Tracking changes in the consumer decision making process

Marketing has changed tremendously since the earlier days of the last century. At Pipon Solutions, our think-tank has been working furiously at the core conceptual level, trying to understand how the whole consumer decision making process has changed over the years. Each of the services we provide is geared towards providing you the best bespoke solutions within the framework of our conceptual understanding.

Google has recently released an eBook called ‘Winning the Zero Moment of Truth’ (ZMOT in short) that provides tremendous insights into how technology has changed the decision making process and, in effect, changed marketing. The phrase first originated as the ‘First Moment of Truth – FMoT’, which refers to the moment when a potential buyer is exposed to the product on the shelf – the first seven second time frame wherein the product will either be purchased or abandoned. Researchers at Google posit that the ‘Zero Moment’ may happen in a plethora of ways – a potential consumer using a smart phone to check out reviews on Amazon.com or a TV viewer browsing the web for details of a product they just saw on a TV spot.

The eBook is a valuable source of information and conceptual knowledge for those looking to sharpen their understanding of the digital marketing space. Feel free to share your comments on the eBook with us in this blog.

Google introduces ‘Me on the Web’

Google has taken a giant leap towards providing more power to the average user by introducing the ‘Me on the Web’ feature.  The feature (a component of Google Dashboard) enables users to monitor details of their complete identity on the web. It also serves to alert the individual when new information about him/her pops up elsewhere on the internet. Google users are also allowed to set up Google Alerts for their names, email addresses and other personal data that appears on the web – in either news stories or social media. These features are only available to users that have a Google account and public profile – which requires the user to submit their personal data to Google. The only issue here is that Google profiles are publicly visible – anyone with a user’s email address can discover them.

Google product manager Andreas Tuerk wrote:

“Savvy web users may already have used Google Alerts to set up notifications for mentions of their name or email address in websites and news stories. If you haven’t set up alerts yet, Me on the Web makes it even easier to do so and even automatically suggests some search terms you may want to monitor.

“Me on the Web also provides links to resources offering information on how to control what third-party information is posted about you on the web. These include common tips like reaching out to the webmaster of a site to ask for the content to be taken down, or publishing additional information on your own to help make less relevant websites appear farther down in search results.

This is just one of our first steps in continuing to explore ways to help make managing your identity online simpler.”

In essence, ‘Me on the Web’ brings together all information about you on the internet and helps you manage your personal online identity. At Pipon Solutions, we believe that this is a step in the right direction. Personal brand identity on the internet is perhaps the next big thing. Have a look at our services and get in touch with us to manage your brand's identity on the internet.

Comscore releases monthly report

Comscore Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, has announced its monthly report on the US search marketplace. Google led the core search market with 65.4% of the search queries that were conducted during April 2011. The above mentioned time period reflected the impact of Yahoo’s Search Direct feature (real-time results for search queries). Yahoo’s share was up by 0.2% from 15.7% in March 2011.

Here is a brief summary of the results:

• ·         Google’s market share surprisingly fell by 0.3%, down from 65.7% in March 2011
• ·         Microsoft’s Bing continued to grow in strength, with an increase of 0.2%, up from 13.9%
• ·         The AOL and Ask networks fell 0.1% respectively

Here is a complete snapshot of the results:

Source: www.comscore.com

Out of the 16.2 billion searches conducted overall in April (down 4% from 16.9 billion in March), Google ranked first with 10.7 billion searches, followed by Yahoo – 2.6 billion and Bing – 2.3 billion. An interesting inference that follows from the results of the report is that Google has lost both market share and its total number of search queries, while Yahoo and Bing have capitalised on this fall by Google.

What do you think about the recent results report? Pipon Solutions invites your views on this blog. If you are looking to improve your website’s position on any of these search websites, please do get in touch with us.

Adwords includes click count

Google has included yet another innovative feature in its Adwords offering – a click count feature that shows the number of clicks the advertiser has garnered. The experiment was officially confirmed by a Google spokesperson.

What is still unclear though, is the method of calculation of these clicks. Is the count shown a sum of clicks for the entire campaign, ad, or over the advertiser’s account history?

The impact of this experiment could be far reaching – higher click counts could end up boosting click-through rates (CTR), since viewers would definitely be inclined to click on ‘established’ ads. In this case, the advantages of long term advertising come back to the fore. Advertisers and agencies will have to rethink their strategies. Further, this measure could end up increasing the importance of click-through rates (CTR) over cost-per acquisition (CPA).

