Marketing Guide 3: Online Marketing

Transcription

1 Marketing Guide 3: Online Marketing Online marketing is an extremely valuable tool. After all, you do have an online business! In this manual we will cover some of the many ways that you can market yourself effectively online. 1

2 Table of Contents Section 1: Setting Up Pages 2-6 Section 2: Google Analytics 7-9 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories Pages Section 4: AdWords/PPC Pages Section 5: Social Networking Pages Conclusion: Page 54 2

3 Section 1: Setting Up The first thing we suggest you do is to create a free account dedicated to your site that will be used for all of your online accounts. We highly suggest that you do not use your info@ account; by using a separate account, you reduce the amount of spam that you ll receive. You can use Gmail, Yahoo or Bing, or whichever free service you d like. We prefer Gmail simply because Google will be one of your primary outlets for online advertisement. 3

4 Section 1: Setting Up After you have created your account you will use it to create online profiles for your website on various social networking sites, as well as other online services. You should create these profiles now, as we will be using these different profiles periodically throughout this guide. Create profiles for your site using your new account. Click the links below and it will take you to the appropriate sign up page for that site. 4

5 Section 1: Setting Up Create profiles for your site using your new account. Click the links below and it will take you to the appropriate sign up page for that site. Google Bing Yahoo Facebook Twitter 5

6 Section 1: Setting Up We highly recommend adding Google Analytics to your site. Analytics is a great tool that will help you with your online campaigns. Analytics tracks the traffic to your site and gives you a detailed report of where that traffic came from, how long they were on your site, how many pages they looked at and much more. 6

7 Section 2: Google Analytics Step 1: Go to google.com and log in using your new account information. Clicking your name in the upper-right hand corner will bring down a menu. Select the option Account Settings. You may want to bookmark this page, as you ll be using it on a regular basis. Step 2. If you do not see link labeled Analytics Click HERE to take you directly to the analytics page. Click sign up now and enter your password. Click the button labeled Sign Up towards the bottom left of the screen. 7

8 Section 2: Google Analytics Step 3. Enter your site s URL ( and set your time zone. On the next page, enter your name and select the United States as your location. Agree to the terms and click the button labeled Create New Account. Step 4.The final page will show you a stream of code that will look very similar to this: <script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq []; _gaq.push(['_setaccount', 'UA ']); _gaq.push(['_trackpageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createelement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = (' == document.location.protocol? ' : ' + '.googleanalytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getelementsbytagname('script ) 8

9 Section 2: Google Analytics Copy the piece of code into a NotePad or Word document and save as YourDomain Analytics Code. If you plan to use AdWords (which we will be covering later in this guide) make sure to check the box I want to track AdWords. Step 5.Go to the site mods form and put in a request to have Analytics added to your site. This is a one time fee of $10. Then the.txt document with your analytics code to support@printinginabox.com. 9

10 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories Whether users search from their computer or use a smart phone, one of the most used platforms for finding businesses are maps programs. All of the major search engines allow you to create a profile that will be associated with their results when people are searching for services relevant to your business. These profiles are free to create and maintain. In this section we will navigate through the major map applications and additional directories that will help increase your relevance and visibility through these programs. 10

11 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories In the beginning of this guide, we said that Google would be one of your primary outlets for online marketing. Google offers one of the strongest maps programs, called Places. Go back to your Google Account Settings interface, which you should have bookmarked (if not, see slide 5). You should see a link labeled Places. If you do not see this selection available click HERE. Your address should already be inputted for you and the password will be same as your other Google accounts. The next page will require you to add a phone number. This will be the phone number that potential clients will use to contact you, so make sure that you are entering the number you want used for this. 11

12 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories The next page is for basic information. Enter your company name, your address (this will require a physical address, not a PO Box), your site s URL, and a brief description of your company and the products and services that you offer. You can enter in up to 5 categories. The relevant categories that Google offers are: Print Shop, Commercial Printer and Promotional Product Supplier. This will leave you with 2 open categories, so feel free to put what ever you d like there. You have the option of not showing your address by selecting Don t show my address. 12

