Is Your Website Leaving Money on the Table?
Posted by Michael Newman in Internet Marketing for Companies of All Sizes on July 26, 2010
What do visitors think of your website? Do they resonate with your presence then buy your products (either directly or through your retail channels)? When someone comes to your site do they say: “I get it, this works for me” or do they say: “what is this company trying to tell me?”
Unless you know what goes through the heads of your site visitors how can you know if you are leaving money on the table? You might think people are “getting it” only to find they are missing your main messages completely.
The best way to dig into an analysis like this is to start with some basic usability testing. This does not have to be expensive nor terribly time consuming. Because of the nature of the internet, we can’t consistently predict user behavior based on our own experiences.
You may have something huge and obvious (to you) on your site and find out people just don’t see it. This is because there is so much instant information on the internet we have become accustomed to scanning very quickly for what we are looking for and leaving just as quickly if we don’t find it.
How many times have you been on a site with a goal in mind and you say “how the heck do I…..?” Since you and your web team designed your site it will always be obvious to you how to achieve the intended goals.
The bad news is no single person can judge what is best for your website. But the good news is it doesn’t take a large group of people to identify the main problems.
Let’s say you test three people and all of them told you that your “About Us” page didn’t provide a concise message about the company. Or they told you the text was overwhelming on your product pages and they would want to leave your site and visit a competitor. Or they all agreed they got frustrated when trying to find a dealer. These are issues that would frustrate most site users.
Usability testing also stops those strategy meetings that drive everyone nuts. You have most likely been in a few. “Why do we have three clicks to get to the main product page?” “Our site is just not exciting.” “The CEO said he wants some flash content on the home page.”
By doing usability testing you provide hard data to analyze with your team. It’s down and dirty research and it really works. Another thing to remember when the discussions heat up is that you are not trying to prove one path is right or another is wrong. No finger pointing allowed! You are gathering data to analyze – just like any other business development plan.
It’s never too early to test either. Are you looking at creating some major changes to your website? Why not take the basic sketches, wireframes or PowerPoint documents and show them to other people in your company for their input? Grab some customers and show them the proposed changes. Grab three people in your target market and give them an Amazon gift card worth $25. That $75 is a lot cheaper than fixing the issues after the site has been redesigned!
There’s a bit more to it but honestly not much. Once you prepare and go through a usability test you now can perform these tests whenever you need some user validation. Site analytics tools provide invaluable data and are highly recommended. But these tools can’t tell you why users chose a particular behavior. That is the job of usability testing.
Companies spend a good deal of their marketing budgets on website development. Yet few of them know if the decisions they make are optimized to convert customers to buyers.
Especially in these challenging economic times we need all the customers we can get. Don’t leave money on the table. Do the testing.
If you need some advice on how to proceed with site testing let me know. You’ll be an expert in no time and a hero to your CEO and your sales team.
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Premier Guitar’s Success Story – Interview with Peter Sprague
Posted by Michael Newman in Internet Marketing for Companies of All Sizes on June 26, 2010
Peter Sprague, the Managing Director of the Premier Guitar and Guitar Edge multimedia networks, shares his thoughts on business development, digital marketing and shifting trends in the guitar industry. With revenue growth of 38% in 2009 and on track for a 41% increase in 2010 (an anomaly in the world of magazines) PG is obviously doing something right.
The Company
Peter Sprague and his partners and colleagues created Premier Guitar (Premier Media Holdings) in February of 2007. In three short years, Premier has built the largest global multimedia network for guitarists. Presently, the PG platforms serve over 650,000 unduplicated readers every month – which is almost a 50% increase over their monthly year-to-date audience of a year ago.
PG’s print circulation (up about 10% vs. this time a year ago) keeps increasing with single copy sell through percentages in some months reaching as high as 72%.
Premier Media (in cooperation with Hal Leonard, the world’s largest print music publisher) also produces The Guitar Edge multimedia network which focuses on instruction and education. This multiplatform network has now already reached, in just 9 months, a monthly audience of over 200,000 guitarists.
Background
At the ripe age of 28 Peter became a member of the Dow Jones Management Committee rewarded for the distribution and marketing work he spearheaded in making the Wall Street Journal the most widely circulated and read daily newspaper in America. His media experience has also subsequently included working in the golf, tennis, travel and medical markets and in B2B media where he has demonstrated consistent ability to serve different audiences and to make money doing it.
Premier’s explosive growth and innovative approach to content delivery resulted in Peter being named to 2009’s Folio Forty, an honor bestowed on the media industry’s most accomplished and successful innovators.
Interview
Q: Your career is impressive. Did you have a mentor at an early age that helped you acquire your business savvy?
A: The Wall Street Journal (before Murdoch acquired it) was a place where great journalism was practiced. It helped me learn to be “reader first” and reader centric in all things. I was taught at an early age how content and readers do, and should, interact.
Many publishers today are advertising centric, where advertisers subtly (and not so subtly) guide editorial content. At The Wall Street Journal this was never practiced, nor tolerated. If you are going to build an audience you need to provide content that is straight up and isn’t marginalized by commercial influence. If you understand this and the benefit of multiple distribution channels, the readers will come to, and stay with, you.
Q: Why did you start a publishing company for the musical instrument market considering your very diverse business background?
A: First is my life-long love of music. I was a drummer and played in bands when I was younger like a lot of people. Second, guitarists are tremendously passionate about what they do. I haven’t seen another industry where the readers we serve demonstrate such interest, knowledge, passion and enthusiasm, which is to say there is a large and engaged reader market to serve, most of whom were not, and are not, reading guitar magazines.
I did a lot of research and had many conversations with people in the industry about their interests and needs. I soon realized many manufacturers just didn’t have the large budgets for wide scale advertising at the inflated rates that print centric media companies were/are charging. If we could offer a large and engaged reading audience at reasonable prices everyone would benefit, so that is what we did. If you look at our multimedia rates, they are very affordable. In challenging economic times, the largest audience coupled with the lowest rates seems to be a model that provides real value for budget challenged manufacturers.
Q: PremierGuitar.Com is extremely popular and your Premier Guitar’s magazine print circulation is growing too. What factors do you think contribute to the company’s success?
