I have been doing marketing for 20 years but at the heart of it, for me, it has been about people. Do people have problems today? Of course, they do. The question businesses should ask is “How can I have a better relationship with the people I market to?”

How To Start Relationship Marketing

Professional relationships – Were you able to make a connection to a person that you really wanted to meet when you were at a convention? Now that you are LinkedIn friends, now what?

Customer relationships – It is more expensive to get new customers than keeping old ones. What happens when your whole relationship with your customers is based on price? The relationship with your customers does not last. We are in a fast-changing marketplace and the key is trust.

Other relationships in your life – Think about the person you trust most. What is it about that relationship that makes you love that person the most? Sense of security? Do they have all the money? Or is it that we can mess up and that person will still want to deal with us? When we have a bad day, trust can help to maintain that relationship.

A relationship built on trust and authenticity allows for mistakes without harming the relationship. For example: How many versions of the light bulb did Edison come up with? 10,000! How many times can we mess up at work to get to a point where we worry if we are going to be able to come in to work tomorrow?

To Have A Relationship With Your Customers, You Have To Focus On Authenticity

The thing about trust, you have to be real or authentic about it. Being who you are is the key ingredient to being successful.

How many today are in a serious relationship or married? I am going to tell you a story about my wife (she is not here).

An Example of Authentic Trust

My wife is sitting in the living room, and I can tell she is upset with me. She is doing a lot of sighing. Ultimately, I get her to tell me that she is really upset with me because I have not figured out what she wants. I ask her what she wants, and she says, “I don’t know.”

You’re mad at me because I don’t know what you want even though YOU don’t know what you want???

Isn’t that the way with many of our customers?

When you are in an authentic relationship with your customers you can try out different things with your customers to help them understand what they want.

The Only Relationship That Lasts is a Win/Win Relationship

Those who are in long-lasting relationships are in win/win relationships but that does not mean they are happy all the time. Authentic relationships can stand the strain of differences and disagreements. The same is true with your relationship with your customers.

The Key is Authenticity, Relationships and Building Trust

An example is that one of my clients told me that their customers were angry with them because they wanted to get more engaged with my client’s brand.

Customers make complaints because they care. And that is how you know it is something that you can work on to get to common ground. It is all about getting to win/win.

You get to a win/win relationship by thinking of your customers first. That is not easy to do because usually, most businesses are putting their OWN goals first.

Develop a relationship marketing plan. If you are just answering emails and replying to comments, you are just reacting. When you make a plan you are working with your customers to better the relationship.

Are you hanging out with people that you do not have a future with? An example would be using the stages of divorce.

When do people get divorced? If it happens after 2 years, it was probably your “trial marriage.” You wanted to see what marriage was like, you didn’t like it, and you got out.

For those who divorced at 7 years, they usually had kids and then got bored with the relationship and wanted to end it.

If divorce happens after 20 years, they wake up one day and realize “The kids are gone, I still have life in me, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Trust – Building a Relationship with Millennials

When you talk about trust to millennials, they think of it as an absolute. They do not have a range of trust. For others, there usually is a range.

Only 19% of millennials polled said that they trusted big business. Only 18% of millennials in high school still trust people. One of the fastest-growing groups of people that we will be doing business with is millennials.

I teach school, and I get a new crop of people each semester. I like millennials. They want to learn and are willing to give you a break if you mess up, and they are authentic.

I had a millennial boss and it was a great experience. However, one time I was discussing a project with another co-worker and copied my millennial boss on our emails. I needed to get a picture of something from my co-worker and asked her to send me a pic. My millennial boss called me into his office and told me I couldn’t do that kind of thing. I learned that asking someone for a pic, means you are asking someone to send you naughty pictures of them. I was pretty sure my co-worker understood what type of picture I needed due to the context of the conversation, but my millennial boss took things out of context.

Just remember, with millennials either they trust you, or they don’t.

Using these examples and tips you can create a relationship marketing strategy that will build trust and grow a relationship with your customers. This will ultimately grow the business and the bottom line.

The post How Relationship Marketing is Done Right From J. Schuh appeared first on Rocks Digital.

Local Search Day Expert Panel With Cindi Aldrich, Kevin Clark and Chaz Edward – Rocks Digital 2018

It’s a conference tradition for Bernadette Coleman, the #QueenofLocalSEO to moderate the Local Search Day panel each year. Just like every other year she comes up with just the right questions to get the panelists to open up and share their expertise. Keep reading for what transpired.

