Marketers now turn to social for product launches

When it comes time to launch a new product, the majority of marketers in the US, the UK, and Australia are now turning to social media.

Five by Five, a marketing communications firm that specializes in product launches, polled more than 700 marketers in these countries and found that nearly three-quarters (74%) of them consider social media to be the highest-priority medium to promote new products.

Sales promotions and email were the second and third most popular launch marketing medium, respectively.

According to Five by Five creative director Martin Flavin:

“Social media has become the most important way to generate buzz for new products and services before they appear. Shareable content and social engagement allow brands to create a groundswell of pre-launch interest in a way no other channel can match.”

Social media is now more popular a launch marketing medium than PR/press, television and direct mail.

Is social enough?

Social's popularity among marketers for product launches isn't just based on the fact that social channels like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat offer access to billions of consumers around the world.

According to Five by Five, social's popularity is also based on the fact that it's a readily accessible medium that marketers can turn to in a pinch, which is increasingly important given that products are being conceived, built and launched much more rapidly than ever before.

In fact, two-thirds of the marketers the firm surveyed indicated that they usually have no more than six months to prep a new product launch, which can make it more difficult to execute launch strategies that rely on mediums that aren't as accessible.

But social isn't necessarily a perfect medium. Despite its accessibility, it can be very difficult for marketers to cut through the clutter on the most popular social channels, and attracting attention is only likely to become more difficult as marketers put the bulk of their eggs in the social media basket.

For those that are able to attract an audience and generate buzz for a new product, that buzz can also be short-lived thanks to the speed with which the social media world moves, so marketers shouldn't expect social buzz to sustain a new product.

Instead, they'll need to plan for a relatively quick transition to post-launch marketing, which will usually include marketing mediums other than social, including search, which as PR Week's Robert Smith notes, has been called a more powerful medium than social by WPP chief Sir Martin Sorrell.

Five powerful lead generation and sales prospecting tools for small businesses

Small businesses struggle to build visibility online due to tight budgets and limited work force.

These five marketing platforms offer small businesses affordable lead generation and sales tools to provide them with some competitive advantage.

Small businesses need lots of support these days. With huge budgets being shifted online by large corporations, competing for the web presence has been harder and harder.

Luckily there are tools that offer great solutions for small businesses making their lives much easier and allowing them to be seen online.

1. Leadfeeder

One of the most pleasant discovering of this year, Leadfeeder has been my recommended tool in a couple of articles already. It is really simple to use, takes seconds to set up and works like a charm. I love the efficiency and simplicity of the tool.

Leadfeeder connects to your Google Analytics and identifies companies behind your site visits. It saves all the data and scores each identified company visit based on how much they have interacted with your site (e.g. repeat visits, how many pages they have viewed before leaving etc.)

• See which companies visited your site, which page they landed on, where they came from and how long they stayed


• See the company contact info and employees (as well as how you are connected to them on LinkedIn)


• Create filters to see company visits based on the source (for example, see company visits which were referred to your site from Twitter) to better customize your pitch


• Receive regular email alerts with the most recent company visits prompting your immediate action (the sooner you pitch, the better chances are they will remember who you are).

Basically, Leadfeeder turns your site visitors into well qualified prospects opening lots of follow-up opportunities for you.

2. Hatchbuck

Hatchbuck is a solid CRM and marketing automation system for small businesses that makes it easy to nurture prospects and drive more sales. Some of the more useful features include:

• The real-time dashboard: see customer activity on the fly. Monitor your contacts' activity: See who's visiting which pages.


• Dynamic tagging to organize your prospects: for example, you can assign a tag to anyone clicking a link in an email you send. This way you can start a campaign or send them another email on that topic.


• The form and link actions to follow-up on clicks, visits and online forms: for example, you can trigger actions based on clicks inside an email.


• Easy email templates that look rich and professional

Hatchbuck prides itself on having the best customer service (which customers seem to agree upon) which already makes it worth exploring. They offer free real-time demo allowing you to make up your mind if it fits your needs.

They are also quite affordable and easy to understand which makes it a perfect solution for small businesses that have limited sales budget and no in-house engineering departments.

3. DrumUp Employee Advocacy Feature

There's one marketing opportunity most small businesses fail to be willing to benefit from: utilizing their whole teams to capture and nurture leads.

Luckily, this trend is quickly changing as we witness a few really huge companies changing their social media policies to give their teams more freedom and encourage their employees to vouch for them online.

According to Inc, a well set-up employee advocacy program is able to to result in 5x more traffic and 25% more leads.

DrumUp is a cool social media management platform giving any company all the necessary tools to organize employees' social media activity and turn them into brand advocates.

