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Have you ever used direct mail marketing for your business? In the digital age, many marketers avoid direct mail because they think it’s old-fashioned and can’t compete with other channels. Other companies have used direct mail before, but weren’t happy with their ROI because their campaign wasn’t well executed.

If you’ve ever asked “what is direct mail marketing?” or want to learn more about this time-tested marketing channel, we’re here to help. This ultimate guide provides the basics you need to understand direct mail marketing. We’ve also sprinkled in tips and advice that will help you execute your next campaign like a pro.

What Is Direct Mail Marketing?

Before we can get into the details, it’s important to define direct mail and direct mail marketing. Let’s start by answering a common question :: what is direct mail?

Direct mail is print marketing that’s sent out in the mail (usually via the USPS). It can come in a variety of formats, such as postcards, brochures, and parcels. Direct mail can contain coupons and offers, or it can be purely informational with a soft call to action (CTA). Direct mail is sent to a predefined group of people on a mailing list or carrier route (a smaller segment of a ZIP Code).

Direct mail marketing is a form of direct marketing that targets people with direct mail pieces sent in the mail. Like any marketing channel, it has its own set of best practices. We’ll take a closer look at two of them below.

Direct Mail Best Practice :: The 40 / 40 / 20 Rule

When it comes to direct marketing, the 40 / 40 / 20 Rule is one of the oldest plays in the book. This guideline was developed in the 1960s by marketing pioneer Ed Mayer. Basically, the 40 / 40 / 20 Rule provides advice on how marketers should break down their direct marketing efforts.

While the 40 / 40 / 20 Rule was created in the pre-Internet age, it’s still relevant today — especially for direct mail marketing. The 40 / 40 / 20 Rule breaks successful direct marketing down into three main elements :: audience, offer, and everything else.

  1. Audience. You should focus 40% of your attention on choosing the right audience for your direct mail piece. Even if your mail piece is perfectly designed, your efforts will be wasted if you send it to people who aren’t interested or can’t use your offer.
  2. Offer. Mayer recommends putting 40% of your energy into creating a relevant offer. Providing recipients with an appealing offer they can actually use encourages them to take action. Including a CTA with your offer is very helpful because your audience knows their next steps.
  3. Everything else. Dedicate the final 20% of your time and energy to the details. This includes elements like direct mail format, design, and copy.

Direct Mail Best Practice :: Reach vs. Frequency

Balancing reach with frequency is also critical to any direct mail marketing strategy. Here’s what we mean by reach and frequency:

  • Reach is the number of people you send your direct mail piece to. In other words, it’s the number of people on your mailing list or carrier route. If you mail to 2,500 people, your reach for that campaign is 2,500.
  • Frequency is the number of times you send your direct mail piece to the same person. If the same person sees your ad two times, the frequency for that campaign is two.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking reach is more important than frequency. You want to get in front of as many people as possible, right? Not necessarily! According to the Rule of Seven, people must see your brand at least seven times before they notice it and take action. That’s a lot of impressions!

With this in mind, you should always prioritize frequency over reach when sending direct mail. Mail to a smaller group of people several times, instead of a large group of people one time. Like any marketing channel, consistency is key to your success because it helps you stay top of mind.

Can Direct Mail Marketing Work for My Business?

Direct Mail scaled What is Direct Mail Marketing?: An Ultimate Guide

Yes! Direct mail works for businesses and organizations in every industry you can think of. Here’s a short list of businesses and organizations that can benefit from direct mail:

  • Restaurants
  • Gyms
  • Grocery Stores
  • Churches
  • HVAC Companies
  • Landscaping Companies
  • Accounting / Tax Firms
  • Automotive Shops
  • Dentists
  • Salons

Whether you’re looking to boost sales, increase brand awareness, or reactivate lapsed customers, direct mail can do it all.

Not convinced yet? Just check out these direct mail response rates from the Compu-Mail. The response rate to direct mail can be as high as 37%. Direct mail also pairs well with digital marketing. And Merkle reports that campaigns using both direct mail and digital marketing saw a 118% lift in response rates, as opposed to campaigns that only use one advertising channel.

Who Should I Send My Direct Mail To?

Figuring out who to target with your direct mail is the first step of any successful campaign. Who you mail to varies based on the goals of your direct mail campaign, which we’ll discuss later. First, let’s look at three common methods marketers use to segment their direct mail audience.

Ways to Segment Your Direct Mail Audience

There are a variety of ways to segment your audience into groups with shared characteristics. Here are three of the most common:

  • Geographic segmentation. This method is exactly what it sounds like and involves targeting people within a specific geographic area. This might be people who live within a specific ZIP Code, carrier route, or radius of your business.
  • Demographic segmentation. This method breaks people down into groups that share specific personal characteristics. These can include gender, race, income, education, and employment.
  • Firmographic segmentation. This method is used in business-to-business (B2B) marketing. It breaks companies into groups based on traits like industry, location, customer type, legal status, and performance.

Putting Audience Segmentation Into Action

So, what does audience segmentation look like when it comes to direct mail marketing? Here are a few examples:

  • New mover campaigns. These help you drum up business with people who are new to your area. You can purchase a mailing list of new movers and get to them before the competition.
  • Grand opening campaigns. Opening a new location? Use geographic segmentation to target people who live within a certain area of your new location.
  • Abandoned cart campaigns. Use your eCommerce platform to identify people who have abandoned their online shopping cart. Mailing them a special offer for the product / service they were interested in can get them to complete their transaction. Abandoned cart remarketing is commonly done via email, but direct mail is also a great option because most companies don’t use it for this purpose.
  • Birthday campaigns. Obtain a list of prospects with birthdays or mail to your existing customer database during their birthday month. Making this personal connection can encourage them to take action on your CTA.
  • Rewards club / loyalty program campaigns. Show appreciation for members of your rewards club or loyalty program by sending them special offers. This is a great way to upsell, since they’re already brand advocates.
  • Upsell campaigns. Send existing customers an offer for an item that complements something they recently bought from you. For example, if someone purchases bait from your sporting goods store, send them an offer for a fishing rod. Even if they aren’t in the market for a rod at the moment, they’ll be reminded of your brand and may purchase from you again in the future.
  • Winback campaigns. Since you already have data on lapsed customers, it’s easy and inexpensive to create a personalized offer they’re likely to respond to.

What Are Direct Mail Formats?

So, you know who to mail to and the campaign type that’s best for you. But which direct mail format should you choose? This is a very important decision, and the format you choose can have a big influence on whether your campaign is successful. Here are a handful of the most common direct mail formats.