Pam of Search Engine Land rightly said "it's not clear whether advertisers are aware that they’ve agreed to allow public display of what most likely consider proprietary information." Advertisers would definitely not want competitors to know important statistics such as this one.

At Pipon Solutions, we try to keep a track of changes in the search landscape. What do you make of this particular feature? Should Google make it a standard feature?

How Google + will aid your marketing strategies

Google + has been often described as combining the best of Facebook, Twitter and added functionalities. For international search marketers, Google + offers a key benefit – it supports 42 different international languages, which range from Arabic to Vietnamese. This feature will prove vital if Google + is to uproot Orkut in India and Brazil and Ren Ren in China. In fact, shortly after launching Google +, the company warned businesses not to create brand pages as they are working on a unique, customised experience for corporations.

‘Circles’ has been identified as one of the main differentiators of Google’s social media offering over the other players in the fray. With Circles, you may target your specialised content and promotions towards your employees, suppliers and clients. Further, Circles allows you to create and send content based on language. So you may send personalised content for your Chinese clients as well as for your Arabian clients.

‘+1’ is very similar to Facebook’s ‘like’. Hence all searches on Google + will throw up results featuring recommendations of friends on circles. ‘Sparks’ is a search function that suggests categories that may be of interest to you. It also allows you to search for any particular phrases you want. Search Engine Watch reports that the Sparks algorithm seems to be different from the usual SERP algorithm and the Google News algorithm. The Sparks feature will be keenly watched by marketers and advertisers alike.

At Pipon Solutions, we’ve traced the growth of Google + from its very inception. Our social media analysts posit that the next few months are crucial as far as the battle for the social media crown is concerned. Who will win it – Google, Facebook or Twitter? 

Twitter usage lags awareness

Earlier this month, the Pew Internet and American Life Project announced that Twitter usage had risen from 8% of US internet users in fall 2010 to 13% in May 2011, an increase in usage of 62.5%! In spite of being the phenomenon that it has been, actual Twitter usage only constitutes a small percentage of the overall awareness of the brand. A recent study by eMarketer shows the huge yawning gap between awareness and usage. Analysts have pointed out to the fact that the gap has actually been increasing over the years.

Analysts at Pipon Solutions have posited the possible inferences from these results:

1.      Since the actual Twitter usage is low when compared to the awareness of the brand, there is more room for Twitter to grow.

2.      Twitter’s official usage statistics state it has 200 million user accounts. Nobody knows how many accounts are actual unique users. Even otherwise, Twitter is still way behind the real Social Media behemoth Facebook – with its mammoth 500 million user accounts.

3.      Twitter has to quickly devise strategies to cover up the gap of potential accounts. Otherwise, it risks remaining all hype and no substance.

4.      Twitter has to find ways to monetise the large user base, or else its hopes of joining the other Social Media firms such as Groupon, Linkedin and Zynga in becoming a publicly traded company will remain a dream.

At Pipon Solutions, we’ve always looked at Social Media as a phenomenon that needs to be carefully watched and analysed. Indeed, Social Media has changed the way we communicate with each other and with brands. However, we believe that marketers need to quickly assess which components of Social Media to use in order to stay ahead of the game. This is precisely what we aim to do in our endeavour to attain excellence in digital marketing. 

Google Realtime search goes offline

Google’s two-year agreement with Twitter to show tweet results has expired, taking realtime search results offline. A spokesperson at Google confirmed the news with Search Engine Land.

Since October of 2009, we have had an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results through a special feed, and that agreement expired on July 2.

While we will not have access to this special feed from Twitter, information on Twitter that’s publicly available to our crawlers will still be searchable and discoverable on Google.

The actual deal with Twitter in late 2009 envisaged realtime results providing minute-by-minute news to searchers. Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President then wrote on the blog, "We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months."

The search behemoth seems to be planning to incorporate results from its own newly launched Google + instead of Twitter posts. Google + is Google’s attempt at bringing out a full service social media website, much on the lines of Facebook and Myspace. Google’s previous attempts at social media were futile, with Buzz and Wave not catching up with social media users. Social media analysts at Pipon Solutions believe that this move could pave the way for Google + to seriously challenge Facebook and Twitter. We welcome your comments on the latest developments.

