Sitewire

Dig Into Vertical in '07
- Josh Yeager

Last year around this time I wrote that OPR's were my big recommendation for 2006. I look back over the past year with a sense of satisfaction in seeing the phenomenal results Sitewire has garnered for our clients leveraging the OPR tactic. As 2007 draws ever nearer, my tip for the coming year is vertical search.

By now, everyone knows about the standard broad search engines of Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com and even MIVA. Right now you're probably asking yourself "What is vertical search and what does it mean to me?". Vertical search is the moniker for industry-specific search engines, and this is where I'm placing my bets for success in 2007 for B2B clients looking to drive highly-targeted leads.

While the big boys battle it out for incremental points of increase from the generic search audience, highly-targeted, niche search engines are gaining a ground-swell of usage -- and the attention of many savvy web marketers. This makes absolute sense. The entire concept and value of search has to do with relevance. Users want relevant results. The search engines want relevant content to provide relevant results to their constituents. But in reality, when Google can return millions of search results for a particular keyword phrase -- how can all of those actually be relevant? This is where vertical search's real value becomes apparent.

Instead of going straight-away to Google or MSN when doing business research or making a business decision -- wouldn't it make more sense to use an engine that is specific to your industry, your world? But where to start? First and foremost, one of the best general business search engines is, named appropriately enough, Business.com.

Business.com is a vertical search leader for the business community and provides directory and sponsored (PPC) search listings spanning 26 industry verticals and 65,000 business-related topics within their own portal site -- as well as search feeds for industry-related sites such as Forbes.com, Entrepreneur.com, BusinessWeek, Inc.com, FastCompany, B2B YellowPages and more. Every month the Business.com Network reaches 30 million people who are using the Internet to seek information, access and goods in the B2B marketplace.

To illustrate the value in narrowing your ads to a vertically targeted engine/market, compare these actual top ten SERP's from Google, Yahoo! and Business.com:

Sources:

1. Google Zeitgeist - http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
2. Yahoo! Buzz - http://buzz.yahoo.com/overall/
3. Business.com Internal Data

If that graphic doesn't give you enough to chew on, consider this qualifying quote from Nicole Richards, Strategic Account Executive at Business.com:

"In a recent report of 3,500 respondents, Marketing Sherpa stated that 27% of marketers at agencies, SEOs and SEMS, will be moving budgets into vertical search in 2007. The shift in vertical search can be compared to that in TV with the arrival of cable. Big players such as CBS, NBC and ABC are still major players, although channels such as HBO, ESPN and CNN have gained significant market share over the years. Moving into the new year, it will be essential for marketers to consider vertical engines as part of their overall marketing plan to keep up with their competition".

Nicole knows where it's at and so do we! While Business.com is a vertical search engine, it's possible for marketers to get so much more granular than this. Depending on your industry/space, there are vertical search engines to specifically target qualified leads in the areas of:

• Agriculture
  Construction:
  • commercial
  • industrial
• Engineering:
  • chemical
  • electronic
• Finance
  Healthcare:
  • dental
  • medical
  • veterinary
• Human Resources
  Landscape Architecture
  Legal
  Manufacturing:
  • electronic
  • food processing
  • general
  • OEM
• Marketing
  Sales/Consumption:
  • consumer electronics
  • retail
  • wholesale
• Scientific:
  • bio
  • life science
• Technology/IT:
  • hardware
  • semiconductors
  • software

Keep your eyes peeled for more detailed and granular info about industry-specific vertical search in future issues. In the interim, if you'd like more information on vertical search for your industry and the types of campaigns that Sitewire can manage on your behalf, please contact your Account Strategist. If you have any comments or feedback for me about this article, please email me at jyeager@sitewire.net.

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A New Year…A New Wave of Online Marketing
- Kimberly LaVasseur

I love this time of year! With the crisp breeze in the air, holiday festivities and 2007 marketing planning, I am always excited. Yes, it is true that somehow 2007 marketing and strategic planning is one of my favorite things. After all, the New Year gives us pause to evaluate our effectiveness in the year that has past (both personally and in regard to our marketing efforts), and make a new plan to be even more effective in the coming year. In the case of online marketing, as well as many forms of traditional, it isn't "Out with the old, in with the new," but rather, "Out with the old that isn't returning an acceptable ROI and in with the new!"

