Help Wanted: Last Pediatrician On Mendocino Coast Retires

For 35 years, Dr. Bill Mahon has tended newborns and broken bones, given kids checkups and spinal taps. But luring new doctors with big debt and urban dreams to the redwoods is harder than it sounds.

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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of eCommerce

Let's cut right to the chase. The world of eCommerce and marketing can be broken down into three distinct groups, as per statistics via Forrester.

The Good: Nearly 70% of consumers purchase online regularly.

The Bad: More than 40% of retailers said that their marketing cost per order increased in the past year, while another 46% said their new customer acquisition costs increased.

The Ugly: Customers continue to receive messaging and advertising that is not relevant to them which leads to conversions rates as low as 2.6%.

The underlying cause of these high costs and low conversion is sub-optimal alignment between marketing and commerce from a process, technology, and data perspective. In other words: SILO. Yes that four letter word - literally and figuratively, is at the heart of the matter and root of the cause.

However, what if we told you that commerce and marketing platforms no longer had to sit in their own silos?

Well it's true and in our new eBook Five Ways Marketing Can Drive Higher Online Commerce Revenue, we look at what best-in-class companies are doing to deliver more consistent experiences that drive commerce revenue and more consistent customer experiences across marketing channels and identify the five ways they are making a difference.

1. Use Commerce Data to Inform Top-of-Funnel Acquisition

2. Improve Targeting By Building a Comprehensive Profile for Commerce and Marketing

3. Let Offline Behavior Fuel the Right Commerce Messaging

4. Improve Conversions with Cross-Channel Retargeting

5. Create Brand Advocates and Long-Term Customer Relationships to Drive Retention and Cross-Sell Opportunities

For each of the above we also the key tactics needed for implementation, key stakeholders, use case examples and much more.

Download the Five Ways Marketing Can Drive Higher Online Commerce Revenue and learn how to build long-term relationships and brand advocates in the process.

Instagram Moves Beyond The Square & A Few Brands Test The Waters

The visual social network enables posting in both portrait and landscape orientation, good news for marketers who use the same creative content across multiple platforms.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

An Ex-Google Employee on How to Get the Most From Your AdWords Account Manager

If you’re marketing your business with Google AdWords, chances are good that you receive 100 calls a week from people telling you how they can transform your business by managing your AdWords account.

You’ve probably received so many of these calls that you’ve thought about smashing your phone into a million pieces, flying to Tahiti and forgetting this whole advertising thing ever happened.

Image source.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. While the majority of these calls are not worth your time, you’re most likely screening one or two that will actually help you truly transform your business. The best part? These calls will cost you nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

This may be a good time to let you know that I was once the person responsible for making these crazy phone calls. As an Account Manager on the AdWords team at Google, I helped thousands of businesses better understand their digital advertising (for free). This post will highlight what to expect after getting in touch with your Google AdWords Account Manager, and the tips and tricks you can use to make the best use of your time with them.

Let’s dive in.

Is this really Google?

Hands down, the most common question I would get from advertisers was, “Is this really Google?” To be honest, it’s really the best first question you can ask. You wouldn’t randomly expose sensitive bank account information to a stranger on the phone, and you should be equally as careful with your AdWords account data

There are two really good ways for your Account Manager to prove they are who they say they are. The first way is to ask them to confirm your unique Customer ID (CID) number. You can find this number on the top right hand side of your AdWords dashboard.

The second way to confirm that your Account Manager actually works at Google is to have them send you an email from their corporate email account. All emails from Google employees will come from a “xyz123@google.com” email address.

Okay Google, how can you help me?

Now that you know the person you’re talking to actually works for Google, we can dig into the meat and potatoes of the phone call. A typical call with an Account Manager will last for a strict hour, no more and no less, and will cover three specific sections: review, build and optimize. Let’s dig a little deeper into these.

1. Review

Expect to spend the first 30 minutes of your call chatting about your business, your goals for AdWords and reviewing the existing data in your account.

The advertisers that get the most value out of these conversations all take a similar approach to this section of the call. Here are some things they all have in common:

• They take notes: Make sure you take notes throughout the call. This will help you review the results from the changes you made during your next meeting.
• They ask questions: Dig into why some campaigns are performing well and others are performing terribly. This will help spark ideas for the optimization section of the call.
• They follow up later: Be sure to get your Manager’s contact information within the first five minutes of your conversation. Most people don’t take advantage of a follow-up call, but it is the best way to see the results from your optimization efforts.