A: Quality and reader centric content is where it all starts. Having freely accessible content also allows the readers to decide how, when, and where to consume the information. You charge accordingly for the delivery mechanism they prefer whether it’s online, print, a digital magazine, iPhone, smart phone or video. It costs money to cut down trees but if people prefer it that way then we can serve them. Our magazines are fully available online for free and this, paradoxically to some, has actually increased our print subscription and single copy print sales.
Another key aspect of our business is relentless customer support. So many businesses have just completely abandoned customer listening and customer service, but for us it’s a major commitment. We have no more than a 24 hour turnaround for anyone with a problem. I personally take calls like the rest of our staff and whether a reader or an advertiser has a problem we are committed to fixing the problem and doing it promptly. Real customer service is a very viral force these days. Ever call an airline; a utility; or a credit card company? They just don’t give a damn. Even if we were a regulated monopoly, we wouldn’t ever behave like one.
Q: How does the process work of choosing the right content for your readers?
A: It is part art; part science; and all about quality editors. Our entire editorial staff is made up of accomplished musicians. They mirror, for the most part, the demographics of our audience. The “art” lies in our editors who have really great instincts about what people want. We have a saying, “no dead guys on the cover” … might help single copy sales but retreaded artist content just isn’t very high on reader’s “want” list so we don’t do it.
The “science” involves constant research. We have reader panels, focus groups, surveys, and stay in constant contact with our readers. The alchemy is in mixing the “art” and the “science” until we “get it right”. The readers are the only judges that matter and they vote continually with their time, attention, money and eyeballs.
Q: You have a very large amount of content including interviews, videos, reviews and even podcasts about all kinds of subjects. How do you create so much content and not overwhelm your staff?
A: I know it sounds provincial, but operating in Iowa is a big part of our success. The work ethic of Iowans is incredible. Our people are highly educated (the Iowa Basic Skills Test is still American education’s gold standard) and they work very hard. The school systems all the way through college are some of the best in the country.
People in the Midwest also seem more inclined to live by traditional values that work well in all aspects of life. The work ethic in Iowan’s DNA consistently blows me away. It’s almost like slackers and entitled brats are turned away at the borders. We are employee owned, which also has a huge impact on productivity; effort; and just plain giving a damn. We’re certainly well organized, but not hierarchical. We all answer phones, clean the galley, and work hard. Further, we have comparatively low operating costs, which allows us to keep prices down. Our customers don’t have to pay for us having expensive overhead, nor do we waste money and paper by flooding newsstands with copies that don’t sell.
Q: Your YouTube channel is very popular with musicians and receives over 7 million views a year. Was a YouTube strategy part of your plan from the beginning?
A: Yes. Digital delivery through various platforms was always part of our strategy. I could never understand having a guitar magazine and not offering sight and sound. We invest a lot of money in video production. We have HD cameras and have a very capable, dedicated video editor. Joe Coffey, our Editorial Director and former TV anchor, was and is leading us into even more cutting edge video publishing.
Q: It’s a bit ironic that an industry focused on something as social as the creation of music has a tough time creating winning internet marketing strategies. Why is that?
A: I think one of the biggest problems is the retail structure. If you look at most industries they have a classic two step distribution and much of that process depends on the quality and business capabilities of the retailer. A lot of retailers got into this business because they love music and musical instruments – not because of their marketing skills. This is a problem and the credit crunch currently limiting retailers is another big part of the problem and inhibits retailers from being more aggressive.
There are many exceptions, of course, but many manufacturers don’t give high marks to many retailers when it comes to promotion, marketing, etc. And of course on the other end, some manufacturers abuse retailers and under invest in their own marketing. It’s often an unproductive situation that inhibits industry growth and more aggressive and effective marketing.
Moving forward it will be interesting to see whether or not some manufacturers start to test “direct to consumer” business models; company stores; and/or other developments that may be tried to serve considerable and unserved consumer demand. If you look at the dealers that run aggressive instructional programs, that are part of their communities and know how to use digital marketing, they get the job done really well. But, unfortunately, manufacturers will tell you there are not enough of these “best of breed” operators.
Big box retailers have their place to be sure but the bigger they get, the less control manufacturers seem to feel they have over margin and profitability. It’s a tough situation for manufacturers and for big chain retailers alike and is an issue that requires some “win, win” thinking by all involved.
This industry must also address the mindless cutting of music curriculums in schools. We need to pay more attention to music education. If we don’t encourage and educate our children about the joys and benefits of music, it will surely adversely impact the growth of our industry. Guitar Hero has brought many kids into music and motivated them to play. The trick lies in converting these kids into lifelong enthusiasts that play real instruments.
Q: What advice do you have for people who want to embrace digital marketing but are unsure where to start?
A: Find external help because real expertise won’t often exist within your company, or your people will be too busy doing traditional marketing. If you want to be an effective digital marketer, engage people that understand it. Advances in digital marketing move so fast we, too, sometimes have a hard time keeping up so we regularly outsource coding. If you don’t get expert counsel, it’s like saying you are not feeling well and then operating on yourself.
If you are not building an opt-in electronic customer database you are missing a huge channel for promotion, sales and customer retention. If your website isn’t updated regularly and doesn’t contain really useful content, it’s going to hurt you competitively. People judge your company these days, in part, by your website. We are not “entering” the age of digital marketing we are “in” the age of digital marketing. Most consumers research products online and then buy either in a store or online. Your website is your “pre-store” and/or your shopping cart.
Q: Do you have any final thoughts?
Today, there are many communication platforms. The trick is to be available on all platforms that musicians frequent. One must have multiple platforms and get the reader where they are, not force them to go where you are and, importantly, cross promote these platforms correctly. Today, too many media companies look at editorial content as a way to attract and separate advertising at rates that are, frankly, usurious and based on declining print audiences sustained by discount sub offers and/or by flooding the single copy channels. That model is, in my opinion, finished. Content is king and technology is the crown prince. 60% of our annual expenses are invested in content and technology. Today readers have proliferating choices, with multiple information sources, so you must have valuable content (not promotional swill) available wherever your readers are. If not, you are a promotional forum, not a media company!
This is the most viral industry I have ever seen. If you are good at what you do you will be rewarded both in terms of audience size and engagement, but also in terms of manufacturer trust and investment.
