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The following is a post from Kevin Hofmaenner, our Search Engine Marketing Manager at RepEquity.

Last month we discussed Why Online Reputation Management is Never Complete. The same concept holds true for pay-per-click (PPC) search marketing. For many companies, PPC can easily become set it and forget it, but by doing so you may leave money on the table. Continuous analysis and optimization leads to better results and can save you on media costs.

Account Structure

Make sure your account structure has the correct hierarchal flow so the search engines can efficiently understand and rate your account content. This serves multiple purposes, but the most direct is a higher quality score. In recent years, all major search engines have implemented quality score initiatives that measure how relevant your keywords, ads and landing pages are to a person seeing your ad. The higher the quality score, the lower the cost per click (CPC) and higher the average position of the ad. Optimizing your account structure can effectively reduce your cost to obtain traffic.

Keyword Buckets (Ad Groups)

Correctly organize keywords into appropriate buckets (ad groups). By having tightly themed ad groups filled with very similar keywords, the ads become much more targeted, which leads to higher click through rates (CTR). CTR is a major factor in determining quality score and ultimately CPC. Optimizing ad groups also ensures more accurate reporting and prevents keyword cannibalization, where similar keywords in different ad groups compete for impressions. Continue Reading…

At the recent Inc. 500 conference, we heard Simon Sinek share his idea of the Golden Circle, which explains why some people and organizations are more innovative, more influential, command greater loyalty and can repeat their success over and over.  Whether it’s a Fortune 500 brand or your own personal brand, those that succeed look beyond what they do and how they do it, to why the brands exist in the first place.  We think of this as a brand’s highest calling.

For example, our client Town and Country Bank in central Illinois exists to remove the stress and anxiety of managing money for their customers.  Sure, they offer checking accounts, home mortgages and retirement planning – the “what”.  And they do it with a smile over a cup of coffee – the “how”.  But ultimately, they exist to help their customers – their friends and neighbors in Springfield – reduce the anxiety of financial management.  This higher calling drives their marketing, interior design, and virtually every other aspect of their brand.  It starts at the top with their CEO, who lives their brand’s values every day.

Once you discover your brand’s highest calling, your purpose comes into focus.  Wildly important goals that are in line with this purpose suddenly trump short-term deadlines.  And explaining what your company does – whether to your great aunt or a prospective client – becomes easier.

How do you get there?

It isn’t easy, but it starts with asking the right questions of the right people, including your customers.  Many companies hire objective consultants to help with the research and process.  A consultant might ask:

• Think about your best day.  Who did you help and how did they benefit?
• When your customers go home at night, what impact did you have on their day?
• Think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  What needs does your company fulfill, and how far up the pyramid are they?

At RepEquity, we help brands define and live up to their highest calling online.

What is your brand’s highest calling?  Call us and let’s talk about it.

In our last post, we discussed mainstream America’s limitations and steep learning curve with quick response (QR) codes. Now, we take a look at the active QR market, and some QR successes and failures.

While many Americans are wholly unfamiliar with QR codes, there is some promise. Among those who frequently scan QR codes it is interesting that the highest percentage of scanners are not in the youngest age groups. In June of last year, 37 percent of those who had scanned QR codes were between the ages of 25 and 34. The next closest age group is 35 to 44, comprising 20 percent of those who had scanned a code. Eighteen to 24-year-olds make up 17 percent of the group. Men are more likely to scan a QR code than women, but their lead is shrinking.

As the use of QR codes becomes more common, best practices for QR marketing are needed. In addition to lack of default QR readers, placement of QR codes can also be a barrier to engagement. When selecting a location for a code, marketers should consider the time it takes someone to grab their smartphone from their pocket, purse or briefcase, start their QR reader, and scan the code. Bad locations for QR codes should seem obvious: moving buses, trains, cars, and trucks; billboards on the side of the road (in the absence of pedestrian traffic); on websites; and anywhere that’s out of reach (too high or too low).

Good placement of QR codes involves a little more creativity. Marketers should put themselves in the shoes of an on-the-go person in their target market.  Where are they going?  How fast are they moving, or are they standing in one spot?  Are they likely to slow down long enough to notice the ad, let alone scan the QR code?  What is their mindset?

A great place for QR codes is where people are waiting or congregating, like a bus shelter or subway platform (although underground locations can pose a connectivity problem). Other placements to consider are newspapers, magazines, and catalogs; consumers generally spend a significant amount of time engaging with these types of publications. Continue Reading…

Danny Sullivan recently posted on Search Engine Land about the discovery of Google + “Latest Posts” being favored for major brands, such as TV Guide. So far we’ve found that The New York Times, Toyota, YouTube and other early participants of Google’s Direct Connect program are the first to go public with these changes. Continue Reading…

Quick response (QR) codes add interactivity to offline placements including magazine ads, posters, billboards, price tags, and even t-shirts and beer cans.  QR codes are at a crossroads in the U.S.: Will they turn out to be a fad or will they eventually become as common as Facebook and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising? We don’t expect to know the answer to that question in 2012 and will continue to monitor how brands use QR codes to deliver interactive mobile experiences.

While QR codes are certainly the buzz in our industry, today they are not widely understood or adopted in the U.S. In June 2011, roughly 14 million U.S. mobile users scanned a QR code with their phone, according to data from comScore MobiLens. That number, while large, represents only 6.2 percent of the country’s total mobile audience. In a study by Lab42, 58 percent of respondents answered “no” to the question “Are you familiar with QR codes?”  Of those, 43 percent said they did not know what a QR code is. Continue Reading…