Brochures / Menus

Brochures have more space than some other direct mail formats, so they’re perfect for sharing detailed information about your products / services. If you run a foodservice business, your brochure might take the form of a menu. Menus help boost brand exposure because recipients may put them on the fridge or in a kitchen drawer.

Letters

Because they’re sealed in an envelope, letters can feel more confidential than other formats. They also offer a lot of personalization options. They’re great for things like prospecting and upselling to existing customers.

Postcards

Postcards work well for prospecting because they’re an inexpensive way to get in front of people who may not be familiar with your business yet. Make a great introductory offer, and you may just get them through your doors. You can also send postcards to existing customer lists, like people with birthdays or members of your loyalty program.

Direct mail postcards have evolved far beyond the traditional 4” x 6” postcard. Today, companies can send interactive postcards that play video content or have scratch-away stickers with special offers printed underneath.

Periodicals

According to the USPS, periodicals are newspapers, magazines, and other publications sent to a list of opt-in subscribers. Businesses use periodicals to stay top-of-mind with existing customers, boost brand awareness among prospects, and provide information on their products or services.

Direct Mail Packages jpg What is Direct Mail Marketing?: An Ultimate Guide

Packages

Businesses that sell expensive products / services might send parcels (like gift boxes) to high-value customers / prospects. This usually costs more than sending other direct mail formats, but it can pay off if customers make repeat purchases or if your product / service has a high price point.

Which Direct Mail Mailing List is Right for Me?

Once you know who you’re mailing to, you’re ready to get your direct mailing list. Like we said before, your target audience plays a key role in the mailing list you choose. Let’s take a look at two common mailing list types and the USPS Every Door Direct Mail® (EDDM®) service.

Targeted Mailing Lists

Like the name suggests, these mailing lists target specific people based on shared traits. Say your business designs and manufactures high-end navigational systems for yachts. You wouldn’t mail to just anybody, right? Instead, you’d get a targeted mailing list comprised of yacht owners or people who have expressed interest in nautical navigation systems in the past.

As you can see, targeting a specific group of people with shared traits helps you reach individuals who might be more receptive to your offer. Knowing their names and a few personal traits also helps make your direct mail more personal, which can increase response rates by up to 36%.

Targeted mailing lists can be expensive depending on how specific they are. A house customer list is another example of a targeted mailing list, but it’s free since you already own the names on the list.

Saturation Mailing Lists

Saturation mailing lists contain the names of people who live within a certain geographic area. As a result, they help you blanket specific areas with your direct mail campaigns. Saturation lists work best for businesses that offer a product or service almost anybody could use, like restaurants and auto shops.

Because they’re less specific, saturation mailing lists usually cost less than targeted lists. However, you can still do some targeting when you use a saturation list. You can remove the following address types from a saturation list:

  • Business addresses
  • PO Boxes
  • Some residential addresses (i.e. apartments, seasonal dwellings, drop addresses)

If you do choose to remove address types from your list, make sure you still adhere to the 90 / 75 Rule to get the best postage rates. This stipulates that you must mail to 90% of all residential addresses or 75% of all business and residential addresses on your chosen carrier route

Every Door Direct Mail® (EDDM®) (No Mailing List)

EDDM® is a DIY USPS direct mail service. Unlike campaigns that use targeted or saturation mailing lists, EDDM® does not require a mailing list. That’s because your direct mail is delivered to nearly every address / door along a carrier route.

You can still do some audience segmentation with EDDM®, even though there’s no mailing list. The USPS EDDM® tool allows you to segment by the following median demographics:

  • Address types (residential or business)
  • Age
  • Household size
  • Household income

Keep in mind that because EDDM® uses median figures, your pieces will reach people who may not be interested in your offer. Direct mail sent via EDDM® is addressed to “Local Postal Customer” since there’s no mailing list. You’re also restricted when it comes to the size and format of your pieces. You can only send flats, which are large envelopes, newsletters, and magazines.

How Do I Get a Direct Mail Mailing List?

You’ve chosen the type of mailing list you want to use. But where do you get a direct mail mailing list? There are several mailing list sources, which we’ll review below.

Use Your House List

Direct Mail Mailing List scaled What is Direct Mail Marketing?: An Ultimate Guide

Don’t overlook your house list of existing customers or people who have expressed interest in your business in the past! This free option can be very effective because you already have information on these individuals. Here are a few examples of house lists:

  • Active customers
  • Past customers
  • Prospects who provided you with their contact information
  • Members of your rewards club or loyalty program
  • One-time customers

You own your house list, so make sure you keep it clean and updated. Here are three mailing list data hygiene best practices:

  • Make sure your mailing list is CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System) certified. CASS standardizes your addresses for the USPS to ensure deliverability. This process includes things like adding ZIP + 4 codes and IMBs (Intelligent Mail Barcodes) to your mail pieces.
  • Run your mailing list through the NCOA (National Change of Address) database. This service provides up-to-date information on people who have moved within the last four years. That way, you don’t waste money mailing to people who no longer live at an address.
  • Deduplication allows you to pinpoint and merge duplicate records, which saves you money because you’re not mailing to the same people twice.

If you don’t want to use a house list (or if you don’t have one yet), you can also rent or buy a mailing list.

Rent or Buy a Mailing List

If you only plan on mailing to a group of people one or two times, renting a mailing list is a smart option. While you don’t own the names on the mailing list, you do own any information you get from the people you mail to. You don’t have to maintain the list yourself, and rented lists typically cost less than purchased lists.

If you plan on using a list many times, buying a mailing list is usually your best bet. You’ll own the names on the mailing list and any information you gather from recipients. You’ll need to perform your own list hygiene, though.

There are two main types of rented or purchased mailing lists: compiled lists and response lists.

  • Compiled lists contain the names of people with similar interests, like rock climbing, tennis, or gardening.
  • Response lists contain the names of people who have purchased from or requested information from businesses offering products / services that are similar to yours.

How Do I Track My Direct Mail Campaigns?

Direct mail tracking is very important, but many marketers overlook it. Don’t make this mistake! When choosing a tracking method, make sure you consider the format of your piece and the goals of your campaign. Make sure you’re using different tracking codes for each direct mail campaign so you can differentiate between them.

