Business at Warp Speed - Get Ready for the New Digital Revolution

[Cross-posted from Associated Industries of Massachusetts.]

All around us, things are accelerating. People, data, and information are all moving faster than ever before, accelerating at a pace that defies our understanding of the world and what is (or was thought to be) possible. 4G speeds, Google Instant, Tweets and check-ins, Facebook sign-ups, mobile device activations, video uploads – everything around us is growing and moving at exponential rates. Consider some of the statistics: in 2008, 300 million people were on social networks. That number is now over 900 million. In 2008 1.5 million people had visited Twitter. Last year over 190 million. In 2008 Google’s Android mobile platform had just launched. There are now over 300,000 Android device activations every day, and that number is growing. (Check out a really fun video showing the growth of Android here.)

And consider what has been happening in Middle Eastern countries of late. Via mobile phones and social networks, information is spreading and people are organizing at rates never before possible, allowing for rapid mobilization of ideas and massive social change.

In this world of constant connectivity, there is no doubt that fast is better than slow. From a consumer standpoint, you reap the benefits directly – connect to friends all over the world on Facebook, video chat with them on Skype, watch videos of the Grammy’s on YouTube, download Eminem’s latest to your iPod, search on Google for the shoes he wore, buy them on online…wait, sold out online?…check your local retailer’s inventory on Google Product Search, have your Android phone give you directions to your local mall, text your friends that you’ll meet them there, check in on Foursquare when you arrive… and on and on it goes, the flow of digital information accelerating at a rate that seems almost unimaginable.

So how do businesses keep up and take part in this digital evolution, nay, revolution? How do companies make use of this acceleration to reach consumers in meaningful ways? How do they change their own behaviors to keep up with the world around them?

Companies should look to get ahead of the consumer and these digital trends by focusing on 4 key characteristics: Google calls them the "4 Be’s"…

Be relevant – Mobile is how the world will connect to the Internet in the future. Mobile will be bigger than desktop in 5 years. Mobile searches grew 500% in the last two years. Mobile is what is relevant for today's and tomorrow's consumer. What is your company’s mobile strategy? Do you have one? Can it scale for the future?

Be found – Search is still the web’s killer app. With the proliferation of information, Search is how people find it and make use of it. Can people find you? Can they find your business and the products or services you offer?

Be engaging – We no longer live in a push advertising world. Consumers want and expect a dialog with companies. Social media like Facebook and Twitter make this possible. Online video has not only changed the face of entertainment but also the way companies can communicate. Companies and brands need to figure out how to be part of the conversation and how to effectively engage users across the entire spectrum of social media. What is your social media strategy? How are you effectively using online video to engage users?

Be accountable – the Internet has made real-time marketing a reality. You can constantly and continuously improve your digital efforts by using powerful analytical tools and the data they provide to make smart decisions. Things like Google Analytics, Insights for Search and others offer more data than ever before. How are you using it to make the best decisions for your company?

Success or failure in these four areas will determine your future. As “screen time” becomes mostly digital, as mobile becomes the norm for the masses, as consumers take more control of the dialog with companies and brands, and as everything becomes more real-time, businesses will need to evolve to keep pace…or run the risk of getting left behind.

Posted by: Seth van der Swaagh, National Industry Manager, AdWords

Read More

MagnetStreet: From real estate to bridal customers, lessons learned . . .

[Cross-posted from the Google Retail Advertising Blog]

In 2005, MagnetStreet, a custom magnet developer, was 80% reliant on its Real Estate customers. Although Real Estate customers kept MagnetStreet employees busy from August to November, the rest of the year was stagnant. In order to resolve this staffing and seasonal production slump, to acquire new customers and to expand its product portfolio, MagnetStreet looked to Google and its suite of free tools.

MagnetStreet realized they were not utilizing an SEO or SEM strategy. So they leveraged Google's Keyword Tool to learn more about terms such as “magnets” and “promotional magnets", and how they could expand their keyword selection to be in front of actively searching magnet customers.

David Baird, Vice President of Marketing at MagnetStreet, was surprised to find out that “save-the-date wedding magnets” stood out as keywords of rapidly growing interest. This new product keyword trend spurred an information-gathering project that started with understanding what a save-the-date magnet was, and ended with a solution regarding how to enter the wedding market.

MagnetStreet was also pleased to learn, via Google Trends and Insights for Search, that this new venture revealed an interest peak in January, with a more consistent level of interest throughout the year than the real estate market. These Google tools also offered geographic data that gave MagnetStreet the opportunity to intelligently market to the local areas that showed the most interest in their product suite.

