Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

I was fortunate to be quoted in an excellent article called The Tao of Crafting SEM Partnerships by Marty Weintraub at aimClear over on the Search Engine Watch blog. As you may recall, I am to be the maiden sacrificed to Marty at the SEMpdx conference in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, we’ve met via phone and it turns out he’s a very nice guy. AND, an excellent writer to boot.

Turns out Lisa Williams from MEDIA Forte Marketing is also a potential sacrificial maiden on our panel, which deals with online reputation management. Ben Lloyd from Amplify Interactive will moderate the panel, and I have a feeling it’ll be a very fun session.

Looking forward to meeting Marty and Lisa - and expanding my network of potential partners - at SEMpdx.

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I have just finished driving that crazy stretch of I-5 south of Portland that makes me wonder:

What people are thinking when they’re driving a long, straight road like that?? That they can just exit in front of 18-wheelers going 80 without wreaking havoc?

I swear I witnessed the potential of three very scary accidents barely missed, I sincerely wonder how truckers do it!

And I’m so glad to be home.

I am happy to have made the trip, though, traffic and idiot drivers notwithstanding. The audience of Oregon Wine makers at this morning’s panel presentation was very attentive, asked excellent questions, and it made me realize how truly far we’ve come in technology in just a few short years.

Most of these people run small, family businesses. They were thrilled to hear the could buy shopping cart software for $300. That’s a far cry less than $5000 - which was the number that several people kept throwing out - having researched it just a few years back. I can see shopping carts popping up on wine sites all over the state now, which will be great for them (better margins) and great for us (supporting the direct growers).

Most are concerned about immigration rights, and the changes afoot here in Oregon. One man stood in front of a group of probably 300 people at a morning session, and said, “People don’t realize where their food comes from.”

I pointed out in our session (to about 100 people) that the web is a great forum to discuss the issues, educate the public and generate understanding. I hope to see blogs (or at least comments) popping up from wine growers all over the web now, which will be great for consumers (they’ll know where their food comes from) and great for the debate to be held in a very public (and very big - potentially reaching hundreds of thousands of people) forum.

It’s a wonderful time to be alive - to watch lightbulbs go off en mass over people’s brains, and to participate in the understanding gained through education.

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I’ve been awake in a strange bed since 4:30 a.m., obsessing over story telling.

I’m in Eugene, Oregon, attending the Oregon Wine Industry Symposium, and speaking on a panel on “How to Make Your Web Site Work Harder For You” in a couple of hours. At our panel’s practice session and the annual wine industry dinner last night, I was impressed by simplicity and effectiveness of the storytelling going on… every award had a story, every acceptance speech had a story, and every vineyard, vintner and enthusiast had a story.

It seems the wine industry itself is a compilation of stories, and the people in it are natural story tellers, which is a great attribute for making the web work harder for you…

So the theme that’s going to be called out this morning, as I speak to my section of the panel - Engagement - is the art of online story telling.

It’s simple: people are captured and compelled to action by great stories.

As prospects and shoppers go online, they might be researching people, products, healthcare decisions or (like millions of us) posting our random thoughts, photos, videos, for friends, family and perfect strangers to see.

(”You’re either on the screen, or watching the screen, baby!” my friend Paul shouts in my ear…)

Simple, engaging stories serve to: 1) attract our attention; and b) provide the power of persuasion, once we’ve offered it. And so, in an effort to capture my thoughts about storytelling before I share them with attendees, I find myself here… in the quiet of my hotel room, at my desk, looking at a laptop, telling a story.

Our room is going to be the smaller of the two large rooms at the Hilton Hotel, which was built sometime in the 70’s and hasn’t been updated since. Three things that could have an effect on our attendance:

1. We’re the first session of the dreaded “Morning After…” You know the drill, the big dinner (with lots of wine) was last night, and everyone had a good time. The last thing they want to do is get up and go anywhere but The Big River Grille, and order up an “exceptional northwest cuisine-themed” breakfast.
2. We’re up against a session called “Impact of Grape Maturity on Wine Flavor” and I’m hoping people will say, “Yep, it does!” and come listen to our session instead of the learned folks from Oregon State and UC Davis. And another session called “This Just In: Extension Research Updates,” with speakers from Oregon State, Cal Poly and USDA Prosser, where ‘Short Shoot Syndrome’ and ‘cover crops’ will likely attract a healthy audience.
3. We’re in the “not geeky” track for oeneophiles. What a hoot.

I expect (fingers crossed) 100 or so people to brave their way in to listen to us. We’re focusing on simple, effective, FREE tools you can use to improve your web presence for attendees.

Our Panel’s Story:

Digital Footprints Don’t Lie - Debora Geary from Fireweed Analytics, will show us that using Google Analytics, which is a free analytics tool (and Google is the only one you’ll ever need, no matter what your ISP says, according to Debora), anyone can see the ‘digital footprints’ their customers will leave as they walk around a web site. What captures their attention, and what you can tell about their paths and meanderings are quite telling.

She studied the Sokol Blosser site in preparation for the panel, and found one of the top pages people visited on the site has been the “meet us” page - a simple compilation of photos of the people behind the wines. (JLJ: People love to buy stuff from people they like. Especially foods and wines.)

Capture Prospects with Content - Katherine Gray, content strategist, will speak to the importance of content on a site that will both support your brand and deliver the message you think most important. She’ll speak to authenticity of voice, and how to use words (first and foremost) and design to effectively tell your brand’s story. But it doesn’t stop there.

She’ll point out the critical links to a site’s shopping cart (JLJ: when they have them… most wineries take their orders by fax, and the abandonment rate off of “buy now - send us a fax!” pages are huge.) that could be vastly improved by simply adding a bit of contextual content here and there.