Here’s a short list of methods you can use to track your campaign:

  • Trackable phone numbers. Adding a trackable phone number to your piece allows you to determine how many calls you receive as a result of your direct mail. This helps you tweak future campaigns because you’ll know what is and isn’t working.
  • Trackable URLs or PURLs (personalized URLs). These are another easy way to track the effectiveness of your campaign. Adding a name to a URL (i.e. https://www.towermarketing.net/norafulmer) and greeting them by name on the landing page helps you speak to people on a one-to-one level.
  • Trackable email addresses. Like trackable phone numbers and URLs, printing trackable email addresses on your pieces helps you track response rates for your campaign. Use it to look for trends that you can use for future audience segmentation and tracking.
  • Coupon codes. If your direct mail piece includes coupons, make sure each coupon has its own unique code. Whether recipients redeem the coupon in person, over the phone, or online, make sure employees are meticulously tracking coupon codes. This helps you determine which offers are getting results and which ones aren’t.
  • QR codes. QR codes are easily trackable and help you glean valuable information on your direct mail campaigns. Plus, they’re easier for prospects / customers to follow up on, since they don’t have to type a URL / PURL into their web browser. All they have to do is scan your QR code with their smartphone camera or a QR code reader app.

How Much Does Direct Mail Cost?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to direct mail marketing. However, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. As you’ve learned, there are a wide variety of components involved in any direct mail campaign. Everything from your mailing list type to the format you use affects your cost. That’s why working with an agency that offers direct mail marketing services (like Tower!) is a great way to lower your expenses. We use our experience and connections with vendors to get you the best results at the lowest price point.

Want to try a direct mail campaign for your business? Contact our print media experts today to start the conversation!

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Research shows 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to reach customers, and 86% of B2C marketers say content is key to their overall marketing strategy. But less than 50% of marketers are creating content that aligns with the buyer’s journey.

So, why is this the case? It starts with the confusion surrounding the buyer’s journey. How many stages are there? Is it a funnel, an infinite loop, or something else entirely? And perhaps most importantly, how is it relevant to you as a content marketer?

I understand that the buyer’s journey can be complicated. To make it more digestible, I’m breaking it down into a series of four blogs: one for each stage of the buyer’s journey. I want to make this topic as easy to understand as possible. In turn, you’ll be able to take what you learn and apply it to your own marketing strategy.

Before getting too far into awareness-stage content marketing, I’ll lay the necessary groundwork. Let’s start by discussing the buyer’s journey, buyer personas, and the crucial role content marketing plays in the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey.

What is the Buyer’s Journey?

The customer buying journey is the steps a prospect goes through on their way to purchasing a product or service. While there are several models of the buyer’s journey, I’ve broken it down into four main stages.

Awareness Stage

This is the first step in a buyer’s journey. At this point, the prospect becomes aware they have a problem or something missing from their lives. After coming to this realization, they start doing research to pinpoint their problem.

Consideration Stage

In this stage, the prospect has defined their problem and is ready to find a solution. They’re continuing to do research because they want to understand all of their options.

Decision Stage

The prospect has chosen how to solve their problem and created a list of companies that can help them. They’ll eventually narrow this list down and make their purchasing decision.

Post-Decision Stage

The buyer’s journey doesn’t end after the decision stage. At this point, customers are reflecting on their decision and evaluating their choice. If they’re pleased with your product or service, you have the opportunity to bring them back through the buyer cycle again.

What are Buyer Personas?

Buyer personas are an integral part of the buyer’s journey stages. Buyer personas aren’t actual people, but they’re based on the real market research you’ve collected about current customers. It’s important to be as detailed as possible when building your personas, since they play a big role in attracting qualified leads and winning new business.

Buyer Personas and the Buyer’s Journey

You might be wondering just how buyer personas relate to the buyer’s journey. Start by creating buyer personas for each stage of the buyer’s journey I outlined above. When creating your personas, determine what prospects are looking for and how they go about solving their problems. What questions should you be asking about them? Prospects are learning about you, and you should always be learning about them.

Understanding your audience also helps you demonstrate empathy because they’re more likely to trust you and consider your products or services. Think about Google and the trust they’ve built with their users. By providing free services (i.e. Google Drive, Gmail, Google Flights, Google My Business, etc.), they’ve established their value in the minds of consumers. They’ve also kept themselves top-of-mind and clearly aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

You now understand the buyer’s journey and the role buyer personas play in guiding customers through that process. But how does content marketing fit into the customer acquisition process and the buyer’s journey?

What Role Does Content Marketing Play in the Buyer’s Journey?

Content marketing plays a key role during all stages of the buyer’s journey, but don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach when creating your content. Instead, produce and share buyer’s journey content that provides the most value for prospects in that specific stage.

As I said above, in the awareness stage, prospects realize they have a problem and are trying to pinpoint it. If you want them to seriously consider you, it’s crucial that you provide upper-level educational content to help them.

Never go for the hard sell with your top of funnel content marketing. Prospects don’t want to hear about why you think your company is the best thing ever. They want impartial, expert knowledge and advice on the problem they’re trying to identify (and eventually solve).

Another way to think about this is by reflecting on your logic when it comes to choosing a digital marketing agency. You probably aren’t ready to partner with us at this point, and your prospects probably aren’t ready to sign on with you either.

Ultimately, you want to subtly nurture awareness stage prospects towards conversion. Providing them with comprehensive, useful content builds trust and increases the chances they’ll move towards a purchase decision involving your company.

How Do You Create Content for the Awareness Stage of the Buyer’s Journey?

We’ve reviewed the buyer’s journey, buyer personas, and how content maps onto the buyer’s journey. You already know the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey is the point where prospects realize they have a problem or something missing from their lives. Their next step is doing research and looking for top-level educational content and thought leadership.

Most of your prospects use Google to gather information and do research. That means it’s important to understand what their search queries look like. The prospect doesn’t know a lot about their problem at this point, so their questions are usually more open-ended. For example, they’ll probably search for “new shoes,” not “Sperry women’s striped loafers size 8.”

So, you know people are asking broad questions. To capture that traffic, anticipate their queries and address them in your content. Don’t get too detailed, though. Instead, provide quick takeaways that aren’t buried in long walls of text. Think like your user. They want to develop their understanding of their problem so they can move towards pinpointing it and preparing to find potential solutions.

Google Autocomplete

google autocomplete serp How to Create Effective Content for the Awareness Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

One way to think like your prospects is by utilizing Google Autocomplete. As users type questions into the search bar, Google Autocomplete suggests queries it thinks are relevant.

Google Related Searches

google related searches serp How to Create Effective Content for the Awareness Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

Google Related Searches also gives you insight into what users are thinking. Related searches show up at the bottom of every search engine results page (SERP) and have queries Google thinks are similar to the users.

What Content is Most Effective During the Awareness Stage of the Buyer’s Journey?

Awareness stage content marketing can come in a variety of forms. Here are some examples:

Always remember that providing engaging, useful content during the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey helps nurture prospects towards the consideration stage.

What Are Some Examples of Awareness Stage Marketing Campaigns?