MagnetStreet continues to use Insights for Search to help them expand into new markets, discover additional product offerings, and to inform design, staffing and media decisions. They have expanded into selling wedding invitations and programs in addition to various occasion invitations and announcements.

When looking back at his business’ success, Mr. Baird credits Google’s tools with helping him to make smarter, low risk decisions and giving him the opportunity as a small business owner to compete with Big Box players.

Click here for more information on this success story.

Posted by Keri Overman, The Google Retail Team

Read More

Going Google across the 50 States: Kentucky window manufacturer leaves desktop software behind

Editor's note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we’ll hear from Steve Stepp, IT Manager of Sun Windows, a manufacturer of high quality windows and doors serving Owensboro, Kentucky and surrounding areas. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.

Sun Windows is a family-owned business that dates back to the 1930’s when V. E. Anderson, Sr. invented and built storm windows in his garage at night and sold them door-to-door during the day. Today, Sun Windows is run by his grandson, Frank Anderson, and offers an expansive product line of high quality, energy efficient windows and doors with a focus on customer service.

The window and door business is seasonal, following trends in new construction and peaking in summer. At the height, we have around 120 employees made up of about 80% production workers who manufacture the products, and 20% office staff and outside sales who use email and other office software regularly. Keeping everyone connected and communicating effectively is one of my main goals.

We originally used a local provider for web hosting and email and there was a lot of downtime when email just wouldn’t work. I’d get phone calls from individuals throughout the company and would have to contact our email provider about once a month. Adding to this, we received significantly more spam than good email. Sun Windows even got flagged as a spammer because all our emails went through the local provider. We’re a small company and everyone wears a lot of hats so these issues took up a lot of time I didn’t really have.

I used Gmail at home and had even set up Google Apps for my personal website so I knew about its robust spam-filtering and other great features. Given all the email problems we were having at work, I decided to switch the company to Google Apps and have never looked back. The amount of spam in our inboxes is almost nothing and having web-based email accessible from any Internet connection is a big plus for everyone. At the time of the switch, I hadn’t even considered the added benefits of other products like Google Calendar and Google Docs.

After setting up email, we quickly created shared calendars to keep various departments organized, track company events and schedule customer visits for the field service unit. Then we slowly started to use Google Docs. Most people in the company were familiar and comfortable with desktop office software but once they realized the power of collaborating and sharing documents online, almost everyone switched to Google Docs. Production line supervisors use a spreadsheet to track labor hours at the plant, and sales reps create and share customer presentations. We’ve also moved existing documents over to Google Docs which we use to store files of any type.

Now when new computers are purchased, I don’t renew our Microsoft® Office licences. The company saves money but even more importantly, I save time in administering licenses, installations, security patches, and training. Google Apps has been one of the smartest decisions I’ve made for Sun Windows and I continually look for new ways to take advantage of it to improve how we work.

Posted by Steve Stepp, IT Manager, Sun Windows

Read More

Tips and tricks for Travel advertisers

In 2010 people researched their travel options more frequently, for longer periods of time, and on various online channels. This is good news for Travel marketers because you now have more opportunities to reach customers -- and many of these channels can help you more effectively promote your businesses. With marketing tools like YouTube and display ads, Travel marketers can actually show images of their destinations. For example, Hawaii’s official travel site showcases amazing beaches and palm trees on their YouTube channel. Don’t these videos make you want to take a trip to Hawaii?

We saw travel bookings pick up in 2010 and we’re expecting this trend to continue into 2011. This is the year of reaching your customers at every phase of the research process -- and compelling them with visual imagery. We’ve included our recommendations for doing so below:

Seasonality: Spring break travelers don’t start researching their options in March. Our research shows that the average traveler spends almost two months researching travel options before booking. As such, we suggest using Insights for Search to see when certain destinations are on the rise -- you can plan your search ad campaigns based on this seasonality. For example, searches for ‘hotel cancun’ actually peak in January.

Search: Our research shows that 78% of travel transactions involve research on a search engine.* In fact, the average traveler searches eight times prior to booking. In addition to timing your search ads campaigns with proper search seasonality, we recommend taking advantage of new search formats. For example, if you are advertising a destination, you can create a free listing on Google Places and include detailed information and pictures.

Content pages: Rather than consulting travel agents, consumers are turning to online reviews, videos, and blogs. This means consumers are more engaged and involved in the research process -- it also means you have more opportunities to reach them as they research their options. The average hotel booker, for example, conducts 20 research sessions on multiple sites prior to transacting.* What’s more, ad inventory on these sites is generally less competitive than search: The median Travel advertiser’s cost per acquisition on the Google Display Network is 2% less than that on search.** You can even measure the impact of your display ads using Campaign Insights.