It is ironic since so many music enthusiasts are very early “gadget” adopters and very tech savvy. That said, in most industries what is supposed to be a “stampede” to digital is more like a “migration”. Someone from the MIT Media Labs said, “With new technologies, readers lead; media follows; and marketers trail far behind.” That is the way it has been in our industry, with a few but very notable exceptions. Lately, however, there is an acceleration toward multimedia vs. print centric marketing. The readers are already consuming information and promotion digitally and the marketers are now slowly starting to shift gears to catch up to reach their customers and prospects where they are. The familiar is easy; change is difficult and often scary since many marketers are only now learning how to take advantage of the benefits of digital marketing … lower costs, measurability, combined brand building and direct marketing presence; and superior ROIs. The shift to multimedia is, in my respectful opinion, inevitable.
Peter F. Sprague
Managing Director
Premier Media Holdings, LLC
Three Research Center
Marion, IA 52302
319-447-5550 Office
319-624-5222 Private Home Office
319-447-5599 Fax
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Sweeping Changes to Facebook
Posted by Michael Newman in Internet Marketing for Companies of All Sizes on May 17, 2010
At the Facebook F8 Conference several weeks ago there were some important announcements. If you are involved in a business that has an internet presence these announcements are important to you.
The bottom line is that you no longer need to be in Facebook to share data and information. Note that this has also caused some ferocious backlash from privacy advocates but that is an entirely different subject. Time will tell how this new strategy will affect Facebook and Facebook members.
Eight New Social Plugins
There are now eight new social plugins that are very easy to drop into a site or embed in a YouTube video. The Like button lets users share pages from your site back to their Facebook profile with one click. Then of course their friends are exposed to your site and… you get the idea. The Recommendations plugin gives users personalized suggestions for pages on your sites they may like. The Comment plugin lets users comment on any piece of content on your site. Click here to view all of the new plugins.
New Programming Interface for Third Parties
The biggest news at the conference involves third party development for Facebook. If you are a web developer and you previously worked with the Facebook API (Application Programming Interface) you either spent lots of time with a martini shaker or your favorite hand gun at the local shooting range working off steam.
The Facebook API didn’t follow conventions, had little documentation and was time consuming to test and debug. According to Facebook, they have designed a new API which will lower the barriers for open market development. Using the newly announced Open Graph protocol, developers have a wide array of possibilities to bring all kinds of external data back in to Facebook.
Internet Movie Database, owned by Amazon is using the new protocol. Clicking on the “like” button on a movie on their web site page will automatically add that movie to the “Favorite Movies” section of a user’s profile on Facebook.
On CNN you can see which of your Facebook friends have “recommended” or “liked” an article in the Activity Feed or on the article itself. You can also recommend an article by publishing it to your Facebook page with comments.
You can incorporate the plugins in a variety of places including newsletters and blog posts – just don’t overdo it or you will look like a swap meet for Facebook spam which is the equivalent of those TV commercials announcing “SALE, THIS FRIDAY ONLY…ONLY…ONLY.
The “Recommendations” plugin may link people to products they have been searching for – certainly something every marketer loves. Facebook’s Bret Taylor, who is director of products stated: “400 million Facebook users share 25 billion things a month, and now thanks to a real-time search people will be able to search across those shared things.”
Time will tell how adoption of the new Facebook API takes hold and whether it will be a powerful tool for marketing strategists in the future. One thing’s for sure: it’s a step in the right direction to create a more powerful social internet.
If you need help understanding how these changes can affect your internet marketing strategy, or you just want some social media marketing advice in general, contact me and I’ll be glad to discuss the possibilities with you.
Go here to read more and watch videos about the new Facebook changes.
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Twitter’s New @Anywhere Platform
Posted by Michael Newman in Internet Marketing for Companies of All Sizes on May 14, 2010
Twitter announced the new @Anywhere platform at the South by Southwest Festival in (SXSW) in March in the hopes of tighter integration with the web. The plugin format will be able to integrate some basic Twitter functions.
With Hovercards when you visit a web site (or blog), you’ll be able to follow any Twitter account associated with that site without having to leave the page and view that person’s profile. With Tweet Box, a visitor to your site can instantly tweet to their followers AND the tweet includes your web site name.
To put all this in context, imagine a visitor to your blog who likes what they are reading. With one click they can start following your Twitter account. With another click they can create a tweet and send it off to their followers.
You do have to sign up for @Anywhere. When you sign up you decide the text that will appear in tweets users make from your site.
Combined with the recent Facebook announcements at the F8 developer conference, it seems Twitter and Facebook are going for a much richer web experience pulling data back and forth from their sites to the world wide web.
Can you see value in integrating @Anywhere into your marketing strategies? How about any downside to using @Anywhere?
Helpful links on installing @Anywhere:
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/using-twitters-anywhere-service-in-6-steps/
http://www.blackweb20.com/2010/05/06/how-to-implement-twitter-anywhere/
WordPress Plugin:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/add-twitter-anywhere/
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Interview with Briana Bragg on Blogging
Posted by Michael Newman in Internet Marketing for Companies of All Sizes on April 20, 2010
Briana Bragg runs a company called Business Bragger which offers social media marketing services for companies in a variety of industries. Briana has been utilizing social media to build awareness of brands and causes since its inception in 2003. We struck up a conversation in LinkedIn several months ago sharing information on this fast-paced world of social media marketing.
Because Briana has some excellent advice on blogging (as well as the entire field of internet marketing), I thought it would be a good opportunity for her to share some of her knowledge with us in an interview.
Q: What are the benefits of incorporating blogging into a company’s business objectives?
A: A blog allows a company to communicate directly with their consumer. A blog is meant to inform, educate and entertain its readers. A blog allows a company the opportunity to share their knowledge with the general public, who may not know the ins and outs of a particular industry. A blog is a two-way communication channel; a company can use it to hear what their customers really have to say, they can use it as market research, as a way to hear customer feedback or to gain better credibility with their clients. This is just a few ways a blog can be used.
Q: How does a company determine if blogging is right for them?
A: Any company, in every industry can blog. We live in a time where consumers are educating themselves on the products they buy and the companies they purchase from. Consumers are hungry for information about industries, companies, products and services; therefore any company has something to inform their clients about.
