What is Consumer Generated Content?

It is content that users (or consumers) write and submit online and can be:

·         Product reviews (e.g. Amazon.com)

·         Service reviews (e.g. Google Local)

·         Seller reviews (e.g. ebay)

·         Blog comments

·         News comments

·         Forum posts or comments

·         Video/Audio and Photo sharing sites (e.g. YouTube and Flickr)

·         Social networking sites comments or posts (e.g. Twitter, SecondLife, Facebook, MySpace)

·         Wikis

·         Composite review sites (e.g. ConsumerReport.org)

Is Consumer Generated Content (CGC) Really Such A Big Deal?

The data is two-sided; and both sides of the coin – Consumers and Marketers – answer with a resounding ‘Yes!’:

1. Consumers are relying more and more on UGC:

·         According to Rubicon, ‘online comments and reviews posted by the enthusiasts are second only to word of mouth as a purchase driver for all web users. Those personal reviews are far more influential than official reviews posted by a website or magazine, or information posted online by a manufacturer.’

·         The Rubicon data also indicates that around 80% of all UGC is contributed by around 9% of the US online population. This 9% is in the majority impartial, honest and equally likely to post both negative and positive comments or opinions. In some cases, such as on Amazon, the reviews themselves are open to voting:

·         As of October 2008, almost half of US online adults read ratings and reviews at least once a month, and 19% post them. Nearly twice as many read reviews compared with 2007. (The Growth Of Social Technology Adoption, Forrester, 2008)*

·         Satisfaction for those who recalled customer reviews on the retailers’ site is 10% higher than those who said there were no reviews offered. (30 UK Online Retail Satisfaction Index, January 2008, ForeSee Results)*

·         83% of shoppers said online product evaluations and reviews had at least some level of influence on their purchasing decisions. (Opinion Research Corporation, an infoGROUP company, July 2008)*

·         74% agree—including 14% who strongly agree—that they choose companies and brands based on what others say online about their customer service experiences, the survey shows. (Society for New Communications Research, May 2008)*

·         70% of online consumers said they use the Internet to research everyday grocery products. (Prospectiv, 2008)*

·         91% of millionaires say they always or often look at reviews before buying luxury goods; 68% of ultra-affluent shoppers use consumer reviews. (Unity Marketing/Google study, reported in AdAge October 2008)*

2. Marketers are relying more and more on UGC:

·         The Shop.org State of Retailing Online study, conducted by Forrester Research, found only 26% of the 137 top retailers surveyed offered customer ratings and reviews, but 96% of them ranked customer ratings and reviews as an effective or very effective tactic at driving conversion. (Forrester)*

·         68% of online marketers believe “media is in big trouble and will lose dollars to user-generated content.” (iMedia Connection, February 2008)*

·         By 2020, 84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing’s primary objective, and 82% agree that collaboration with customers will prevail over marketing. (1to1 Media survey of the 1to1 Xchange panel, April, 2008)*

·         11% of retailers reported a 20% or more overall increase in conversions as a result of adding reviews to their sites, 21% reported an 11% to 20% increase and 5% reported a 1% to 10% increase. (eTailing Group, 2008)*

·         Consumers were willing to pay between 20 to 99% more for a 5-star rated product than for a 4-star rated product, depending on the product category. (comScore/Kelsey, October 2007)*

·         Reviews usage drives higher spending: 27% of users report an increase of 5-10%; almost 7% report an increase of 20%+. (Avenue A/Razorfish “Digital Consumer Behavior Study,” October 2007) *

·         In a study of a major electronics retailer site of 30,000 search visitors landing on user review  pages converted 60% more often, spent 50% more, and viewed 82% more pages than search visitors to other pages. (Bazaarvoice case study with major electronics retailer)*

Case Study: PETCO (2007)*:

• Shoppers who browsed the site’s “Top Rated Products” page, which features products rated most highly by customers, had a 49% higher conversion rate than the site average.
• Giving shoppers the ability to sort products within a category by customer rating led to a sales increase of 41% per unique visitor.
• After their order, PETCO asked customers, “What online tool most influenced your purchase decision?“ The Number 1 answer was product ratings and reviews, with site search coming in a distant second.
• PETCO realized a 5X increase in email click-through rates by including relevant ratings and reviews content in the campaign promotion.
• Products with reviews have a 17% lower return rate than those without reviews.