Meet the Local Search Day Expert Panelists

Chaz Edward – Founder of Web 2.0 Ranker

Kevin Clark – Vice President of Revenue for Synup; brands monitor their listings and track analytics; previously at Yext and BrightEdge

Cindi Aldrich – President and CEO of the Association of Directory Publishers (ADP)

Questions and Answers from the Local Search Day Panel Discussion

Q: Right now Yellow Pages is still a billion dollar industry. What kind of businesses do you currently work with?

A: Cindi – It’s true, but the one thing we are proud of is that we have our finger on the pulse of the SMB (Small Business Owner). We are hearing they don’t have the time to keep up with the technology. We are seeing nothing but an opportunity to help them and we are excited to help them. That is where our heart is, with the SMBs and we are going to be there to help them.

Q: Will reviews still matter in 2020?

A: Kevin – Yes they will matter. The policies for the large search engines have changed. If someone is doing a search for “who has the best tacos” they are not going back to a person’s website. Google is going to look at the reviews and they are going to phase out the companies that are gaming the system.

Q: What do you think about chat box reviews? Is anything coming that will change how reviews are done?

A: Chaz – There are many companies that are kind of automating their processes. Reviews, specifically. Google is using reviews from other websites way more. Responding to reviews is key, but some people are not responding to their reviews. The responses to reviews may be even more important in the future, and you will definitely need to use more keywords. For example: “We are so glad that Bob’s locksmith was able to come out and unlock your car.”

A: Kevin – If you serve clients locally, then using a general review could work, but if the company you own and the people who wrote your reviews are like 500 miles away, that may not work. You can even get in trouble for leaving malicious reviews.

Q: Voice search is going to be very important. Does anyone have any comments on what can be done to optimize for this?

A: Kevin – I was excited this morning to find out there is a schema that you can use to turn something into speech.

A: Chaz – I think voice search is going to affect different industries differently. If you are looking for a locksmith, then you are going to use voice search. If you are looking for a house, then you are not going to use voice search.

Q: Does anyone know what “Google Answer Box” is?

A: Kevin – One of the things we want to encourage small businesses to do is get their content out there. Google Answer Box can really help out with that.

A: Chad – Consumers expect that answer to be on their first click. Consumers are impatient, and they want that one click to give them what they want.

Q: A big trend is personalization. What tools are available for a small business that could help with that on a budget?

A: Kevin – If you don’t have a big budget, then use what is out there. The best ROI right now is retargeting. It helps to personalize your message. You can personalize to a group.

A: Chad – Getting the leadership to work on responding back is important. 79% of search will be video; Google recently changed their carousel thumbnails from pictures to videos.

Q: Do I need an app? Should I get an app?

A: Chad – They talk about how consumers are on their apps about 90% of the time. Personally, I don’t want my plumber sending me a push notification. But something like when spring comes around, you can have a notification that lets you know you need to service their air conditioner would be good.

Q: What about the future for personalization?

A: Chaz – Google has already personalized a map. That Google map app is going to be personalized to your history. Based on your specific actions. If you take a look at the history of search, it was all about online signals. You start talking about your brand, your location. Who is leaving more reviews? Who is uploading more pictures? How can I get more people interacting with my business? They know all this already.

I’m not saying online signals aren’t important because they will be. You might be a roofer and want an online presence and off. We give people tools to be able to be seen and go from there.

Q: How do you know it is a real person?

A: Chaz – I have multiple accounts on my phone. And my employees have multiple accounts. This can be useful. Even with a fake Google Guide account, if you are giving information that is helpful, then Google is going to reward that account. And there are real timing methods. You have to use real actions.

Q: Is it really important to have your listing 100% accurate?

A: Chaz – The critical thing is that when Google sees information, it has to know it is your business. It is still important to make it as consistent as possible, but don’t pull your hair out if it is not exactly the same. You will want to make a comment when you change your address.

A: Kevin – We all have experiences where we go to an address, and it has moved. You will want to make the best effort to make sure your information is right.

Q: (from audience) – I’m still confused as to what 2020 will look like?

A: Kevin – People are going to expect that answer to be only one click away.

In conclusion, local search is constantly evolving and businesses and marketers have to stay on top of the changes. One way to do that is to stay connected to Rocks Digital throughout the year and make plans now to attend the next Rocks Digital Marketing Conference.

The post Local Search Expert Panelists Speak at Annual Conference appeared first on Rocks Digital.

