I just read an article in this month’s Harvard Business Review that reviewed a study done with college students to measure reading retention.  As the study found, the more difficult the font was to read, the better the retention of the topic was among the students!  Yup, that’s right…the more difficult it was for the students to read, the better they understood and retained the information.  In fact the students that read information printed with difficult fonts had a lift of 14% in their retention rate.

Now we know that this probably wouldn’t work within the online channel as the attention span is exceptionally short and the user isn’t governed by a professor, however, it does make you wonder if utilizing difficult fonts for specific content that we want to ‘jolt’ the user with would have a positive impact.

What do you think, anyone interested in doing some A/B testing on their site to try this out?

We’ve heard it a thousand times, you know you should be able to get more business from the Internet but you just don’t know how, past attempts have delivered minimal results, and you just don’t have time to try and learn about this online stuff.  Where do you go for help and more importantly where do you start?  Well, being a bit biased, where you go for help is a full-service online marketing agency.  Where do you start, you absolutely have to start with a strategy.

We have found that most companies are active in putting together their offline marketing strategies but when it comes to online, it’s mostly ad-hoc.  I’ve written about this problem in the past but it is so important I think it needs to be revisited.  This time, though, I’ve put together a list of reasons that you really need to start with a strategy and if the people that you are talking to about an online marketing effort can’t, won’t or don’t ‘do strategy‘ then find someone that can, will, and does ‘do strategy‘.

5 Reasons You Need A Strategy

1.  Directionless:  If you find yourself just trying random ideas at random times for your online marketing you need a strategy.
2. Don’t Know What Is Working: If you don’t have a strategy you can’t measure effectiveness of integrated campaigns.
3. Differentiation: Using a strategy will set the path to segmenting your message to the right customer at the right time.
4. Un-Optimized: Without a strategy it is impossible to optimize landing pages, blog posts and/or social posts to deliver consistent communications.
5. Wasting Money: Without a strategy your throwing money out the window because your not getting the most out of your efforts.

Over the past 11 years we have had many meetings with potential clients.  Over that time, we have got asked thousands of questions.  So below are the 10 most asked questions.  We hope that this will help you to get to know us at 3 Sixty Interactive a little better.  If nothing else we hope this will help you to find a great company to do your next web project.

1. How did you develop the strategy for my website?
   At 3Sixty Interactive, everything starts with strategy.  We start by discussing with you what your overall marketing strategy is, and how your website fits that strategy.  We sit down with all stake holders and discuss what each needs from the website.  Then we look at the 4 different personalities and three buying stages to get the correct content on your site in the correct location.  We then do a competitive analysis of your direct competitors and other sites that we think we can learn something from.  After gathering all this information we put together some mock ups of the site for you to review, and then we start to collect images and content and begin to develop your site.
2. What other fees are there?
   We do not believe in any hidden fees.  When you get a quote from us, all fees will be detailed for you.  Most of our projects have a monthly fee for hosting and website support.  The support includes updates to the site, analytics of your site, landing page development, training and telephone support.  We also offer post launch services such as Social Media, Email Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and Pay Per Click marketing.
3. How do you review and monitor results?
   Part of our strategy conversation when we start working with you will set benchmarks that are mutually agreed upon to help us monitor how the site is doing.  You will receive a monthly analytics report, and we highly recommend that you meet with us for the first 3-6 months once a month to help monitor the site properly.
4. How do you communicate with your clients?
   We are always available to our clients by phone or email.  Like we stated above we highly recommend that we set up a monthly meeting in the beginning of the site launch to monitor the site.  Once that initial time period is up, we would like to meet with our clients once a quarter to continue to stay update with what they have going on in their business, so that we can support it online.
5. Where do you get your numbers?
   We use many different programs to do our competitive analysis, we do not hide where we got our information, we will be happy to share with you the information when we are working on the strategy part of your site with you.  After the launch all our numbers come directly from the analytics software that we install in your website.
6. What experience do you have with with my industry?
   At 3Sixty Interactive we have experience in many different industry, from non-profits to manufacturing and retail.  We would be happy to share with you our portfolio of work in your industry along with references.
7. What are you doing for me?
   You are the expert in your business, we take the burden of trying to figure out the world of digital marketing, off your shoulders.  Our goal is to increase your business by helping you get quality traffic to your site that we can convert into qualified leads.
8. What is a realistic timeline for visibility?
   There really is no defined timeline to get visibility.  This really depends on how competitive your industry is on the web, how big is your target market, and if you have an existing website.  From our initial strategy meeting until the launch of your site usually takes about 90 days.  From that point on, it will take any where from 3-6 months to start seeing your website show up on the first page of search engines for competitive industries.  We will give you a better idea of when you can see visibility when we are setting up the strategy with you.
9. What else can I do?
   We are set up to take care of all your digital marketing needs.  The only thing we ask is that you bring your expertise from your business background and work with us to help you achieve your online goals.
10. Can I make changes myself or do I need to call you?
    Whatever you are more comfortable with, will work for us.  We have a custom built Content Management System (CMS) that we can set up that you can manage as much or as little as you would like.  We can set up different admin privileges, to keep your site safe.  If you would rather have us take care of changes that is available and is included in our support package.