…But, the impact of UGC doesn’t stop there…

UGC Influences Offline Commerce

·         For every $1 in online sales, the Internet influenced $3.45 of store sales. (eMarketer, 2007)

·         24% of internet users reported using online reviews prior to paying for a service delivered offline. (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)

·         More than 75% of review users in nearly every category reported that the review had a significant influence on their purchase, with hotels ranking the highest (87%). (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)

·         97% of those surveyed who said they made a purchase based on an online review said they found the review to have been accurate. (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)

·         Consumers who shop online for digital cameras and TVs spend 10% more on in-store purchases than consumers who do not search online. (ChannelForce for Yahoo Search Marketing)

·         90% of those surveyed say they have a better overall shopping experience when they research products online before shopping in-store. (Harris Interactive, October 2007)

“But What About Negative UGC?”

If people are researching a product online, they are looking for what might be wrong with it. If you can be transparent on your own site about your product or service by offering reviews, then you can be sure that both positive and negative feedback (if warranted) will be included.**

1. Negative Reviews are actually of interest:

Based on the fact that folks are likely to continue searching if there is nothing negative about a product, just to make sure, especially with electronics or high-end purchases, if you don’t offer a transparent insight into your offering on your own site, by people who have actually bought from you, these researchers are very likely to go elsewhere to keep researching.**

·         “As for the product(s) with negative reviews … my experience is that negative reviews do not hurt a product as long as there are also positive reviews associated with it.”  - Don Zeidler, Director, Burpee.com**

2. Negative reviews provide helpful feedback to consumers and R&D:

·         “For example, what’s one of the best selling products so far this decade? The Apple iPod. It gets a ton of positive reviews, but one negative comment you’ll see over and over again is that the surface of the iPod scratches easily. Customers say things that the retailer and Apple can’t say: “When you buy this, get a case”. Obviously this is not stopping customers from buying the iPod, but this constructive advice is getting them to buy a case.” – Sam Decker, VP Marketing, BazaarVoice

3. Negative Reviews provide authenticity:

Why would a well known, enormously powerful and successful online retailer continue selling a product that had far more negative reviews than positive? Should they? Yes!

·         Case Study**:

·         Product: Hot Wheels Slimecano

·         Reseller: Amazon.com

·         Some Review Titles:

o        “Junk, not worth any price”         

o        “I wish I could give it zero stars”

o        “If you want your son to cry, buy this toy!”

o        “If you want your husband to cry, buy this toy!”

·         Reseller Objective:

If the retailer’s mission is to be a trusted editor of its assortment, then products with overwhelmingly negative reviews will prune the assortment quickly for the best products. But the reseller needs to continue selling the product as an ‘objective provider’ and let the market forces, or in this case, parental voices, have their impact. After a year and half, Amazon stopped selling the toy, but kept the reviews, the image and the page… Good Job!

4. Positive Reviews Outweigh Negatives:

·         62 percent of brand-related talk features products in a positive light, while less than 10% of conversations feature products negatively. (KellerFay Group)

·         60 percent of online shoppers provide feedback about shopping experiences, and they are more likely to give feedback about a positive experience than a negative one.  (Jupiter)

Conclusion

If you sell products and services, and if you have a web site, make sure you allow for reviews. If your products are great to mediocre, you should get far more positive than negative feedback, and a resultant positive impact on sales and revenue.

If you sell a crappy product – in the words of Sam Decker:

1.  Without reviews, you keep selling the product and risk costly returns and low customer satisfaction

2.  With reviews, you can use the leading indicator of negative reviews and quickly remove this product from inventory to reduce returns and improve satisfaction

3.  Or, just allow the negative reviews to steer customers to a more satisfying purchase within the category. Let the best products win, and you will win.

Therefore, make sure you enable and allow feedback, optimize your review pages, and get traction for them in the search results by supporting brand evangelists, and answering detractor issues promptly and diplomatically.

Happy UGC integration!!!

* BazaarVoice

** iMediaConnection

Please take our 4 quick surveys for SEM Pros everywhere!

We decided to run a small series of SEM questionnaires to check and report how SEM is perceived and conducted by the folks who took part… After receiving more than 200 surveys in less than 72 hours over the weekend, we have had to do a few things:

1. append a final date for survey submission (5^th December)
2. make public our date of survey publication (10^th December)
3. request that later survey folk complete earlier surveys… list below:

Please take the FIRST 10 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

Please take the SECOND 10 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

Please take the THIRD 10 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

Please take the final Fourth (hardcore) 30 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

****update 11.12.08 ****

FEEDBACK HAS BEEN AWESOME! WE HAVE HAD TO SET A DEADLINE… ALL SURVEY QUESTIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY 5TH DECEMBER. RESULTS WILL BE MADE PUBLIC ON THE 10TH.

We feel safe saying the more we have, the more statistically significant the data is… Please do take part. Results are free!