Any company can use blogging to build their credibility and brand as well. An important component of blogging is to build a strategy based on the message a company wants to deliver to the general public.
Q: What are the steps a person needs to take to get started with a blogging strategy?
A: Decide what topics are pertinent to your target market and build monthly campaigns based on those topics. Remember social media is not about tooting your own horn, it’s about the consumer and how they can benefit from what you have to offer. It’s about them learning and educating themselves on the products and services they are looking to buy and then allowing them to make the buying decision based on the information they gather.
Make your content interesting and entertaining or else your readers will not follow the information you provide to them. Be consistent! Consistency is vital when using the internet (a blog or social networking site) to promote your brand. Leaving your network unattended will cost you money in the long run, because everyone wants to be involved in a two‐way conversation; not many people want to participate if it’s one sided.
Q: What do you say to people that tell you “I know I need to do it but I just don’t have the time”?
A: “Let us do it for you” (smile). Really though, if you don’t have the time to be consistent with blogging and social media, allow an expert to do it for you. You can always begin small by updating once a week, but consistency is key to making blogging and social media, work for business purposes.
Do you have some final thoughts for people who want to jump in and start blogging?
Blogging combined with social networking is a very powerful tool to engage and communicate directly with consumers. Companies are learning the power behind creating a great message and delivering it in such a way that consumers want to be involved in the conversation.
Ruining your reputation is also very easy, because this style of marketing requires different techniques than traditional marketing. Do not spam your network and remember to provide value. Updating your account every hour is not considered consistency; it’s called spamming. This will turn your network off almost immediately. For help with the management of your account or to get more insight to how to use social media marketing correctly for business visit our blog @ www.businessbraggerblog.com and leave us a comment.
Otherwise you can email me directly @ briana@businessbragger.com or call us @ 877‐424‐9272.
Become a fan of us on Facebook @ www.facebook.com/businessbragger
Become a follower on Twitter @ www.twitter.com/businessbragger
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Will Recorded Music Have Value in the Future?
Posted by Michael Newman in Internet Marketing for Companies of All Sizes on March 25, 2010
With music creation being one of the main objectives of our end customers I thought this interview in EM was interesting. Panos Panay, the founder of Sonic Bids says music is a commodity and the monetary value will eventually drift to zero. It’s true that even download sales are down drastically.
To be successful musicians are going to have to become good at marketing on the internet. Having a game plan is where their future strategies should be.
And if revenue from recording is not in the picture, then the inexpensive audio equipment will do just for many people, further eroding the sales of high quality equipment.
Before you frown and hit the caps lock key on me for your reply, I don’t enjoy these trends anymore than anyone else. I love to record and thanks to my relationships, I have some great gear. But us older folks are not going to be around forever no matter how much we like our high end gear. For manufacturers and resellers, we all need to understand the trends and challenges and determine the best approaches for our businesses without reacting to short term changes in the environment.
For me, I strongly believe in the value of a well thought out internet marketing plan, social media strategies and looking at the approach holistically to achieve the desired goals.
Not only does a good strategy work, but musicians who need to market themselves in this new environment are going to be impressed by high quality marketing tactics achieved by their favorite brands. We can’t treat our social sites like bastard children of our marketing department. They should be the FOCAL point of your marketing efforts to achieve your long term business goals.
What do you think of the trends for selling music and how they will affect the product mix in the industry?
Here is the article link:
Click here to see the EM article.
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Are You Using Call to Action Strategies?
Posted by Michael Newman in Internet Marketing for Companies of All Sizes on March 14, 2010
These days this term typically refers to website strategies to motivate the site visitor to take a specific action. A more general definition from BusinessDirectory.com:
“Words that urge the reader, listener, or viewer of a sales promotion message to take an immediate action, such as ‘Write Now,’ ‘Call Now,’ or (on the Internet) ‘Click Here’ A retail advertisement or commercial without a call-to-action is considered incomplete and ineffective.”
So you can refer to a “call of action” as your strategy to motivate someone to take a specific action. Looking at the phrase with this definition you realize there are all sorts of places you can use this strategy – and they are not limited to your internet marketing plans but we will focus there today.
Calls to action strategies are woven deeply into your website goals and marketing plans so think about all of your website goals. Make a list and potential call to action strategies for each one. Call to action plans have three components: 1) the specific action you want the participant to take, 2) the words (and possibly graphics) you use to motivate them and 3) the result when the participant performs the action you desire. All three components must perform well for the user experience to be a good one.
Let’s say you want to collect site visitor names for a newsletter. Putting a “sign up for our newsletter” button on your site is NOT a strategy! Why should your site visitor deluge their inbox with more emails if you don’t give them a reason to sign up? Offer an educational article, coupon, and explain to them the benefits they will receive from signing up! If you provide good educational material in your newsletter (for example) let them know right there – where they will decide to sign up.
You just spent 3 months creating a great educational document for potential customers that deals with the learning phase of the buying cycle. Don’t just post it and hope for the best. Tell them why they need to download it.
What about your social media sites? The same rule applies. If you have a link to your Facebook page on your site and you don’t have huge brand pull, give them a reason to become a Facebook fan. Maybe that is where they can go check out product tutorials or entertaining videos, or your discussion topics.
If your sales are done through reseller channels (and not through your website) make sure your website has excellent call to action strategies to provide product or service information, reviews, testimonials and the ability to quickly find a reseller.
If you go sign up for a Word Press blogging account the call to action text says: “Get your own Wordpress.com account in seconds.” Think of call to action strategies as always messaging the value and benefits of what you want them to do.
So use these strategies to motivate. In the words of Ben Franklin, “Drive thy business, or it will drive thee.”
For more information on Michaal Newman Consulting click here.
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Interview with Gary Allen of GuitarGearHeads.com
Posted by Michael Newman in Internet Marketing for Companies of All Sizes on February 27, 2010
Gary and his partner Dan Hilberg own the popular musician web site GuitarGearHeads.com. The site receives 65,000 unique visitors a month and provides excellent product reviews, industry news, a blog, user reviews, gear FAQs, a forum and a buyer’s guide.
Gary provides his insight into online marketing for musical instrument manufacturers.
Q: Tell us about how you got started and how you built such a popular site.