Resources that will help you learn the art of paid search

In the dynamic world of paid search, you either keep up-to-date with the latest happenings in the arena or get left behind. This blog outlines some of the resources and help available to equip yourself with the necessary knowledge required.

PPC blogs: You may look at Google’s official blog on adwords and the Google Analytics blog. Another useful resource is the Inside Search blog. The Agency Blog and the Merchant Blog are two more informative blogs that you might find handy. You may also subscribe to updates on Twitter and Facebook to stay up-to-date.

PPC videos: Google runs a number of official Youtube channels to help you gain an understanding of Adwords and Analytics. The Business Channel covers Google analytics, adwords and other related topics. Two other official channels on Youtube are the Google analytics channel and Think with Google.

Learning Centre: The Learning Centre is a fantastic resource for you to study adwords. The analytics education page helps you to get familiar with Google analytics.

Other online resources: In its press section, Google runs a directory of its official presence on Twitter, Facebook, blog and Youtube. Google also offers online webinars in its classroom and a number of support pages -  AdWords Help including a beginner’s guide, known issues with adwords and help pages for Merchant Centre.

Of course, you can always keep referring to our blog or look at our pages on paid search management. If you need further professional help, get in touch with us. At Pipon Solutions, we always endeavour to provide the best professional help to our clients.

Market research – your pathway to ethical link building

By starting your own market research department, you may open up a world of ethical link building opportunities. Research is usually cited because of a variety of reasons:

·         Even large corporate houses need facts based on research to back up their marketing claims.

·         Sites featuring industry news need research snippets to base news on.

·         Research provides a great framework to devise unique, compelling and interesting content.

Once you build the research content, what do you do to get those links?

·         Partner with reputed research firms: Partnering with reputed research firms adds to the brand value and trustworthiness of your results. It also increases the possibilities of media attention.

·         Be proactive: Send out scoops of the results to PR newsletters and industry specific news sites.

·         Include visuals to strengthen the chances of getting linked.

·         Do not put in excessive copyright laws as this could discourage sharing.

·         Put up the results and summary of your research on leading social media websites such as Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and Google plus. Social media sites present fantastic opportunities to share your content naturally.

At Pipon Solutions, we’ve already discussed the importance of ethical link building. In the coming months, we will put forth strategies to optimise your SEO, link building, paid search and social media efforts.

Top myths about SEO

Many myths about SEO keep floating around the internet. SEO experts at Pipon Solutions leave no stone unturned to ensure only genuine knowledge is used to serve the best interests of our clients. As a step in this regard, we’ve tried to highlight the two first steps to creating an SEO strategy.  This will be followed by a further post later on this week detailing the next steps needed to create a successful SEO strategy. 

The first bit of advice for anyone beginning an SEO campaign is to make good use of Google tools such as Analytics and Adsense.  Without using such tools it is difficult to ascertain how well your campaign is doing and where you can improve your SEO strategy.  Through monitoring and following the advice contained in such tools one can find some quick fixes that will aid your SEO strategy. 

Link building is the next most important aspect of an SEO campaign.  Although some webmasters believe that external links are harmful for a website’s rankings, arguing that you ideally should not want visitors to leave your website, data actually shows that there is a positive correlation between the number of external links and higher rankings. The key to this is making sure that you are linking out to high-quality, relevant sites to help Google better understand the content of your page and thus improve rankings.

To learn more about the different SEO strategies one can put in place please visit our website or get in touch with us.  We will be posting our next SEO tips and techniques later on this week so stay glued to this blog and watch this space!

Important ranking factors affecting SEO

SEO Moz hosted a Search Ranking Factors Seminar last week that discussed the important ranking factors affecting SEO at the moment.  As you may be well aware, the world of SEO is constantly changing and failing to notice improved methods to optimise your website can result in poor search engine rankings.  At Pipon Solutions, we’ve highlighted the main talking points of the discussion below:

·          More than 75% of SEO experts believe that social signals impact search results.  This is not surprising, particularly with the introduction of Google’s new +1 feature.  It is therefore important that any well structured SEO strategy at the moment should seek to incorporate and utilise different social media platforms. 

·         A large number of SEO experts think exact keyword match domains will not necessarily mean better results – thereby reigniting the debate over whether to stuff your domain with necessary keywords. 

