Champlain College Online Marketing Boot Camp: Day 1

Morning Session: Intro and Google Adwords Overview

Introduction
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Today's session has started with a bang! Bob Verrico with Giant Step Strategies set the context with a discussion of the state of the industry and why we should care about all of this info.

The focus of his presentation was about the key drivers that moving the industry forward. Such things as the predictability of the internet (more on that in a second), the fact that advertising intelligence and quality have gone up, more people are spending more time online, there continues to be growing access to broadband and wireless, there are more advertisers online, current advertisers are going to be spending more (according to Verrico, small amounts of ad budgets are directed online) and there is an increased monetization or ROI with the advent of analytics (especially FREE analytics).

Verrico's point that the internet is predictable was an interesting one -- and one I hadn't thought about really. In my mind, given my background and what I'm teaching, everything around the internet has brought with it great change...and yet, as you think about it, the internet itself has been stable -- it's the tools that have changed the most!

Verrico continued with a discussion of what this all means and bottom line, "Companies must evolve to leverage the technology around them. Analytics, SEO, Databases and different content models must all be embraced and explored.

One of the most important concepts Verrico stressed was LIFETIME CUSTOMER VALUE or LTV -- something that came up again in the later session. Essentially, what value does your customer have over time? Are you taking full advantage of the opportunity and of tracking the value that brings?

Finally, he closed with some take aways:

• Landscape is ever changing: You need to keep up!
• Intimate understanding of value, ability to compete, thrive and scale: in order to be successful!
• Appropriate infrastructure: Gotta have it!
• A/B testing (101 in the industry): Use data to drive decisions -- even creative ones!
• Analytics: Use data to show ROI
• Staffing: Get the right people around you

Session 1: Google Adwords
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Whew! Talk about a whirlwind session! Everything you needed to know to not only get started with Adwords but expand what you are already doing and all in a brief FOUR HOURS!

This session was run by EpikOne pros Dani Giandomenico and Paul Skarvanko (a Champlain Alum!). And it was a speed run through Adwords and all that comes with it. They covered:

• An overview of the network
• The basis for Google's Algorithm: click through rate, historical keyword performance, relevance of ad text and landing page quality/relevance.
• The quality score and how to improve it
• How Adwords technology targets: IP Address, Google domains, query parsing and language settings
• Ad types
• Account Hierarchy
• Matching Options
• Site Targeting
• Radius targeting
• AdWords and Analytics
• Structuring your Ad Campaign with Ad Groups
• Bidding Strategies
• Landing Page Optimization
• Image advertising

And then we got to play! They offered up a playground and asked us to all create unique ads targeted to specific locations, only in the search area for a $.20 CPC.

Did I mention a WHIRLWIND?? This was a great, if slightly disjointed session, a big mix of backgrounds in the room and people who were familiar with AdWords and people who were not. It was hard to keep it together and stay focused. But overall, great value of information to keep us up to date on how AdWords is evolving.

Session 2: Online Marketing Overview
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In this afternoon session we got the global perspective from EpikOne founder, Dave Winslow (also a Champlain Alum) and Kristoffer Ewald from The Milk in Denmark.

The stated goals for this workshop were:

• How much of your budget should be invested online
• Understanding the websites role in marketing today
• Using Web Analytics to Measure Online Marketing Initiatives
• Essential Skill Sets Needed for Building an online marketing team
• How to stay current in the online marketing industry

Let me tell you that they covered all of this in another FOUR HOUR time frame. Both Dave and Kris were great. They really provided a global perspective with amazing examples that really illustrated their main points.

Some interesting points which resonated for me as I figure out how to update our Internet-based Marketing course for the fall included...

Stages of Internet Marketing

Early stage (pre 2000)

• Banner ads
• Basic Websites
• No Accountability

Current Situation (2000 to today)

• Multiple marketing mediums
• Websites integrating business rules
• Accountability through analytics

Next evolution (tomorrow)

• Online marketing outpaces traditional
• Websites become core business platform
• Everything online is measured

Throughout both Kris' and Dave's presentation you could see this theme of moving from our current situation to the evolution that more data driven decision making will bring.

Some insights:

• Paid search is moving towards PERFORMANCE-BASED. In other words, if the ad doesn't convert, you don't have to pay for it.
• Keep the basics in mind: Know your TARGET MARKET. Know who your audience is and where they are so you can leverage the right ad and site mixes.
• Tracking of behavior should be used to create transparency. We can now follow the person through the overall process to see if they create value. Follow the footsteps of what is happening. What performed best? (optimization)
• Define the actions you want people to take and add a value to that action

Kris' Five Golden Rules

• Accept that you don’t have all the answers, but you can ask all the questions you want
• Focus, if can only get one thing out of your marketing program what do you want it to be
• Test and accept your failures
• Evolve faster than the competition
• Analyze

Allocate some of your resources to EXPERIMENTAL tactics such as social networking, blogging and virtual worlds. While the intial ROI may be negative, the potential is huge! EpikOne was able to leverage more business for clients and themselves through both Social Networking exploration and Blogging to the point where they are now using it more and more.

Some great examples of what not to do...searching on SPRINT MOTO which generates a number one placement for SPRINT in the Google results. A click reveals...



Note that no where can you see the MOTO phone in this page! Try it yourself!

Well that's about it...in a nutshell. There's more of course, but I've already taken up too much of everyone's time.

If you get the chance, take a look at the EpikOne Blog.

So...tomorrow it'll be website optimizer all day long! I'll post the synopsis of that at the end of the day.