For years, digital marketers have been tasked with optimizing their websites for search to improve organic traffic. All major SEO efforts were centered around owned and onsite content, leaving external content as an afterthought.
Unraveling the Mystery of the Hinterkaifeck Murders.pptx
How to Increase Discoverability w/Krista of gShift Labs
1. WEBINAR:
Improving Search Discoverability
with Influencers & Off-Site Content
April 20, 2016
Presented By:
Krista LaRiviere
CoFounder & CEO, gShift
Moderated By:
Kelsey Jones
Executive Editor, Search Engine Journal
2. ● We are recording this webinar.
● If you have any questions, please enter them in the ‘Questions’ window.
● Please Tweet! Handles & hashtags are in the footer.
● Interactive Poll Results will be published during Q & A.
● Q & A
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
HOUSEKEEPING
3. The New Customer Journey
The Power of Ranking Offsite Content
Offsite Content Distribution
User Generated Content & Influencer Marketing
Tracking Offsite Analytics & Engagement
Q & A
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
AGENDA
“Improving Search
Discoverability with
Influencers &
Off-Site Content”
7. THE NEW CUSTOMER JOURNEY
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
8. THE NEW CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR = #DARKFUNNEL
Today, customers educate themselves before coming to your site. This change has completely altered the
traditional sales funnel, adding twists and bends along the way.
We call this the #DarkFunnel.
The #DarkFunnel is the new sales funnel.
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
9. It’s the Customer’s Sales Funnel, Not Yours
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
10. So, how do you measure success?
MARKETERS LOST
IN DARK FUNNEL
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
11. GOOGLE FILES A PATENT
“Onsite and offsite search ranking results”
US 13/285, 995
“So putting an emphasis on building trust for all of your content
sould become one of the biggest undertakings you have in 2016.”
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
13. #SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
OFFSITE PATH TO ONSITE
Improve discoverability
Authentic referral traffic
Expand content distribution
Increased reach to target audience
Build authority within industry
Increased overall brand awareness
14. OFFSITE CONTENT DISTRIBUTION
Creating content for
your site is not enough.
You need additional
distribution and
amplification using
off-site channels.
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
Influencers
15. POLL QUESTION #1
How much of your digital marketing budget do you invest into content
distribution?
1. 0%
2. 10%
3. 25%
4. 50%
5. More than 50%
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
16. INFLUENCER MARKETING
Influencer marketing is a tactic of digital marketing
where brands partner with key industry thought leaders
to amplify (distribute) the brand content/message to
their audience, mainly using social channels.
Influencers are credible, authentic and highly engaged
presences who hold a power of influence over their
audience based on the trust they’ve built.
What is influencer marketing?
Who are influencers?
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
17. INFLUENCER MARKETING
IN YOUR MARKETING MIX
Channel of distribution
Power of word of mouth
Cost-effective
Off-site challenge (Dark
Funnel)
“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it
is–it is what consumers tell each other it is.”
Scott Cook, Founder and CEO of Intuit
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
18. This is where influencers and their audience live!
THE DARK FUNNEL
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
20. ● Provide influencers recommended
keyword rich Titles, Headings and Content
to “optimize” their posts
● Provide trackable Smart URLs to your
content and for them to share via each
social channel
● Remember the #DarkFunnel
ARMING YOUR INFLUENCERS
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
21. POLL QUESTION #2
What challenges do you face when running an influencer marketing campaign?
1. Identifying the right influencers?
2. Engaging with influencers and getting their attention?
3. Monitoring a campaign?
4. Measuring a campaign?
5. I’ve never run an influencer campaign.
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
22. TRACKING OFFSITE
ANALYTICS & ENGAGEMENT
You have created great content,
launched an influencer campaign,
developed strong social
messaging, nailed offsite
distribution…
Now what?
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
23. TRACKING OFFSITE
ANALYTICS & ENGAGEMENT
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
kontextURLsTM (SmartURL System)
Off-Site Analytics
Influencer Analytics
Near Real-Time Engagement Metrics
Branded, Vanity Short URL
Long-term Data Storage
24. • Track and report on engagement by Influencer,
by Channel, by Content Type, by Keyword
Group
● Create Conversion Paths to map off-site
content engagement all the way through to
ROI
● Report on improvements in Organic Search
Visibility
● Create feedback loop back to influencers so
they know how they did
MEASUREMENT & REPORTING
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
27. Set up content campaigns to accurately track offsite engagement
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Offsite content will strengthen your brand’s web presence
Focus on audience development for improved discoverability
Add influencer marketing to your mix
Understand your customer’s journey and behavior
#SEJThinkTank
@KristaLaRiviere @gShiftLabs
Long-tail influencers for ultimate audience development
The New Customer Journey – How offsite content plays a major role in the sales funnel today.
The Power of Ranking Offsite Content – The benefits to your website and brand awareness.
Offsite Content Distribution – Current trends in getting your content out there.
User Generated Content and Influencer Marketing – How to leverage each.