• More Adsense slots have historically meant lower ranks. This might mean that the data could be due to low quality sites only focusing on advertising.
• Building links seem to directly impact results.
• Title tags have a major say in search relevance.

·         Top ranking sites possess an active social presence

The general consensus from the discussion was that, for any SEO strategy to succeed, three factors had to be present.  These were an easy to use website, engaging content and a great brand.  The world of SEO remains dynamic and ever-changing, with search engines constantly improving search algorithms in order to speed up the search process.

At Pipon Solutions we aim to keep on top of all the latest developments in the SEO industry and have come up with successful, results based strategies that have helped the SEO campaigns of both small and large businesses.  Contact us today for more details on our SEO strategies or visit our blog regularly for more tips from the SEO industry.  

Top tips to encourage users to share your content on Social Media

At Pipon Solutions, we’ve laid tremendous stress on optimising your marketing in social media. Sanjay Dholakia of Crowd Factory has written an article on Mashable that provides a few practical tips on encouraging sharing on social media. This blog post aims to summarise the whole article into a few key points.

• ·         Sweeten the deal when people share more: Do-it-yourself group deals allow people to create campaigns with the idea of collective benefit – the more people share among themselves, the more they save. Such deals will encourage people to share and mobilise numbers.
• ·         Give people personalised gifts: Personalising your gifts to customers can mean a lot to the customer. Furthermore, in the virtual space personalising your gifts does not cost much. For example, you may provide customers early access to content in return for sharing.
• ·         Allow fans to formulate the deal: When you give fans the ability to help create the offer in the first place, you make things a lot more exciting. For example, HarperCollins lets members select which books should be offered at a discount. Once chosen, deals can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• ·          Recognise ‘superfans’: Dholakia defines ‘superfans’ as enthusiastic individuals who are not necessarily motivated by incentives but are interested in promoting for the sake of it. Marketers need to identify such individuals and reward them with preferential access or recognition. The key is to include them in your marketing mix.

Need further help in optimising your social media campaigns? Get in touch with our experts who will be glad to help you.

Deal-a-day websites change marketing strategies

Sceptics of deal-a-day websites such as Groupon and LivingSocial often predicted that these websites would see their sales decline once the economy recovered and people weren’t as concerned about saving every dollar or pound.  Surprisingly, however, these deal-a-day websites have grown from strength to strength. Chicago based Groupon, the leading deal-a-day website, has grown from 2 million subscribers to over 85 million over the past year. Similarly, LivingSocial grew from a paltry 120,000 users to over 28 million over the same period. In just three years this particular business model has changed local advertising, delivering faster results than other traditional marketing methods. Store owners get immediate access to revenue and can observe exactly how many customers each offer manages to bring in. Analysts say these websites thrive because they help both merchants and consumers without requiring any specific technical expertise from the former. They see this as a new category of commerce that has changed the way companies market their products. Some companies though, complain that Groupon forces upon them an unfair cut in prices and the sudden influx of the huge numbers of customers overwhelms them. However, employees at Groupon respond that companies always have the option to cap the number of coupons sold. Some companies view deal-a-day coupons as promotional expenses and are willing to take losses on them. Others don’t do the precise calculations and end up getting their fingers burnt. Nevertheless, deal-a-day websites are expected to generate as much as $ 2.7 billion in revenues this year. That figure is expected to go up to $ 4 billion by 2015. Although that is still only a small slice of the $ 142 billion that is generated by the total online retail sales, revenues from daily-deals are growing faster than overall e-commerce revenues. Small businesses have adopted the model as a way to hook new customers in this digital age. Traditional methods of advertising are either too expensive or no longer provide attractive returns on investment. Google search results, though measurable, do not provide the immediate results that small businesses need. This is where Groupon and LivingSocial step in and work their magic. Analysts at Pipon Solutions invite your views on such deal-a-day websites.

Foursquare Hits 500,000 Merchant Accounts

The location based check-in service Foursquare has reached yet another milestone – over 500,000 merchant accounts. Merchant accounts allow businesses to offer discounts, update information and also gain useful insights on check-in data. They get complete management rights on their pages, hence pages may be customised as per needs. Foursquare does not charge for its merchant accounts.