That being the case, and to expand upon Josh's article on Vertical Search, I thought I would share with you some of the exciting online opportunities that we have incorporated into the 2007 online marketing plans for our clients. As you consider these tactics, I encourage you to ask yourself the following:

• Do I know the ROI (return on investment) for my marketing initiatives in 2006?
• Is that ROI acceptable to me and my team?
  • If yes, what other initiatives can we employ in 2007 to expand our reach and grow our business?
  • If no, how can we change our marketing strategy in 2007 to be more efficient and effective?
• Are we maximizing the opportunity of online marketing to compliment our traditional efforts?

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for…our top online marketing tactics for 2007:

1. Email (it's so old, it's new again!) - We're bringing email back! It's the most desirable way to create an ongoing relationship with your customers (i.e., RETENTION). However, customers have gotten A LOT more sophisticated about what they will and will not accept via email. We encourage you NOT to try this on your own, unless of course you have a marketing professional on your staff with email content creation experience. The message is paramount; it must be timely, pertinent and worthwhile. Several of our clients are testing the use of video in their email; we'll know the ROI on that investment by this time next year!
2. pURL Campaigns (also known as Dialogue Marketing) - The DMA (Direct Marketing Association) Response Rate report found the national average for direct mail response rates were 2.77 percent. Unfortunately due to SPAM, email response rates aren't much better. Through a combination of personalized direct mail, email and personalized URLs (For example: www.sitewire.net/kimberlylavasseur), dialogue marketing enables you to have a meaningful conversation that reflects preferences and desires. It allows you to take a holistic view of a customer and tailor messages based on their demographics, psychographics and behavior. And the results are proven: consistent response rates of greater than 10 percent.
3. Rich Media Advertising - Here's an opportunity that has generated a lot of buzz in regards to effectiveness compared to its red-headed step child, pop-up advertising. In a February report, DoubleClick, the largest distributor of Web advertisements, found that rich media accounted for nearly 40 percent of ads it placed in the fourth quarter of 2003. Overall, the volume of rich-media ads distributed increased nearly 60 percent in the quarter, compared to the same period a year ago. The reason for the ascendance of rich media, according to DoubleClick, is straightforward: higher response rates. On average, one in 79 Internet users who viewed a rich-media ad clicked on it, compared to one in every 370 for other ads. DoubleClick also found that Internet users who didn't click were still more likely to visit an advertiser's website or purchase their product after viewing a rich-media ad. But hurry, over time response rates are predicted to decline as users become less intrigued by the cool ads that incorporate audio and video and find ways to block them from coming up on their computers.
4. Podcasting - If you don't know what it is, you will in 2007. As blogging becomes more mainstream, enter the era of podcasting. This is typically a subscription-based service where users can get selected "podcasts" automatically downloaded to their ipod or other pda-type device. Pretty cool; the jury is still out in regard to how podcasting can influence buying decisions, etc. But it is still cool and we are testing it for several clients, as well. Check it out at www.itunes.com. You can download podcasts to your desktop, too; even if you STILL don't own an ipod (please, Santa!)
5. Vertical Search - See Josh Yeager's totally awesome article on this!
6. White Paper Sponsorship -Could your business benefit from being associated as an "expert" in your field? If so, writing and distributing white papers can be an excellent vehicle to reinforce this position. Sponsoring white papers on topics relevant to your business is another tactic to create this perception. Here's a great example on Rich Media advertising written and distributed by DoubleClick. Oh, and did I mention this content almost always improves your organic search results?

Is this to say that we are replacing more "tried and true" online marketing tactics with these newer ones? Hardly. In case you are still wondering, search marketing is here to stay. As human kind becomes more and more enthralled with the internet and its amazing ability to provide accurate information in real time, it will only continue to increase. And now with vertical search, even the most niche businesses can utilize search to target your market. As the saying goes (one of Sitewire co-founder Bret Giles' favorites!), you have to repeat something seven times before it will be remembered.

Here goes:

1. Over 85% of all internet sessions begin on a search engine
2. Over 85% of all internet sessions begin on a search engine
3. Over 85% of all internet sessions begin on a search engine
4. Over 85% of all internet sessions begin on a search engine
5. Over 85% of all internet sessions begin on a search engine
6. Over 85% of all internet sessions begin on a search engine
7. Over 85% of all internet sessions begin on a search engine

If you aren't showing up where your customers are searching for you, you are missing out on the most efficient, targeted online media available. Where else is your target audience going and what are they doing online? Let us help you BE THERE. Call or email me for a complimentary strategy session to learn more about how online marketing can grow your business in 2007 at 480.355.0024 or kimberlyl@sitewire.net.

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