A: In 2003, my business partner Dan Halberg and I were active members of a guitar lesson forum where we answered questions from young guitar players. I started writing gear reviews and ended up with an article in the Musicians Friend Newsletter.
I began writing more and more reviews and gained credibility with the manufacturers. Finally Dan and I decided to start our own website.
We rolled out GuitarGearHeads.com in March of 2003. Remember, this was still pretty early on in the internet space – before Facebook and YouTube and before ubiquitous broadband.
We have recently reincorporated in Nevada as Allen & Halberg, Inc, and rolled out RhythmPlayer.com, the second site of our music specific websites.
Q: What are some of the highlights you can share with us regarding your site?
A: It has been seven years since we began, and we have built a very solid reputation in the music industry thanks to the manufacturers who supported us in these early years. Every year, we have grown bigger by adding new features and content to the site which now boasts well over of 90,000 pages of content. We now see an average of 65,000 unique visitors, and 6.5 million page views per month putting us at a level comparable to most industry print magazines.
Q: Those are impressive figures. What are some of the challenges you have faced in the past six years growing your online presence?
A: Early on I would have to say the biggest challenge was getting manufacturers to see that we were serious about what we were doing, and that we were here to stay. We have since established our place in the industry, and this is much less of a challenge today.
The continuing challenge is to figure out which features on our site are working, and which are not. We are constantly working to add, remove, or tweak features to make our site user friendly as well as a hot spot for manufacturers to have their products showcased. This is a challenge that will never go away since the web is constantly in flux, and we need to stay on top of these changes to make sure we are always on the cutting edge.
Q: Given that traditional “one voice to the masses” marketing strategies don’t work like they used to, why are so many companies in the musical instrument industry hesitant to embrace the web for their marketing needs?
A: I don’t believe that there is any one simple answer to this question. I would like to say it is because of the novelty of web advertising, but in reality, it is not all that new. The web has become an important channel for advertising and promotion, and some companies leverage these channels well and some do not. I do think that the music industry in general lags behind other industries in their understanding of how to include electronic channels in their mix.
Why? It has been my experience that it is human nature to resist change. As such, I believe that many people in all industries feel that it is a challenge to keep up with the speed at which things are moving today. I also believe that it is just a matter of time before the musical instruments industry moves toward the internet in a bigger way. The most important part is finding people who can help develop and implement an online plan that integrates and drives their marketing goals.
Q: What are manufacturers telling you about web advertising, and what are your thoughts on this?
A: Pretty much the same thing that all media sources, whether web or print are hearing. Everyone has trimmed, and in some cases completely cut, their advertising budgets to save money. For the life of me, I cannot understand the logic in this decision, and to tell the truth neither do most of the advertising managers I talk with on a daily basis.
The general executive decision is to spend tons of money on advertising when things are good, and cut the budget when things are not. This is entirely backwards in any logical sense, since most of the research I have read indicates that the best tactical move is to increase promotion to maximize share-of-voice and market share. Not only is advertising typically less expensive during an economic downturn, but there is less competition for eyeballs since less people are advertising. Times like these are perfect brand-building (not-revenue building) opportunities, but unfortunately, most executives see advertising budgets as overhead expense.
Even forgetting future strategic advantages, effective advertising and promotion plans are all about keeping your name and products out in the open for those in a purchasing position. There are still people out there with dollars to spend, but in down economies there are fewer people in a position to buy. This means that if you want to sustain sales (or minimize the negative impact) there is no other time where it’s more important to keep your products in the limelight.
I am biased obviously, but dollar-for-dollar, web advertising is a very economical way to accomplish this relative to traditional media, such as print.
Q: What do you recommend for musical instrument manufacturers?
A: My recommendation is that if you need to save money, realign your promotional budget to emphasize ROI instead of tradition. Look at cutting back in other areas of your budget and use those dollars to increasing your promotional budget. It could be as simple as changing to energy efficient light bulbs or offer employees Folgers® instead of Starbucks®. Hey, they might not like it at first, but they will definitely like having a job in a few months even more. Investors and owners will really be impressed when the market swings back up and revenues reflect the long-term advantages of improved market position.
Q: What is your philosophy on reviewing products from participating companies?
A: First and foremost, reviews should be written by real players. I have to say this because most people don’t know. There is a disturbing trend going on in the musical instrument industry where companies are hiring professional writers to produce their product reviews. Unfortunately, many of these writers don’t even play an instrument! I read many reviews where I actually ask myself at the end if the reviewer even opened the box, let alone plugged the product in and put it through its paces. This has been going on for quite awhile now, and from site members I have talked to, they are catching on and not buying into these reviews.
Instead consumers in all markets are turning to the internet – looking at videos, forums, blogs, and user reviews. When was the last time you bought a product without “Googling” for valid reviews? Information is too easy to obtain, ads alone no longer sustain product sales in the long term. A highly promoted, new product that took years of development can perish quickly if you do not consider managing initial market reception.
Q: Do you charge a company to review a product?
A: No. I feel that it is very important to keep an unbiased attitude toward review writing, and if we were to receive payment from the manufacturers to write about specific products, there would be an expectation that we must discuss all the benefits of a product without ever mentioning the shortcomings.
In full disclosure, many manufacturers advertise with us and most times we are allowed to retain products for use in future reviews, lessons, and other content. Admittedly, it’s a tough line to walk sometimes, but we have taken a stand that we do not take remuneration for specific reviews and review space is not contingent on whether or not we have a business relationship.
Q: Internet marketing must touch all parts of the company and involves a complete strategy integrated into the company business planning. What do you have to say to the person who says “where do I start?”
A: I would first like to make it clear that I have never been a proponent of telling people to completely quit print advertising. Print advertising still has an important place in the promotional mix. I only suggest that companies should start moving toward a strategic and balanced approach in their marketing efforts. In reality, it takes very little money to get your feet wet on the web. For the cost of dropping just one monthly print ad, you could probably advertise on three fairly good size music websites.
I would tell them to find a website that is going to work with them on an individual basis to find the most creative ways to market their product. Most sites offer banner packages at set rates. I hate to say this, but in truth, this is no different than what they have been doing with the print advertising which almost everyone agrees is not working right now. Banners are great for building recognition and awareness, but realistic click-through rates are dismal. Our business model was built around finding added value and providing creative options that go well beyond just putting up banner ads.