• You can connect your blog, press or other content feeds to DrumUp. As soon as a new article is added to the feed, it is automatically broadcast to employees for them to easily share across multiple social media channels.


• Set up monthly contests to reward most active and eager employees. DrumUp offers easy and transparent leaderboard tracking for that.

4. Linkedin Sales Navigator

LinkedIn has really been pushing their Sales Navigator, a premium service that gives users greater control over the site's features. It also provides products for sales prospecting, lead generation, B2B networking, and more.

According to their stats, signing up for the Sales Navigator increases productivity by 80%, and vastly improves sales results. Users (they claim) will be 51% more likely to meet their quotas. It includes better communication with targets, so that is at least one benefit you can find from it.

They don't go based on teams, but instead on individual seat pricing. Each member is $79.99 per month, and it includes a premium LinkedIn profile.

Here's a solid tutorial guiding you through Sales Navigator feature.

• Find and organize leads: use a useful search feature to find leads, save them and keep an eye on their updates


• Build B2B contacts: save companies in your account which allows you to track new leads, follow updates and receive company news so you're well-informed before your first conversation with a prospect


• Utilize your employees' connection: Use TeamLink to filter your search results to see bridged or team connections. If TeamLink identifies a personal connection between your prospect and a team member, you can ask a mutual connection for an introduction.

5. Cyfe

Cyfe is my go-to tool on so many levels which is almost unbelievable. I use it to track my social media channels, keep an eye on my customer service teams, monitor my site performance and more. Cyfe can be used to create a powerful lead generation.

Create a separate dashboard with one or many of the following widgets to keep an eye on different aspects of your lead generation process:

• Google Analytics real time visits


• Google Analytics most recent referrals


• Zendesk tickets


• Optin stats and recent subscribers (Many email marketing platforms are supported, others can be connected via API)


• Recent leads and prospects

Cyfe is surprisingly affordable which makes it a perfect monitoring solution for small businesses.

Are there any other tools that belong in this list? Let me know in the comments!

What is an exact match domain (EMD) and why does Google want to punish them?

In which we describe what an exact match domain (EMD) looks like, how they can manipulate search rankings and why you should avoid them.

What is an exact match domain (EMD)?

An EMD is a domain name that precisely matches a search query that will likely drive traffic to your website. For instance, if you call your website BuyCheapJeansOnline.com.

The search query 'buy cheap jeans' is a lucrative search term, and if you call your website this then you might assume this is a short cut to the top of a search engine results page (SERP).

But as you'll learn, even if this works in the short term, you'll still want to avoid doing it.

What's the problem with EMDs?

First of all, it's the surest sign of a spammy website if its URL exactly matches a search term. Just think of all those 'watch movies for free' websites that proliferate SERPs when you search for that phrase.

Even if you remove the word 'free' and search for 'watch movies online', the SERP is a wild west town full of unsavoury characters.

You have to scroll halfway down the page before you get to legitimate streaming companies like Crackle or Hulu. And Netflix barely makes a dent.

Most domains from legitimate companies will take its name from the brand name itself, with perhaps a single keyword they may hope to rank for. As long as its in the brand name. To use Graham Charlton's example: glassesdirect.com.

EMDs have been long thought of as having an unfair advantage.

As opposed to websites that rise to the top of Google through quality content, solid architecture, trusted backlinks and assorted other white hat best practices, Exact Match Domains can just rise to the top by shoe-horning in a few tasty keywords.

Bill Slawski wrote in 2011:

“A company may attempt to “trick” the search engine into listing the company's website more highly. For example, if the search engine gives greater weight in ranking results to words used in the domain name associated with websites, a company may attempt to trick the search engine into ranking the company's listing more highly by including desirable search terms in the domain name associated with the company's listing.”

It's basically unfair to the legitimate companies, and risky for the user.

A paid-for film streaming service offering the best possible user experience and security is surely preferable to one that will download malware to your hard-drive and take you through all sorts of unsavoury black hat practices.

But as you can see from the examples above, Google hasn't quite got it right just yet.

What is Google doing about EMDs?

In 2012, Google's then Head of Webspam Matt Cutts announced an algorithm change meant to reduce the amount of low quality exact match domains in search results.

Cutts also tweeted, “New exact-match domain (EMD) algo affects 0.6% of English-US queries to a noticeable degree. Unrelated to Panda/Penguin.”

However things went a bit quiet on the EMD front post 2012, until this past weekend when Search Engine Roundtable reported a few interesting tweets sent Google's Gary Illyes on Friday.