13 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories The final page will show you the address you entered and ask you to confirm. A postcard will be sent to this address to validate the listing. When you receive this postcard you have to login and enter the code listed on the postcard to validate the account, at which point it will go live. After you have created your Places account you will be asked if you have any Offers. An offer is a discount or coupon that you would like to associate with your Places page. This can be the Buy 500 Get 500 Free business card special or a promo code that you have created. 13

14 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories Once the account has been verified with your validation postcard you will be given the option to add Boost to your Places account. Boost is a pay per click system for Places that increases your rankings and makes you more visible. We strongly suggest that you contact clients that you have a good relationship with and invite them to write a review on your places page. Bing has a similar service. Click HERE to get to this interface page. This is a new service offered by Bing and is in experimental mode at this time but is still accepting new accounts. You will be required to create a new account if you do not already have one with MSN or Bing. 14

15 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories You will fill in all of your details including the type of business (we suggest commercial printer), , phone number, address and URL. You will create a profile which will list services, or specialties, that you offer. Set them in order by relevance. We suggest Commercial Printers, Menu Printers & Services, Direct Mail Advertising, Copy Services and Printed Signs. You will create a mobile profile that will allow you to list your top selling products and feature some specials. 15

16 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories You will be allowed to upload photos if you d like. These can be product images or your logo. More details can include a brief written description of your business, languages spoken, payment types accepted and other relevant information. As with Google, you ll receive a postcard with an activation code that must be entered upon receipt at which point your listing will be published. 16

17 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories Yahoo also has a local listing feature; click HERE to get to this interface. As with Bing and Google, you will have to create a profile. Yahoo gives you the option for Basic or Enhanced. The enhanced version has a fee of $9.95 per month and the basic option is free. You will provide your company name, , URL, phone number and address. 17

18 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories You will also be allowed to list a special, hours of operation, up to 5 categories and a brief description of your company. If you opt for the enhanced version you will also be allowed to upload up to 10 photos, have a company logo and tag line associated with your listing and provide a more detailed description of your company. 18

19 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories On the next slide is a list of links to additional directory sites that will help your search engine listings get better rankings and be found easier by users of those sites. The below links will take you directly to the page you need to be on to get started. All of these companies offer free listings and they all have paid services as well. It is up to you if you want to pursue additional services from these companies but we strongly recommend at least setting up your free listing. 19

20 Section 3: Maps/Places/Directories InfoUSA Localeze SuperPages YellowPages Yellowbook Yelp Insider Pages Super Media Match Point City Square Yellowbot BizJournals Merchant Circle BOTW Local Fave Yellowee Hot Frog Kudzu Local.com Judy s Book 20

21 Section 4: Adwords/PPC We all know the power of search engines. We ve already discussed one way of being found through the search engines and this is through maps profiles. Another way to be found is by doing AdWords or Pay-Per-Click (PPC). With PPC, you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad, bringing them to your web site. In this section we will discuss how to set up a campaign, what your ads should look like, the types of key words you should use, and how to rate whether or not a campaign has been successful. 21

22 Section 4: Adwords/PPC At this point, you should have a Google account. Go to your account settings and look for a link labeled AdWords. If it is not listed in your Google products, click HERE and login. The next screen may ask you to create a Google Account. Select I have an address and password I already use with Google services like AdSense, Gmail, Orkut, or igoogle. and I'd like to use my existing Google account for AdWords. and enter your login information again. 22

23 Section 4: Adwords/PPC The next screen will ask you to make three very important selections. Your country should be set to the United States by default; if not, change it to the United States. The second selection will be your time zone. The last and most important selection you must make is the currency for your account. Make sure to select US Dollars. If you do make this selection it will be set to Argentinian Peso and you will have to delete the account and start over. 23

24 Section 4: Adwords/PPC Once you see a page that says Your AdWords account has been created, click the link labeled Sign in to your AdWords account. This will take you to the introduction page of your first campaign. Click Create your first campaign. Name your campaign what ever you would like; for example, your PIAB domain. 24

25 Section 4: Adwords/PPC The next selections are Locations and Languages: Click Select one or more other locations. This will open a new window with a map, with the United States and Canada selected by default. Uncheck these selections. Click the search tab and enter the desired location you would like to target. You can target a state, a city, or zip code. You can add as many different locations as you d like. We suggest starting local and targeting the city you live in. Once you have made all of the selections you would like, click save. 25

