A BrightEdger

M Posted 11 years ago

t 9 min read

Cindy Phan is the Senior Manager of Digital Marketing Strategy at VMware and this is her 3^rd time at Share15! Cindy first joined the company back in 2011 and since then has largely created her position. As the company went through organizational changes and shifted towards digital marketing, she found herself leading the digital marketing strategy for the group. We thought her insights into the industry and the ever-changing digital marketing space made her an excellent resource and we were excited to have the chance to chat before Share15 kicks off on 21 .

Excitement about Share15

BrightEdge (BE): What are you looking forward to most about Share?

Cindy Phan (CP): This is my third time attending Share. I have always tried to attend at least a few sessions and networking events each year because it is an exciting few days. I love having the chance to meet the different industry greats and exchange ideas at Share. Of course, the fantastic food and fun times at the parties do not hurt the experience either!

BE: What are you planning on speaking about at Share?

CP: I plan on sharing a case study that we did here at VMware. We focused on determining the value of our social and major components, starting about a year ago, and we have some exciting insights to share. I plan on diving into the information and explaining how we plan on putting it to good use and how to optimize and leverage this value at your own organization. Many people do not consider all the levels of optimization. For example, in-channel optimization is big. You can optimize pieces within your social media presence, such as your LinkedIn page or your Facebook page, to attract more traffic and enhance the value of these profiles. I really want to help people see the big picture and how all the little things they do along the way can come together to make their brands an online success.

The Role of BrightEdge in Digital Success

BE: How has BrightEdge helped you accomplish your goals?

CP: BrightEdge has always been the backbone of our website. When I was a part of the web team we were focused on going international and leveraging BrightEdge to make sure that all the pages had relevant content. Producing content for an international audience has its own type of challenges, including the struggle to understand the local audience and what they want to read. BrightEdge made it possible for us to monitor our websites closely so that we could see how they were performing. We used a number of the different components available on the platform: Share of Voice, keywords, traffic monitoring, recommendations. The platform allowed us to amplify our efforts and really grow our online presence.

Common Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

BE: What do you think is one of the most common mistakes of marketers?

CP: I think that people spend too much time measuring metrics that really do not matter at the end of the day. It is fantastic if a lot of people are reading and sharing your content, but that does not really put money in the bank. You have to see how much your material actually contributes to your pipeline and ROI. When you are beginning a marketing campaign you are given a budget, and you need to spend that money like it was your own. Chances are, you do not go out and spend your money without thinking about the consequences. You make decisions wisely about what will best serve you. When you start a new campaign you want to carefully measure and execute the campaign according to what will best serve the brand best financially. You need to choose the best tools and tactics and then track everything from a-z.

How to Become a Successful Marketer and Elevate Your Career

BE: What do you think makes a successful marketer?

CP: Marketers are an interesting bunch. Successful ones are hybrids. They have to be both creative and analytical. It takes a special type of person to be both. You have to really enjoy the field and be willing to always try new things. It will get boring very fast if you are always doing the same thing day in and day out. If you are willing to experiment and look for new things to try, it can be an incredibly exciting field.

The Fun Stuff

BE: Can you tell us something fun about yourself?

CP: I actually ran a tea shop for a about 4 years. I think that gives me a unique perspective on the role of a business. This really helps me remember the importance of being customer-centric. It is a lot easier to remember the customer when you deal with them every day as they come into your shop than when you are a large business locked away in an office building, but keeping the customer is critical no matter how big you get. It was fun having the opportunity to speak with Cindy before Share. We look forward to seeing her again in just a few weeks at the event.

If you have not had the opportunity to register for Share15, make sure you head over to our conference page and sign up. We look forward to seeing you there!

Conference Details September 21-23 Westin St Francis San Francisco, CA 

A BrightEdger

M Posted 11 years ago

t 9 min read

As the Director of Digital Marketing for Maxim Integrated, Robert Reneau is in charge of managing the user experience, site planning and international business strategy for the group. Robert leads a team of marketers in the development of useful web applications and finding new ways to enhance the experience of a website visitor.

Robert will be joining us at Share 15 to speak about scaling content and how you can develop internal content-building processes that help enhance your digital marketing efforts while also creating a culture of content throughout your group. He was kind enough to sit down with us to talk about the latest in the industry and give some insights about his upcoming presentation.

About Maxim at Share

BrightEdge (BE): Can you tell us a bit about your presentation? You do not have to give away the game, but give us some teasers about what we can expect.

Robert Reneau (RR): I am going to explore the art of repurposing content. I have found that many companies are challenged to produce consistent content at scale, so I will discuss how to take content and repurpose it so that it supports mass usage across multiple channels. I will share some of the best practices we use here at Maxim and I hope to provide some valuable insights for attendees about how to best succeed with content development.