Along with particular pieces that work well during the awareness stage, there are several awareness stage campaign types that can yield great results. Here are just a few:

  • Awareness campaigns are the perfect opportunity to provide prospects with valuable content that shows empathy for their situation. Demonstrate expertise and authority without being salesy, and you’ll start to gain their trust. End with a soft closing CTA and link to a piece of educational content so users can learn more if they want to.
  • Grand opening campaigns are great for prospects who haven’t heard of your business yet. If you’re opening a new location (and most of your customers are local), consider a grand opening campaign.
    Invite prospects in for a free seminar, educational course, or webinar about your company that provides helpful information without being pushy.
  • Birthday and new mover marketing campaigns are perfect for businesses who know their prospects’ birthdays or have access to data on new movers. Try targeting these people with free offers and discounts on the informational events we mentioned above. Again, don’t be pushy or try to advertise your brand too heavily in this stage.

Want help with your content marketing efforts? Our team of digital marketing specialists is here to help!

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To carry on the theme of spring cleaning, I am going to talk about cleaning up your site and how to get rid of the bloat that may be costing you visits and leads. If you publish content on a regular basis, such as blog posts, podcasts, or videos, your site will inevitably grow over time. Too much content can clog up the system making it difficult for search engines to know which piece of content to deliver to the user. As your site grows, it is highly suggested that you identify the content that is not performing well or that is not helping your visitors. The main emphasis here is keeping the quality content and removing the junk.

A Real World Example

Website search results

In Tower’s case, we have covered the topic of website audits three times over the last three years. In all honesty, we don’t need three blog posts about website audits, just one will do. Therefore it was my task to find the website audit pages and compare them in terms of content value, usefulness, the amount of traffic they drive, their page authority, and links back to those pages. Once I found the page that I believed to be of the most value I had a couple of options, either:

  • no-index the pages that don’t perform as well
  • 301 redirect the lesser quality pages to the more valuable page
  • Create a new “super” page and redirect the other website audit pages to the new URL

In this case, I chose to 301 redirected the under-performing pages so that their equity would be passed onto the main website audit blog post that we wanted to promote. Let’s dig into more detail about how to do this.

Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Content?

Yes, websites can become very bloated with low-quality content that is not performing as well as other similar content pieces. When users came to the Tower website and searched for “website audit” they found at least three different results, all of which are very similar. This meant the users needed to choose which post to view, guessing at which one was most applicable to their needs. This can negatively affect the user experience. It is far better to have one result for the website audit topic. Users no longer need to make a choice, allowing them to click through more confidently

When to Delete

In some cases, when reviewing your content, it may be best to simply to delete older pages that have been added over the years. Content like old event pages, coupons that have expired, or blog posts that are outdated, incorrect or no longer apply are low-hanging fruit. Ultimately you only want pages that are applicable and offer value to the user. If a page no longer does that, you may want to consider deleting it. Note: When you delete pages, you need to 301 redirect the users to an appropriate page, otherwise it will cause your site to have broken links.

When to Consolidate

In some cases, as with the Tower Marketing example where we had three similar blog posts, it may be worthwhile creating a new page that has all the best elements of each individual page, called a “super page.” The goal here is to create a unique, high-quality piece of content that does not outdate itself and can be easily updated. Note: Doing this would require a 301 redirect to point the three older pages to the new super page.

When to Noindex

If you don’t know which pages to delete and redirect, another option would be to noindex the pages. While this does not help with duplicate content issues on your site, it can help search engine to not index a group of similar pages on the web. Tags and Categories are examples of URL extensions that we at Tower noindex because they can bloat the search results and cannibalize the rankings of pages that are more relevant. Note: Noindex still allows the bots to visit that page, they will however not be added to the SERPs.

Benefits of Cleaning Up Your Site

Cleaning up your site has several advantages, one of which is making the articles that are most important to users easy to find. Web designers and SEO’s need to work together to make sure that UX (user experience) is maintained. As mentioned earlier, having multiple search results for the same query can hinder the user journey and UX. When you clean up your site it also allows for better search results. A clean site makes it easier for search engines to index and categorize which page best represents a user’s search query. As noted above, having one super page instead of three can help rankings.

Ready to slim down your website? Contact our specialists today to start the cleanup process.

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It’s not always easy brainstorming new content ideas; especially when you’ve been blogging since Day One, and you feel as though you’ve covered every topic under the sun within your industry. Trust us, we’ve been there, staring at the blank piece of paper labeled “Amazing Content Topics for XYZ Month.” So what to do when you’ve got a serious case of brainstorm block? Below we’ve outlined some creative ideas to get outside your own head when brainstorming new content ideas. Some we’ve tackled, others we can’t wait to try ourselves. Let’s dive.

The Magic of Generalized Topic Ideas

If you work with SEOs, then you know that the more niche and long-tail the focus keyword is for a content piece the better. I agree (as I AM an SEO myself). However, sometimes looking for that perfect, specific, unicorn keyword isn’t realistic. Focus, instead, on generalized topics and narrow it down from there.

For example, let’s say you work at Pets-R-Us. You feel as though you’ve beaten pet care, pet emergencies and adopting pet topics into the ground. You’ve focused on heartworm in dogs, dental care in cats, things your audience may not have known about guienea pigs, and why certain fish can’t be together in a fishbowl. You’re feeling stuck.

Instead of looking for a granular keyword, pull out your focus and pick something basic…like birds! Now, you may have written 100 blogs on birds. That’s cool; keep in mind what ones you have already written, but start narrowing down from there. Pull out as many possible bird blog ideas as humanly possible. Write a giant list of all the possible scenarios you could touch on when it comes to birds. Your list is probably getting pretty long. If you’re still feeling a bit perplexed, we tend to turn to Answer the Public. Here you can type in a keyword phrase and it provides you hundreds of questions people have asked surrounding that topic that you can answer.

Jeopardy Topic Ideas

This method has the #TeamTower stamp of approval for topic generation. If your business has multiple facets and/or product lines, pull a sample of people from each team. Come together and start writing in the form of questions about your specific department. Categorize your questions based on monetary value:

  • $100-$200 Questions: Basic, top-level questions that we receive on a pretty regular basis
  • $400-$600 Questions: Questions we receive that are a little more intensive, for the intermediate level customer
  • $800-$1,000 Questions: Questions that we ourselves ask others in the office as experts or have seen on professional forums about this product/department/skill

Set a timer for each round of questions and keep the questions for brainstorming new content pieces moving forward.