It’s important to note that Google Account Managers work with advertisers at varying skill levels. This means they will try to get a feel for your savviness within the first few minutes of the call. The best way to avoid this little dance is to simply explain the improvements to your account you’re trying to achieve during the conversation.

Most Managers have good lie detectors, so don’t ask for advanced tools and beta access if you don’t know how to enable Sitelinks or adjust your mobile bids.

2. Optimize

Once your Manager has a good understanding of your business and what you’re trying to accomplish with AdWords, you can begin to work together to optimize your campaigns. This is the most valuable time you will spend with your Manager — I would highly recommend spending at least 20 minutes optimizing.

Your Manager will have some suggestions on what needs to be tweaked, so don’t freak out if you come to the conversation with little direction. If you want a little more control over the call, below is a cheat sheet of things you should have them walk you through. These areas, when optimized, will help you save money and see a better ROI over time.

• Search Terms Report
• Auction Insights Report
• Bid Adjustment via Device
• Bid Adjustment via Location
• Bid Adjustment via Day of the Week
• Keywords Page / Bid Optimization
• Conversion Tracking

The location of the Search Terms and Auction Insights report.

Listen to the optimization suggestions your Manager gives you, but don’t take their word as gospel. Not all Managers are created equal, even at Google. I highly suggest asking as many questions as you can before making any change in your account.

Understand why they are making the suggestion and have them sell you on why it’s the best fit for your business.

3. Build

The dirty little secret most Managers won’t tell you upfront is that they can rebuild any of your campaigns from the ground up to help increase performance. For free. Take advantage of this! It’s a good use of the last five minutes of your call, and is basically risk-free if you follow the instructions below:

• Select the worst-performing campaign in your account
• Tell your Manager that you want them to re-build that campaign for you
• Discuss potential new strategies with your Manager
• Take notes to outline the proposed changes
• Tell the Manager you do not want the campaign to go live without your approval

It will take a couple of days for your Manager to build your new campaign from scratch, so it’s important to schedule a time to follow up. Make sure you have them walk you through the changes made. If everything looks good, pause the original campaign and enable the new campaign.

Run the new campaign for a four week test or until you achieve statistical significance. Once the test is over, compare your baseline metrics with your old campaign and continue using the campaign with the best performance.

What about those betas?

The coolest perk to take advantage of during your conversation with your Account Manager is gaining access to AdWords beta testing programs before everyone else.

Betas are new AdWords features that are not available to the public and are tested with a very small number of advertisers.

Various ad extensions, Gmail ads, and others have gone through some version of the beta program.

There are a few boxes you need to check off to gain access to new betas:

• Make sure you stay in contact with your Account Manager
• Tell them you are interested in experimenting with new betas
• Give them a reason why your business is a good fit for the specific beta you’re interested in exploring
• Have a “healthy” test budget to spend on the beta

While there is no hard number that indicates a “healthy” test budget, $500-$1000 in spend per day should get you through the threshold. Also note that some betas have firm restrictions that you must meet to gain access, such as vertical limitations or a minimum spend required. Work with your Account Manager to ensure a mutually beneficial fit.

What if I don’t get a call from a Manager?

Although working with a dedicated Account Manager is beneficial for all the reasons mentioned above, you shouldn’t freak out if you don’t get a call from Google. At the end of the day, there aren’t enough Account Managers to cover the entire playing field of AdWords advertisers.

Good news is, you’re not totally out of luck. Google has a team of Managers that are responsible for handling inbound account inquiries, optimization requests and all of the other things mentioned in this post. You can contact them at 1-866-2Google, but be warned, wait times can creep into the 15-20 minute range during busy times of the day.

Let’s do this

Now that you have a clearer understanding of your relationship between your business, your ads and your Google support team, it’s time to get on the phone and start getting some of those burning questions answered. Remember, as your campaigns grow over time, you want to exhaust Google’s resources to optimize your ad dollars.

If you have stories to share about your AdWords Manager or have questions about advertising with Adwords, feel free to tee me up in the comments below!

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(MedPage Today) -- Some support for patient claims seen in new study

Book Review & Interview: Content Inc. by Joe Pulizzi

The Godfather of Content Marketing has struck gold again. Content Marketing Institute founder Joe Pulizzi has a new book that will hit shelves and Amazon carts this September.

His newest book, Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses is a delightful blend of inspiration from Joe’s personal experiences building Content Marketing Institute and advice businesses can follow to create an actionable content business model.