YouTube: 81% of all travelers who watch online videos do so on YouTube. And the number of travel-related online videos has increased dramatically since 2009. Video is a compelling way to showcase travel destinations -- If you are marketing a destination site or a hotel, we recommend shooting video footage (it doesn’t have to be high-budget or flashy) and uploading this content to a YouTube Brand Channel and promoting this channel on your website. From there, you can explore advertising options to drive additional traffic to your channel.

Mobile: Personal travelers more than doubled their usage of mobile devices for travel purposes in the past year.** Research also shows that among travel consumers, purchase intent is five times higher on mobile ads than on desktop ads.*** New mobile ad technologies present a fantastic opportunity to reach these customers when they’re ready to actually take the leap of booking their trip. In particular -- and for Travel advertisers who do not have mobile websites -- we recommend enabling the Click to Call option, which allows customers to call you directly from their mobile phones.

The possibilities are endless -- and if you reach a customer at various phases throughout the research process with compelling messages and images, chances are he or she will be more likely to book with you. Have fun this year!

*Data from a ComScore Behavioral study.

** Data from an Internal Google study.

*** Data from an InsightExpress study.

Posted by: Sarah Travis, Team Manager, AdWords Travel Team

Read More

Going Google across the 50 States: Tennessee media firm fights back on spam

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor's note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we’ll hear from Rex Hammock, Founder and CEO of Hammock, a content and custom media firm in Nashville, Tennessee. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.

At Hammock, we develop and manage a wide array of content, helping our clients engage with customers to increase loyalty and extend the length of the relationship. Since I founded the company 20 years ago, our work has expanded from print newsletters and magazines to include a range of digital media, such as websites, blogs, event media, and more. We’ve grown to 20 full-time employees and have developed a network of over 1,000 freelancers across the country. Technology has played an important role in what we offer our clients and how we work together as a team.

A couple of years ago, when our Technology Director left the company, we decided to experiment with using an outsourced solution for networking and systems so our internal technology staff could focus on development and creative duties. The experience gave us confidence to outsource other parts of IT so when the email server became unreliable and couldn't filter spam as well as our personal Gmail accounts, we started researching alternative solutions. With the help of an external IT service, we unplugged the email server and switched to Google Apps.

Fixing our spam problem – which Gmail has done amazingly well – would have been enough to make the switch to Google Apps worth it. We did a cost analysis per employee, however, and keeping servers in-house for just email would have been more expensive than the entire suite of Google Apps. Plus, adding calendars, contacts and documents, all of which sync nicely to our smart phones, tablets, and home computers has changed the way we work for the better.

Collaborating across our expansive network of contributors is critical and most of us use Google Docs for sharing and updating documents. Spreadsheets have also helped us manage our own newsletter subscriptions – a Google form is embedded on our website to collect information from individuals who want to receive our newsletter. Information from the form is imported directly into a Google spreadsheet that we access internally.

The ecosystem around Google Apps is helping us further meet our unique needs. We use Manymoon, a 3rd party application from the Google Apps Marketplace, to help with project management and it has resolved a number of workflow issues. Manymoon is a little like an in-house social network where, instead of setting up pages related to your favorite club or cause, you set up project pages where you can consolidate information and track progress. Because Manymoon integrates directly with Google Apps, it’s easy to add Google documents, calendar entries and emails related to a project.

For some people in the company, there was a reluctance to give up traditional desktop applications. However, it has been easy for me to evangelize Google Apps internally and I think we'd all agree now that the switch has had a positive impact on how we work.

Posted by Rex Hammock, Founder and CEO, Hammock

Read More

Advertisers save time and uncover new keyword ideas with the Opportunities tab

[Cross-posted from Inside AdWords Blog.]

If you're a small business, time can often feel like your most valuable and most constrained resource. While youíre doing everything you need to do to keep your business up and running, important tasks like AdWords account optimization can fall to the bottom of your to-do list.

Knowing that time is a key factor for all AdWords advertisers, we created the Opportunities tab to provide you with automated and customized keyword, bid, and budget ideas. Here are two stories of advertisers who used the Opportunities tab to find new keywords quickly and easily.

Fitness Singles
Chris Mattioli founded Fitness Singles, a fitness-focused online dating website in 2003. With Chrisís dedication and some help from AdWords, he has grown his business to over one million global members today.

click for full size image

Like many small business owners, Chris wanted to improve his AdWords performance, but didn't have a lot of time to work on his account. When Chris discovered the Opportunities tab, he knew it was a good fit for Fitness Singles, since it allowed him to uncover new keywords quickly and easily.