Here at 3Sixty Interactive we look at a lot of websites, especially while doing a competitive analysis for our clients.  The biggest weakness that we see in many of the websites, is their lack of a unique value proposition.  They are not telling the readers of their website what makes them different from their competition.  In the fast pace world of the internet when a visitor to your website makes a decision if they are going to continue  working with you or not in about 6 seconds.  It is extremely important to tell them what you do and why they should work with you.  When it comes to telling your customer what you do and how you are different from your competition there is no different from online or off line.  A unique value proposition contains 4 elements.  In 2-3 sentences you need to tell your audience

1.  Your target market
2. #1 benefit of your product or service
3. A description of your product or service
4. What makes you unique in your marketplace.

By no means is this an overnight activity.  Creating your unique value proposition should be done in two phases.  Starting with an internal look at your product/service and your company. Yourself or your team need to take a hard look at what you do, and who exactly is your target market.  Figuring out what makes you unique to your customer can be a very difficult process, it is very important to listen to your customers, they are buying from you for some reason.  Some ways to listen to your current customers is by survey, asking them, or listening to them on social media.  The second phase of creating your unique value proposition is to actually write it out.  This phase seems easier then it is.  To put all the information that you learned in phase one in to 2-3 sentences that make sense is going to take some work.  If this process was easy, then everyone would be doing it, and it would not be a strategic advantage to do it.

Going through this process is going to help you both online and offline.  We are strong believers at 3Sixty Interactive that interactive marketing has the same marketing principals as your off line campaigns.  We start by putting together a strategy that fits your business, and will work with you on a continuous basis to make sure you interactive marketing campaign will succeed.  To find out more about what 3Sixty Interactive can do your for send us email.

Marketing strategies have changed forever, we all are aware of that, however, it’s not just the technology of the moment that is important, it’s all about what you are saying, your content.  Broadcasting a general message to everyone that you can shout to is a recipe for disaster.  Today your audience wants information from you that is relevant to them.

The buying process, today, is a very emotional process in B2C and B2B alike.  There is more at risk and that lends itself to people acting differently than they used to.  So how do you deal with this emotion among buyers?  The best course of action is to eliminate their fear as much as possible buy building trust with them as soon in the buying process as possible.

If your meeting a prospect face-to-face there are a lot of things that you can and probably already do that calms their fears.  You can discuss how you have addressed their concerns in other situations, you can show them evidence to your expertise in your industry as it pertains specifically to your prospect, you can even develop a powerpoint presentation specifically for this prospect prior to your face-to-face meeting.

So…how can you build trust with a prospect when you can’t even talk to them?  By developing specific and targeted marketing for your prospect.  Content that covers the different segments of customers that you do business with.  Content marketing, at its core is all about creating problem specific content that demonstrates your aptitude and your thought leadership within your industry.

