalized search could have a large impact as well.”


The Real Impact of Search InnovationsHow do you think the following search innovations will impact your business In the

next 1 – 5 years?

Personalized search has created much speculationamong the SEO industry

Real time search and social marketing

Social media users anticipate the greatest impact from all search innovations across the board


Optimize for Search Innovations – Mobile Search

Mobile search refers to the use of web search functionality on mobile deviceswith wireless internet connections

Mobile search has increased the reach of search engines by adding another point of access for search engine users

Mobile search is still in it’s infancy as a marketing tactic

56% of respondents indicated that they had not yet received any impact from mobile search


Optimize for Search Innovations – Mobile Search

Know your appsResearch apps on major device manufacturers websites, and the websites for phone operating systems

Optimize more types of contentMobile search applications are accepting more than text‐based queries

ShazamSnapTell

Signal your location Attract local business

Include address in website code using hCard microformatting

Optimize your current siteTake advantage of the history with search engines, current traffic and inbound linksOriginal content will out rank duplicate content

Keep sites clean and simpleThe mobile web is not yet sophisticated enough for complex websites

Keep keywords shortKeep lead forms short and simple


Optimize for Search Innovations – Real Time Search

Real time search refers to a searchengine’s ability to index newly published web content as it is being published with virtually no delay, or in real time

Real time search can have a great impact on organizations by allowing search engine users to access newly created and published content.

Promotions & time sensitive content can now be distributed through organic searchSocial media content


Optimize Social Communications for Real Time Search

Develop keyword optimized content for social media

Join the conversationResearch hot topics and latest trends that are relevant to your business

Post frequentlyUtilize social tools to schedule tweets orstatus updates ahead of time

Recruit brand advocates


Optimize for Search Innovations – Personalized Search

Personalized search refers to a search engine’s capability to personalize search results based on the last 180 days of a search engine users’ search habits

Previously visited sitesInterpreting search queries

Personalized search is expected tohave a negative impact on SEO by limitingthe number of impressions their organic listings receive


Optimize for Search Innovations – Personalized Search

Drive more traffic to your site – now!

Email blastsEncourage bookmarkingPPCEtc.

Engage web visitorsRelevant, useful, engaging contentFrequently add a new variety ofcontent

Rank checking is even less reliable


Optimize for Search Innovations – Video Search

Search engines have responded to the growing popularity of video beingutilized for marketing and business purposes by developing video search, or the capability to crawl and index video content.

Video content is now being indexed and ranked on the first page of the search results when relevant

Video search is in it’s infancy as a marketing tactic

52% of organizations indicated that they had not yet received any impact from video search


Optimize for Search Innovations – Video Search

Create great contentRelevance and usefulnessKeep it short

Optimize video content with target keywords

Video sharing sitesOn‐page content & surrounding HTMLLinks

Attract viewers & maximize viewsVideo thumbnailsEnable sharing

Encourage comments and ratings


How to Generate Leads Using Search Engines and Social Media Sites

Why search and social?SEO and Social rated as effective tactics in achieving hard & soft business objectivesSocial impacts search campaigns by improving rankings, increasing listing quantity, and improving click through and conversion rates

Top 5 practices for integrating search and social for lead generation

Coordinate search and social teamsOptimize social contentGenerate inbound links from social media sitesProtect your online reputationEncourage social networking on your site

•Utilizing Search Innovations for Lead Generation

•Real time search•Mobile search•Personalized search•Video search


Thank You & Questions

Jen DoyleMarketingSherpa

[email protected]://www.marketingsherpa.com

@JenLDoyle

Todd LeboMarketingSherpa

[email protected]://www.marketingsherpa.com

@TodLebo

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How to generate leads using search and social