The internet offers so many creative avenues to not only highlight your products, but also to allow customers to get to know your company as a whole. Every company should have accounts with just about every social media site they can find. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and any number of other sites are usually free, and it is a great place for companies to toot their own horn, and interact directly with their established fan base.
Even so, I have always felt that social media sites are more for people who are already fans of your products. A company should never forget that there is a whole world of people who are not familiar with their products, and these are the people that they reach through third party sites like GuitarGearHeads.com, RhythmPlayer.com and any number of other such sites.
At the NAMM show, I hear many marketing people telling me that they know they need to “get on the internet”. They just can’t convince their company leaders that this is the case. The only places they are allowed to go are to the websites of the major print magazines. Unfortunately, many of them are frustrated with these types of websites because they are ultimately built with a “teaser” mentality. They hide most of the real meat and potatoes content while getting people to buy their print magazine, or they require a subscription fee to get to any of the good content.
We built GuitarGearHeads.com to be a place where all content is free to the public. We have no subscription fees of any kind, and we are completely manufacturer supported through advertising. This means that if someone runs ads on our site, they get maximum exposure to every person who visits our site.
Q. Can you give some examples of some of the added value and creative options that you offer manufacturers that they won’t find in the mainstream?
A: Here are a couple of examples.
Our newest addition is the online music gear buyer’s guide module. Our buyers guide is set up so that a manufacturer can create their own account and add, remove, or edit products in real time. We really wanted to create a place where the manufacturer had multiple options available to leverage existing media assets to highlight a product. Each product slot supports up to four alternate picture views, video capability, sound samples, a link to the manufacturers profile, a link to the product page on the manufacturer’s site, and a contact link for the company.
The current independent cost is a nominal yearly membership fee of $200 with product uploads at $20 each throughout the year, although once a product is uploaded, they will never need to pay for that particular product again. What I think is so valuable in this buyers guide is the fact that a manufacturer can log in and add products in real time as they release them. There are no publication dates, and they are in complete control of their account. Where else can a manufacturer advertise and promote a product for just $20? Plus they gain the almost immediate benefit of GuitarGearHeads.com search engine indexing without having to wait for us to complete a professional review.
Another value added service that we are working on right now is providing printed copies of the reviews we write for the manufacturer to hand out at trade shows or send to their dealers. This idea came from a good friend of mine in the industry. We were talking about how with web advertising, unlike print advertising, there is nothing really tangible at the end of an advertising contract. This provides the manufacturer, or their ad buyer, with a physical deliverable that can be used to facilitate the other aspects of their sales and marketing operation that extends well beyond the end of the advertising period.
Q: What do you tell people who say you can’t measure the ROI of internet and social media marketing?
A: You would not believe how much I hear this statement. My answer is very simple. For years manufacturers have been spending thousands of dollars per month and per ad in print magazines. To this day, not one single manufacturer has been able to tell me how they can be sure that a single print ad made them money. Sure, sales may have increased after they ran an ad, but how many other things may have contributed to those increased sales? There is no guaranteed way to track how many people buy because of an advertisement.
For example, I let one manufacturer run a banner on our site for one month free of charge because they wanted to see the click-through rate to their site. At the end of the month, the marketing manager told me that they did not want to buy from us because he was disappointed in the number of clicks he received. We both were able to look at stats on our respective side and agree on the number he received. I thought his banner did very well, so I asked him what he had been expecting. He said he thought there should have been at least one hundred thousand clicks to his site. I was blown away by this expectation. If you were to take the subscription rate from one of the big industry print magazines, this would be equivalent to having every single person who received the magazine going to his site two or three times that month!
Most manufacturers are expecting the ad to bring people to their website. Maybe this is result of “Google Ad” behavior and PPC advertising – where the idea is to own search terms. This is certainly another viable and important but completely different element to be factored into your marketing approach. Sophisticated marketers understand that “the web” is not one channel, anymore than traditional media is one channel.
In the case of GuitarGearHeads.com and RhythmPlayer.com, we find that people who come to our site have already been to the manufacturer’s site, and are looking for a third party opinion before they make their purchase decision. If they find the information they are looking for, they are not going back to the manufacturers site. They are going to the local music store or online to purchase the product. Why would you want to derail buying behavior by sending them back to your website?
his is the real ROI in this type of marketing. In fact, if you look at print advertising before the advent of the Web and before manufacturers even had websites, the goal of advertising was to get people to the store to make a purchase decision.
Having the ability for them to click on a banner and go to a manufacturer’s website should be viewed as an added benefit, but getting them to a store to purchase their product should still be the main goal. Anecdotally, we have tons of examples where people have read our reviews and bought the product directly from our honest recommendation.
Q: If I type “guitar gear” into Google, your site comes up as number one which of course really helps drive traffic. Thank number one spot is impressive. What did you do to boost your search engine ranking?
A: Most people do not realize how hard it is to gain high search rankings in Google. Content and layout are the biggest obstacles to overcome. All other SEO techniques are secondary to content and layout.
Your content needs to be updated frequently, relevant to the topic, and be solid original information. Search engine bots are hungry little buggers, and if they find that your site has new articles or information at regular intervals, they will keep stopping by to see what they can absorb.
GuitarGearHeads.com is now indexed almost hourly by all the major engines. We have examples of posting a review and our content being on the first page of search results within 3 hours. That’s amazing. The quickest way to see your site deteriorate is to starve the search engine bots by not adding anything new.
Layout is another aspect that we constantly experiment with and try to improve. It’s a never ending process. We use a content management system (CMS) to help us separate the content and the layout. That way if we change how we display content, we don’t have to redo all of the underlying content.
Search engines have gotten a lot smarter and a lot more sophisticated over the years. We have maintained sustained high rankings by keeping a few key tenets. First, readers and search engines should see your newest content first. Second, the main parts of your site should be accessible within one click. Third, you do have to change layouts periodically to keep the site fresh and renew interest; however, never prioritize flashy technology over ease-of-navigation and speed.
Q: In wrapping up do you have any other advice for companies as we slowly try to climb out of this economic crisis?