***end update****

We thought it about time someone involved in search conducted a little survey of their own. Being the cheapo that I am this is a free survey, with free software, and offers you nothing at all in terms of remuneration. It is however totally anonymous.

Please take the FIRST 10 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

Please take the SECOND 10 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

Please take the THIRD 10 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

Please take the Fourth (hardcore) 30 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

The objective

To give you, our industry pros, real insights into who’s doing what, for how much, working from where, and what their real thoughts are on on-page seo, backlinks, favorite blogs, analytics, search engine practice and protocols, search behavior, tools and more.

The not-so exciting news

There will be a series of around 10 surveys, each only 10 questions (most multiple choice so you just ‘click’ a few times), all anonymous, over a period of 2 months. I would be very grateful if you would take part in all of them. To that end, please sign up for our RSS feed to know when the new questionnaires have been posted, or just check back here and look in the new, fresh, shiny ‘Innovation’ Category.

The good news

All the results will be collated and a full report will be published on SEMInsights within 2 weeks of the final survey, all prettied up and everything with graphs and commentary. I will also be asking some of our finest to assist me with the commentary and insights.

Two gentle requests

1. Please answer honestly, in full, and please do post your thoughts and opinions on what other questions you would like to have answered in the comments. You questions will be included in the coming surveys.

2. Please get as many SEO professionals as possible to take part. Just send them the link to this post

http://seminsights.com/innovation/search-marketing-pro-survey-08-09 

This is a real SEM survey, by a real SEM on an SEM blog to answer real SEM questions about our industry, our livelihoods, our expectations, our strengths and our future.

Please take the FIRST 10 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

Please take the SECOND 10 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

 Please take the THIRD 10 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

Please take the Fourth (hardcore) 30 questions of the 10×10 SEM Pro Survey!

SEO Success Stories

(Actually, this has a PPC Success Story after the SEO success story below. I hope you find them both enlightening and a boost if you ever have the same problems I do J.)

It can be infinitely frustrating dealing with clients who only want consultative SEO. In other words, they want a full site audit, with all the trappings, as well as a comprehensive list of recommendations based on ease of implementation and importance due to potential rankings impact….

…BUT, they (the client) choose whether or not to actually implement the changes – all or any – and sometimes you spend days doing a top-notch, detailed audit… and never see anything come of it. (Not for lack of pushing, cajoling, enticing etc… it just gets, ‘put on the backburner’, ‘delayed until budget becomes available’, ‘focusing marketing dollars elsewhere’ etc…etc)

In most cases they eventually end up implementing at least some of the changes – not ideal, but better than nothing - but every now and then you have a star client who not only implements everything, but actively seeks your consul throughout the process to double check…. THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about!

Case in point; client starts implementing changes immediately, but cautiously. Client takes innocuous ‘About Us’ page for a test drive. Client utilizes recommended keywords and all recommended onpage elements, and initiates a backlink campaign for the page based on a (very comprehensive) backlink acquisition strategy guide. Four weeks after ‘optimized’ page goes live they call and ask to check the analytics.

Based on the optimization of ONE page, 4 weeks after deploy (and initiation of backlink strategy):

• Number of visitors from non-paid search engines – up 20.4%
• % of all visitors from search engines – up 24.4% to 40.73% (and counting)
• Google organic visitors – up 26%
• Yahoo! organic visitors – up 53%
• MSN organic visitors – up 240% (yes, I said 240%)
• The term for which the ‘About Us’ page was specifically optimized gained an increase of more than 2000% in visitor traffic, and was the second highest traffic driver from an organic keyword perspective (after the brand name)

The client has decided to continue, in full, with the optimization of their somewhat more important pages. I am thrilled to actually see the fruits of hard work on all parts really pay off. It highlights the potential positive effect of effective SEO, efficiently implemented by a proactive company which really wants to maximize its web site’s exposure and use as a marketing tool.

VIVA SEO!!!

PPC Success Stories

The positive impact a really good negative PPC keywords list can have on a campaign shouldn’t be underestimated…Ahh, I hear you say ‘but we already use negative keywords…’ Come sit by my cozy fireside and let me tell you a story about the wonders of a truly effective negative keyword list…

The background gumpff

Advanced semantic analysis software enabling the creation of an extensive list of negative keywords (the top 10,000 – being the maximum number currently permitted by Google) is produced and added to a PPC campaign. The most pertinent negative keywords are identified by the software and ranked in importance of 1 through, 10,000 yielding both quality and quantity data. A long-tail filtration effect is enabled, maximizing the potential for broad and phrase match PPC efficiency, typically saving 20 - 40% on PPC ad spend.