Think Like a Spider - Ben Lloyd of Amplify Interactive will tell attendees to go online, turn off the graphics in their browser, and look at how search engine spiders “see” their sites. (JLJ: go to your browser’s Preferences… Content… Uncheck the “Load Images Automatically” button. You’ll be amazed at what you see or don’t see…) Then sprinkle relevant keywords (pinot noir, pinot gris, pinot blanc…) in your title tags (most importantly!) body copy and headlines to give the spiders a notion of what your site is about. That will give you the opportunity to come up in search results when people are looking for a lovely pinot to take to the party Friday night.

Get Into the Magic F - I will wrap the panel by talking about how easy it is to use blogging, sharing, tagging and social networks to engage readers, tell great stories about your wines (and the people behind them), and improve your chances of showing up at the top of a Google search results page (”the Magic F”). And how to easily manage and monitor your online reputation using free RSS readers (like those from my client Attensa), so you’ll know exactly who’s talking about you, when they do, delivered right to your inbox if you like.

Dennis Hahn, ID Branding CEO and our panel moderator did a wonderful job of pulling all of our presentations together into a story… and he’ll lead our lucky attendees through the session in a memorable, compelling manner.

I’m off for coffee - fuel for the stories I’m about to share.

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My friend Claudia sent me an excerpt from Seth Godin’s latest marketing tome, Meatball Sundae.

She wanted my thoughts - I thought it’d make a good blog post. So here you go, CJ:

Seth: “Corporations, political parties, nonprofits, job-seekers, and yes, even people looking for love are all scrambling around, trying to exploit the power of these new tools. People treat the New Marketing like a kid with a twenty-dollar bill at an ice cream parlor. They keep wanting to add more stuff-more candy bits and sprinkles and cream and cherries. The dream is simple: “If we can just add enough of [today’s hot topping], everything will take care of itself.”"

JLJ: I couldn’t agree more - just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I can’t tell you how much money (and time) I’ve seen organizations waste on trying to make a “viral marketing program.” Viral happens. There are some known qualities of a viral campaign, and most organizations are too conservative (often rightfully so) to construct a campaign that would let viral happen. Once the PR folks and the legal teams are involved in the inevitable opinion pile-on [their versions of today’s hot topping], you might as well kiss the hope of pass-along goodbye.

Seth: “Most of the time, despite all the hype, organizations fail when they try to use this scattershot approach. They fail to get buzz or traffic or noise or sales. Organizations don’t fail because the Web and the New Marketing don’t work. They fail because the Web and the New Marketing work only when applied to the right organization. New Media makes a promise to the consumer. If the organization is unable to keep that promise, then it fails.”

JLJ: Again, most organizations have no idea what it takes to keep the promise - much less keep up with the pace of “New Marketing.” How many “corporate blogs” hanging off the corporate web site [www.bigbusiness.com/blog] haven’t been updated in three weeks or three months? It takes [more than meat]balls to keep blogging when no one comments on your posts. It takes intestinal fortitude to sit at a blank screen and write your thoughts. It takes commitment, time, energy and a focus on the brand to do it right.

Seth: “New Marketing-whipped cream and a cherry on top-isn’t magical. What’s magical is what happens when an organization uses the New Marketing to become something it didn’t used to be-it’s not just the marketing that’s transformed, but the entire organization. Just as technology propelled certain organizations through the Industrial Revolution, this new kind of marketing is driving the right organizations through the digital revolution.”

JLJ: I’ve been transformed through the process of “New Marketing.” Completely. Although I reach back into the fundamental roots of direct marketing, positioning, branding and certainly integrated marketing concepts that I’ve learned over the years, I think about communicating them in a very different way.

In fact, the very idea of sharing my thoughts on this book in email with only one person seems an abhorrence to me.

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I met with a friend yesterday to talk about simple ways to optimize a web site for search engines. He’s using a homegrown CMS (define) tool to manage content, and the guys who developed it did a great job on the interface, but left out a very important tool to improve search visibility for spiders and the people who search online - the ability to manage Title Tags.

In an excellent, descriptive Why use title tags? post over on Search Engine Watch, Carrie Hill uses pictures to illustrate the importance of them:

In this illustration:

1. Shows an unoptimized title - and Carrie says:
   “I can’t tell you how many Web sites I visit with the page name or title as “home” or “prices.” What a horrible missed opportunity to use some great keyword phrases to rank your page for something that will actually sell your product.I don’t think someone searching for “home” will want to buy pizza. So why optimize your page for the term “home?”
2. Shows a word list - “Spamalicious,” she notes:
   “Great — a bunch of lower case words about pizza. This doesn’t do anything but tell the search engines you’re trying really hard to rank for a variety of terms related to pizza.The first keyword is “pizza” — there are 134 million people competing for that term in Google. How many of those are your target audience? I’d guess about half of one percent.Put a location qualifier next to your keyword phrase if you rely on a local market…. many small business Web site owners miss the fact that not only is your page title a great way to tell the search engines what your page is about — it’s ad copy.”
3. Shows an optimized title tag:
   “This style is my personal favorite and very similar to how I write title tags for my clients and my own Web sites.”

Marketers can do some very simple things to boost the effectiveness of their web sites. Creating optimized title tags is one very effective way to make your site more relevant to spiders and the people you’re spending so much money trying to attract.

In this case, we need to enlighten ourselves so we can enlighten the folks who write the tools we use to manage our sites.

Your next question to your CMS provider should be:

“Can we punch a hole in this thing so I can add my own title tags? Get it on your list, please…”

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