Small Business Essentials

In part one of this summary of lessons learned from a Google seminar online through Marketing Profs, I discussed the niche’s role through Google’s eyes. In this part, I’m going to discuss "Relevancy Marketing" and how it can help your small business.

NOTE: This part of the report is inspired by the portion of the seminar given by Mark Martel of Google. You can read his bio at the end of the article.

Relevancy Marketing

According to Mr. Martel, Google’s vision is to make advertising as relevant and useful as Google’s search engine. What this means is that their goal is to have a seamless integration of advertising, search results, and content so that you can find exactly what you are looking for, every time. Relevancy marketing combines aspects of direct marketing, PR, advertising, marketing analytics, and permission-based marketing. The focus of relevancy marketing is the information needs of the users—that is, providing relevant content and advertising based on what the user is looking for.

Focus on the Customer

The first guiding principle in relevancy marketing is focus on the customer. This means that you put your content first (using a strong content strategy as the core of your overall marketing strategy), and your distribution/advertising second. As the saying goes, "Content is king!"

• Have strong landing page content.
  When the landing-page content for an advertising campaign is out of date, sub-optimal, or non-existant, your users and your ROI will both suffer. To combat this, Google now adds the quality of your landing page as a factor for your ad ranking—so consider that next time you throw up a page with poor copywriting or non-relevant content. When you have irrelevant content on your landing page or a mismatch between the ad content and the landing page content, your users become confused and they navigate away from your site. This leads to paying for wasted clicks because those users are not purchasing from you!
• Speak your customers’ language.
  It is important to put relevancy first, using broad category language for web surfers, when designing your advertising campaigns. Once they are on your site, then you can differentiate your products and services.
• Consider the cost of hiding your content.
  I have to admit that I am not a fan of the squeeze page. The worst kind of squeeze page is one that doesn’t give you the option of bypassing the squeeze to see more content! Mr. Martel suggested that you should think more holistically about an effective overall marketing program, which means widening the funnel at the top and not blocking those buyers who are not yet ready to give up their info to learn more.
• Stick to user-friendly ad formats.
  Respect your user’s time and attention—don’t demand too much attention with your ads. Mr. Martel suggested to avoid unfriendly, intrusive and annoying ads such as those that auto-play audio or video, long-play flash ads, pop-outs and flyovers. His advice was to stick to those that have a persistent call to action, don’t annoy your users, and use consistent branding.

Profit from Fragmentation

Eyetracking studies have found that users actually pay more attention on niche sites vs the larger portal sites. This makes sense because the niche content is relevant to them, where as the portal site is very general to attract a larger audience. How can you capitalize on this trend for your advertising efforts?

Use ad networks! Ad networks, like Google AdWords and the Feedburner Ad Network (now owned by Google as well) distribute your ads based on relevancy throughout a network of small niche sites. This provides "more bang for your buck" as direct ad buys can be too difficult and/or time consuming. You can leverage contextual target for increased placement relevance because you are positioning your offer in a place where the users are most engaged and ready to see it.

Measure. Learn. Optimize.

• Deliver a good site search experience.
  Google has found that many people, upon arriving at a site, immediately proceed to the site search feature. While this is probably a good case for modifying the content on your landing page, it also gives us new insights about how people navigate a web site. When users have a lousy experience with irrelevant content, they will usually leave.
• Use analytics.
  Google offers a free analytics program that can provide you with a wealth of information about your site. One feature of note: the tool that shows you each page’s popularity in pageviews. This allows you to see what content is relevant to your users and develop further content along those lines.
• Optimize your content.
  Don’t optimize around ad ranking, CPC (cost per click on keywords) or CTR (click through rate on your ads). When you limit your content to the keyword list you have generated, you are eliminating other potential traffic-building keywords. You can also use Google Analytics to see what keywords and search phrases people are using to find you.
• Don’t assign ROI to the last click.
  Mr. Martel recommends that you measure your results holistically, crediting your programs not just on direct sales, but also for their contributions to awareness, engagement and lead generation. According to Google, when users see an ad for a product before they then click on an AdWords ad, they are 22% more likely to make a purchase.

What does this all mean?

When you are writing your site content and designing your marketing campaigns, your focus should be on relevancy. If your users don’t know how your products and services relate to them and their needs, they will not buy from you. Relevancy is a key component in a strong marketing strategy.

Additional Resources

• 2006 Search Engine Algorithms
• Google AdWords Blog
• Google AdWords Learning Center
• Google Analytics
• Google Conversion University
• Google Custom Search Engines/Site Search
• Google Webmaster Central
• Google Website Optimizer
• Internet Marketing, Privacy Survey Finds Relevancy the Key
• The Marketing Relevance Imperative
• Relevancy Rules in Top Sponsored Ads
• Relevancy, Search Marketing and Usability
• RustySearch’s Results for Relevancy of Search Engines

Bio for Mark Martel

Mark Martel is a Marketing Manager in Google’s Business Technology Industry Segment and covers Google’s solutions for marketers. He has led industry marketing research, strategy and execution in North America for over a year and half. Mark has 10+ years of experience in the business technology sector across roles including product marketing, field marketing, product management, sales, research, and marketing strategy. Prior to joining Google, Mark worked for Microsoft, META Group, and a startup maker of niche business software. He holds an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University.