Content Inc. takes readers down the logical path from starting their journey, to monetization and creating next-level content.

When the Godfather releases a new piece of content it is always worth a read. If you don’t, you may have to answer to his loyal base of subscribers and followers. Below are some highlights of Content Inc. as well as an exclusive interview with Joe on his new book.

What You’ll Learn in Content Inc.

By focusing on building an audience first and defining products and services second, an entrepreneur can change the rules of the game and significantly increase the odds of financial and personal success.
– Joe Pulizzi

How to Lead with Goal Setting

There is a big difference between inherently having an idea of what your goals might be, and actually getting them down on paper and persistently working to achieve them. Even though this book is largely about content, Joe makes sure to emphasize that you should document all goals, personal and professional in order to be successful. This approach can help you prioritize and scale your business model.

The 6 Step Content Inc. Model

This book is built around what Joe calls the “Content Inc. Model” which is a six step process marketers can follow to efficiently and effectively develop a winning content marketing program. What are the steps?

1. The Sweet Spot: A blend of your  core knowledge and passion.
2. Content Tilt: Defining what makes you different from your competition.
3. Building the Base: Determining which content distribution channels will be your foundation for publishing.
4. Harvesting Audience: Leveraging different methods to draw in new audience members.
5. Diversification: How to break out from your base distribution channels and build additional streams.
6. Monetization: Once you’ve scaled your model, how will you use it to generate revenue?

Real-Life Examples of Why Content Inc. Works

Content Inc. has a high impact ending. After we’ve been instructed on the six steps, given prompts for action and resources for more information, we have the best part; examples. Readers can gain inspiration from hearing more about how companies like Razor Social, Lego, Marriott and more have found success from following the Content Inc. Model.

From the Mouth of the Godfather of Content Marketing

This book review wouldn’t be complete without some additional insight from the author, Joe Pulizzi. Here is how Joe describes the notion of Content Inc. in his own words:

Who is Content, Inc. for?

The book is perfect for two audiences.  First, for startups and small businesses, Content Inc. can serve as the underlying business model for long-term growth.  Build a loyal audience and sell them whatever you want.  Second, the book can really help marketers in larger companies who need to be change agents.  Marketers looking to build a valuable audience in a specific content niche – that ultimately will help them drive more leads, more sales or new lines of revenue.

In chapter one you talk about “Beginning with the end in mind”. What impact has goal setting had your own career?

My life changed for the better when I started to do two things.  First, write down my goals (with actual pen and paper).  Second, review those goals daily.  You have no idea what kind of impact this can make on your life.  It’s such an easy thing to do that no-one does.

Another concept you reference is about “Unleashing Your Passion”. How did you find your passion for content marketing?

I don’t like the idea that marketers only sell and don’t make positive change happen.  That’s why I love content marketing.  You can increase the bottom line while, at the same time, help your customers live better lives or get better jobs.  Content marketing is the only kind of marketing that provides ongoing value, whether you purchase the product or not.  Isn’t that what all marketers want to do?  Provide real value?

What are three things you want people who read Content, Inc. to walk away understanding?

1. That the way we’ve been launching and growing businesses is not right anymore for how people consume information.  Building an audience around valuable content is the absolute best way to start and grow a business for the long-term.
2. That even though Content Inc. is not a get-rich quick scheme or will make immediate impact in your business, if you follow the six steps and consistently execute on the idea, you will be successful.  Any sized company can do this.  Any company or person can follow the six steps.  I love it because it’s democratic.  Bigger budgets don’t necessarily win.
3. The competition can copy everything we do as companies except for one thing – how we communicate.  That means delivering an amazing content experience to our customers on a regular basis is THE most critical thing we should be doing as marketers, business owners and communication professionals.

What Should You Do Next?

The way that Joe structured Content Inc. is incredibly powerful. He provides enough information to make the content actionable, without creating paralysis from information overload. If you’re looking for a content model to follow, enjoy a good story, or just want to know more about the man behind Content Marketing Institute, I would strongly recommend pre-ordering a copy of Content Inc. on Amazon.

The book will be released on September 8, 2015 to coincide with the annual Content Marketing World event hosted by Joe’s team in Cleveland, OH.  

The TopRank Marketing team will be in attendance, and our CEO Lee Odden will be speaking on the topic of Participation Marketing: How to Co-Create, Optimize & Socialize Content With Influencers.

We are very excited about Content Marketing World and look forward to learning from some of today’s top content marketing experts and connecting with other passionate content marketing individuals. See you there!