26 Section 4: Adwords/PPC The next selection is Networks and Devices. Select Let me choose, which will display more options. Uncheck Display Network this is for more advanced users and should be set up as a separate campaign. Leave devices as is. Bidding and Budget are next. Click Automatic bidding and check CPC bid limit and enter something between $.85 and $1.50 for your bid limit. You can then select a daily budget. We suggest a range of $10.00-$ Google will automatically take your budget and allocate a monthly total budget. This means that you may exceed your daily budget on a specific day but you will not go over the allotted monthly budget. 26

27 Section 4: Adwords/PPC Ad extensions are the last selection you will make on this page. Here you will have the option to link your ads to your Places account and display information such as your phone number or address along with your ad. This is up to you if you would like to add these. You can skip the Advanced Settings for now. On the next page you will set up your first ad. This will be the first ad for ad group one. We suggest making multiple ad groups based on different products and making the keywords and ad copy coincide with the ad group product. For this example, we ll make ad group one Business Cards. 27

28 Section 4: Adwords/PPC You will be given 3 lines to input text and build your ad. There is a line for a headline and descriptions on lines 1 and 2. Your headline should be something that will grab the viewer s attention. Another trick it to have the headline display whatever search term was entered by the user. When doing this you must enter a default headline in case the term used is too long; for example: {keyword:500 Free Business Cards!}. You are also welcome to use a static header that will always display with your ad. To do this, you would not use the code {keyword:}. In your description lines you ll want to include an enticement to buy such as a special or discount, or a call to action asking them to do something such as visit your site or order online. 28

29 Section 4: Adwords/PPC (Click Here or Click This are not allowed; also be sure to avoid excessive capitalization as your ad will not be approved) See below for some different examples. 1. {keyword:500 Free Business Cards} Buy 500 business cards get 500 free Order online now, it's fast & easy Destination URL: This should be the link to the product page Example: 2. Cheap Full Color Flyers Save 15% with promo code flyers15 Order now for low cost flyers Destination URL: 3. Need Quality Brochures? Let us help, full color 100# glossy Starting at $139, order online now Destination URL: 4. {keyword:color Pocket Folders} Full color glossy w/ bus card slits Order with code pocket10 & save 10% Destination URL: 5. Full Color Door Hangers Need them fast? We can help! Order now for fast turn around Destination URL: 6. Photo Quality Banners Full color banners w/ grommets Starting at $52, order online now Destination URL: 29

30 Section 4: Adwords/PPC For each ad group, you will give a list of key words that you would like to use. Google will also provide you with suggested key words based on the content of your ads and the links associated with them. Once you have given a list of keywords you will be give an estimated traffic amount and daily budget for those key words. You have several options when it comes to your key words and how they are inputted. They way they are inputted will determine if your ad will show for that word. Here are the options. 30

31 Section 4: Adwords/PPC 1.keyword = broad match (This means if the keyword is used in the search your ad will show. So if you use the word Prints for example but someone is searching for Blue Prints your ad will show but will not be relevant) 2."keyword" = match exact phrase (This means that a variation of exact phrase must be used for your ad to show. For example if you use Full Color Business Cards someone could use the term Business Cards Full Color and your ad would be displayed.) 31

32 Section 4: Adwords/PPC 1.[keyword] = match exact term only (This means that the exact word or phrase you have as a keyword must be used in the search for your ad to be displayed. For example [Gloss Tri-Fold Brochures] must be the exact group and order of terms for your ad to be displayed) 2.-keyword = don't match this term (This is what is referred to as a negative keyword, for example. There is a magazine called The Flyer that is distributed in many cities and offers local businesses ad space. This is a frequent search query on Google using the word Flyer so you would want to use negative words -The Flyer, -Flyer Advertising, -Flyer Paper etc.) 32

33 Section 4: Adwords/PPC We suggest using long streaming key words to be as relevant as possible. You want your ads to be shown to customers that are searching for the products and services you offer and you do this by being specific with your key words. If you need help with setting up your campaigns, feel free to give us a call or shoot us an and we will be happy to schedule a consultation with you. We are also a certified AdWords company and have $100 credits we can offer you to let you test the waters and see if AdWords is a good fit for you. 33