Scaling content is something that is faced by many companies, so the topic should be relatable for just about anyone in the audience. I work on a global scale with the Maxim brand, developing successful marketing and business strategies. I believe that many attendees will be able to take away some great ideas for making content work for their businesses.

About the BrightEdge platform

BE: How has BrightEdge helped you succeed as a brand? RR: As I already mentioned, at Maxim we are dealing with a global audience. We needed a system that would allow us to monitor our progress and see how our sites were performing.

“BrightEdge allows us to do that. Its capacity to scale to handle our traffic from around the world and monitor the performance of our SEO efforts and our site rankings is incredible.”

Recommended reading

BE: Have you read any great business books lately that you would recommend?

RR: I really enjoyed the book Sound Investments by Neville Goddard. The book is about making solid decisions that help you continually grow in abundance. This does not only apply to financial decisions, but also to a general way of living your life so that you can be successful in the areas that matter most to you. I have found that the lessons from the book are excellent from a personal standpoint. It really reminds you to look at factors, such as where you are spending your time, and how that impacts your success and your goals in life.

About the industry

BE: What do you think are some common challenges for people in the industry?

RR: I think demonstrating ROI, especially financial ROI, is critical for many businesses but struggling with accurate metrics is common. You have to track ROI across all your different channels and that can be a challenge, particularly for those in the B2B sector. I am regularly concerned with being budget conscious-- and I cannot imagine that I am the only one with those concerns. I find that the key to accurately tracking financial ROI is looking beyond the basic metrics that tell you how many people read your content or how many people shared your content. You have to measure your cost per lead during your content marketing campaigns as well as your cost per sale. Use this information to refine your campaigns and gain a better understanding of your marketing financials.

BE: What new marketing frontiers are you excited to explore?

RR: I am really looking forward to trying advanced personalization techniques - taking user information and leveraging it to provide the most relevant content at a user’s fingertips. The techniques have been evolving for us at Maxim and we have been looking to build out a platform. We are now in a position to dive in deeper during the next fiscal year and it should be an exciting adventure. It was wonderful having the opportunity to speak with Robert Reneau in preparation for Share15. We are just weeks away from the start of the conference and it will be fantastic to listen to Robert’s presentation.

If you have not signed up yet, register today. We hope to see you there.

Conference Details September 21-23 Westin St. Francis San Francisco, CA 

A BrightEdger

M Posted 11 years ago

t 9 min read

David Fisher serves as the Global Head of Search Marketing for Schneider Electric, an international company that has been around for more than 150 years. He is responsible for managing SEO for all the Schneider Electric web assets as well as PPC advertising, strategic direction and the on-site search capabilities for the brand. He has been spending the last year optimizing the web properties of the company, which has been a considerable undertaking that intrigued us. David sat down with us to discuss his excitement for Share, the progress he has made at the company, the role of BrightEdge as well as his thoughts on the industry in general. It was a fantastic discussion that we cannot wait to continue at Share in a few weeks.

The Networking at Share

BrightEdge (BE): What are you looking forward to most about Share?

David Fisher (DF): This is my first Share and I am really excited about the interpersonal connection. I do not really know anyone who does what I do, but I look forward to having the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the best in the industry-- to meet people that I can connect with and send that email or call when I want to bounce ideas off someone.

“It will be great to meet others who fully understand my job and what I am trying to accomplish.”

I really think the best way to get the most out of Share, or any conference experience, is to never be shy about introducing yourself. Turn to the person sitting next to you and just start talking. You never know if they are going to have the advice or experience you need.

On Share and Global Marketing

BE: What will you speak about at the conference?

DF: I will discuss how a brand can push a global effort while managing it on a local level. The biggest piece of this puzzle is realizing that unless you can speak every language, you are going to need people to help you with your global effort. You need to find a balance between giving people free reign and micromanaging them. I will also be discussing the challenges of translating and analyzing content on an international level. For example, we have worked to develop a database of keywords and translations of those words to ensure that our content is optimized for the different countries and that the words are always translated the same way. I will look to share some of the insights I have gained working at Schneider.

About BrightEdge

BE: Can you tell us a little more about how BrightEdge has helped you with your goals in the past year?

DF: I was actually brought on last fall and I have really been focused on change management and helping to bring the brand up to speed. We have been using the BrightEdge platform to track our variety of different web properties. We are a global brand and we have different domains for most countries where we operate-- that means that we have 60 different domains. While this system might not work for everyone, it works well for us. It does make my job a bit more complicated. I have to monitor the optimization, track keywords, traffic and all other analytics for all of our sites-- not just one. We needed a system that could handle our enormous needs, and BrightEdge met the challenge with ease.