Getting Outside Your Four Walls

Oftentimes as marketers we forget that there’s a whole world of people outside our office, including a) our audience itself and b) influencers who speak the same language we do. Consider the following when brainstorming content ideas:

  • Ask current customers what they want to know more about. Send them a survey or pose the question on social media.
  • If you’re open to guest writers, pick their brains about topics they feel are your weak points on the blog and/or topics that they themselves have more experience in than you do.
  • Look at popular industry forums and see what questions other professionals are asking. Write a couple blogs that specifically answer these questions and post the link back in the forum when you’re done.
  • Reach out to businesses/consumers that might use your product/service. Ask them, if they were looking into purchasing your product/service, what questions would they want to have answered when looking at a potential site.

“Do Geckos…” and Other Recent Google Search Ideas

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It may seem too simple, but oftentimes the best ideas are. Looking for a topic? Start typing into your Google search bar and see what others have looked for recently regarding that topic. You may be surprised that many of the questions posed could all be included into one singular blog.

Imitation Is the Greatest Form of Flattery…And Then Do It Better.

Get inspired. Find other content pieces and topics that you love on Pinterest, on competitors’ sites, through popular content publications, by other influencers…and then figure out how you can either a) expand on the topic or b) make it more compelling, interesting, or entertaining.

For example, you find an amazing blog on a competitors site entitled “The First Six Months With a New Puppy.”  It explains all the vaccines you should be getting for your pup, what common health issues might pop up, training qualms to expect and growth patterns. The information is comprehensive and the writing is easily formatted enough to not be overwhelming for users. It’s a 10/10 on the content scale. So how can you do the same but better? We know humans are visual creatures. How about an infographic? How about personal anecdotes from your customers? How about a “Case by Case” scenario or a comparison chart between common breeds? In what way can you take a topic that’s already been done and make it 10X better?

Feeling like your creative well has run dry can be tough, but finding the right brainstorming technique can crack the code for the jackpot of all ideas. We wish you luck and happy writing!

How are you brainstorming content ideas? Have a topic you’d like us to write about?

Share Your Ideas

In every form of internet marketing, change is inevitable. eCommerce is no different and there is a major change that will be affecting your eCommerce store. This new phenomenon is known as conversational eCommerce.

Conversational eCommerce is a method of digital marketing that encourages conversations between brands and customers who are on their purchasing journey. Actually, this is not so much a phenomenon, but rather a progressive change that was inevitable.

With more than 20 billion smartphone users worldwide, users are spending more time using their phones to search and shop. eCommerce has extended from online shopping apps to messenger apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and LINE.

In this new process, the online purchase is carried out via dialog (aka conversational eCommerce). From the business side, this concept is based on chatbot software, which utilizes preset dialog patterns to analyze customer requests using text and speech recognition.

A Conversational eCommerce Success Story

Uber messenger 552x1024 1 jpg eCommerce Conversation: The "Talk" Online Businesses Need to Have

It is becoming increasingly important for brands to be able to speak with users immediately about their present needs.

Uber has done a great job of doing this.  When a client needs a ride, Uber stays in contact with them providing information about the vehicle that will pick them up, the rating of the driver, and how long they can expect to wait.

While not all businesses are as large and financially lucrative as Uber, this is a great example of how conversation leads to conversion. Uber spent a lot of money developing an app and creating software that communicates with the end-user.

For smaller businesses, you can utilize websites, forums, social media, and email to talk to your audience and engage with them.

How to Increase Conversation and Improve Engagement in eCommerce

As an eCommerce retailer, engaging with your audience is crucial to transform browsers into customers. A growing number of clients are utilizing social media, review sites, and online forums to voice their opinions.

Your potential clients want to know you’re hearing them, but how do you manage all these channels of communication? Conversation management software is how most businesses keep close tabs on what their audience requires. While this is expensive, it can invaluable in securing clients and converting them into loyal users.

However, there are other ways businesses can utilize conversation with their audience, with a much smaller investment.

Conversations and Engagement Principles

Communication needs to travel in both directions; you can’t wait for your audience to initiate conversation. Businesses need to be distributing content that invites their target audience to participate with their brand. This is the first step in reaching your audience on a personal level.

Make sure you focus your content to the needs and wants of your consumers. Show them that you are trying to understand them. We have mentioned in many previous posts that share-worthy content paves the road to success. One user sharing content from your site can have a positive ripple affects, putting your brand, products, or services in front of an audience you could have never reached otherwise.

There are three main steps to take when engaging with customers:

1. Observe

Take into account what the user has to say. This allows you to direct consumer insight. Keeping up with all your channels and notifications can be exhausting, so we suggest you use tools such as Google Alerts, Social Mention, and Talkwalker to oversee brand mentions, relevant topics, and competitors.

2. Facilitate

There is no point in having a social media presence if doesn’t help your audience communicate with you. Businesses need to be active and alert throughout all channels to best correspond with users. Tip: Include your social media links on all communication channels. This could include emails, your website, your online bio, etc

3. Join the Conversation

Always begin conversations by responding to a user’s comment to the best of your ability. Make your responses personal and avoid using industry jargon that could be confusing. From there, ask questions. This shows a user that you are really trying to understand his/her needs.

The more information you glean from the conversation, the more data you can collect and act upon. How do you capitalize on customer engagement? By using the information to personalize your customer’s experience.

Once Engagement is Underway, How Do You Make it Convert?

When you’ve learned more about your target audience, you can define your KPIs and create a user-focused strategy based on the data collected. In order for conversions to take place, you need to be observant of what words resound with customers.

What calls-to-action have been confirmed to be most successful? What are the top three questions or comments that you most frequently receive? Use this information to customize your message and attract new customers. 

How well do you know your online clientele? Are you targeting the right audience? How can you be sure? What can you do to improve the conversation between your brand and your client?

Let Us Help!

First Things First

Before we dig into how Google obtains website metrics to assess quality, it should be stated that small businesses must regularly track user engagement metrics on their websites. This should include evaluating the quality of the organic search traffic (SEO) the site is receiving. Increased website engagement will result in increased conversion rates and ROI.

User Interaction on Your Website

Assessing a user’s behavior on a website will offer strong insight as to their goals.

  1. A user lands on a site.
  2. They visit seven pages.
  3. They find a product they want.
  4. They add the product to the shopping cart.
  5. They purchase the item.

It is clear from this example that the user found what they were searching for on the website. Now, compare this with a visitor who lands on a web page and hits the browser’s “back button” in less than a few seconds. Who had the better user experience? Who engaged with the site more?

The above are examples of user engagement signals that search engines are using as data points in their algorithms to assess the quality of a site. These signals are not easily understood by the likes of Google. Search engines are private about their algorithm information because this is what separates them from the competition.

We have learned that user engagement signals are valuable in calculating search quality and may also be used as ranking signals. When a user lands on a page that does not match what they searched for, this will more than likely result in poor engagement.

If your company has a website, poor user experience is something you want to reduce and keep to an absolute minimum.