Foursquare’s service is aimed towards GPS-enabled mobile devices. Users ‘check-in’ at different venues using the website, application or SMS. Check-ins award users points and badges. A recently introduced feature is ‘notifications’ – alerts on comments, sign-ups, tips, swarming, etc.

Founded in 2009 and based in New York with an engineering office at San Francisco, Foursquare raised more than $ 20 million in start-up capital. Foursquare has recently closed a deal on funding for $ 50 million and has reached yet another milestone of more than 10 million users.

At Pipon Solutions, we’ve been following the growth of leading social media firms such as Foursquare. As social media analysts, we believe it is our job to indentify paradigm shifts and trends in the industry. If you need help with your social media campaigns, feel free to get in touch with us. Our experts will be glad to help you.

Twitter reaches landmark figure of 200 million tweets a day

Fast growing micro-blogging site Twitter continues to post impressive figures of growth, reaching more than 200 million tweets a day. There are plenty of reasons behind this growth – including an increase in mobile use of more than 182%. Overall, Twitter’s growth is said to be around 10,000 per cent over the course of the last two and a half years, officials proudly announced.

What has been particularly impressive is the way in which Twitter is being used. Tweeting is now seen as an accepted means of communication of both comical and serious topics. For instance, during the earthquake in Japan, more than 5,000 tweets were sent each second and the day saw more than 177 million tweets. Twitter officials have posted this exciting graphic showing the flow of direct messages, tweets and re-tweets to and from Japan. For the year 2011, the topics that were discussed the most were Swine Flu, Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan civil war crisis.

Twitter has already announced its acquisition of Tweetdeck and its plans to file for an IPO. Social media analysts at Pipon Solutions believe that this may be the right time for Twitter’s IPO ambitions, considering the fact that a drop in valuations in the IT sector is a serious possibility in the near future.  What this also means is that, if you are a business looking to expand your digital marketing options, twitter is now the place to be to engage and contact your customers.  For more information and tips on how to optimise your presence on Twitter please read through our previous posts, or for a more detailed guide please feel free to contact us.  

How to optimise your social presence

The growth in social media activity has grown exponentially. The number of unique visitors has increased more than 80 percent since 2007, while total visits to websites in this category grew 136 per cent to 6.2 billion. Specific social media brand searches (Facebook, Linkedin, etc) and people searches appear to be the primary growth drivers of search clicks. The top 20 brand names in retail, finance and travel accounted for 1.6 million clicks directly to Facebook, an increase of 1300 per cent.

So how do you improve the rankings of your social pages?

Provide direct links from your home page: Search algorithms value links from home pages. Most top brands miss this opportunity to link their social media directly from their home pages. It is important to use your brand name in the link to have immediate impact.

While posting, mention brand names: URLs that match search terms rank higher in natural search results. Social media posts work in a similar fashion too. Make sure you use the brand names of your company and/or products when you post on social media.

Get likes: Search engine algorithms value likes, +1’s, follows, etc. This will push up your rankings as well. Getting your customers to ‘like’ you on Facebook can be tricky, and may require clever use of marketing tactics.

Provide sharing tools: Make the content on your website/social media/blogs easy to share. That way, you will attract more eye balls while befriending search engine algorithms.

These are only some of the ways in which you may optimise your prominence in social media. At Pipon Solutions, we provide a range of social media optimisation services. Get in touch with us or leave your comments/suggestions in this blog.

Google+ takes aim at Facebook

Social media has seen a few very successful newer entrants – Zynga, Fousquare and so on. Not intent on being left out of the fray, Google has started giving out invites for its brand new social network, Google+, which is directly positioned to take on Facebook. This is in effect Google’s third attempt at entering the social networking space after two failed attempts – Google Buzz and Google Wave. Analysts around the world have been coming up with initial reviews of the search behemoth’s social endeavour.

At the centre of it all lays the concept of ‘circles’. Engineers at Google have apparently spent hours and hours getting this just right. Circles are supposed to be the correct system of grouping people together for the purpose of sharing content online. Savvy internet users point out to the fact that the concept of circles has to gain popularity if Google+ is to succeed. Several leading technology newspapers and journals have lauded the intuitive and aesthetic interface. The user interface is built in a way that the average internet user will immediately pick up on.

At Pipon Solutions, we keep track of all the happenings in the world of social media. Take a look at our blog to learn more or get in touch with us.