Kikabink News

Google has introduced the Search-based Keyword Tool (currently in beta). The tool suggests keywords for you to target in your Google Adwords campaign, based on their relevance to your website.

According to Google, you can benefit from the Search-based Keyword Tool in two main ways. Firstly, if you are running a campaign the tool will suggest keywords that are highly relevant to your website, but are not currently part of your AdWords campaign.

Secondly, even if you aren’t currently advertising in Adwords, you can use the tool to discover nuances about your target market. The tool essentially generates keywords often used in association with the keywords you have chosen to target.

Right now, the Search-based Keyword Tool is available to advertisers in the U.S. and U.K., with additional languages and countries to follow in the near future.

Check it out here: http://www.google.com/sktool

Source: Trevor Claiborne, “Announcing the Search-based Keyword Tool”, Inside AdWords, November 18, 2008

Some sobering news from eMarketer: fewer consumers worldwide are opening marketing emails, according to a November 2008 study by MailerMailer.

MailerMailer found that the average marketing email open rate was just 13.20 percent in the first half of 2008, compared with 16.11 percent in the first half of 2007. Click through rates also decreased - from 3.18 percent in the first half of 2007 to 2.73 percent in the first half of 2008.

MailerMailer found that some industries had higher open rates – namely banking/finance, religious/spiritual, government and telecommunications.

It also found that shorter subject lines performed better than longer ones. Subject lines of less than 35 characters had an average open rate of 19.6 percent and a 3.1 percent average click-through rate. Meanwhile, emails with subject lines of 35 or more characters had an average open rate of 14.8 percent and an average click rate of just 1.9 percent.

As we’ve discussed before, lower open and click-through rates are to be expected as more people use email clients that require them to actively download images. Since an ‘open’ is only recorded when a small image is downloaded, a lower open rate is almost inevitable. Also, the study focused on email subscribers in general… NOT on customers, which would be expected to generate higher open and clickthrough rates alike.

Having said that, it is likely that with more email hitting people’s inboxes than ever, fewer people will actually open and click on their emails.

In any case, it’s DEFINITELY worth monitoring the trends in YOUR open rates and clickthrough rates, and aiming to continually improve responsiveness by testing subject lines, content, offers, email frequency, and other variables. Watch for sharp spikes or drops which may indicate content and/or offers that do or don’t resonate with people… or may even indicate deliverability issues.

Source: eMarketer, “Consumers Opening Fewer Emails”, eMarketer, November 14, 2008

One of the burning questions on the lips of many email marketers is: when is the best time of day to send out emails?

Well, an interview between MarketingSherpa and Hunter Boyle, Managing Editor of MarketingExperiments reveals that it might just be dawn. Apparently:

1. Emails sent before 9 a.m. achieve higher click-through rates;
2. Early risers on the U.S. east coast tend to respond to email before their workday begins; and
3. Marketers with international lists should test list segments based on timezone.

You can hear the interview by visiting MarketingSherpa.

Despite these findings I would urge you to test different times for yourself. Dawn may or may not be best for YOUR market…

Source: MarketingSherpa, “Podcast: New Test Results for Email Send Times: 3 Major Takeaways”, MarketingSherpa

A recent MarketingSherpa case study is instructive for anyone selling a high-priced subscription or membership based product or service, and wishes to boost renewals.

MarketingSherpa profiled Corbis, a photo licensing agency, which was having difficulty handling the renewals of its content licenses.

The solution? To introduce a process for identifying licenses about to expire and allow sales representatives to target those account holders with about-to-expire licenses and persuade them to renew. Sounds simple… but Corbis had licenses covering 4 million online images with varying types of licenses as well as varying license periods. Around 7,000-10,000 image licenses were expiring each month. And at the time only about 2.5 percent of those licenses were being renewed.

Corbis developed a renewal program that used automated emails to remind clients that their licenses were about to expire, and gave a prioritized list of account holders to sales reps who could then contact the relevant members. While this is relatively easy to set up in most off-the-shelf membership scripts, it’s not so easy when you’re a large company and need to modify existing technological infrastructure.

Essentially, the steps which Corbis took - and which YOU can model, especially if you’re running an expensive membership program - are as follows:

1. Automate the sending of reminder emails to members whose membership is about to expire;
2. Automate the sending of emails to you (or your staff) about the members with accounts about to expire (e.g. by email). Ideally prioritize account holders based on renewal value or other relevant factors; and
3. Call those clients (in order of priority).

Corbis’ automated email efforts resulted in doubling its online renewal rates – from about 2.5 percent to 4-5 percent. The follow-up calls further boosted renewal rates to 10 percent in some locations.

What I find particularly compelling is the use of follow-up phone calls. So many Internet marketers seem averse to contacting their customers by phone… but if you have members paying, say, a few hundred dollars per month, isn’t it worth it?

Source: MarketingSherpa, “How To Double Renewals with Triggered Emails and Sales Reps: 6 Steps”, MarketingSherpa, November 6, 2008

William Flaiz has written an interesting article in Search Engine Watch. He suggests that the days of compartmentalizing search engine optimization (SEO) are over and that a holistic approach is now what’s required to win in the new environment of “universal search”.

Argues Mr Flaiz:

“An integrated approach across multiple disciplines is the only way to address the diverse nuances of the new SERPs. We can tame universal search if we address it from all fronts: SEO, paid search, social media, Web development and user experience design.”

The article is aimed at SEO agencies but the principle remains the same for SEO departments or individual search engine optimizers. A holistic approach is required if we’re to achieve optimum results.

For instance, we’re currently working with a client to:

1. Optimize some new product pages;
2. Prepare press releases for those products; and
3. Write articles related to those products and website pages.

By understanding the underlying keyword strategy and taking an integrated approach we can ensure that each of these items work together to enhance our client’s search engine ranking for the terms it’s targeting. After all, although the methods are seemingly disparate, the objective is quite singular: a higher listing in the organic results.

And given the (growing) number of Internet “assets” - website, press releases, images, videos, pages on social media sites, and so on - the demand for a holistic approach is only likely to grow.

Bottom line: rather than approach any given SEO tactic in isolation, approach it as one component of an overall effort where your main aim is to optimize your presence on the search engines for the keywords that deliver you the maximum number of targeted, qualified prospects.

Source: William Flaiz, “Universal Search: The (War) Elephant in the Room”, Search Engine Watch, November 10, 2008