It seems Illyes is on the hunt for spammy EMDs once again…

@gfiorelli1 @pedrodias @aleyda @pelogia It's funny you say that! I was hunting for (bad) EMDs for the past two weeks without much luck :)

- Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) November 25, 2016

And is asking for assistance too…

@gfiorelli1 @aleyda @pelogia OK, I'll go public (already asked a bunch of folk in private): if you see spammy EMDs, send them my way.

- Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) November 25, 2016

How do I stay on the right side of Google?

There are plenty of examples of EMDs that manage to stay high on the SERPs without fear of penalty – cheapflights.com being one of the more high profile examples.

It does this by being a legitimate non-spammy operation.

And that's really all you need to worry about. As Illyes also stated on Friday…

@gfiorelli1 @aleyda @pelogia there is no inherent problem with EMDs. The problem is when it's combined with other spam tactics

- Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) November 25, 2016

If you're a low quality site, with an EMD and you're engaging in spammy tactics – then you should definitely worry.

If you're a solid, genuine business that just happens to have a brand name that also looks like an exact match domain, but is otherwise a bastion of trustworthy internet practices – then you should be fine.

How search and email acquisition campaigns benefit both channels

Search and email are good marketing partners because they make each other more productive. Add a layer of “big data,” and you have a firm foundation for digital marketing success.

Take email acquisition, for example. Instead of just going it alone, email and search teams should partner up on PPC ads to build email acquisition.

“Email + search” not “email versus search”

Why spend a few bucks on a PPC campaign to acquire new customers through email when your website has opt-in forms all over it?

Because it can deliver a higher-quality stream of customers: people who are truly interested in your brands but might not discover them any other way.

The email address allows you address each consumer individually using data –preferences, behavior or transactions plus data you buy from a third-party provider that shows what your customers do beyond your boundaries.

Acquiring a customer's email address is even more valuable than connecting a click-through to that customer. Plus, it's easier than unwrapping an individual identity from cookies and other identifiers.

That's why acquiring a large base of high-quality email addresses is so important and not something you can leave to chance.

How to set up a PPC acquisition campaign

The goal is to acquire email addresses from search customers who click on your PPC ad offering discounts, freebies or other enticements to people who opt in for your emails.

Build ads using specific keywords, such as “deals” or “coupons” for your brand. Then, build a custom landing page tied to that ad. This is the key component of this campaign. You're selling your customers on what they'll get in exchange for their email addresses:

• Tell customers what to expect and when, such as like daily sales alerts, weekly tips and tricks, company/brand news or whatever would appeal to your customers.


• Post a sample of your best newsletter.


• Show the benefits: VIP access to special events, special content or discounts just for subscribers, etc.


• Provide a form that collects more than just name and email address. It could be birth date, mailing address, postal code, preferences – anything that fits your brand and would let you start segmenting and targeting messages immediately.

Don't break the budget

Start with three search campaigns keyed to terms such as “discount,” “deal,” “coupon” or whatever works for your brands. Your custom landing page can serve all three campaigns. Test it with a daily cap of maybe $50, and see what happens.

Even if only one or two people sign up every day, your experiment hasn't failed. Adjust your campaigns based on what you've learned. Try different keywords, ad copy and incentives. Review your landing page. Does it reflect the language in your search ads? Use responsive design so that the page works as well on a mobile phone as it does on a desktop computer.

Benefits: higher quality customers, better data, more insights

Once you acquire enough customers this way you can start experimenting. What would happen if you were stop emailing a segment of the subscribers you acquired through search?

Hold out a random number of customers as your control group, and experiment on the rest.

Study the customers you acquire via search to see if they yield different results from people who subscribe after a conversion (purchase, download) or by opting from your homepage or some random page on your site. Track what they do. Do they buy? Browse? Click on your emails or ignore them?

This is how B2B marketers operate, by the way. By adopting their tactics, you can become more precise in your targeting, content, calls to action and analytics. In other words, when you know more about each of your customers, you market better, use resources more wisely and generate better results for your company.

Quality beats quantity

Data informs how you identify your customers and how you use that data to target them. Without accurate information, you have to work much harder. That's why genuine email addresses are so important in this giant data universe.

Email is at the center of that universe. It holds the key to the future of advertising to identifiable consumers. Address quality has to beat quantity because quality has so much more extension, and quantity does not.

Five most interesting search news stories of the week

Welcome to our weekly round-up of all the latest news and research from the world of search marketing and beyond.

Whether you're taking a break from Black Friday shopping mania, recovering from a post-Thanksgiving food coma, or just getting on with your normal working day because you're in one of those boring countries that doesn't celebrate Turkey Day (*raises hand*), we've got all of the most up-to-the-minute search news for your reading pleasure.

