Marketing Technology Blog » Douglas Karr

Create Tests Easily with Verify

Douglas Karr — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:48:54 +0000

While analyzing some real-time alerts today on marketing automation for our client, Right On Interactive, Marty Thompson came across a link to a testing site called Verify. It’s a very affordable testing site that has a ton of features and a very simple, intuitive interface for getting your designs, sites and layouts tested and capturing feedback.

Here’s the Verify overview video:

Verify has the following testing methodologies available:

Click Test – See where users click based on a question.
Memory Test – Find out what people remember.
Mood Test – Learn how people feel about a screen.
Preference Test – Show two screens and ask users to choose.
Annotate Test – Let users put notes on your screenshot.
Label Test – Ask users what certain elements mean to them.
Multi-Page Click Test – See where users click in a sequence of screens.
Linked Test – Put together multiple tests into a single flow.

For less than $30 per month, Verify allows you to create tests quickly, share the tests and get results – sharing them via Twitter, Facebook or through private URLs, and then helps you understand and make decisions with easy to read, visualized reporting.

Infographic: The Content Marketing Explosion

Douglas Karr — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:50:23 +0000

Marketing and sales departments have always been doing content marketing… it was much easier to sell your wares when you had customer testimonials, whitepapers, case studies, emails and other documentation to help educate the buyer. Now that content is searchable and shareable via the web, though, we had to come up with some kind of name for it… Content Marketing. Because buyers are empowered to find the information themselves, content marketing is key because your content needs to be found in the searches and within the networks of those who are looking.

Businesses of all sizes are beginning to realize how integral a solid content strategy should be to their marketing plans. Even major corporations like Coca-Cola are betting everything on an integrated content strategy. Via the post by Bluegrass

Marketing Technology Blog iPhone App!

Douglas Karr — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:46:33 +0000

Last month, good friend Adam Small who runs Digital Home Info, a real estate marketing platform, sent me a link from TechCrunch on a new company called Appifier. They’ve built a web-based engine that allows you to take any WordPress blog and publish it as an iPhone application.

It’s nothing short of amazing. First, you install a plugin that basically makes your entire WordPress blog a JSON REST API. This allows the iPhone App to communicate directly with your blog… making requests and retrieving content.

We wouldn’t have gotten the iPhone App working if it weren’t for the incredible folks at our host WPEngine and at Appifier. We have a very customized WordPress installation that’s modified significantly. Come to find out, we had a plugin that was redirecting the JSON requests… but I didn’t find the issue, the two companies got on the phone with one another and sorted it all out for me. That kind of customer service is hard to find these days.

The Marketing Technology App is both simple and stunning. It provides our latest posts, a list of categories, and a search mechanism. It pulls down the latest posts so that you can read them offline and has a push mechanism to send alerts when new content is available.

All this for $39.99 a month… or $499 for a lifetime license! Your application is also not dependent on Appifier… it’s truly YOUR application and communicates directly with your WordPress blog. This was important to us since we wanted a mobile application but didn’t necessarily want to be dependent on a third party. We signed up as a Developer with Apple and the folks at Appifier took care of the rest. Apple is a bit slow on approving the app, but they give you constant updates on the process.

There’s a ton of opportunity with Appifier… perhaps an iPad app is around the corner? We also want to bring in our YouTube and Podcasts into the app. We may ‘trick’ it by importing that content as posts via their RSS streams and just hiding it from the reader, but making it available via the JSON posts.

You may be wondering why we thought this was a good investment from a business standpoint. The truth is that I don’t think it will have an enormous impact on our readership… but it does put us in front of another audience. Search results for marketing in the App Store are pretty shallow, so we think we’ll pick up some readers there. We also think that having an iPhone App continues to show that we’re a publication that cares about expanding and reaching our audiences where they are. Not every publication actually runs its own app… we wanted to be in the select few.

We have a lot to think about!

Download the Marketing Technology Blog iPhone App from the App Store today! If you’d like to get your own iPhone App – go check out Appifier!

