Just wanted to put up a couple of one pagers / one sheets that SoundView completed for B2B clients.
See below:
Los Angeles Marketing SEO
March 27th, 2012For all those who have struggled with their own choices regarding SEO I hope this post is useful. By way of backstory, The SoundView Group has (quite proudly I’ll admit!) been a page one resident for searches on “Los Angeles Marketing Consultant” in Google for approximately the past 6 months; after quite a bit of personal SEO effort over the past year. Despite competition and despite the entrance of aggregators like Biznik and Thumbtack which pushed down my ranking for Los Angeles Marketing Consultant, we had doggedly hung in there on the first page.
If you search now for Los Angeles Marketing Consultant you will, however, note that SoundView Group is alas no longer on page one. We are now on page two – and likely to fall further I suspect. For better or for worse this is, however, no accident, but rather an example of both a conscious choice and the fairness of the Google search algorithm. What do I mean by this?
Well, The SoundView Group has been expanding, and while Seth Baum is indeed a Los Angeles Marketing Consultant, going forward we had made the conscious decision to live up to the “Group” in the company’s moniker. That is, as we start to become more of a Los Angeles Marketing firm, or Los Angeles Marketing agency, or Los Angeles Marketing company, it felt less and less appropriate to have onsite copy and offsite referrals to the company designate us a “Los Angeles Marketing Consultant.”
So I made changes to the copy both at www.soundviewgroup.com and on various other locations that better reflected the company’s new positioning as a Los Angeles Marketing Firm or Los Angeles Marketing Agency rather than a Los Angeles Marketing Consultant – and very quickly found myself (appropriately) penalized by Google – and there went our coveted page one Google position for Los Angeles Marketing Consultant.
Make no mistake – I shed a tear for the loss of the ranking – especially because The SoundViiew Group doesn’t show up until 5-10 pages in for Los Angeles Marketing firm, or Los Angeles Marketing agency – in fact we show up best right now for Los Angeles Marketing – which while not as descriptive may indeed be what most people are searching for (after Los Angeles Marketing Consultant of course). But I like to view it as as challenge — the same one we took on over 18 months ago – it will be fascinating to see if we can once again find ourselves moving up the SERPs through our own incremental efforts – but now for Los Angeles Marketing instead of Los Angeles Marketing Consultant.
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Website Audit – Designing for iPads, Tablets and iPhones
March 17th, 2012If you are like a lot of my clients you might not have taken a look at your Website – all parts of it – on an iPad or other tablet recently. And you might not have looked at your Google Analytics report to realize just how high the percentage of people viewing your site on a tablet (iPad specifically), or iPhone has become. I was guilty of this myself recently – despite being an owner of more than one “i-product.”
I’m bringing this up because the rise of these devices means you have to take a look at your web presence in case it requires small (or not so small) tweaks to make the experience work on devices that now may comprise up to 20% of your traffic – more depending on your specific vertical or demographic. I’m not suggesting one HAS to create a TRUE, dedicated mobile site – although that they may be warranted for some – but rather that you ensure that there are, for instance, alternatives to Flash on your site that can be triggered, and that you go thru each menu, including your main nav systems, button, page, and key function on your site to ensure that it works on the iPad and iPhone. I’m betting that like my site and most others I’ve been to – something won’t work correctly – and that means you are losing potential customer interest and worse, revenue.
So find someone’s iPad if you don’t have one – and do a quick self-audit of your website on it – and make sure that on this new platform you are providing an experience that meets your business standards.
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Web 3.0 is Driving the Resurgence of the Written Word
December 3rd, 2011As a history and literature gradauate (who now finds it tough to plumb the depths of anything beyond the latest by Lee Child or the late Robert Parker) I’ve always been partial to the beauty of the well-turned phrase, and over the past 15 years have watched powerpoint presentations, email, instant messaging, and more recently text messaging and Twitter pretty much destroy the English language. Don’t get me wrong – sentence fragments and purposeful misspellings and brevity make perfect sense for those mediums – so I had accepted that decent writing was pretty much doomed to go the way of the pen and paper.
And then a couple of amazing things happened in the glorious coming of Web 3.0-time that have in some measure brought quality writing and a person’s writing ability back into prominence.