This week, Google has released some canny changes to AdWords ahead of Black Friday, introverts have a new best friend in the form of real-time Popular Times data, and we take a look at the steps Facebook has taken so far to tackle the issue of fake news.

Google releases new AdWords improvements and stats ahead of Black Friday

As retailers around the world look to cash in on the annual shopping frenzy that is Black Friday, you can be sure that Google, at least, will be raking it in. Ahead of this year's Black Friday, Google has released additional store visits data to the AdWords location extension, allowing retailers to see exactly how far away people are from their store when they perform a search.

It also published a bumper crop of Black Friday data with shopping searches and foot traffic trends for 2016, in a move that will benefit both physical and digital retailers alike.

Christopher Ratcliff reported for Search Engine Watch this week on exactly how the AdWords improvements work, as well as some key findings from the Black Friday data.

Google adds real-time data to its Popular Times tool in Search and Maps

If, like me, you're a hard-core hermit introvert who hates to set foot outside unless absolutely necessary, good news! Google has a function that's tailor-made for you.

Google's Popular Times feature in Search and Maps has always been convenient for checking when a business is typically busy, helping you to avoid the rush. But now, the feature works in real-time, allowing you to see whether a bar or restaurant is busy right at that moment so you can decide whether or not to leave the house.

Christopher Ratcliff took a closer look at the new functionality this week, including the ability to see how long people typically stay at any given location, and an improved 'operating hours' feature for business, service providers and restaurants within larger premises.

Google's rich cards have expanded to restaurants and online courses

What's that, you say? You want some more Google news? All right! How about the news that Google has now expanded its 'rich cards' to cover local restaurants and online courses?

Rich cards are a visual carousel of search results in 'card' form which appear underneath search snippets on mobile, allowing users to swipe from one result to the next.

Like rich snippets, they use schema.org structured markup to display content, making it even more important for website owners who want to stay ahead of the game to hop on the schema.org bandwagon.

From standard results to rich snippets to rich cards. Image: Google Webmasters

When rich cards first launched back in May, they were limited to film and recipe searches. Now Google has expanded their repertoire to include restaurants and online courses, as reported by Search Engine Journal's Matt Southern. Google's developer documents for local restaurants and online courses give instructions for website owners on the right structured data to include to trigger rich cards for their business.

Google has also added upgrades to its Structured Data Testing Tool, Search Console and AMP Testing Tool to help developers build and test their new card functionality.

Bing launches new carousel of Black Friday flyers

Not to be outdone, Google's main rival in search has also been making improvements to its own carousel-style feature: the Black Friday flyers carousel. Jennifer Slegg reported for The SEM Post on the new look for Bing's annual Black Friday carousel, which this year is serving ads directly from the brand advertisers instead of via Flipp, its partner of last year.

Image: The SEM Post

Bing is still showing ads above the carousel for retailers who want to target Black Friday keywords, but is limiting those to only two spots.

While the flyers themselves are eye-catching, they don't provide a lot of useful detail to make shoppers want to click on them, and it would be interesting to see how their CTR compares to regular text ads if Bing decides to release any data. Is the visual alone enough to make people click?

Has Facebook found a way to deal with fake news?

We reported last week in our search news roundup that Google was tackling the widespread issue of fake news online by cutting off their AdSense ad revenue, and Facebook has been close behind.

Tereza Litsa took a look this week at the measures that Facebook has taken to deal with fake news on its site, and whether they are enough to deal with the real issue at heart.

She wrote,

Facebook may not be keen on accepting its responsibility as a curated media publisher (and it doesn't see the platform as such), but it certainly needs to admit how its ambitious plan to reach more people and attract more publishers have their consequences.

The age of social media and the way publishing speed became more competitive is certainly the main reason fact checking became a luxury for many publishers, while users got addicted to an increasing content consumption (and a filter bubble that serves the relevancy they like).

Moreover, we are also experiencing a changing nature of media, with the integration of digital technology being demanding and challenging.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Search Engine Watch & ClickZ team

To all of our readers and anyone else who has swung by accidentally thinking that this is an actual search engine (you'll be surprised at how often this happens; you won't be surprised at their most popular search terms), a very happy thanksgiving from us all!

We'll publish a couple more things for Europe tomorrow morning if you do happen to swing by the site. We apologise in advance for the pyjamas and meat-sweats. In the meantime, have a safe and peaceful Thanksgiving.

Network Marketing Know How To Build It

Network Marketing Know How To Build It

via https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtEc-WTq7uPoVuEFP1FEY-Q