David Szetela is the owner and CEO of FMB Media and shares his knowledge of PPC in this evolving digital age.

Pay-Per-Click Definitions To Know

In the past, Google made suggestions for PPC that were based solely on what keywords were used in the ad and paid little attention to the context. Today, that has greatly changed.

Here are a couple of definitions to keep in mind.

Artificial Intelligence – Software that performs tasks that normally require human intelligence. A good example would be the speech recognition software used by Alexa and Siri.

Machine Learning – Software that automatically modifies itself over time, based on “experience.” A great example is when Netflix adjusts its recommendation engine depending on what movies you have rented in the past (title, genre, era, etc.).

AI & Machine Learning Examples in PPC

• Automated Bid Management – Setting your account to automatically make bids or stop them depending upon the situation.
• Attribution Models – An attribution model is a rule/group of rules which outlines how credit for conversions/purchases is assigned to touchpoints (aka “clicks”).
• Ad Rotation Settings – How often you want an ad to rotate with another ad.

There are many opportunities to do well with PPC, especially with the new AdWords ad manager.

What Is the Future of AI and Machine Learning

The following are examples of some AI and machine learning tools that are currently being tested or are relatively new.

Google Optimize – Google’s latest website testing and experimentation platform.

Google Attribution – Pulls in data from Google Analytics and AdWords to give a better overall idea of what touchpoints are converting and when.

Smart Bidding Contextual Signals – Machine learning based on device, location, next location, weekday, time of day, re-marketing list, ad characteristics, interface language, browser, operating system, demographics, search query and search network partner.

Adwords Automated Bidding Options

Maximize Clicks – Can specify maximum CPC; if you do not specify, Google will set a VERY high max click.

Target Search Page Location – Top or anywhere on the search page; specify max CPC.

Target Outranking Share – To show my ad at the top of the page as much as possible. It does not always have to be the first position. For example, you could use this if you know ahead of time your competitors are spending large amounts of money to be in first.

You can also specify to always appear in certain positions relative to someone else’s ad. You can only regulate the amount of time (ex: I only want to appear above this ad 50% of the time).

What happens when two competitors are using the same mechanism? Whichever ad has the better quality score will get the better ad position.

Adwords Smart Bidding Options

Target CPA

• Fantastic for lead generation accounts (get as many conversions as you can, at or below a target price). If something is more likely to turn into a conversion, the CPC will be raised (conversion probability is calculated using thousands of pieces of data such as time of day, country, category of product, etc.).

Target Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)

• Get as many conversions as possible but be sure ROAS is as close to my goals as possible. It is best when the range of accounts is relatively wide.

Enhanced CPC (eCPC)

• Before the change, the max bid price was 30%. After the change, the max bid price increase is unlimited. This means that the max CPCs can be incredibly high due to this option.

Target Maximum Conversions

• This is the most recent option. It is identical to target max clicks. It gives the maximum number of conversions and spends whatever you need to do that.

BE WARNED: There is no data in a new campaign, so be careful if Google makes suggestions to turn on higher ad spending at the beginning of your new campaign.

Automatic Display Targeting

• Automatically turned on when you create a new display campaign
• Two flavors: conservative and aggressive
• Conservative: shows ads on more sites that are related to target context or audience
• Aggressive: shows ads to more people based on the likelihood of converting. Requires a MINIMUM of 15 conversions per month.

Coming Soon To BingAds For Bid Strategy

• Enhanced CPC: Adjust my bid to get more conversions
• Location: Enhanced CPC

Attribution AI is Now Available (for Google AdWords)

Attribution acknowledges that more than one paid action might occur in a conversion chain of events. It is in AdWords now and allows automated bidding using attribution models based on a number of “touchpoints.”

Tools – Attribution – Attribution Modeling

Data driven – Uses the popularity of a click path (what set of clicks lead to a conversion/sale) to calculate the value of keywords used in an ad. This is not available yet to everyone but only to those with enough data to get an accurate read.

Last click – The very last action gets all the credit.

First click – First action gets all the credit.

Linear – Even distribution of credit over time.

Time decay – Clicks that occurred closer to the actual conversion are awarded more credit than other clicks along the same click path. Uses a 7-day half-life credit distribution model (for example, a click that occurred eight days before the actual conversion is only awarded 1/2 as much credit as whatever credit was received by the click that occurred one day before the conversion).

Position based – Awards 40% of the credit to both the ad that was clicked first and the ad that was clicked last (plus the keyword involved) while the other clicks along the click path that led to the conversion/sale are awarded 20% of the credit.