34 Section 4: Adwords/PPC Bing/Yahoo (they work on the same network together so if you are doing PPC with one you will be displayed on the other) has a very similar format and structure to Google. We suggest starting with Google and moving on to Bing/Yahoo once you have begun to see results from your Google campaigns. Once you are seasoned with Google and have gained some experience you will be able to easily set up your campaigns on Bing/Yahoo. 34

35 Section 5: Social Networking You most likely have a Facebook page and probably even a Twitter account. These are the two most popular social networking sites at the moment. In this section we will be discussing different ways to use these online tools as a way to market your business and drive traffic to your site. 35

36 Section 5: Social Networking Create a Twitter account specific to your website. Under Full Name enter your domain name as one word. You should use your Gmail account and enter a password that will be easy for you to remember. The next page will confirm the information you have entered and let you know if your user name is available. If it is not, try a variation that is close. After you have confirmed all of the information click create my account. 36

37 Section 5: Social Networking You will be taken to a welcome page that will ask you what your interests are. Make selections that are relevant to your personal interest and of course Business. Doing this will allow Twitter to suggest people that you should follow based on their popularity. We suggest starting out by following around of these suggestions. The next step will give you 5 selections that will allow you to pull contacts from existing or online accounts. When you click Get Contacts, a screen will open asking you to verify permission if you are logged into the account associated with the selection. Once this is done, all of the contacts you have in your or online account will be generated into a list that you will be able to select people from. These people will be asked to follow you. 37

38 Section 5: Social Networking Once the above steps have been completed your profile is ready and you can start personalizing it to fit your company by changing the page background, uploading an image and providing information about your company. You can also start following other Twitter users at this point. The idea is to keep you followers to following ratio about even, or have more followers than people that you re following. In the next section we will be linking your Facebook page with your Twitter account so when you post something on one, it appears on the other. 38

39 Section 5: Social Networking Facebook is the most popular and dynamic of the social networking sites. There is a lot to do and see on Facebook and a lot of people using it all of the time. There are two ways to use Facebook as a marketing tool. The first way is to create a fan page and the second is running a PPC campaign. Creating a fan page is quite easy. You will need to log in into your current Facebook account (create one if you don t already have one). 39

40 Section 5: Social Networking In your left menu page you will see a link labeled Pages. Click this and then select create a page from the upper left hand corner, taking you to an interface with multiple selections. You are creating a Page for either a Local Business or Company/Organization. After you have made your selection you will be have additional options to select from. If you opted for local business we suggest Business Services as your category; if you opted for Business/Organization we suggest Small Business. For Local Business you will be asked to specify your business name, the address and phone number; for Business/Organization you will only be asked for the business name. 40

41 Section 5: Social Networking After you have agreed to the terms and conditions your page will be created. You will then automatically be forwarded to the set up/edit interface of your page. At the top you will see an option to Update Category. If you see selections listed that you want you can just click the button. If not, feel free to make changes. Next you will see Edit Info, where you will provide information about your company, such as products and services you offer, business hours and other information. Facebook will then take you through a series of 5 tasks to complete your page. These will be thoroughly explained or easy to understand as you go through them. 41

42 Section 5: Social Networking Facebook will then take you through a series of 5 tasks to complete your page. These will be thoroughly explained or easy to understand as you go through them. After you have created your Fan Page, when you post on your wall your fans will get a notification that you have posted. We suggest making a post 2 times a day with different promos, offers and specials. 42

43 Section 5: Social Networking Once you have reached 25 fans, you will be given the option to add a Facebook Like button to your website and will be able to choose a web extension. We suggest selecting a web extension that reflects your domain name such as Follow this LINK to set up your Like Button. Uncheck Send Button You will only be completing step 1 for this process. You will paste the URL of your FB Page in the URL to Like field. You can select from three options: select button_count Change width to 100 Uncheck Show Faces Leave Verbal Display at Like Select a color scheme and font Click the button labeled Get Code, which will open a window displaying 2 sets of code. Copy the ifram code, paste it into a text document and it to support@printinginabox.com. 43

44 Section 5: Social Networking You will see a link to the left that says Use Facebook as Page Name. Click this, then towards the top of the screen you will see a message that says Link page to Twitter, click here (you should have created a Twitter account in the last section). Then click Continue as Page Name. This will automatically link your Twitter account with your Facebook so when you post on one, you re posting on both. 44