The first is that blogs, while around during web 2.0, have, due to the adoption of WordPress and Tumblr, ease of sharing with one’s social graph, and the desire for folks to establish their own personal brands online, became almost ubiquitous these days. That means more and more “long-form” writing being produced by millions of people and their audience. I do think social sharing tools (and the mother of them all, Facebook) have contributed to both people’s desire to write (few people really write solely for their own pleasure versus hoping to engage an audience) and of course to the much much wider viral dissemination of a post that regularly occurs these days. I also think personal branding has become a real trend amongst the digerati these days – and it gets played out in lengthy posts and replies on blog sites (Arrington, A VC, Both Sides of the Table , to name a few) and the most prolific platform of them all presided over by Marc Bodnick, Quora.com.
And the second thing to spur writing these days, somewhat ironically, is Google, and the latest incarnation of SEO strategies (that place great weight upon long form content creation on multiple keyword heavy websites) that have sprung up in the wake of the now legendary Google Panda release. It really doesn’t work now to have nonsense phrases on a page simply containing a link, or horribly poor English churned out by offshore resources – Google discounts those prior SEO approaches. More and more I’m seeing SEOs employing (I do this too) recent college grads (and not just English majors!) to briefly research and then write pages of content on any number of topics (from acne to tax and debt relief to electronics to baby toys) so that it can be placed on a website or its blog or information pages, targeted keyword domains, or microsites in order to influence Google’s algorithm to ultimately drive a company’s organic results ever upwards. And a LOT of firms are doing this, having people create thousands and thousands of pages of the written word. While the output itself is far from high art and purposely littered with the repetitive inclusion of target keyword phrases, it is the process which I am glad employs people to WRITE and perhaps fosters in some of them a skill (or perhaps even a love) that otherwise would not have been many’s first choice out of college.
Who woulda thunk it?
Social Media Marketing For SMBs – How to Try and Make it Work
October 5th, 2011More and more today, small companies are turning to social media platforms to market their businesses. Often they’re not sure why or how to do it – but the allure of what they read in the press about the local coffee shop or drycleaner whose amazing Twitter campaign increased their business seven-fold has proved too hard to resist. And yes, while it is possible for SMBs to use social media channels to increase exposure and revenue, it comes with a significant tax in human capital costs and is therefore not be undertaken lightly.
Even in a minimal implementation, to achieve reasonable topline results, a real live (and smart, locally aware, English speaking, etc.) thinking human being needs to physically post content, answer questions and target audiences – and work on each individual process on a daily basis. At SoundView, as we’ve worked on multiple social media accounts for various SMB clients, we’ve come to realize as many others have that it’s a “grind it out” process – but nevertheless we still conclude that net net it can indeed generate significant returns if done methodically and with a commitment to a long term vision of the place social media activities play in the overall marketing mix of the company.
As an example, one of our staffers recently undertook a project to utilize social media (versus SEM or other online/offline tactics) to increase diner traffic at a local Asian Fusion Restaurant. Despite traditional offline SMB tactics (doorhangers, happy hour promotions, etc.), the restaurant wasn’t turning enough tables to get anywhere near maximizing its capacity. It had dabbled in social media – when we first took over their social media accounts they had only a small presence on Facebook and Twitter with very little following, around 50 or so on each platform.
To gain followers we targeted people living within a 10-mile driving radius of the restaurant. We specifically searched within this area for people discussing food on related sites – especially those craving the food that the restaurant provided. This “audience mining” process as well as reaching out to these individuals had to be done manually on a daily basis. After 3 months of “physically” following around 100 people 4-5 days a week, we achieved a dramatic increase in overall followers – 600+ or so on each platform. And the restaurant in turn saw a dramatic increase in diners per night that continues to this day – they are almost at capacity on most of their key nights. But it is hard to say whether the ROI on this was anything more than break even – except if you assume a reasonable LTV on these customers (not easy in the restaurant biz) and some amount of incremental word of mouth that brings in additional “freely acquired” diners.
The other task we needed to undertake while simply corresponding and “suggesting” to individuals in our target that they try the restaurant was the creation of fresh and interesting weekly content and promotions. We incented prospects to “like” the restaurant with on Facebook to earn a 15% discount off their meal. Was this “buying” of likes worth the hit the restaurant took on margin? Again, hard to say – but the number of diners did increase over time who anecdotally indicated they were Facebook friends of our incented individuals.