Question from the Audience About PPC and Automation

Q: At one point will automation eliminate the need for micro-managing bids?

A: That time is now(ish). It may be another year or so before it truly gets to that point.

Final Thoughts from David Szetela

“I am very leery about trying to get the most clicks at the beginning since I want to get the most for my money. One tactic is to adjust your target CPA 15%, wait to see the results, and then adjust it again.” Contact information for David Szetela: david@fmbmedia.com.

The post Navigating PPC in the New Frontier with David Szetela – Rocks Digital 2018 appeared first on Rocks Digital.

The Importance of Reviews for Local SEO

In the past, reviews weren’t as important to local SEO, but now reviews can make or break your local SEO. For example, I have tattoos and sometimes I like to look through listings for places to get a tattoo. I was looking on Yelp at the different listings and I found one that had negative reviews. However, the guy that was running the tattoo shop responded back very well to the negative reviews. This is how you can turn a negative review into a positive one.

What Makes Up Review Metrics?

• Review quality – Is the review fully filled out and filled with information? Is it more than just stars?
• Review velocity – Is the business getting reviews consistently over time or periodically in batches?
• Review diversity – Is the business getting honest reviews or only 5 stars?

Even if you get bad reviews, if you show that you are responding that can go a long way with your customers.

Where to Get Reviews

• Google
• Yelp
• Angie’s List
• Home Advisor
• GetFiveStars.com

GetFiveStars.com allows you to send out emails to your customers to ask them to send a review. You can set the parameters so that if they give you a review in a certain range the reviewer will be sent to one place, or sent to another place for a different range. After they give you a review, they can then be directed to give another review for a different site like Yelp or Mailchimp. This helps to encourage those who gave you a really good review to leave a review on a bigger review site.

Yelp is a popular site to look at reviews however, it is VERY strict with its guidelines and truly does not want a review that is promoted. But if you can get a good review on Yelp, it shows much more credibility.

My favorite 3 for getting reviews are Get Five Stars, Mailchimp and Yelp.

Local Focused Link Building

Think of Potential Users

Use potential user interaction as a link quality metric when building at a local level. For example: putting your logo on a little league uniform helps to advertise on the more “human” level.

Build Citations

Build citations to send local signals to Google about your business. Make sure your AP name address and phone number are formatted consistently across your citations. Decide early on if you want to build citations manually or with assistance.

Consider Time and Budget

This will tell you if you want to build citations manually or if you want to use a system or service.

Citation Building Services

• MOZ Local
• Yext
• Whitespark
• BrightLocal
• Advice Local

Don’t Forget Technical SEO

People seem to push technical SEO by the wayside. In the last few years, it has become more and more important for effective SEO.

Visit Search Consoles Frequently

• Google Search Console – Don’t be afraid to become a frequent user of Google Search Console because there is a lot of excellent information and data on there.
• Indexing – Are the correct number of pages being crawled on your site within Google Search Console (webmaster tools)?
• 404 errors – Is Google noticing 404s on your site? If so, determine if you should set up 301s.
• Pat and render – Perform a “fetch and render” run of your site.
• Clickthrough rate – Improve your organic CTR.
• Update metas – Look in SERPs to see how Google is pulling your meta data and make optimization updates based on what you see. But remember, if you have bad copy, no one is going to click on your links.
• Site crawls – Is your site crawled properly?
• Protocols – If your site is HTTP is it being crawled that way or does your host allow Google to crawl it as HTTPS? For example, a client had a hosting company ranking well in the search engines, then one day it tanked. Found out, they had one section that was HTTPS but did not have any content and the page was giving an error when it was accessed. The issue was fixed and it helped with the rankings again.
• Hosting provider – Get familiar with your hosting provider and how Google crawls your site. But don’t be surprised if, when you call tech support for your web hosting, they immediately blame a plug-in.

Recommended WordPress hosts: WP Engine and Pagely

Always utilize structured data markup on your site: schema.org or JSON-LD can mark up certain lines of your copy so that it can be “voice friendly.”

What Can Use Markup Data

• Business information such as name, address and phone number.
• Product and service reviews like nite site reviews including the review scale.
• Be sure to test your markup data!

Audience Local SEO Q & A Session

Q: What plugins do you like for structuring data?<

A: I like to keep plug-ins light because they can slow down your site.

Q: What do you do if you want to control the type of reviews that you get for your site?