Tracking Offsite Analytics and Engagement – Once it’s all out there, how do you measure it.
Throughout the webinar, we will conduct two interactive polls.
Want to start by chatting about some of the things that I think about. So not only is gShift a vendor in the marketing technology space, but I live in your shoes in terms of executing digital marketing campaigns.
So, it’s 2016. I’ve been in this industry since 1999. I ‘think’ we’re all getting smarter about digital marketing but it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. Different tactics and techniques and tools come along and some make it to full maturity while others fade away. But let’s face this digital marketing world is confusing.
Scott Brinkers 2016 Martech super infographic now has 3874 vendors in it up from 1897 I 2015. I’m scared to think of what it will look like next year.
and you can use different terms to describe acts of digital marketing (or random acts of digital marketing),
such as SEO, Search Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Digital Marketing, Social Media… but the reality is, is that all we’re trying to do here as Digital Marketers is “Audience Development”. Digitally, we’re attempting to build our brand, cut through the noise and find our target market, generate marketing quality leads and so our sales team can close a sale.
So Why, 17 or so years after the beginning of digital marketing time with all the technologies we have available, are our jobs so complex and chaotic?
That’s because behaviour is changing.
You’ve probably seen this image or variations of it hundreds of times – the traditional sales funnel – linear, organized. An interested prospect goes in the top (or side) and progresses along in an organized manner from one predictable stage to the next, all on your web site, with your sales and marketing team knowing exactly what is going on, and they come out the final stage as a Closed Sale.
We all wish it was that easy.
Here’s the reality – the traditional sales funnel has been blown to bits! A big chunk the digital marketing you are doing to develop your audience is being engaged with by your prospects, off of your web site and their purchasing journey is unpredictable and untrackable.
It’s not even about the New Customer Journey anymore, it’s about the New Customer Behavior.
The good thing is we know what is causing this behavioral change – mobile devices and social media. But digging into that a bit more, it’s that people – your prospects don’t want to inform themselves on a web site anymore with onsite content. (like the good old days). They want to inform themselves off of your website – with off-site content.
This off-site content engagement is something we call The Dark Funnel. In fact, 67% to 90% of prospect engagement with your brand content is happening off of your web site.
Put another way, if you are measuring only on-site engagement with tools like Google Analytics, you are capturing only about 10% to 33% of your prospect’s activity.
To me, that is disturbing!
And we see and hear this everyday from businesses we work with. They say, I see someone engage on our web site, then we don’t hear from them for a month, then they come back and buy. Where did they go?
They went off site to inform themselves, check the reviews, check social, check industry web sites. Anywhere but your site.
Here’s another way I like to think about the sales funnel – It’s the Customer’s Sales Funnel, Not Yours.
Every customer has their own sales funnel and you’d better hope your business or your brand is in theirs.
Prospects are not lost, but marketers are. Marketers are lost in their own dark funnel.
This leads to our agenda topic off the Power of Ranking Off-Site Content or having Off-Site content discoverable by your audience, your target market, when they are ready to inform themselves and ready to buy.
You know a trend is real when Google files a patent.
This patent proposes to not only change what they built with PageRank as a factor, but to grow and expand on it — for example, looking at onsite pages as more than that page versus the pages on the other sites, and using a Global Ranking to compare a representative page on a site against:
the site framework.
the authority of the domain.
query-independent information.
This makes trust, both coming in and flowing out from links on your site, an important staple.
So how do you make it all work? It’s about deliberately creating the pathway from your off site content to your on-site conversion point.
So here’s a simplistic example (which still entails a lot of work).
Sounds easy, but you’d be surprised at how many people create stranded external content that has no path back to their main web presence and no way to measure the engagement of that off-site content.
A more complex, complete and coordinated content marketing campaign… where multiple pieces of off-site content drive the user back to the brand’s web presence for final conversion.
But with all this, we’re creating our own Dark Funnel. If a prospect engages with one of these off-site pieces of content we need to know. And you can know with Off-site Analytics.
Let’s come back to that.
Let’s talk now about Content Distribution
Which leads us to the topic of Content Distribution.
Creating Off Site Content.
Put another way, they are distribution channels for your brand content.
They have access to your target audience! And remember this is ultimately about Audience Development.
Cost-effective (6.50 return for every $1 spent on influencer marketing efforts
Influencer marketing allows for a very narrowly targeted niche audience, with small # of lost $
But is also creates even more dark funnel. Next slide
As more of your influencers create user generated content or amplify your content you have less visibility.
Again, another reason for off-site analytics.
Software you can use to find influencers.
Influencer campaigns.
Tracking OffSite Analytics and Engagement…
Tracking OffSite Analytics and Engagement…
SmartURLs enable you to track a piece of content that leverages content tags, taxonomy and conversion paths for all of your external and on-site content.
Empowers digital marketers and content creators to illuminate engagement and conversion analytics without the use of a traditional analytics tool.
Jeff
** make KURLS customized and written below for presentation