In other words, by maximizing the application of 10,000 negative keywords within a Google PPC campaign, the benefits of negative match keywords (improved targeting and reduced wasted ad spend, all while not eliminating the long tail via exact match) are also maximized.

In a nutshell, impressions are down; CTR is down; cost per conversion is down (20-40%), profit is up; ROI is up; conversions remain constant. It’s a PPC win-win situation.

I am so super impressed by this. It appears as though the industry is as well… So far we have given three presentations this year since July on our semantically enabled negative keyword software at HostingCon, Marketing Profs and SMX New York. I realize this sounds like a sell. It’s not meant to be. My objective is to get you to seriously consider and evaluate your negative keyword list, and if you want to know more about how Epiar does it just comment here, or email me. My email is in the footer of this post.

VIVA PPC!!!

To end…. and to quote the infamous Hannibal (I’m aging myself with A-team references *sigh*)…

“I love it when a plan comes together!” J

Thanks for reading!

laura[at]epiar[dot]com

The general consensus, including my own, is that these videos are very well tuned to ‘actually’ speak to teens; a demographic which tends to be very hard to reach.

After reading the article I immediately went online to find the videos on the campaign web site bloodylucky.ca, the result of which is the ultimate inspiration for this post - as there was bloody nothing online for this campaign.

Attempt 1:
Very interested in finding the Bloody Lucky videos, and too lazy to type the domain name into the address bar, I quickly Googled the phrase “bloody lucky videos” - the result of which had no relevant content for what I was looking for:

Attempt 2:
Phased but not ready to give up I quickly repeated my search, but this time for the phrase “bloodylucky.ca” - again I met with failure.

At this point in time I was really confused. Here we have a great write up from a major publication on this promising online marketing campaign and I can’t find the site through a simple (or very specific) search. Lets find out why.

Investigation
Finally I broke down and actually typed in the domain name, www.bloodylucky.ca, and just as quickly all my questions were answered.

There isn’t a site there, at least there might as well not be from a search engine strategy point of view. To summarize what is online, there is just an image. There is no title tag, no heading, no copy of any sort. For you developers out there, it doesn’t even have <html> or <body> tags - see for yourself:

To quickly run over the very basics of making a web site accessible to search engines:

1. Include a title tag relevant to your content/subject.
2. Include a heading and copy relevant to your content/subject.
3. Use ALT tags on your image (again relevant to content/subject).

The list could go on, but even if those very basic 3 points are implemented on a web site, you will rank (especially when you have exposure throught the press).

Arguements
One could argue that the campaign doesn’t launch until tomorrow, thus these things were not necessary. At the same time, tomorrow when the campaign kicks into gear, you can’t find the site if you search for it. The only way to actually get to it is:

1. Type www.bloodylucky.ca in your address bar
2. Go to a web site or article featuring the site, and click through from there.

Either way, this campaign has fallen short and fails users by being hard to find. Especially when you have quotes in the news like, “Alberta’s bloody videos are online primarily because teens are more likely to visit them and share them with friends if they’re on a website and YouTube.”

Conclusions: How To Avoid Poor Campaign Execution
My reason for bringing this to light isn’t just to spout off about the merits of a good search strategy, rather to suggest that a marketing campaign can be that much more successful if marketers considered their users.

Here we have an awesome campaign, a great message, I see no reason that it would not be successful. Yet at the same time you have a teen demographic which is highly advanced online - and you can’t Google the bloody site (pun intended).

Here are some easy tips to avoid this in the future:

1. Be Proactive about Search
2. Optimize every page for search engines, even landing pages and temporary sites.
3. Think about how people search.
4. Integrate SEO with your Branding.

Please feel free to post your comments or thoughts, you can also find me on twitter @miketighe.

I therefore find Google’s new release (last Wednesday) interesting to say the least.

A Bit About Display Ad Builder

Google has now integrated a do-it-yourself display (banner) ad creation tool for all AdWords users (i.e. you must have an account).

1. You can target your audience via:

• contextual (ads displayed on contextually/keyword relevance basis on sites that are part of Google’s content network); or
• placement targeting (choosing specific websites on which you want your shiny new display ad to appear; again these sites must be part of Google’s content network).

2. Then you choose your design template and customize it. There are fully customizable direct response and interactive ad templates; and there are pre-designed by industry templates – currently entertainment, financial, retail, travel. (If you log in to your Google Adwords account and click on a campaign, you will get a little ‘invitation’ asking you to try it out – there you will see a whole bunch more information on available templates – here is one screen grab)

3. You then set your daily budget and your CPC and off you go.

4. They have also included another little acronym for us all to get used to – introducing the PPR (Placement Performance Report).