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How Customers Read Reviews: Four takeaways for marketers from a business school study

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For over a decade, MarketingExperiments has stressed the importance of customer reviews.

When our Customer Ratings Tested Web clinic was originally broadcast in 2004, Shopping.com was the third-most popular ecommerce site in America, and Amazon’s annual revenue was a mere 7% of what it has since become.

In the ten years since, customer reviews have gone from being a supplemental component of our marketing strategy to the single biggest influencer of consumer behavior. In a 2013 survey by Dimensional Research, 90% of customers responded that their buying decisions are influenced by online reviews. A similar study conducted by Retailing Today found that 81% of consumers conduct online research before making major purchases.

With the knowledge that customer reviews are now one of the most vital components of our marketing collateral, how can we make sure that we are presenting our reviews in a way that best serves our customers?

New ecommerce research by Dr. Raffaele Filieri hopes to answer that question.

Filieri specializes in consumer behavior and digital marketing at Newcastle Business School, whose recent double accreditation by the Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International) puts it in the top 1% of business schools in the world.

His independent study, “What makes online reviews helpful? A diagnosticity-adoption framework to explain informational and normative influences in e-WOM,” published offline in the Journal of Business Research, not only confirms that customer reviews carry more clout than almost all other marketing efforts but, for the first time, reveals how customers actually process online reviews.

Below are four key takeaways we can learn from his research:

Takeaway #1. Customers process review data quickly

In his study of brands such as Kia Motors and TripAdvisor, Filieri found that customers are not carefully reading review data. Instead, they are scanning it quickly.

When processing review data, users are looking to gather as much information as they can in the shortest amount of time possible. Users don’t want to search for or through reviews; they want quick visual summaries of the sentiments of other customers.

As marketers, we must be aware of this fact and provide prominent, easily scannable customer reviews whenever possible.

Takeaway #2. Customers are more concerned with star or numeric ratings than actual review content

Through his research, Filieri discovered that customers pay more attention to star ratings or aggregate review data than they do to the actual written review content on the page.

Aggregated scores, whether they be an average star rating used by sites like Amazon or a weighted score similar to those seen on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and MetaCritic, are assigned more weight by customers than an assortment of long, informative review essays.

If your business enjoys multiple strong review scores, Filieri’s study suggests that it may be better to display eight five-star reviews with two lines of text, for example, than two five-star reviews with large blocks of copy.

Takeaway #3. The credibility of the reviewer is surprisingly unimportant

When researching the ways that customers process customer ratings, Filieri found that the credibility of the person writing the review was surprisingly unimportant. Even anonymous reviews seemed to carry a similar amount of weight as credited reviews. We shouldn’t always feel the need to prioritize reviews from well-known or highly credible sources if we have a stronger, punchier review available from a lesser-known source.

Using Amazon as an example, more often than not, the reviews flagged as most helpful by customers are not from celebrity endorsers or experts in the field. Instead, they are usually from ordinary people who were able to provide the type of quick, scannable information most valuable to readers.

In the below example, Amazon customers browsing for information about author and MarketingSherpa Summit 2016 featured speaker Charles Duhigg’s best-selling book The Power of Habit found this ordinary review most helpful:

Takeaway #4. Good customer service remains the strongest form of marketing

Our 2004 MarketingExperiments Web clinic on customer reviews urged businesses to stop thinking of customer service as a basic cost of doing business, but instead view it as a legitimate marketing expense.

Ten years later, Dr. Filieri’s study confirms that customer reviews have never been more important. These user reviews have become the Better Business Bureau or Consumer Reports of the twenty-first century and have the increasing power to make or break businesses, suggesting that the need for this customer-first paradigm shift has never been greater.

For small, specialty businesses, one poor customer review is often all it takes to significantly damage the public’s perception of us.

The silver lining, however, is that the power to control our reputation lies firmly in our hands. By putting the customer first at every step of the journey, from capture to retention, we have the ability to influence the influencers.

One company, Tech Armor, literally built their business on the foundation of customer reviews.  “We really built our brand around service and support,” Joseph Jaconi, General Manager, told MarketingSherpa at IRCE 2015. “We’re a small company, but over 60% of our human resources is dedicated to customer service and support … that’s including sales, marketing and everything we’re doing.”

By putting our full force behind customer satisfaction, actively working to earn favorable reviews, and presenting those reviews in an easily digestable way to resonate with our prospects, we give ourselves the best chance for success over the coming decades.

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