45 Section 5: Social Networking You can also generate a Follow Us on Twitter button through your Twitter account. You should generate both your Twitter and Facebook buttons at the same time and provide them both together by copying and pasting the codes into a single text document and ing them to support@printinginabox.com. To generate your follow us button, login into your Twitter account. At the bottom of the page you will see a link labeled Resources. Click this which will open a page with four options. Click Create Follow button which will give you your code which is what you ll be copying and pasting into a text document to to support. 45

46 Section 5: Social Networking The second option you have with Facebook is PPC. PPC will allow you to create a text/image ad that can either link to your fan page or your direct website. At the very bottom of your Facebook page there is a link labeled Advertising. By clicking this link, an interface will open. Towards the right hand of the screen you will see a green button that says Create an Ad. Click this button to open the ad creation interface. 46

47 Section 5: Social Networking Your first selection will be Destination, which is where your ad will link to. You will be given the option of external URL or any pages you have associated with your account. If you select external URL another field will appear below the drop down which will allow you to input your domain name. This will also give you the option to allow Facebook to suggest ad content based on the content of your website. This is not the best function but if you re drawing a blank on what to put in your ad, this may be a helpful tool. 47

48 Section 5: Social Networking Next will be the title of your ad. Like your Google ads, you will want to create something that is clear, concise and will entice your audience to view more. Examples: Low Cost Printing, Printing at a Steal, 500 FREE Business Cards, Need Printing Fast? or Let Us Quote Your Print! You will then create the body of your ad or copy. You have 135 characters to create your message. There is a counter just below the box so you know how many characters you have used. Again, you want to have a clear and concise message that will entice your audience to click on the ad. 48

49 Section 5: Social Networking If you chose to have FB give you a suggested ad, there will already be images for you to select from that were loaded from your site. You can use any of these images or opt to upload something else. The size you see it on this screen is the size it will be when displayed as your ad, so be sure to use an image that is easy to see. Next you will set your target audience. You can set it to target a specific city, state or the entire US. You can also set an age range of the people you want to see your ad. We suggest at least 20 years or older. 49

50 Section 5: Social Networking The next field will be where you can target specific users by specific criteria. This is going to be based on interests and information users have provided on their page. As you enter criteria the system will match it to available criteria in the FB system. Some examples you may want to use are Graphic Design, Business Management, Business Owner, Marketing and Sales. You can also opt to switch this feature to Broad Category Targeting. This may be a better option for you. Select Business/Technology and check the box next to Small Business Owners. As you add and change specific criteria you will see the estimated number of people reached fluctuate based on your selections. Leave Connections as Everyone. Leave Advance Demographics as all. You can change Education & Work as you see fit. Keep in mind that not all business owners graduated college. 50

51 Section 5: Social Networking Campaign & Budget is where you will set your cost per click or impression and your daily budget. You can opt to pay for Impressions or Pay for Clicks. We suggest paying for clicks over impressions. CPM means you will pay for every 1000 impressions and will be charged whether someone clicked on your ad or not. Paying per click is easier to track and you are only paying when someone clicks on your ad, not just when they see it. We suggest a daily budget of $5-$25 depending on what makes sense for you. FB will give you a suggested bid for clicks, and we suggest staying within that range. 51

52 Section 5: Social Networking Once you have completed all of the these things your ad will be ready to go live. If you have opted to have the ad link to your URL you will be able to track the your traffic in Google Analytics and cross reference it to the report that FB gives. You can access your FB advertising account by logging into the FB account you used to create the ad, scroll to the bottom and click Advertising. Here you will be able to see how many clicks/impressions you have had and how much you have spent on your campaign. 52

53 Section 5: Social Networking Facebook and Twitter are fairly ubiquitous at the moment, but although they are the most popular of the social networking sites, they are by no means the only options. We have given indepth instruction on these two sites but we encourage you to seek out other options for yourself, as there very well could be a lot of untapped resources available that could help generate a lot of traffic to your site. 53

54 Conclusion Since you have a website built around online ordering, this section has been dedicated to generating traffic to your site. The more visits you get, the more orders you will receive. Use your analytics to track your traffic, see where it is coming from and gauge if what you re doing is working. If you have any questions about the topics covered in this guide please contact your account manager. 54