No! Seriously!  You can learn a lot by being a ‘lurker’ on the social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.    Lurkers, just to calm everyone’s fears is someone that is passively sitting on the sidelines just listening to the conversations that are going on.  By being a lurker you can gain a lot of insights as to what people are thinking, online.

Now apply this concept to finding information that would benefit your company.  What if you were a ‘lurker’ to the conversations that were taking place in the social media channel that are related to your company or your product or the products that you carry?  Could you use that information to provide better customer service?  Could you use this information to gain a leg up on your competition?  Sure you could.  Anytime you can gather valuable unbiased information from people about your company, products/services, or your competition you will benefit from that information.

So how to you start down the path to being a ‘lurker’?

• Setup searches on Twitter for your company name or your product names
• Try variations on the spelling for your company or your product names
• Join groups that you typical customer would probably be a member of

There are three types of people when it comes to new online marketing concepts

• Early adaptors – these are the brave people leading the charge
• Early majority – these people are willing to take a risk but it is a calculated risk
• Laggards – these people are longing for the ‘old days’ and they are critical of anything new.

It’s happening!  Internet Marketing, Online Marketing, Digital Marketing, whatever you want to call it, it’s no longer an experiment, it’s now part of the marketing mix.  This may be old news to many of you but did you know that advertising revenue for online grew to $20billion faster than any other media?  Yup, it took online marketing only 13 years to attain 20 billion is ad revenue.  In comparison, the next closest is Cable TV which took 25 years to attain the same revenue goals!

And, it’s not just the interactive industry that is noticing this, even the big guys are realizing the importance that technology is having on the marketing sector.  Were you aware that Deloitte recently acquired the mobil marketing agency Ubermind?  What about Accenture creating Accenture Interactive a marketing services division.  Using this new division and by partnering with agencies they are racing into the digital marketing channel.  The Gap between marketing and technology is blurring…and blurring fast!  Everyone is racing to find the optimum model of marketing, creative and technology.

As we see the big boys moving in the direction of eliminating the gap between marketing and technology, you have to know that it is good for business and the sooner that we as small to mid-sized business start to look at the online marketing channel with a seriousness that hasn’t been offered to this channel, the better your business will perform.

A recent survey by Chief Marketer revealed the following strategic goals (in order from top to bottom) I’ve only listed the top 5

1. Build brand awareness
2. Drive consumers to website
3. Generate sales
4. Generate leads
5. Build loyalty
6. Build opt-in email list
7. Build online community
8. Gain viral spread
9. Drive attendance at live events
10. Launch products

One of the main items that marketers use to track where traffic is coming from is the keywords report within their Google Analytics account.  This tells a website owner what keywords visitors to their site are using to get to their site.

If you are using Google Analytics, over the past few months you have probably begun to see (not provided) appear more and more in your keyword list as the keyword a visitor used.  What does this mean???

In the past it would be a minimal number and generally meant that the keyword simply wasn’t able to be determined but again this was minimal.  Now it is most likely one of the top listings.  So the question is why?

It all comes down to security.  SSL is the technology used to encrypt data that people enter on websites.  Google has begun making this the default for many people who are performing searches and are logged into a gmail account.  So where before a simple web search was not being encrypted, many times it now is, if a user is logged into their gmail account.

Now as with most of Google’s new features, they are simply doing this to some of the users, not all.  But the amount is clearly growing.    It started back in October. (See the Google Analytics blog post about it here)

So what can be done.  Unfortunately, not a lot right now.  With the data being encrypted, there isn’t much that can be done.  These visitors still show up as having come from an organic search but beyond that, you won’t know.  As of right now it is only for users who have signed in to their Gmail account.  It may in the future begin to expand to all users however.  We’ll have to wait and see what Google decides.  It is clearly a delicate balance between the security of the end user and getting anonymous data for marketing needs.