“BrightEdge is like a data cruncher on steroids. I have shown it to others and they have been amazed at its capabilities. The Share of Voice, data analysis, Data Cube and other applications make it easy for us to easily see how our different sites are performing. I love introducing people to the program. Even people who are not really ‘techy’ get excited about the features, which then helps me sell them on the larger idea of SEO and optimization. We already have probably 400 users on the platform and we are looking to add even more in 2016.”

Growing with Your Marketing Efforts

BE: What insights about the shift from keyword to page performance strategies have you gained from your work at Schneider?

DF: That is where we are. All the latest advice says, “keywords do not matter”... I tell people: keywords do not matter-- once you have already optimized your content. We are still at that initial stage, getting our content properly optimized. I have found it to be very important to take a step back and evaluate your site. Brands really need to look at their long-term strategy and how they want their website to fit in with their company. Will it be for brand awareness? Will it be used for ecommerce? Once you see how your website fits into your long-term goals, you can work to begin to design pages that fit with that goal and measure more meaningful metrics. Right now we are working to increase our content production and encourage people to opt in and let us know who they are, such as establishing newsletter opt-in or signing up for a callback. In the next year, we hope to begin the shift towards using data instead of hunches. We also want to make the switch from having web assets because that is what you are supposed to do and actually leveraging them for conversions.

BE: What advice you give people about the convergence of paid, owned and earned media?

DF: If you are not at least strategically aligned, then you are really missing out on key opportunities. It is going to be a challenge because there are significant differences in the strategies between the different types of marketing, but you should have at least a high level agreement across all the types of media about your goals and how they fit together. Make it a priority to establish their core alignment to see success in your marketing strategies.

The fun stuff

BE: Can you tell us something fun about yourself?

DF: I am actually a milliner. In other words, I am an experienced hat maker. It was a bit of a spontaneous interest. I was watching Alice in Wonderland and googled hat making. I ended up stumbling upon a class at a local community college and the rest is history. It has been a hobby for about 6 years now.

BE: What about your company, anything interesting there?

DF: I find it intriguing that I do not actually share an office with anyone else with whom I work. I have colleagues in Paris, Rhode Island, California... it really is a global team! It was great chatting with David in preparation for Share15.

Conference Details September 21-23 Westin St. Francis San Francisco, CA 

A BrightEdger

M Posted 11 years ago

t 9 min read

You know you want to attend Share15, but your boss may need some convincing. If it’s not enough to share what previous attendees have to say about the conference, let us help prepare you with ways to convince your boss. Three main reasons:

1. Product Knowledge
2. Industry Insights and Skills
3. Networking

You will gain valuable insights with incredible learning opportunities

Share15 is packed with great ways to learn the latest skills, techniques and the latest thinking. From BrightEdge certification courses for those new to the platform and for more experienced users, to hands-on labs, group discussion forums, breakout and general sessions and more.  Whether you want to roll up your sleeves and learn new products and features, hear experts discuss the latest trends or contribute to discussion forums on marketing challenges, Share15 has something to offer for your interests and expertise. Sponsors and BrightEdge will be showcasing the latest technologies at the solution showcase and during hands-on labs held throughout the conference.

Attending Share15 will elevate your performance

The agenda has been created to focus on delivering answers to the key challenges facing digital marketers, content marketers and search professionals today. You will hear from practitioners, experts and leaders in the industry who will offer insights from case studies of real-world application of the latest marketing techniques.  With over 60 case studies from marketers at leading brands, you will walk away with practical solutions you can put immediately into use.

You will network with leaders in our industry and our peers

Share15 is full of marketing leaders and practitioners.  With over 60 speakers and attendees from many of the world’s largest brands you will make connections you can only imagine. Whatever your role, industry or company type Share15 will have attendees and speakers ready to share their insights, knowledge and skills with you, or to just chat about industry gossip over lunch or drinks. We’ve designed the event to give you plenty of opportunities to engage with the other attendees in a fun and meaningful way. If this information alone isn’t enough,  we’ve created justification letters you can share with your boss to convince them to send you. You can download versions customized for Search Professionals, Content Marketers, and those most interested in Digital Marketing. They help explain the benefits you and your company will gain from your attending the event and will help you create an approximate budget to show what the investment will be. We hope you are able to use all of this to convince your boss to let you join us at Share15. 

dpatel

M Posted 11 years ago

t 9 min read

For both B2C and B2B companies, exposure and driving relevant traffic is critical to finding new leads and improving the brand’s reach. Content syndication offers brands an opportunity to leverage the audience of other popular sites to increase the visibility of their original site. Content syndication can be controversial in the minds of some marketers, because like many other SEO methods, there is both a right way and a wrong way to use it. If you do not use this system correctly, you can end up penalized because of duplicate content, hurting your marketing efforts. If you are considering using this method as a part of your lead generation tactics, here is what you should know about using it successfully.

Understanding how content syndication can boost lead generation

Content syndication means publishing a copy of your existing content from your website on another site. You might choose to do a copy of an entire article, a snippet or just a headline. The goal behind this type of tactic is to attract the interest of the audience on the more popular site and send them back to your original site and grow your own brand reach.

By publishing on a more established website, you can also give your content greater authority because you will be associated with the site and brand the audience already trusts. Generating greater traffic and improving your brand authority are both valuable aspects to finding new leads, and content syndication can be a successful method for both B2B and B2C companies. The key to using this method appropriately is selecting the right content and posting it on the right website while also avoiding any potential Google penalties that could end up hurting your original website.

Choosing your website

Using content syndication successfully requires sites that can help you attract the traffic you need. That means finding a website that targets your own ideal audience and has a higher authority than your site. This can help bolster your own reputation and encourage the people who visit your brand site after reading your content to trust what you have to say.

Choosing your content

Generally, it is best to syndicate some of your highest quality content. You have to remember that the site publishing the content is considered an authoritative website. If you publish only mediocre work, then the article will not attract the desired attention. At the same time, the entire purpose of the syndication process is to send the traffic from the publishing site back to your original site. That means you do not want to publish all of your best work on other sites. There should be enough left that is unique to your site so people who visit your page will find something valuable which encourages them to stay and explore. You also need to consider the type of content you want to publish. If you are interested primarily in growing traffic, for instance, it might make more sense to syndicate just headlines or smaller portions of your pieces. This will offer the audience enough to interest them and encourage them to click through and learn more. If you are taking more of a brand awareness approach to building leads, you might find success by syndicating entire articles or longer excerpts, which will increase the number of people who read your ideas in full on the original site.

Avoiding penalties

Avoiding Google’s duplicate content penalties is always a chief concern for those interested in syndicating some of their content. After all, recent Google updates, including the famed Panda update, have played a large role in trying to eliminate duplicate content from SERPs. Fortunately, when content syndication is done well, you do not have to worry about incurring any problems. Here are a few tips you can use to let Google ‘understand’ your content.

Rel=canonical

Whenever possible, this solution is the best choice for avoiding Google penalties. You place this tag on the page with the syndicated content and have the tag list the original address of the article. This tells Google that the second version is just a copy and where the original lives. Not only does this allow you to avoid potential problems, but any links that go to the copy of the article will be ‘counted’ for the original version. The canonical tag for an article about green dresses would look like this according to Google:

NoIndex

If you cannot place a canonical tag on the copy of the article, see if you can place a NoIndex in the copy of the article. This tells Google not to ‘read’ this version of the article, so there is only one copy in the Search Engine Index. While this will solve your duplicate content problem, any links that the copy accrues will not point back to your original piece, which can limit the benefits of the syndication process. According to Google, using this meta tag should look like this:

Including an attribution link

Sometimes you might be publishing a syndicated copy on a website that does not want to include a canonical tag or a NoIndex. In that case, the best solution may be a direct attribution link. This link should go directly to the original version of the article. This will generally be enough to let the search engines know that this is a copy of the original article. Like the NoIndex solution, however, any links that reference the copy will not acknowledge your original site. If the site that will be hosting your content will not agree to any of these conditions, you will have to carefully evaluate whether the syndication is worth the effort. It is possible that the copy of the article will end up ranking higher than your original, since it is a more authoritative site. If the site is a fantastic match for your marketing efforts, however, and has the potential to generate some traffic and leads for you, then the risk may be worth it.

Paid syndication

In addition to syndicating your content through other industry websites, you also have the option of using one of the many paid options. For this system you will select vendors who will reprint your content on popular websites to help you get your material in front of the ideal audience. Some of the more popular vendors are: - Emedia - Netline - Reachmail - ThirdDoorMedia - Ziff Davis These sites work on a Cost Per Lead (CPL) system. It is generally best for you to start with tight filters that allow you to focus on cultivating the most appropriate leads. You can always loosen your filters as you gauge your success with the system.

Tighter filters will increase your CPL, but the higher quality of the leads should offset the higher investment. Working with paid syndication requires some experimenting to find the system that will work best for you. Begin by confirming with the vendor exactly what they will be doing to generate leads. You will then want to begin with about two to three assets in rotation. It is best to use pieces that have helped you bring in leads in the past. If at all possible, supply your own marketing content as well. If you do not have any available, most vendors will supply it and you can then make modifications to better suite your brand. Beginning with a small budget and a short rotation time will allow you accurately gauge the success of the system based upon your current parameters without spending unnecessarily.

You can then modify your filters or content and try again as you better understood your path to success. Content syndication can be a wonderful means of growing traffic and establishing authority through already-popular sites. To use this system correctly, however, you need to be careful with your selections and employ best practices to minimize risk and maximize yield.