A: You would want to use a site like “Get Five Stars” so that you can have better control.

The post Improving Local SEO Through Off-Site and Technical SEO appeared first on Rocks Digital.

Hugo D. Aviles On How Blockchain is Transforming Digital at Rocks Digital 2018

A little bit about Hugo D. Aviles:

• Born in Quito, Ecuador
• Co-founder of iBoss Ventures, Blockhash and CardConnect-FDIS-Tampa

An Overview of the Digital Media and Advertising Industry

• 209 billion dollar global digital media and advertising industry.
• $16 billion dollars in fraud occurs annually and bots are one of the reasons this occurs.
• In 2017 digital surpassed TV.
• By 2020 it is expected that digital ads will make up 50 percent of all ad spending.

Ad Fraud

What Causes Ad Fraud

• Nonhuman traffic (ie. bots)
• seoclerks.com – can buy many bots there
• Methbot – controlled by a single group based in Russia and operating out of data centers in the US and Netherlands
• HyphBot – potentially 3x larger than Methbot

Blockchain Is the Answer to Online Advertising Transparency

How Blockchain Works

1. Alice wants to send money to Bob.
2. The first block is created online and represents the transaction.
3. This block is broadcast to every part in the network.

Cryptocurrency is just something that is built on the blockchain.

Credit card processing started with using a manual machine (also known as “The Knucklebuster”).

Blockchain Potential Applications & Disruption

The blockchain is radically changing the future of transaction-based industries. An example would be when two people negotiate a price; after a price is agreed, blockchain is used to generate the forms.

adChain

• An open protocol on the public Ethereum blockchain
• Allows for the building of decentralized applications for advertising online

BasicAttentionToken.org

• Pays people for their attention
• Views ads, rewards you in cryptocurrency

Clearcoin.co

• Tracks all transactions on the distributed proof of history ledger
• Allows you to buy and sell media on the blockchain
• Influencer marketing transparency

SocialMedia.market

• Decentralized influencer advertising marketplace
• High level of influencer marketing transparency

Blockchain Allows Businesses to Have Online Advertising Transparency

When businesses use blockchain it gives them transparency to their online advertising. This in turn creates a higher level of trust which in turn will boost your local search visibility.

The post How Blockchain Is Transforming Digital appeared first on Rocks Digital.

The Evolution Timeline of Local Search

100 A.D.

• Started with The Roman Bazaar. 50 million people were in ancient Rome during this time.

1970s

• ARPANET was the first indexer for the internet. The main purpose, at first, was to connect computers at research institutions, funded by the Pentagon, through telephone lines.

1980s

• Phone booth Yellow Pages came on the scene.

2000s

• Flip phones came around.

2007

• The iPhone was launched. Only 6 million units were created at its launch.

2018

• 90% of consumers use local search.
• Google Maps has a wide distribution.
• 500 changes to their search algorithm.
• Evolution of Google local ads and monetization.
• Push notifications to consumers to collect attributes.

Yelp Enters Local Search

• # 3 in total number of revenues.
• Average rating of all reviews.
• Much more trusted than other review sites.
• Powers Apple, Bing and Yahoo listed reviews.

Organic vs PPC Space

In the past Google ads only looked at the words in your search, and did not pay much attention to the context. Changing how the layout of Google ads appears has greatly changed how people interact on the page. Only 50% realize the links they are clicking on are actually ads.

Pain Points Digital Marketers Have With Local Search

There is a disconnect with local search. An example is if someone searches for something online, they usually will pay for it online. If someone is searching for something local, after they make the search, they pay with something that is not connected directly to whatever they used to search for that item (ex: searching for a local pizza place, and then paying for your pizza with a debit card at the cash register itself).

Voice Search

• VEO – Voice Engine Optimization
• 46% are using voice search every day to find local businesses
• Organic search 34% of clicks are on the first result
• You only get ONE result – 100% conversion rate (Ex: Where is the best soy milk vanilla latte downtown?”)

Is there a difference between Apple’s voice search and Google’s Voice Search?

Apple does not have revenue tied to its voice search, Google does. This may mean that the quality of voice search results may go down.

The Future of Local Search

Local search has evolved into a powerful tool in the last few years and any search strategy needs to incorporate it in some way. The future will only add to its ability to bring local businesses more customers. Businesses and marketing professionals must stay on top of changes, improvements and new local search tools as they come to market.

The post The Evolution of Local Search with Collin Holmes appeared first on Rocks Digital.