Best Practices November 2004

Best Practices
Email and Search Engine Marketing
By Randall Litchfield

As the fastest-growing segments in online marketing, email and search engines are natural partners for lead generation and follow-up. Here's how to use them to best advantage.

"Levelling the playing field." That may be the best way to describe the effects of search engine and email marketing. To give a striking example, a US search engine marketing firm recently analyzed the main corporate sites of the first 100 companies in the Internet Retailer magazine list of Top 300 companies. Among those using extensive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, 67% appeared within the first 10 listings (usually page one) of a Google search. Of those using no SEO, none appeared in the top 10 or even the top 30. Even large, well-known companies suffered. For example, little-known Proflowers.com easily outranked 1-800-FLOWERS and FTD. Similarly, small online booksellers like AbeBooks.com outpulled Barnes and Noble because they focussed on a wider set of pertinent keywords.

The bottom line is that there are few companies that can't benefit from the leads generated by good search engine optimization (companies like Inbox provide these services - please see Inbox Services for more details). But equally important is what you do with the leads after they are generated, and this is where email comes in. Here is an easy 5-step program that we call Gather, Groom & Grow:

  1. Define your keywords: That's how search engines search. They read the contents of your site and note the use of certain words and phrases and then index them in massive databases.

  2. Audit your site: When people type in these words and phrases into a search engine, it consults the database and displays the results according to rankings. Your ranking depends on many factors in the way you have used and displayed your keywords, both visibly (in the actual displayed content of your site) and invisibly (in your site's HTML source code).

  3. Maximize your rankings: Make sure you use SEO techniques to boost these rankings or contract a firm that can do this for you.

  4. Set up a lead response: This is the Gather phase. You have made considerable effort to maximize the number of visitors to your site, but what do you plan to do with them? You must actively engage them to the point of providing personal contact information. Try an email newsletter or email alerts to regular product updates, etc.

  5. Engage in continuous client communications: Now it's time to Groom these new leads into serious prospects with well-defined interests and requirements. You can do this over time by asking for new information and adding it to the customer profiles in your email database. Later, you can dynamically personalize your email communications so that each person is receiving the content most meaningful to them.
Once you do these five things, the Grow phase is a natural byproduct. Properly administered, search engines and email form a natural communications loop that can find the right prospects and turn them into loyal, profitable customers.