A: When it comes right down to it, the internet is not exactly new, yet many companies see it as a whole new world. Every manufacturer from the highest end audio and instrument companies to the smallest accessory makers should embrace this online world and use it to their advantage. There are so many inexpensive and even free ways to market your products on the internet, as well as create personal relationships between your customers and your company.
There is one last point I would like to bring up for companies both new to internet advertising and those already there. Know your metrics! One statistic that is very misunderstood is “hits”. There are a lot of companies who offer advertising that love to quote their “hit” count. This number can be useful in some cases, but in reality, this is not a good metric for judging how busy a site may be. Hits are generated in many ways including any link that a cursor moves across during site navigation, or even each picture on a particular page. Because of this, a single page that is opened by one person can generate dozens of hits. This does not mean that the person even looked at any of these links or clicked on them. It just means that in the time they were on that page, their cursor moved over these links as they traversed the screen.
I get asked for our hit count often, and I explain this to the interested party. A better metric for judging a website is the page views which count as only one for every page a person opens. An equally better stat is the unique visitors to the site per month. This gives you a much more accurate reading of the traffic any given website is receiving. I firmly believe in this more honest approach with the people I work with. Of course, if they still want to know our hits per month, I am always happy to let them know. It’s a very impressive number to say the least and blows our 2.6 million page view and 65,000 unique visitors per month out of the water.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me Michael. I very much appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts on these subjects, and I am always willing to speak with and answer any questions that manufactures may still have on these issues. Best of all, my time for talking is free, and I don’t require you to buy anything from me.
Gary Allen
President
GuitarGearHeads.com
About Gary Allen
Gary Allen is the co-founder of Allen and Halberg, Inc, which publishes the on-line sites www.guitargearheads.com and www.rhythmplayer.com. A versatile musician (guitar/bass/drums) and equipment enthusiast for over 20 years, Gary’s dedication has increased his sites’ user base dramatically in the past two years. Gary has written well over 100 musical product reviews, and his advertisers include: Digitech, ProCo Sound, BBE Sound, Avant Microphones, G&L Guitars, Alvarez-Yairi Guitars, and numerous other music equipment industry manufacturers. Gary lives with his wife and children in Blaine, WA.
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Is Facebook a Waste of Time?
Posted by Michael Newman in Internet Marketing for Companies of All Sizes on January 10, 2010
I’m not talking about Mafia Wars and Farmville here. By the way I love getting a gift of a machine gun or a sheep when I am chatting with a friend.
Many companies are starting to use Facebook to increase their company presence. But is it really helping you grow your business and ultimately your revenue?
It’s a Place People Go to Escape From Marketing
People don’t jump on Facebook to be assaulted by product announcements. They go there to have fun and interact with their friends. The average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook. Fifty five minutes! It’s a marketers dream right? Not so fast.
Like All Marketing Plans, Strategy Rules
Unless you have a strategy for using Facebook then don’t bother. It takes resources and time to setup and manage. And if you don’t use it effectively then all you are doing is stealing visitors away from your company web site so they can give their friends machine guns and sheep.
Incorporate Facebook into Your Business Goals
Facebook needs to tie in to your internet marketing plans and of course your company business goals. So look at how Facebook can help you achieve your goals. It’s a bigger challenge if you have a small company without a lot of brand clout but it can work if you are creative enough.
So how can you tie this brand building stuff back to your business goals? It’s true that for sites that are not e-commerce oriented it is a challenge. But you can make estimates and fine tune those estimates over time.
By creating goals and analyzing conversions such as PDF downloads, e-mail sign ups, exits to reseller sites, special offers, or questions on registration forms, you can determine the value of a single site visitor. Learn how to monetize your site visitors and you are in a much better position to determine the ROI of all your internet marketing programs including Facebook.
Focus on Your Customers
What do your customers want to do on Facebook? Don’t know? Ask them. Most likely they will want to share their experiences as DJs, musicians, recording engineers, songwriters, etc. They want to be recognized.
Look at what other companies are doing. Check out the Washburn Guitars Facebook group. The wall posts are happy customers proudly talking about their guitars or asking for help or advice from other customers.
Washburn is using Facebook as a vehicle for customers to talk to each other. They understand their customers are not there just to check out the latest Washburn guitars.
Washburn also has their own forum with over 14,000 members who have made 115,933 posts in 44 forums. Clearly they understand these aspects of internet marketing.
Line 6 is another example. Customers are happily talking and talking a lot. They have over 11,000 fans. There is a poll on their page now that asks “How many pedals do you use?” Not only does this fuel conversation, it also gives Line 6 great market data. Speaking of marketing data you can see age groups and gender plus region data for your fans. Valuable information for sure.
Widgets on the Website
Line 6 does something else that is brilliant. Click on their “Info” tab. There are only two things there: The year they were founded and their website URL. Instead of 10 paragraphs about the company you must go to the Line 6 website to look at the company history. This might not work for everyone but clearly they understand it’s a strategy.
They also of course have all the social media links on their landing page. Another thing you can do is place the “Become a friend” button directly on your page so that people can become fans simply by clicking on the button.
Become Familiar with the Many Facebook Applications
Learn about the applications. Conduct a poll. Create a campaign. Post Videos. Fuel conversation. Have your web team check out the API. Just don’t use traditional marketing techniques.
It’s easier to get your customers talking on a Facebook page than to create a forum from scratch (unless you already have incredible brand awareness). Use this to your advantage and ask questions that promote discussion.
Be Interesting
If there is one phrase to sum it all up it is this one: be interesting. Have internal team discussions and create a list of interesting things you can do on Facebook and a time frame to implement them just as you would with any marketing campaign.
Use Facebook wisely and it can help you grow. But don’t just throw up a page and expect it to build your brand.
More Info
Please check out my website for more info on how I can help you or fire off an e-mail to:
mn@michaelnewmanconsulting.com
www.michaelnewmanconsulting.com
The RRS feed link is at the very bottom. Cheers.
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Top Ten Ways to Kill Your Company with Internet Marketing
Posted by Michael Newman in Internet Marketing for Companies of All Sizes on October 14, 2009
If you need more time on the ski slopes or find that playing Call of Duty 4 on the Xbox is more fun than running your business I have some advice for you.
There are a wide variety of ways to contribute to your company’s death of course so I am going to focus on some of the easiest ones that involve your internet strategies. This is easy stuff so follow this advice and you can watch reruns of CSI Miami all day long.
