Every month we host the MnSearch crew in our office and they fill the place with search marketing experts looking to swap ideas and knowledge. It’s the perfect monthly event for our space, but once a year we let them leave to hold their annual search summit elsewhere. Though it’s not in our space, we still made sure to send a handful of Spyder Trappers to soak in the insights from the 15+ speakers from across the country. From the hypothetical (but based on data) look at Google’s near-sentient algorithmic future to in-the-weeds tactical approaches to remarketing, our team came away from the event with lots to share about what successful search marketing in 2016 looks like.
Storytelling Is A Key Skill
Lexi Mills had the difficult job of presenting the ins and outs of public relations to a room full of technical SEOs and search marketers. While she was presenting her case studies and providing PR tips and tricks, a crucial takeaway for even the most technical SEO became clear: storytelling.
Little known content/PR resource from @leximills: Aesop’s Fables. #mnsummit
— Chris M Todd (@IamChrisTodd) June 24, 2016
Search marketing is often viewed as more technical and data-driven than other areas of marketing. But, data is nothing without context. Your boss or client doesn’t want to see a spreadsheet with numbers, they want to see what the numbers mean for their business. Mike King put it succinctly in the quote below.
“A screenshot of a Google tool is not a deliverable.” – @iPullRank. Context and goals are 100% needed in reporting. #mnsummit — Spyder Trap (@spyder_trap) June 24, 2016
Marketing to User’s Brains
The use of neuromarketing sounds like it could be an inciting moment in a sci-fi film, but it’s actually just a scientific approach to marketing based on the brain’s decision-making process. Roger Dooley describes our brains as being “lazy” and trained to make energy-efficient, easy decisions. What does a marketer do with that? They make the buying process as hassle-free as possible, from beginning to end.
“In the absence of story, I’m going with ease” Wil Reynolds.
This “persuasion slide” is a visual representation of the pieces of the buyer’s journey that marketers need to be aware of. You must use your tools to get a user from the top of the slide to the bottom as efficiently as possible. Build interest, provide a nudge (clear calls to action), and motivate users with benefits and emotional connections.
Click-Through Rate Is King
While neuromarketing sounded like a sci-fi premise, Larry Kim took the sci-fi theme to the next level—placing himself as a time traveler from the future who has come back to warn us about robots taking over. In this fantasy, Kim’s robots represent Google’s machine learning tool, RankBrain.
With machine learning, Kim’s data points to a theory that click-through rates are a big determiner of page rank on Google. Optimizing your click-through rate will be the quickest path to higher rankings and heavier website traffic. He notes that to get the best results, big changes are needed, especially in writing and testing headlines.
To get better than average results, simple AB testing can get you there. But to reach the top 10% of your industry, truly innovative change needs to take place. Take big swings, founded in data, to chase top-tier click-through and conversions.
The Relationship Between Agency and Client
Probably the closest you get to celebrities in the search industry. #mnsummit pic.twitter.com/2ogYsVZ97n
— Chris M Todd (@IamChrisTodd) June 24, 2016
The highlight of the summit was the “debate” between search marketing rock stars Rand Fishkin of Moz fame, and Wil Reynolds of Seer Interactive. The insights were nearly endless from these two, but an important piece touched on was the relationship between clients and agency teams. One point they both agreed on was that the best client relationship occurs when there is an internal (client-side) team that works in collaboration with the agency. The internal team can focus on advocating strategy to leadership while the agency team executes. They also touched on the importance of reporting on value to clients. Paid search marketing often has dollar values attached to show value to leadership, but organic search engine optimization often does not. Just like assigning a dollar value to conversions, a dollar value can be given to earned visitors in collaboration with the client.
“If it’s easy to prove ROI, it’ll be easy for your competitors too” Rand Fishkin
Proving return on investment is a key ask from almost all client relationships, and the best partners will find a way to accurately reflect ROI.
The Art of Remarketing
One under-utilized digital marketing tool is remarketing. Elizabeth Marsten described the overall benefits of remarketing, such as lower CPC/CPA regardless of industry vertical. It’s also crucial in nurturing users through the buyer’s journey because it often takes much more than one touch point to convert.
When calculating your remarketing CPA, remember it’s probably the 2nd time you’ve paid to reach the customer. @ebkendo #mnsummit — Spyder Trap (@spyder_trap) June 24, 2016
The best part of remarketing is that you know you’re advertising to someone who has already taken action on your site. The knowledge of what they were looking for provides the marketer with insight to tailor messaging for that kind of user—and those with similar characteristics. You can get very detailed and creative with your segmentation; Marsten used an example of not just segmenting by users who abandoned their cart, but by the dollar amount abandoned. This type of detail will help ads be more specific to each user, and therefore more effective.
You can see all of the speakers’ presentations over at MnSearch’s website, but even better than that, you can partner with Spyder Trap’s expert search marketing team to see these insights put to use for your own company.