How Google Collects User Engagement Metrics

Google has a huge quantity of data sources available to them. Some of the most important ones are as follows.

SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages)

How a user interacts with the listed search results is a fundamental source of data. For example, if a user does a search in Google and decides not to click on the first or second result, but instead clicks on the third option, that can act as a signal to Google that the third result might actually be the best result for that query.

In the future, Google may adjust the ranking position of the result that was originally in third place.

Google Analytics Data

If you have Google Analytics tracking on your site, Google is able to learn how users interact with your site. This information is used by Google to learn trends and many more search abhors of users. Google Analytics can also be used to help your company improve its site so you target the right audience.

Mobile Operating Systems

With Google entering the mobile market, it’s changing how people interact with the web. Google’s Android mobile phone operating system is the most used operating system on mobile devices in the world, with more than 50% market share.

Android connects people to Google Maps, Search, and Images, impacting how a user finds and interacts with your site. Having a website that is mobile friendly and responsive is not a choice anymore.

Every business website should have these mobile features included.

Different Browsers

Browsers are influential data sources since they can monitor every action taken by a user. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer used to have the major market share back in early 2011. That all changed as Firefox and Google Chrome became more predominant.

Display Advertising

Google AdSense offers websites the ability to place ads on their sites and earn revenue when users click on them. This click data is something that helps Google understand how users interact with the site.

Toolbars

Users who install the Google Toolbar in their browsers help search engines better understand how a user navigates the web. These toolbars provide users with a lot of accessibility that can offer a better online search experience.

Goo.gl URL Shortner

There are many URL shorteners such as Bit.ly and Ow.ly. Google created a URL shortener of its own called Goo.gl. A URL shortener allows Google visibility into sharing content, even in social networks where it does not otherwise have access (for example, private Facebook pages.)

Different Forms of Online Voting

There is another set of signals that search engines measure, which we call voting mechanisms. These voting mechanisms are methods by which users directly indicate their approval or disapproval of content, services, or products. Here are some examples:

Facebook Likes

We are all familiar with Facebook’s like feature, which indicates content we like on the web. Ultimately, search engines can see what content is “liked” and gives that content more value.

Reviews

Reviews allow users to express appreciation or frustration with a product or service. Google takes these very seriously, as they are personal and inform other users.

Google is able to measure the amount of positive or negative comments to ascertain whether a website is providing quality to the user. Reviews are especially impactful when it comes to optimizing your site for local search.

Brand Name Searches

Another signal of importance is a large number of brand name searches. For example, brands like Nike and Amazon have searched hundreds of thousands of times per month.

This causes them to show up more often in results to generic search queries like athletic shoes or fiction books over lesser-known brands.

User Engagement Signals That Could Affect Rankings

Google has an in-depth collection of data sources that allow it to quantify a wide range of online user behaviors. Mentioned below are some of the major signals that Google can extract (and that you can extract, too, by looking into Google Analytics):

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate measures the percentage of users who visit only one page on a website and then leave. Bounce rate can also define the interaction of the user with the search results.

For example, if a user clicks on a search result, then returns to the SERPs and clicks on another result, that could be an indicator that the first result was not a good response for that search query.

Generating New Searches

A user may observe a set of search results, then come back to the search engine and modify his search query to better refine the results.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Google measures the click-through rate on links presented in the SERPs, on web pages in URL shorteners, on RSS feed readers, PDFs, and more. Many SEOs believe that CTR is actually a ranking factor when applying SEO best practices.

Time on Page

Google can measure the amount of time spent on a given page. Time on page could be considered a signal of higher quality pages(for example, the user spent time reading the whole article.)

Time on Site

Similarly, time spent on a website, as a total, is considered a positive signal. If the average user spends more time on your site than on the sites of your competitors, that might signify your site is of higher quality and relevance.

Pages per Visit

More pages viewed by a user on your site suggests greater user engagement. Viewing more pages usually signifies interest and that is something Google considers important.

Taking the above metrics and values into account, how can you improve your website’s value to users so they have a better search experience and keep revisiting your site?

Unlock Your SEO Potential

Welcome to one of the most difficult marketing strategies to date: B2B social media.

If you’re a B2B company, you’re probably familiar with the challenge of wrangling your audience through social media. You may have thought to yourself, “Is social media even worth it for us? How can we possibly reach big-ticket clients through social media?”

We’re here to tell you with a resounding, “YES!” that social media means business for B2B.

But maybe not in the more obvious ways social media works for a B2C.

B2B Social Media
Photo source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wilgengebroed/5514783718/

Let’s Get Real…

You’re probably thinking about your B2B social media strategy the wrong way. Several companies look at B2C and B2B social media similarly, but there are some differences:

B2C Social Media

B2C social media serves several different purposes:

  • Engaging with potential audiences in creative and compelling ways
  • Promotion and advertisements
  • Sharing relevant content to users appear as a thought leader
  • Grow a following and, ultimately, brand awareness
  • Massage users through the top of the sales funnel

B2B Social Media

B2B social media shares some of the same purposes (like sharing relevant content and growing brand awareness), but two big differences are:

  • Building relationships with industry leaders
  • Becoming the authority (keyword: THE)

B2B social media is about building relationships and setting yourself up as an authority figure in your industry. By using the right social media outlets, you’re able to foster conversations, teach others in your field, and establish yourself as THE influencer potential clients look to for information and advice.

In more ways than one, B2B social media is much more granular, targeted, and personalized. Instead of trying to reach and engage with 1,000+ users, you may only be targeting 20 people who fit the decision-maker persona for your product or service.

If you’re ready to dive into B2B social media for your company, we have outlined three important things you need to know before moving forward.

Number One: What Platforms Should I Use?

Good question. We’ve asked ourselves this many times for our clients. Go to the drawing board and answer the following questions.

Who is Our Typical User Persona?

What social media platforms are your decision-makers conversing on? Or, what social media sites do they turn to for advice? If they’re sitting sipping coffee in the morning, what sites are they scrolling through on their phones?

Where is Our Competition Hanging Out?

Where do you have the potential to overtake your competition? Where is your competition beating you now?

What DOESN’T Make Sense?

Not all social media outlets make sense for B2B companies. Sometimes a little reverse psychology works wonders. By determining what social outlets make NO sense (like Snapchat for customer service companies) it helps you narrow down which outlets DO make sense. 

Where Do We Turn to for Industry Advice?

Look at your own company habits when looking for advice or new services. Do you flock to Facebook for critical updates and news? Do your colleagues constantly forward LinkedIn articles from their favorite services? Sometimes examining our own patterns help us determine natural courses of action for our clients.

What Would this Platform Look Like in 5 Years?