Infographic: Online PR Opportunities and Results

Douglas Karr — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:00:32 +0000

60% of Americans will judge your company based on your online presence. Think about that for a moment. Though your website plays an important role in your online presence, there is more to it. People search for your brand and judge your company based on what comes up on search engines as well.

Investing in online PR helps you manage your online presence

What I love about this infographic most is that it provides some input on how much noise is out there and how much consumers can’t stand it. As business and companies are looking for your brand, online PR strategies can help you be found a lot more effectively. We love working with our PR firm, Dittoe PR… they’re able to ensure our clients are found in the places where their target audience is most active.

Infographic from PRMarketing.com

Infographic: 10 Ways to Increase Sales in 2012

Douglas Karr — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:52:42 +0000

It’s always great to see an infographic that simply spurs some ideas… and this one does just that. There are so many strategies to increase sales out there but marketers are the ones stuck with the decision of which way to turn. Rarely do we have the convenience of doing it all. I always encourage clients to adopt a technology that’s on the rise – in this case both mobile and marketing automation are tactics that I’d deploy because of their marketing effectiveness and cost effectiveness.

Customers are always the core of any business. However, in 2012, customers will require more personalize attention than ever before. Luckily, businesses can easily accomplish this by embracing analytics and new technologies that will help them build unprecedented relationships with their customers. Here are Truaxis’ top ways to increase sales in the new year while giving your customers exactly what they need, when they need it. 10 Ways to Increase Sales in 2012

Interview: Is Blogging Still Relevant?

Douglas Karr — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:21:59 +0000

Today I had a great interview with Michele Price, also known as @prosperitygal. I had the pleasure of meeting Michele out in Los Angeles at BlogWorld Expo and we hit it off immediately. I was struck by Michele’s passion for her topic and how hard she was working to help her followers succeed.

This interview was about targeted towards Corporate Blogging and our blogging book. I think it’s important to note that, while many are struggling with hanging onto a blogging strategy… the strategies still work. The problem with many corporations is that they lack any incentive for long-term gains. As a result, programs like blogging which build authority and an audience over time often are tossed aside while other strategies are deployed for short-term gains. It’s unfortunate.

I also share a lot of personal advice and information regarding why I blog, how it’s impacted my life and business, and what I’ve learned from 30 or so years of working hard – in the military, in corporate life, and now – for myself. Listen to Break Through Business on Blog Talk Radio.

Add a Pinterest Pinit Button to WordPress

Douglas Karr — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:16:22 +0000

Pinterest is on quite an upswing in popularity… so much so that other social sharing sites are starting to lose some ground. I believe the advantage of Pinterest is that it’s a visual medium that’s well laid out to share information. While other sites have boring lists, the mozaic that Pinterest generates is simple to scroll through to find what captures your interest.

With that in mind, social sharing sites are fantastic traffic generators, so why not make it easy to share your content? Today, we’ve added a Pinterest Pinit button to our WordPress theme. It was pretty simple to do… and we even incorporated pulling the featured thumbnail button as the image URL.

If you would like a Featured Image to display, here’s theme code to add a Pinit button to your theme within the Loop:
Pin It

If you don’t want to specify the image, here’s the alternative code:
Pin It

Also – be sure to add the Pinterest script to your footer.php

For additional information on generating a Pinit button or to take a look at their other apps and features, take a look at the Pinterest goodies page.

An Hour A Day of Social Media…

Douglas Karr — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:44:55 +0000

There’s really not a guide, per say, for Social Media. A lot of folks would like to tell you what to do on social media or share their winning strategy… but I’ve seen it work differently for virtually every company we’ve worked with. Today, Erik Deckers shared this tweet with me from Alexander Klotz:

Resources are a challenge for everyone… including my small business. Our goal is to put put an email a week, two blog posts a day, and carry on conversations throughout Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook. We’re failing miserably! It’s such a challenge that we’re hiring another resource soon at our social media agency just to try to keep up. That’s a direct expense to the company that probably won’t directly result in a return on investment… but over time, I’m sure it will.

