Newsweaver provides businesses with the software and expert advice to implement email newsletter programmes, from the initial newsletter design to tracking readers’ behaviour. The company offers a self-service web-based solution that is easy to use and can be managed either in-house or externally by Newsweaver. Its client base spans 18 different countries, but the main geographic focus is predominantly the UK and Ireland.
Even though Newsweaver’s software is web based, the company is NOT a web-based company and do not sell any products online.
Objectives of the campaign:
- To position itself online as knowledge leaders and experts in the area of email newsletters.
- Achieve a strong online presence and a Google PageRank of 5/10 by end of 2007.
- Appear in the first two pages of Google for both natural search and pay-per-click for at least 50 per cent of its target keywords.
- Deliver 300 sales leads per month from search marketing activity for the sales team to follow-up.
- To target UK marketing managers in medium to large sized companies.
Strategy
As the company’s target market relies heavily on the Internet for sourcing new suppliers, online marketing and the effective use of the Internet was key for it to achieve business growth. At the start of 2007 the company’s visibility in search engines was poor and it was appearing on or after page 10 of Google’s organic listings for the majority of its target keywords – for example, Newsweaver was appearing on page 26 of Google’s organic listings for the keyword ’email newsletters’.
To drive traffic to its website and generate sales leads, the company needed to implement an integrated search marketing campaign, combining both pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimisation. Appearing high in Google’s organic listings was particularly important as over 89 percent of B2B decision makers use the organic listings on the first two pages of Google when sourcing a new supplier (MarketingSherpa 2007).
Media:
1. Google SEO
Appearing high in Google’s organic listings was particularly important as the majority of B2B decision makers use the organic listings in Google when sourcing a new supplier.
To help achieve a high ranking, an extensive keyword analysis with UK marketing managers in medium to large sized companies was conducted. Keywords were then selected on the basis of what potential buyers would be likely to use and the company’s website was optimisedfor these. This involved restructuring our website so that content, title and meta tags were keyword rich, and regularly publishing fresh content related to the company’s target keywords. To help ensure that we had a content rich website we also created a ‘Knowledge Bank’ section containing a series of email marketing guides and just under 30 pages of content built around our target keywords.
2. Pay-per-click advertising
An extensive pay-per-click campaign targeting marketing managers in the market for an email service provider was implemented. There is a real science to achieving a top position in Google pay-per-click without spending a fortune. To do this bids had to be continually refined and improved, as well as, ad wording, ad grouping and keywords to achieve as high a position as possible for minimum spend.
3. Blog
A blog ’email matters!’ was written by Denise Cox, Newsweaver’s email newsletter expert. Not
only did it help position the company as thought leaders, but because it was hosted as part of Newsweaver’s website and fresh content was being regularly published through the blog as well as being linked to by other industry experts, it helped to increase natural rankings within Google.
4. Landing pages
All of this would be of little use if we did not have the tools in place to convert the clicks we gained from our search marketing activity into actual leads. To do this landing pages wer optimised and through improving the design, layout and content increased our overall conversion rate from 3 per cent to over 11 per cent.
5. Email Newsletter
Sign-up to a monthly email newsletter was promoted, providing subscribers with relevant news, articles and best-practice tips for email marketing. This allowed for opportunities to build and nurture relationships with prospects.
Results
Newsweaver now appears on the first page of Google’s organic listings for over 50 percent of its top keywords and on pages 1 and 2 for over 80 percent, making Newsweaver significantly more visible to potential buyers. For example we are now the first listing on page one of Google’s organic listings for the keyword ’email newsletters’.
The blog has exceeded all expectations and is now the highest visited page on company’s website, attracting over 1300 visits per month and the blog itself has a Google PageRank of 6/10. It has grown to become a reputable source of email marketing advice and has proved to be a great way to connect with potential customers.
All of this, combined with the pay-per-click advertising campaign, is generating just over 400 sales leads per month and accounts for 60 percent of our revenue. Some of our recent UK account wins from this activity have included companies such as Comet, EON, Scottish Enterprise and Standard Chartered Bank.
Finally, as a result of the improvements made to the website, the Google page rank increased from 4/10 to 5/10 by mid 2007.