It’s easy to say you want X amount of followers or X amount of shares when you’re a B2C company. The more the merrier! But B2B social media is more strategic. What kind of relationships do you want to see in 5 years? How do you want to position yourself as a leader on social media and what platform will help you position yourself as such the most?

If you’re really stuck, generally speaking, LinkedIn and Facebook are leaders in B2B marketing. However, Twitter is the second highest leader for conversions (we were surprised, too!). Mix the right social media cocktail for your B2B efforts; never rely on just one platform to produce the best results.

Number Two: Foster Conversation & Answer Questions

Much of B2B social media is about building relationships. It’s not enough to just gain awareness; you have to get into the trenches and start the conversations.  Here is how you can utilize the most popular social media platforms for B2B companies to do just that.

LinkedIn

First and foremost, if you’re not on LinkedIn, you should be. Secondly, look for groups to join on LinkedIn where potential leads could be congregating and asking questions. This is a perfect opportunity for you to shine as an industry expert and answer questions, spread your knowledge base, or to simply be present and gain awareness as a group member.

Facebook

While we’ve mentioned that there are differences between B2B and B2C social media, it’s important to take a moment to note that you are still talking to a person with B2B social media strategies.  This especially comes into play on Facebook.

We all know Content is King. Don’t skimp on offering real, quality content on your B2B Facebook page; companies are made of professionals all looking for resources. However, consider the type of content these professionals are looking for and when they’re looking for content. 

If the majority of your Facebook audience is active after hours, consider longer pieces of content (like a Whitepaper). They’ll be able to dig into after hours and share at the office in the morning.

computer yelling cartoon outline

Is lunch time your Facebook’s prime time? Shorter articles or text visuals might be a better bet. Consider even tacking on the reading time so your users know exactly what to expect when they click on your content.

And remember, it’s not all about you. Overly promotional B2B companies don’t get anywhere. You want to warm your Facebook users up with softer content. Allow followers to familiarize themselves with your brand first. Especially for larger companies whose sale cycle is normally much longer than B2C companies, soft content pushes are better than constant promotions. You’re playing the long game.

Twitter

While Twitter has never performed particularly well for B2B marketers, don’t count it out just yet. For Twitter especially, it’s the basics that count.

  1. Bulk up on your portfolio page. Have all the information your potential leads need to find out more about you; and always lead back to your site or a specified landing page
  2. Follow those leaders and engage, engage, engage (and then engage some more). You could do something big like a virtual event or something as small as a “Thank You” when somebody retweets.
  • Don’t ignore following companies that are potential clients. Observe what types of content they share and find useful for their own clientele. You can use this to your advantage when creating your content. If you engage with these companies over social, chances are their decision maker is following THEM and will take note.

      3. Focus on re-marketing. Mike Templeman, contributor at Forbes, mentions the following when considering your B2B social marketing strategy on Twitter:

“The second, and most important thing you’ll want to do is set up a remarketing tag on your website…The whole process takes about five minutes for someone who knows the basics of navigating a website’s backend…you’ll begin capturing your website visitors so that you’re able to remarket to them at your leisure.”

So what about newer markets and more off-the-cuff B2B platforms like Tumblr, Snapchat, Instagram, or YouTube?

To each his own. While Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube haven’t been big players in the B2B social media game, it doesn’t mean these social media platforms won’t mean big things for companies in the future.

Most social media platforms start out as entertainment, but as they become more popular (and by more popular I mean, millions of users), B2B companies can’t ignore the potential. As mentioned previously, businesses are made up of thought leaders in every industry. These thought leaders can be found on every social media platform, including the more niche and risky.

If you have the time and talent to create compelling and diverse content for these platforms, and you feel enough of your potential client bases’ employees congregate here, we say take the plunge! It never hurts to be in on the ground level of a newer social media platform, as long as the platform has some proven success. #RIPPeach

As Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, says, “There will be some plumber in America who becomes famous by doing two minute videos broken up in 20 sections on how to fix things yourself.”

Number Three: Maintenance & Growth

Crafting and strategizing B2B social media is one thing; maintaining and growing that network is something else. We’ve already talked about engagement, but what other ways can you maintain and grow social media for your B2B company?

A Killer Landing Page

While the sales cycle for a B2B company may be longer, the funnel is almost exactly the same. Make it crystal clear to users how to find more information. Always lead your followers back to either your home page or a specified landing page (or several, if you’re Salesforce.)

It’s especially important for B2B companies to track and analyze what happens to their followers once they click off their social page onto their own site. Are the right people clicking? What information are they going to? Are they hopping from page to page? Is the landing page too stringent? Not stringent enough?

Explore landing page options and A/B testing like your company’s life depends on it; because it just might.

Social Media Advertisements

cartoon drawing of a lightbulb

Facebook can be described as a “pay to play” platform. If you want to grow your follower base and reach a larger number of professionals, you gotta have some skin the in the game. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram advertising are a relatively low cost / high reward tactic.

Social advertising has increased phenomenally over the past five years and shows no signs of slowing down. With social advertising you are able to target audiences on a much more granular level while also reaching the ever-growing surge of mobile users.

Understand Your Growing Follower Base’s Needs & Wants

It’s easy to find high profile thought leaders; they’re right out in the open! As your user base continues to grow, however, you may be missing some influential people in your follower list that could reap major benefits for your company with some interaction. Dig into your follower list to understand a) Who’s following you and b) What they’re talking about.

Tools that Work Best?

  • Followerwonk – Analyze your Twitter analytics and discover what segments you can pull apart in your audience and how to best optimize for reach.
  • BuzzSumo- Find out what topics are being shared in relation to your industry; this helps you be more timely and relevant

Also, remember, be human. Brands that are constantly self-serving can rub followers the wrong way.

Redraft & Follow (the Right) Trends

Social media changes at the drop of a hat. What might have worked yesterday doesn’t work today (especially with mobile apps taking a larger piece of the pie in dominance).

But your audience should come first and foremost. If more and more B2B companies are transitioning to GIF’s and short snippets of information, but your audience is still watching your five minute How-To videos and engaging, why change? 

Keep a pulse on your audience. Trends are often tied to certain industries. What might be working for energy companies may not be what works for publishing houses.  Always go back and reevaluate your audiences. Ask the sales team if they’re seeing different questions coming through. Is customer service hearing the same suggestions over and over? Ask leadership if your followers are really reticent of your company clientele.

Redraft if need be and stand away from the crowd when it calls for it.

If you’re looking for awesome B2B social media mavens, check out what these three companies are doing:

Salesforce on Twitter

Slack on Facebook

Adobe on LinkedIn

B2B social media doesn’t have to be scary. Find the right platforms, engage with the right people and follow (or don’t follow) the right trends. B2B over and out.