There are a lot of resources out there on the topic. I tend to lean in favor of Jay Baer, Jason Falls and Michael Stelzner over folks like Hubspot for social media advice. While I think the folks at Hubspot are brilliant, their content strategy is an overly-charged inbound marketing strategy. They share information to drive leads to their own company. Jay, Jason and Michael do a great job of staying someone vendor averse (they’ll openly describe their sponsors) but focus on the issue at hand and possible resolutions.

In fact, the timing is great for Alex – to attend Michael’s Small Business Social Media Success Summit at the end of this month. The summit stars 22 social media pros teaching business owners and marketers how to master social media marketing (brought to you by Social Media Examiner). Presenters include Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group), Brian Solis (author, Engage), Frank Eliason (Citigroup), Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing), Erik Qualman (author, Socialnomics), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner), Dan Zarella (author, The Social Media Marketing Book), Andy Sernovitz (author, Word of Mouth Marketing), David Meerman Scott (author, Real-Time Marketing & PR); experts from Boeing, Intel, Cisco and Verizon; Jay Baer (co-author, The Now Revolution), Hollis Thomases (Author, Twitter Marketing), Steve Garfield (author, Get Seen), Mario Sundar (from LinkedIn), and Ann Handley (MarketingProfs)–just to name a few. (Disclosure: That’s my affiliate link).

Here are my tips on managing social media without resources:

Exposure to many resources is much better than one. Don’t follow any one so-called guru. We all work with different companies and have seen some strategies win, some lose… and many times the same exact strategy win AND lose. Spend 15 minutes a day perusing their articles and conversations.

Find your audience. Following leaders, colleagues, and even competitors in your industry is a fantastic way to gain access to the audience you’re looking for. Follow them on Twitter, Like them on Facebook, add them to Circles in Google+, and even join some LinkedIn groups. The opportunity to join conversations once you do this will be enormous. Spend 15 minutes a day in the conversation that’s important to you and your business.

Plant your flag. If you want to be a leader, tell folks you’re the leader and why. You don’t have to wait to be named… you’ll be waiting for a long time. I encourage the small businesses that I work with to blog, speak, and display their authority. A blog provides a central repository for people to visit and read more about you and your experience – so they can determine whether or not to do business. Speaking instantly provides recognition of your authority… even if you suck at first at it! And displaying your authority through sharing sites like Slideshare are fantastic. Spend 20 minutes a day creating content.

Promote yourself. Don’t just write a post, tweet or update and expect people to come. You have to take the reigns of your own promotion. Spend 10 minutes a day promoting your content. At first, this may even be soliciting opportunities to guest blog, speak or even buying advertisements to get the word out!

I don’t spend all day on Social Media… although it may look like it. I schedule blog posts and deploy tools like Buffer to trickle out Tweets and Facebook updates at optimal times. Having a smartphone with all my social media apps updating is great – when I can squeeze a few minutes here and there between meetings, on the road, or having a cup of coffee I can participate a little bit.

Lastly, this is an investment… not a purchase. Spending an hour one day isn’t going to get you the results you’re looking for. But spending an hour a day for a year will given that you’re worth the attention! I tell people to think about it as they would any other investment… each post, each tweet, each update, each fan, each follower… they’re all pennies in your account. If you stop investing, you won’t get the compounded interest you need for the investment to pay off.

Infographic: Information Overload is Hurting Productivity

Douglas Karr — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:42:36 +0000

Absolutely love this blog post and infographic from friend Jascha Kaykas-Wolff. Jascha has been a long-time friend and Mindjet is now a client of ours (and soon to be sponsor of the blog!). Mindjet is leading the industry in developing a platform that doesn’t just let you map your strategies, but actually integrate and implement actions and real-time monitoring.

From Jascha:

But as we all know, it’s not just the volume of information that’s grown, but also the speed at which it’s delivered. The morning and evening papers have given way to a news cycle where stories break across social media and online outlets in mere minutes, leaving even cable news behind. We’ve reached a point where the channels through which news and information are delivered are almost limitless: email newsletters, live online content, web cams, constant streaming, instant messaging, RSS feeds, Twitter, etc.