Speaking of CSI Miami here is a great Horatio Caine quote.
“Alright, be on the lookout for an Eastern European male with bad teeth who may have access to an ape.” THAT, is great writing folks, no doubt about it.
Here we go.
Rule #1 – Do not tie your internet objectives to your business goals.
See I told you this was easy! If you have plans to increase sales by 20% then PLEASE do not require your internet marketing team to tie their objectives to these goals. It’s much more fun to talk about the fact that the web team increased site traffic in the last 3 months by 40%. Wow! They rock. Did that increased traffic turn into sales. Hell no but does that matter? OF course not! You’ll be writing letters to Horatio’s fan club in no time.
Rule #2 – Use the same marketing message for ALL your customers.
Easy again. You may be doing this now. Don’t worry about the fact that people want targeted messages now and want you to speak in their language. If you sell products to a wide variety of people with varying lifestyles then just keep it simple and tell them all the same thing. Don’t segment your site or talk in language their friends use. Viola! Chef Emeril is on in ten minutes with an awesome crab risotto recipe. Go watch it while you look at your bankruptcy papers.
Rule #3 – Don’t ever, ever listen to your customers.
Yes again this is easy and oh so effective. You see, they are going to talk regardless of whether you listen or not so you might as well ignore them, right? And even though thousands of people every day are out there talking to each other about what they like and dislike about company experiences and products don’t EVER listen to any of this crap.
Rule #4 – Don’t communicate with your customers.
This one goes hand in hand with #3, don’t listen. Don’t reach out to them and ESPECIALLY NEVER EVER reach out to customers who love your products and are actively saying so all over the web! Letting these people know how much you appreciate their loyalty is a death wish for your company killing strategy. DON’T DO IT.
Also if you have unhappy customers that are telling the world about a bad experience they had with your service or product, make sure you ignore them too. To increase your kill strategy you might send these unhappy customers a 50 page survey that expires in three days if they don’t fill it out. Make them feel very unloved and it works every time. Since they are active web contributors you win… uh by loosing of course.
Rule #5 – Do not create a profile of who your customers are.
Why the heck would you want to know who your customers are? Heck, if you did that then you’d have to create messages that resonate with them, that makes them feel special and makes them think you care about them. Nope, better to not know. It’s easier right?
Rule #6 – Do not study user behavior on your site.
Whoa partner. Stay far away from this one if you want to sink your business. If you create a new campaign make sure you don’t study what happens when people get to your site. You don’t care remember? If you advertise in a magazine or online make sure you don’t measure the results. If you have a site where people purchase products, do NOT measure the number of visitors versus the conversions to purchasers or what happens to those that leave the purchase process without buying. I could go on forever on this one so if you want to amplify your kill strategy contact me for more details!
Rule #7 – Make arbitrary and random changes to your site in lots of places.
I had a client who called to say they needed help. Their conversion ratio (visitors versus purchasers in this case) was down a lot since they changed some things on the site! Perfect. This guy has got the program down. I asked what they changed on the site. The answer was they changed 10 things that effected the purchase process. Awesome. Now even if you wanted to generate more revenue (you don’t, remember) it will take a lot more work to figure out what potential buyers did not like about the new process. So I suggest if you want to kill your company, mess with the conversion process randomly. That way when revenue starts to slide (or your referrals to resellers slides) you can say you just don’t have time to figure out what is going on.
Also if your site is not a mess to navigate make it so. This takes a little more work but you want frustrated users who exit your site pissed off claiming they will never return.
Rule #8 – Never provide valuable, educational content on your site.
Yes, if you have content on your site that educates, entertains or helps the site visitor with purchase decisions get rid of it now! If you have content they can use for problem solving or helps them use your products more effectively remove it immediately. Remember in your business bankruptcy strategy you want them to have to go elsewhere for product education before making the purchase. With a little luck they may never come back!
Rule #9 – Don’t use social media marketing.
This one is very important to gain more leisure time. Do NOT create social media marketing strategies (tied to business goals). If you already have some presence on social media sites then make sure you blab about how great your products are and never give them engaging content they can talk about with their friends.
Don’t post frequently and don’t entertain, educate or ever give them the vehicles to talk to each other about your company and products.
I can’t tell you how many companies I talk to and the conversation goes like this…
Me: “Do you have a presence on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter?”
Company: “Yes but we really don’t know how to use these sites for business purposes. We have a presence there because other companies are there.”
Awesome. This is great because their competitors ARE going to figure out how to use these sites for business. For our intended strategy I think it is better to set up the social media sites and ignore your customers by not providing good content regularly. They will get pissed off even faster this way.
Rule #10 – Don’t optimize search engine traffic for your site.
Yes, you don’t want them to find you remember? So don’t analyze your key word strategies or look at key words that get you more traffic in a niche segment, or maximize your key words per page. Also you might use popular key words that are not relevant to your business so when people come to your site they will bounce like a basketball. Ha! Yes you’ve got it now.
You also might consider using extremely popular key words so you come up on page 17 of a Google search for example. Way to go. Crickets. Search engine referrals? Not gonna happen.
Make sure you use all the proper methods to keep the search engine spiders from finding the relevant information on your web site. It’s better this way. Who wants to sit in a boring office all day actually creating a profitable business strategy. BORRRRING!
Wrap Up
So these are just a few of the ways you can use internet marketing to kill your company. If you have a very well known brand it may take considerable work to overcome the power of your brand. But applying these methods will really help. Also remember that your competitors may be using internet strategies correctly which will of course accelerate the time to your jump zone.
Here is the worst Quizno’s ad ever and is included in many sites top ten worst ads list. It features a “creature that looks like a cross between a rat and a coughed up hairball” as the mascot. There was a popular internet Meme at the time that looked like this mascot but what were they thinking? There was a huge back lash from consumers and they pulled the ad very quickly. It’s really bad. Click on the Quizno’s Logo to check it out.
So take my advice and you too can be finding new outlets for your creative freedom, or you can watch more CSI Miami.
“I’m Horatio Caine, and this much I know. At CSI Miami we never close.”
Click on Horatio for more of those amazing one liners or feel free to head over to www.michaelnewmanconsulting for more info on services. I promise no more CSI references.
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