Struggling to find B2B tactics that work well for your company? Partner with our team of experts to develop a marketing strategy right for you.

Reach Out

As a business, you have your own tasks and duties to focus on. That’s why you hired an agency to do your marketing in the first place, right? Not quite. You want to see results from the agency you hire, but there is a big difference between good results and great results – YOU. All too often, clients hire an agency to do their digital marketing and then don’t partake in the process. I’m not blaming clients for this; rather, I want to stress that businesses that hire marketing agencies should be involved from A-Z . That is when they will see the best results.

Why Do Clients Need to Collaborate with the Marketing Agency?

There needs to be agency and client collaboration for any and all digital marketing services to achieve the best results. Good marketing is relational by nature. Nurturing and understanding from both the client and agency contributes to online success. Find out why your business should be involved with your marketing agency’s plans and projects:

Clear Communication and Understanding Goals from the Get-Go

This might seem obvious, but it is often overlooked. There should be an initial discovery discussion where the agency can ask questions to better understand your business, culture, target audience, needs, and business approach. The marketing agency needs to learn about the current state of your business so it can prepare to move ahead with a solid plan. You, as their client, are who will shed that much-needed light.

Being Involved Means Understanding the Process

A large reason why I encourage clients to be involved with the marketing execution is so they understand the process.

  • Clients will have a better understanding of timelines for creating a website, creating an SEO campaign, or developing creative content.
  • Clients will be able to offer insight as the agency makes progress.
  • Clients will have a better sense of what to communicate to higher management

Trust and Transparency

When a client is involved, sharing ideas and being a team member, this allows for transparency. When there is nothing to hide, there will be no nasty surprises for either party to be caught unaware and have to fix. Developing a working relationship on a regular basis with an agency prevents miscommunication, helps to move the process along, and encourages an environment of trust. Where there is trust and transparency between client and agency, there are productive marketing results.

A Stronger Force

The marketing agency does not know your business as well as you do. That is why it is imperative for your business to be involved in all areas of marketing efforts being carried out by the agency. The client should be the face(s) of the company, not the agency. People trust you more than your agency. The agency is more of a supportive device rather than the front-facing part of your company. As a result, when an agency supports the client, the client will be more willing to support the marketing efforts of the agency. This collaboration will produce a stronger force that can achieve more.

The Client Becomes Better at Marketing

Through collaboration with the agency, the client will become a well-oiled marketing machine. By building relationships and working in a transparent environment, the client will naturally become better educated in internet marketing.

Better Results

Clients hire a marketing agency to get results. A marketing agency that has the collaborative efforts of their clients will be able to do more in less time and with a better understanding of the client’s industry. When clients help navigate the murky waters of marketing, agencies can focus on other important factors. Collaborative business relationships are not easy. It takes time to build-up communication, trust, and transparency, but it can yield long-lasting results.

Looking for a collaborative relationship with a marketing agency? Meet our expert team and learn how we can collaborate.

Let’s Work Together

What is a Good Bounce Rate, and Does it Matter?

Yes…and no.

Bounce rates reflect the amount of time a user spends on your page, whether or not they continue to new pages, and if they choose to click through to desired actions (i.e. clicking the “contact us now” button or visiting your homepage after reading a blog).

Bounce rate percentages vary from industry to industry and page types, but generally, you want to see bounce rates from 20-70%.

But if your blog page has a bounce rate of 85% is it need for concern? Not necessarily.

Bounce rates are a Google Analytics urban myth, and an abnormal amount of importance has been placed on them, but there are other factors to consider when checking-up on page health.

Gathering Good Information vs. a High Bounce Rate

Some pages, like contact pages, may see unusually high bounce rates. Why? Because if the page is easy to read and accessible for users, they will find the contact information quickly, shoot your organization a ring or an email, and close the page.

The user has spent no more than 20 seconds on the site, but not because the page was confusing or the content wasn’t relevant, but because they found the information they were looking for quickly.

This can result in a high bounce rate and always needs to be considered when reviewing pages that provide direct information to the user.

Engaging in Your Content Time Test

It takes someone about four minutes to read this article (I know because I clocked it).

If I’m looking at the bounce rate, it might be high because nobody has clicked through to the site and only spent X amount of time on the page before backing out.

However, that doesn’t mean the content was engaging and gave users what they were looking for. Quite the opposite. This is why it’s important to also check the Average Session Duration in your Google Analytics. This tells you how long a person sat on that particular page.

If somebody has sat on page for 20 minutes reading your blog and then sharing the page on social media but never goes further, the bounce rate has less weight. You can get a more accurate read on your bounce rate vs. time spent on page by creating an adjusted bounce rate in your Google Analytics.

Traffic Source

An important factor to consider when investigating high bounce rates is the source of traffic.

For example, lets say you wrote a blog on new environmental legislature for 2016. You’ve shared the blog on social media, built a link on an environmental nonprofit site, and created a great meta title and description for the page.

Most of your traffic to the page appears to be coming from social media, but you have a high bounce rate. What does this tell you?

Possibly that the content you are posting doesn’t translate well for social media. Maybe the persona of your social media audience was expecting something different or was hoping for a different type of content like an infographic rather than a lengthy article.

This brings up an important point: always look at bounce rates from a holistic point of view. Understanding where your traffic is coming from and what they’re searching for is a direct correlation to bounce rate.

If most of your traffic is being driven through organic search, consider what kind of content would work best. For example, are people searching for quick facts or more in-depth research-driven pieces? What does your keyword research say?

As with all SEO, focus on user satisfaction, not the search engines’s.

Bounce Rate and SEO

Does bounce rate affect SEO? Slightly. But immediate bounce rates with 100% bounce are really the most potent.

When a page as a 100% bounce rate it means a user was turned off instantly and backed out of the page. Google recognize this, and this bounce can hurt rankings.

However, Google doesn’t just see your bounce rate. They look at the full picture of a page including larger factors like keywords, page formatting and links. So while a page might have a higher bounce rate than preferred, your rankings won’t [shouldn’t] tank.

The urban myth of Google analytics bounce rates comes down to 5 these takeaways:

  • If you have good, clear information on a page, a high bounce rate is a big thumbs up.
  • Always look at the session time per page to understand if your content is engaging.
  • Traffic source is a telling sign as to whether or not bounce rates are contributed to the wrong kind of content for a certain audience
  • A high bounce rate, with the exception of an immediate bounce, won’t kill your rankings.
  • Always look at bounce rate from a holistic standpoint to understand all the elements!

Not sure if your bounce rates are good, bad, or ugly? Contact our team to see how we can help you understand your data.

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