Chris scans the keyword ideas in the Opportunities tab regularly to find terms related to fitness, online dating, and singles. He's found many ideas that are similar to the keyword combinations and variations that are in his account, but that he may have accidentally overlooked. He's also found completely new relevant keywords to include in his campaigns. In one instance, Chris saw terms such as promotion code and coupon among his keyword ideas. From there, he decided to add a number of discount-based keywords to his campaigns. Chris says, "The Opportunities tab can often find new keywords that are relevant our ads and that don't currently exist in our account. It also helps you identify new keyword areas--even when you thought you had it covered."

resortsandlodges.com
Ryan Bailey, President and Co-Founder of resortsandlodges.com, describes his company as a full-service agency rather than a travel directory. "We have a rapidly growing client base of two thousand-plus and a business model that gives our clients turnkey marketing and advertising support." While part of a large company, VEMGlobal.com, resortsandlodges.com runs as a small business and keeps its operations small and scrappy.

On the site, you can 'book your spot' to save your travel information, plan your next trip, and more
click for full size image

Like Fitness Singles, resortsandlodges.com uses the Opportunities tab to find new keyword ideas and save time. Ryan says, "The Opportunities tab provides high-quality keywords--and a lot of ideas we wouldnít have thought of otherwise, which is the whole point! It's great that you can easily scan through the ideas and find hidden jewels and then apply those insights for both keyword selection and site optimization."

Mollie Moore, the company's interactive marketing manager, also used the Opportunities tab to help with a website redesign project in March 2010. The previous version of resortsandlodges.com had dozens of links at the bottom of the page, and Moore was tasked with de-cluttering and limiting these links to the most important content. Looking at the number of keyword ideas associated with a particular theme as well as the traffic estimates for each keyword idea, the team learned that ìthe most effective content sections were top destinations, popular resort types, popular trips, and so forth," says Moore. "We also used ideas from the Opportunities tab to build out our meta titles, descriptions and keywords embedded in the back-end of every page on the site. Using the Opportunities tab, we can reduce guesswork in determining the most effective content."

To learn more about Fitness Singles and resortsandlodges.com and how they use the Opportunities tab, read their full case studies in the AdWords Help Center. You can learn more about the Opportunities tab in the AdWords Help Center or our YouTube video series.

Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Read More

The Austin Chamber of Commerce Welcomes Google to Central Texas

(Cross-posted from the Hotpot Blog.)

Editor’s Note: Last week we kicked off a local marketing campaign for Google Places in Austin, Texas, to spread the word about all the Google tools business owners can use to connect with customers. Here, our new friend Rebecca with the Austin Chamber of Commerce talks about why Google’s a great fit for the Austin small business community.

Several weeks ago Google called us. They were looking to work with the Austin Chamber of Commerce and Austin’s local business community for a new marketing campaign about Google Places. Google’s been taking a new approach to marketing Google Places, their business listings, and a recently launched tool to help connect customers to those businesses, Hotpot. We were thrilled to hear about their interest in Austin.

Why Austin? Our national recognition as a tech-savvy hub for business development means the city is a natural fit for Google’s initiatives. The Google Places Business Kits will be introduced to the Austin Chamber’s network of business leaders in central Texas. These kits include a sampler of marketing materials that can help businesses get more exposure, get them reviewed online, and get more customers through their door.

Business owners also will have the ability to connect with potential customers through Google’s new rating tool, Hotpot. With Hotpot, people now have the ability to rate and review local businesses and share those opinions with friends. When that person uses Google to search for local places, their search results become more personalized based on their tastes and those of their friends.

At the Chamber, we’re always working to understand the small business climate as we develop our benefit programs. One trend we’ve noticed is the convergence of social and mobile computing, along with the growth of location technology and services. Google Places and Hotpot act as a great set of tools business owners can use to take advantage of these trends.

As small business owners look to expand their market reach, online promotion plays an increasingly important role in both attracting new businesses and retaining loyal customers. Easy access to accurate information online and helpful reviews work toward business stability. Google’s partnership with businesses in our city will support and enhance the opportunities for raising a branded level of awareness to the consumer. Certainly, it will be exciting to witness what happens in the marketplace when Google, with its global reach, meets Austin, whose reputation for innovation and creativity is well-earned. We at the Chamber are forecasting exciting new developments ahead in 2011.

Posted by Rebecca Martin, SVP, Austin Chamber of Commerce

Read More