We also used social media as a customer service tool – we had a dedicated resource standing buy that could quickly respond to comments by customers and prospects alike that raised questions/concerns/feedback online. The truth is – if you open the door to online inquiries and the social media model – you need to answer the person who’s likely to be standing there. Don’t open the channel and then not provide a resource to respond. Social media users communicate through the platforms every day, which requires a fast response – keeping up with interaction is vital for any business. But it’s also costly in terms of man hours – and again, total ROI is VERY hard to track.
In conclusion, we’d suggest that in order to find signal in social media – that is, understand whether there is a bare likelihood of social media efforts returning positively for your SMB, we suggest you dip your toe in the water starting with a Facebook page just to get a feel of what it takes to post day-to-day content and build a network of followers for at least 1 hour per day – start small and target 50 people within a few weeks.If you can’t get that – stop. If you find that you’re getting a reasonable viral/network effect, then you can take a deeper plunge. It might be a gamechanger for your business, but make no mistake – the labor costs are intensive and often difficult to track in terms of evaluating total ROI of the effort.
SoundView Group Completes Identity and Launch Materials for TulaCo
February 26th, 2011
The SoundView Group just completed a rapid identity and collateral development project for its client TulaCo (www.tula.co). In rapid order we created a new logo, business cards, positioning statement, marketing copy, a basic website, and a one pager for the Launch conference in San Francisco. TulaCo (formerly Tula Consulting) is a 90-person strong software development company that deploys seasoned, outsourced development teams for rapidly-scaling early-stage companies whose businesses rely on high performance/high availability web services or mobile-based applications. With expertise in platform development for Social and Digital Media, Online Advertising/Publishing, Cloud Computing and Mobile Applications, TulaCo’s outsourcing model effectively removes the risk associated with rapid tech hiring and development by deploying a team whose size can be quickly ramped up or down as business conditions dictate. By locating the majority of the team in Russia/Belarus, but having lead developers and project managers in place locally in the U.S., the company combines cost-effective round-the-clock development with seamless communications and immediate access to experienced managers. Headed by Alex Karelin, himself a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and startup advisor, TulaCo is the outsourced development solution behind some of today’s most successful startups.
Tula.Co Website at www.tula.co
Tula.Co Homepage designed by The SoundView Group
TulaCo One Page Sell Sheet
One Page Sell Sheet for TulaCo
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Consumer Brand Launch for PopBox
October 15th, 2010The SoundView Group just completed a consumer brand launch for PopBox, Inc. in the Bay Area. We created the marketing strategy and positioning for the PopBox Media Player (a new entrant in the over the top set top box market for the connected home) that competes with Google TV, Boxee, Roku, etc., and enables display of home networked stored media and Internet streamed digital content on your HDTV. As part of the work, SoundView created messaging, USP, branding, a robust direct selling e-commerce website that includes integrated online customer support, forums and blogs, links to social media, an online sizzle video, managed PR agency and social media marketing on Facebook, and developed collateral for use at tradeshows and events. I have pasted some of the portions of the work below.
PopBox.com Website at www.popbox.com
PopBox Home Page
PopBox One Sheet
PopBox One Sheet
PopBox Sizzle Video
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Website Video for Product and Service Sales
August 2nd, 2010With broadband to the home penetration scaling ever higher, and the ability to produce high quality informational videos dropping in price, it seems like a no-brainer to me that more and more companies should be adopting web video elements as integral to their online presence/web pages. This is distinct from the use of Video Advertising (pre-roll, post-roll, etc.) – but rather, the use of 45 second to 90 second videos that are designed to tell a product/service/company story in a much more compelling way than simply text or graphics or even Flash animations/video.
We’ve known for a long time that TV advertising is compelling because of what one can accomplish with full motion video and accompanying audio; the storytelling possibilities, the emotional connection, the explanatory visuals, etc. In short, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a thousand pictures.
The SoundView Group just completed a product sizzle video for one of our clients who sells a market-leading “Over the Top Set Top Box” called PopBox. It will go on the company’s website but also be distributed on other outlets. I’ve enclosed a link to the video at the bottom of this post – it’s much more exciting than simply describing a product via a web page. I hope to continue to see wider and wider adoption of these types of videos in the near future given how inexpensive they are to produce.
PopBox Video – created by www.soundviewgroup.com
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Brief reflections on the state of Online Video Advertising
April 16th, 2010This week I attended the DigiDay Online Video Conference and wanted to jot down some thoughts/impressions. Note that this post is coming from the perspective of an advertiser (since that’s what my clients are) – and not a content producer.