Despite banner blindness, I would be very interested to see the results between the CTR and conversion rates on a specifically selected set of sites on the content network for a traditional text PPC ad and a ‘DIY’ display ad. Traditionally display ads are far less targeted in distribution than PPC ads, Google has made that annoying state of affairs disappear ‘poof’.

Admittedly the designs are by no means all stunning creatives, but they are display ads, and some are interactive, and some are dynamic – and they are free to create. I really like the idea; I think it is a great opportunity for small businesses to really test the waters far more effectively by trying both display and text ads via both contextual and placement targeting to determine what really works for them, without the prohibitive cost of creating display ads, requiring ad houses to produce reports no-one can understand, and with the ability to a/b test creatives themselves. It opens up a whole new area of online advertising streamlining and tactical refinement, and is very well times with the economic downturn.

(I wonder though if these DIY ads will count as search marketing or display advertising for adspend determination purposes?)

Anyhoo…  what I do think is that it would have been a bigger feather in Google’s hat if they had come out with the idea first, not apparently  rushed into it on MySpace’s heels. And, not to be outdone by any manner of means… Meet My Ads by Yahoo! AND Yahoo! now allows you to target your ads to a ZIP code level… That’s right – beats the socks off Google.

I think it’s great that these big online companies are being so proactive. I think it bodes well for our industry, and for the small business advertiser who can very easily manage his ad spend. And I think it bodes well for their investors.

I got a call a few weeks ago from an exceptionally talented woman I used to work with at a pretty big agency. She is a super hot account manager, and she had been getting some queries from clients through her team indicating interest in SEM services. She called me.

The gist of the call was that she wanted to know if I might give her team an insight into SEM; pros, cons, opportunities, challenges and market insights. The team, being mostly traditional media execs and hard web devs (all very good I might add) were not enthused by the idea of a lunch and learn with an ‘SEO person’, and she was not going to get funding for it. Ergo I agreed to go in for a lunch and learn over my lunch hour and give them a run down, gratis.

Initially (after the most inspiring parking experience I can remember courtesy of God) I was worried that no one was going to show, but over the 45 minutes I chatted and went over a prepared ppt and answered questions, the room filled up. Apparently they had thought I was going to bore them to death with ‘keyword research’. I don’t think I actually mentioned keyword research more than once.

It was very insightful from my point of view. Initial blasé and almost humorous interest ended up with enlightening Q&A as we continued through my ppt, with more and more direct and targeted interest from the web devs as we progressed. Unfortunately I think I pitched it a bit ‘low’ level for some of the account execs, but some of them were really interested and both happily surprised and encouraged by what they already knew, and what they could understand.

I walked away with a new set of contacts, a new set of web developers in a really great Calgary digital house with awesome talent who requested if they could tap me with more questions. They have my email, and they are not the type of company or people to take advantage. I’m cool with that.

I realize that from a financial point of view doing something for free is bad business. However, I strongly believe in both loss-leaders and in the power of effective SEM; both SEO and PPC. I also believe in giving a little for a practice I believe will benefit businesses.

My final take-away is this; this company has

• clients that need SEM
• the in-house talent to create incredibly attractive and functional websites and other marketing collateral as well as marketing proposals
• the ability to manage, produce and deliver on client briefs…

They now also have the ability to:

• speak to SEM queries and pitch accordingly
• answer basic SEO and PPC questions
• understand basic bad vs. good SEO practice, and 
• they totally get the need for great analytics to allow for efficient benchmarking, reporting and client profitability and ROI proof

They also:

• understand the possibilities and challenges associated with SEO and effective PPC
• have a contact to bounce ideas off ..of (? - terrible grammar)
• have someone they can call to find a contractor for SEO,PPC or SEM services

They are excited.

I am thrilled to have been able to spend 45 minutes with a progressive company to enable them to effectively begin to explain SEM to their rather substantial client base.

If I personally get anything financial out of it in the long run – great. If I don’t, I already have the enormous feeling of gratification of being able to educate out some basic SEO and PPC principles to a progressive, attentive and open audience who took it to heart and participated in learning. I hope to get a full series going… it would be huge fun for me as well as something I would just love to do, a knock on from my days as an economics lecturer. I miss those days.

I think if I could spend my time educating companies on SEM, I would be a very happy bunny. It was an enormously positive experience for me… Of-course, I would like to start actually making some money for it at some point … just sayin’… I’m a nice person and all, but I have three little kids and a mortgage, you know how it goes – altruism starts with a feeling and ends with a need J.

God bless you everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians!