November 2009 – Channel Crossing: Online

A Product Launch for the Digital Age

By Michael Weisfeld and Howard Chen

“Extra, extra–read all about it!” This old-time cry apparently used by bygone newspaper boys takes on a whole new meaning in today’s digital age. There was a time when the task of getting information to the masses was an awe-inspiring feat, typically handled by large media companies. Today, the world has gotten smaller and with the capabilities of online technologies, the only real challenge faced by marketers seems to be simply the limit of their imaginations.

But let’s be real. This undertaking requires a combination of creativity and execution–not to mention diligent follow-through.

Perform Keyword Research
Connie Mack, the longest-serving manager in MLB history, famously said, “You can’t win ‘em all.” Likewise, marketers simply can’t optimize for every keyword they can think of.

Keyword research is the process of identifying the set of words to target for pull-marketing tactics, such as search engine optimization and social media. This set of words is specifically identified to give brands the most bang for their buck. Start with a set of about 25 “seed words” that describe the product and company. Feed these into keyword research tools like those offered by Google or SEOTools to determine possible variations and associated search volumes. Review the output to select approximately 100 words for your target list. The criteria for selecting a word is a combination of relevancy to your website and predicted search volume.

Develop Content Strategy
The next step is to develop a content strategy that includes assets such as text, images, videos and other files that can be published to the Internet. A successful strategy incorporates brand messaging in all published content and an editorial calendar for continuous content development.

The content should be interesting and valuable to the users during all stages of the marketing lifecycle. Its presentation should help facilitate users’ awareness, interest, desire, action and advocacy for your product. If you find creating content to be a challenge, Junta42.com is a great resource for ideas and vendors.

An example of a good content strategy is Ford’s FiestaMovement.com. The strategy involves consistent messaging through social media channels like Facebook and Twitter to gain product awareness for the upcoming Fiesta model. To further generate interest, Ford has mobilized “agents” from across the nation to blog about their experiences with the vehicle. Desire is also targeted with a “Design Your Own Fiesta” application, which helps users shape their own 2011 Fiesta. Action is then facilitated by placing calls-to-action like test-drive events and an updates subscription. Last but not least, advocacy is supported with sharable features on all content.

Search Engine Optimization
Now you have to optimize all that useful content so that it’s properly indexed by search engines–and can then be found by your target audience when they are interested in learning more about it or better yet, making a purchase. In combination with an SEO program, PPC advertising also helps drive traffic to your website.

Closely monitor the keywords that are achieving premium rankings on search engine results pages and referring visitors to the website, especially branded terms. It is also important to make note of words used by your visitors as logged by your web analytics or onsite search. These might be words used repeatedly by your visiting audience, but which are not on the targeted keyword list. These words should be evaluated and leveraged for inspiration to amend or optimize your content strategy.

User Experience
Simply having more traffic to your site is not enough. While it’s important to have an intuitive and engaging website, the real success lies in producing quantifiable results that meet your business objectives. You will have to prevent visitors from bouncing immediately after they land on your website; first website impressions play a large role in the success of your product launch.

Many marketers have the common misconception that interesting content will overshadow poor usability. Wrong. When the user can’t find the content on your website, it may as well not exist. To make content more visible throughout your website, create “information paths” for the user to follow. An information path is the logical progression of content from broad to very detailed–and will move your customer through the conversion funnel.

Social Media
With so much effort already placed toward developing user-centered content, it would be illogical to keep this content solely on a single website. Instead, flaunt it using two distinct social media approaches. First, you should look to have social features added to your website to support a positive user experience. Examples of social features include a “share this” (www.sharethis.com) button, ratings and reviews, chat and a blog. Platforms such as Facebook have even created APIs (http://developers.facebook.com/ connect.php) that allow users to sign into your website with their Facebook identity.

The second way you can add social media to your product launch is by creating social profiles off your domain on popular platforms like Facebook and Twitter. But also look to extend to niche online communities relevant to your product.

Social media’s main value in a product launch is its ability to extend the reach and frequency of the broadcast of your content. Social media also markets to a targeted audience which has the propensity to create links in their online conversations, which in turn generate synergistic results with SEO. These created links, if rel=”follow,” supply ample SEO value as they pass the page rank of the website. While rel=”nofollow” links fail to contribute to SEO, they’re still useful in driving traffic to a related destination page.

Social links are even more likely to get clicked than banner ads because they are essentially online word-of-mouth referrals. Therefore, when launching a product, it is important to create ways for your growing customer base to easily become advocates and share their experiences with their online contacts. Also, don’t ignore the feedback provided by conversations developing in these communities. Think of these conversations as focus groups with data to supply to product managers or engineers for risk mitigation or future inspiration.

Analytics
Like DR, online marketing is all trackable. You need to gather data from numerous sources and assemble it in an analytics dashboard. Key performance indicators (KPIs) should be applied to each content. When tracked, these KPIs should tell a story about not only the performance of each piece of content, but also the user behaviors. For example, you should be able to determine the popular keywords that drive traffic to your website, how many visitors stayed and for how long and what content they consumed during their visit. Ultimately, these KPIs supplement your analytics platforms to determine the ratio between site visits and products purchased.

As marketing shifts from push to pull, traditional to online and paper to digital, product launches require more than just a smart idea and capable technologies–they require a smart online execution.

Michael Weisfeld is director of online marketing solutions at BusinessOnLine. He can be reached at michael.weisfeld@businessOL.com. Howard Chen is senior social media analyst and can be reached at howard.chen @businessOL.com.