1. TThe room where the conference was being held was mobbed – standing room only. That in itself says something. I’m not going up to @dTech next week, but I’m willing to bet it too will be packed. Online Video aside, if you judge “Internet froth” by both the amount of conferences taking place in the space and the number of attendees , then at least from my perspective we are getting into some pretty frothy times. Maybe not at the fever pitch of the late 1990s…but it’s starting to feel eerily similar.
2. OOnline Video advertising is being utilized by big name advertisers with their online agencies to shift a chunk (not a big chunk at this point…but it’s a start…) of their TV budget over to this medium. Makes sense – it’s more accountable, and everyone wants to learn if it can do something for their brand/sales. Further, they are also using it to extend the reach of their TV buy (the extended screen idea) – effectively going further into the same audience that would have watched their show on the telly.
3. FFormats and standards (and metrics for evaluation) are still being worked on by various players – while that complicates things it’s not stopping players from stepping in and getting their toes wet.
4. JJust like in other forms of online advertising, people are exploring targeting via demo, behavioral, and context/content affiliation.
5. FFor most advertisers, being in a brandsafe location matters – and since that can be risky even when someone isn’t buying UGC, companies like ScanScout are building businesses to enable customers to sleep better at night concerning where their ads might show up.
6. WWhile UGC video is the predominant video on the web, no one has yet cracked the code on advertising with it versus spend on places like Hulu. That will change – but the change hasn’t really picked up steam yet.
7. AAdap.Tv has built a GoogleTV like bidding engine for video placements on their network. Good idea – and gives users the same sense of control (over a limited inventory) that GoogleTV currently provides in the DRTV space.
8. TThere are A LOT of Online Video Ad Networks. A LOT. And it’s very hard to differentiate the offerings. And all of their marketing sounds the same. Similar to the display ad network/exchange space. So finding the places to buy is as usual best done with some great references, some hard negotiating, and a solid testing strategy.
The most certain (and obvious) thing I can say is that because a broadband connection at home has finally hit the tipping point we’re going to see more and more video at home. And that means more and more advertising being included. So we’ll see real growth in the coming months. But everything else (who brings it to you, what formats, where it plays, what gets wrapped around it in terms of interactive/e-commerce functionality, etc.) is far from being pinned down – yet.
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Social Media Is Certainly Today’s Next Big Thing
March 10th, 2010Yesterday I attended Digiday: Social – which was actually a great confab re: the state of Social Media today. A lot of “platforms,” a lot of “agencies,” and a decent chunk of companies dipping their toes in the Social Media water (or lake or river or ocean depending on their manpower and appetite for the new.) Some observations:
1. Social Media is here - in that there are a lot of avenues out there for people to discuss things. Reviews, blogs, comments, forums, and of course the biggies…Twitter, Facebook, Beebo, MySpace, and to some extent the Digg’s and Reddits and StumbleUpon’s of the world. But various people depending on their time and interest interact to extremely varying degrees with each of these outlets. My own (and your own) experience of course bears this out.
2. Companies need to invest a lot (and probably more than they’d like) if they want to control their own social media destiny – because unfortunately despite some really good tools out there (Ripple6 for one), managing social media is a GRIND. It takes real people posting real things, one by one, and then Listening and then Managing. You can’t just throw up a Facebook Fan page and walk away. Or nothing happens – or at least nothing good. So if you want to play – you need to invest some people time, some strategy time, and some budget. And that all costs some serious dollars with a definite return – just a return that you aren’t really sure of in terms of amount and time to payback. Doesn’t mean that you should bury your head in the sand re: the medium, but you have to acknowledge the road is going to be fairly uncertain and be able to live with that.
3. Lots of people want to help – Social Media agencies are where SEM agencies were about 5 years ago and the first Digital Ad agencies were about 14 years ago. And that’s cool – if you can afford them then the help is certainly valuable and the people involved in running them really remind me of the first digital agencies I worked with back in the mid 1990s.
4. Knowing that it’s fairly time consuming, tred slowly and carefully into Social Media. Maybe you only bite off a Facebook page (I recommend that due to the conversational element among many versus Twitter’s broadcast approach as there’s more possibility for viral dialog), or start a blog on your company’s website. Or you figure out how to get discussion boards working for you on your website (which drive SEO perhaps more cheaply than anything else IF you have enough UGC). But if you’re a small or mid-sized firm don’t plan on doing everything at once – unless you’ve got a lot of $$, a killer IT department, and a lot of time to spend on it.