Success Stories

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Saving Our Clients Money with Facebook Apps

03/08/2013

Our customer has grown their Facebook likes from zero to over 40,000 in just over three years. Since Facebook is a constantly moving target due to continual updates to the platform, reaching over 40,000 fans is no small feat.
Internet Marketing Consultant target
One of the changes that Facebook implemented in 2012 was a requirement to have apps run off secure http, i.e. https. Http stands for hypertext transfer protocol and https is hypertext transfer protocol secure. The eS adds security to the transfer so that information is encrypted during the transfer.

In order to have an opt-in email capture form and a dynamic store directory on the Facebook page, we had built a couple of applications prior to Facebook’s new security requirement. Adding an SSL (a secure socket layer) certificate was going to cost the client an additional $1,500 in set-up, $200 per year for the certificate and an additional $300/month in hosting charges from the hosting service the client was with in 2011. The client migrated to a new host in early 2012, but that’s not where the savings came in.

We recently found an app to support our opt-in form and store directory application in Facebook for a monthly fee of $7.00 (or just $84 per year) and the apps work perhaps even better than they would have with the additional server side SSL certificate. That is a setup savings of $1,500 and an annual savings of $3,800.

Wouldn’t you want your Internet Marketing Consultants to advocate for those kinds of savings on your behalf?

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Google AdWords Success:  Increased CTR and Decreased CPC

11/11/2011

In January 2011, we began an initiative to improve click-through rates and conversions for a client who asked us to take over their AdWords efforts.

Challenge
Decrease monthly spend and cost-per-click for client’s Google AdWords advertising initiatives while increasing clicks and conversions.

Results
In 2010, our client never received more than 18 many-per-click conversions in a month. In 2011 the lowest amount of many-per-click conversions received was 35, with the highest being 123.
AdWords Conversions Graph

The chart below shows the improvement in click-through rate for our client:
Click Through Rate Graph

Our client’s click-through rate increased tremendously once we took over the campaign. It is important to experiment with new advertising ideas from time to time, however, and this practice is reflected in the lower click-through rate seen in September 2011.

We have also significantly reduced our client’s cost-per-click:
Cost Per Click Graph

Our client had a 40% reduction in cost-per-click in 2011, with an average 2010 cost per click of $2.19 and a 2011 average of $1.32.

Success Summary:
In a nine-month period we drastically increased our client’s click-through rate and number of conversions while significantly reducing their cost per click to make their Google AdWords advertising efforts remarkably more effective.

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Open to New Methods

08/10/2009
Client X was working with a custom-built mass email system and discovered during a test mailing that most messages were being flagged as spam before they even reached the intended recipients email box.

Knowing that another department had experience using Vertical Response, we created a test account and sent the email with it. There were no spam flags so we recommended that the client switch to distributing through Vertical Response. The cost is a little higher, but the benefits far outweigh the expense. Being able to track how many people click on individual links in any email campaign is a huge plus and Vertical Response offers value-added tools like surveys as well.

Furthermore, we have tried other email services and have been disappointed in the freedom to create a custom look and feel for the email template. Vertical Response let us use our own template from the beginning with no additional charges.

The client is very happy and that means we are happy too. Thanks to Vertical Response for making a great product and offering great support as well. When I have called the company, they have always been polite, courteous and efficient.

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Tweet Success

07/16/2009
Three months I recommended Twitter to a client. As with many people who are new to Twitter she professed that she just didn’t get it. “Why do people care what I’m doing? Why should I tell people what I am eating for lunch?” she said. I explained a few of the ways she may be able to benefit from the service and how she should really start following a few people in her industry to get a feel for the conversations that were happening.

Today she has 581 followers and told me that last week she received 10 orders that she believes were referred from Twitter. Today she says, “I’m a twit for not using Twitter sooner.”

Congratulations D! Your success is my success! Keep up the tweetin’ 😉

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It’s all about listening and understanding

Understanding what you need to know even if you don’t know what you need to know.

A few weeks ago a former student contacted me via email to ask me for a recommendation to a class on Interactive Advertising.  I referred her to a comprehensive Internet Marketing program online and mentioned that I also offer consulting services and would be happy to help her out if she felt that would suffice.

She wanted to know more about banner ads, popups, intersticials, etc.  I created a small presentation and we had a two hour meeting to go over the various options and how much they cost.  At the end of the session my client had a much better understanding of the Interactive advertising landscape and felt much better able to make a good decision about what to spend on banner advertising, and more importantly whether to spend anything on it at all.

Is that a cookie cutter solution?  Absolutely not.  That’s the point.  We provide custom solutions.  We listen to what you need and provide you with the best solution for you even if you don’t yet know what that need really is.

If you know you need something and it’s Internet related, try us on.  We’ll be happy to add your story to this page.

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Involving all of the team

With social media there may be various people from the organization working on different platforms. For one of our clients we held a group meeting and assigned various tasks, and more importantly goals to each team member.

By keeping the goals realistic and doable, we not only reached and surpassed them, but kept each of the assignments fun and rewarding. I believe the team is enjoying the success and the marketing managers are pleased with the team’s performance.

We’ll be there to help you figure out the goals you need and answer any questions that come up as you set out to accomplish them. “Keep both feet on the ground and reach for the stars.” — Casey Kasem

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If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them

Or Acquire Them

This post was first posted on the blog on June 9th, 2009.

Client site A was competing with site B for traffic about a similar topic. The two sites were competing for search results and traffic to promote a similar physical location. Site B was a bit out of date, but had been on the Internet a lot longer than site A. The information on site B complements the information on site A. Client A had a good relationship with the owner of site B, so we decided to pursue merging the two sites into one. The final merged site is still in development, but the immediate result after setting up a redirect from site B’s domain to site A’s domain is a good increase in traffic to site A. Client A is happy, which means we are happy and more importantly people looking for information on this topic will only need to go to one site instead of two.

Additional traffic in 2009 compared to 2008 as a result of redirect
Traffic in 2009 compared to 2008

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Daily visits doubled and tripled after redirect
Daily visits doubled and tripled after June 19th

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Monitor your analytics and statistics log files to see the impact of any significant changes you make to your site, marketing plans and overall online presence. Sometimes you may be surprised by the result. (Hint: Results are not always good, but mistakes will help you learn.)