This explosion of available information made possible by the Internet is amazing. But it’s simply not true that this all leads to better productivity. In fact, in many ways this information deluge produces the opposite result.

This isn’t just information, it’s also our reporting. As we work with more and more marketing departments, we’re finding a common thread is analysis paralysis… an old term that is alive and well when it comes to modern reporting and communications. We are tending to focus attention in areas where data is readily accessible, but not necessarily that impact the bottom line of the company.

Overload image from JESS3.

Cheering for Tinderbox in the Super Bowl!

Douglas Karr — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:43:57 +0000

Startup America has assembled more than $1 billion worth of commitments from dozens of partners to support the growth of startups in five key areas:

Expertise: Connect startups with training, mentors, advisors and accelerators

Services: Provide startups with access to critical services at reduced costs

Talent: Assist startups in recruiting, training and retaining the people that can help them grow

Customers: Help startups through acquisition of new customers and expansion into new markets

Capital: Highlight sources of capital available to startups in various regions and sectors

With the Super Bowl in Indianapolis, more than 30 local startups are trying to get exposure through a Super Bowl-based competition sponsored by the Startup America Partnership and Develop Indy, an economic development organization helping regional companies succeed or other companies to move to Indianapolis.

Our clients, Tinderbox, a software as a service proposal software, put the following spectacular video together that tells the story of Tinderbox in under a minute and wraps a great message around it with their desire to get selected!

BTW: We’re not just a client of Tinderbox, we’re also a very, very happy customer. We’re a small agency that does a ton of proposals. Being able to put together a grant proposal or RFP in a matter of minutes has saved us countless hours. As well, I almost always get a compliment on our proposals from our prospects. And… it’s always a plus to put a proposal out and get an alert when the recipient has opened it!

Infographic: Google Panda in Plain English

Douglas Karr — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:09:59 +0000

It’s hard to believe that we’re coming up on a year since Google pulled the trigger on the algorithm update named Google Panda. It didn’t come without some pain for Google and, ultimately, strategies to recover from Google Panda.

After a year of ripping through what Google deems as “spammy” sites, how has Panda affected you? There has been non-stop chatter between Internet marketers and SEOs about how to protect your site from Panda, but with all of the updates and revisions to this algorithm change, things can get confusing quickly.

This infographic, Google Panda in Plain English, may be one of the clearest infographics I’ve seen on the evolution of Google Panda and subsequent advice for companies who have to aggressively pursue search engine optimization tactics.

Your Toutapp Private Data in Google’s Index

Douglas Karr — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:35:13 +0000

UPDATE: Within an hour of my email being sent to Toutapp, they removed my report and account. I would still like to see them block their site from search engine traffic and bots. SPAM bots don’t care about robots.txt files, so this is still a poor practice of publishing this information freely. ToutApp should require a login to see private information.

A few minutes ago, I just had a business partner contact me that when they searched their name on Google, a report from Toutapp appeared in the results. Sure enough, I tested it and there was the report in all its glory! This particular business partner’s industry is severely restricted by regulations. The fact that his name could be associated with our business could raise questions and, now, impact whether or not we continue to do business with them.

I didn’t expect this. When I read the FAQs and Privacy Page, it was quite clear that the data was only available through a private URL that I could share with others.

Well, that’s obviously not the case. My guess is that I may have shared the link via social media and now the page is being indexed by Google. In viewing the page contents, there is not a NOINDEX meta tag… and worse, the Robots.txt file appears to be totally commented out. As a result, Google has full permission to index the site and pages… your data… and the data of your email recipients.

A simple search of the site shows a number of the Year in Review pages have already been indexed by Google. Worse yet, there’s no way for me to unpublish my report. I’ve contacted Toutapp through their website to immediately remove the report.

Was it my fault that the data got published? I suppose it could have been… but ToutApp needs to make it very clear in their instructions if this information AND the information about your email recipients is going to be published. Also interesting is that they’re publishing email addresses out there unobfuscated… great for SPAMMERS to pick up and run with.

Toutapp needs to immediately offer a means of deleting a report. Otherwise, this may be a lawsuit waiting to happen.