Internet Marketing Toronto - Ignite!

WhoCalled? Dynamic Phone Number Generation & Tracking

It’s official - we’re launching our call tracking service called WhoCalled?™

John Wannamaker, considered the father of modern advertising once said

“I know I waste half of my advertising dollars, I just don’t know which half!”

As an answer to his question, Spark Internet Marketing is very excited to announce the launch of a new service which will finally track phone calls derived from multiple marketing campaigns . This new service will give you the ability to track the effectiveness of all your marketing efforts, including print, radio, email marketing, yellow pages and search engine based campaigns – wherever you have a phone number, we can track it!. Currently, we are able to track how many people come to your site through search engines, referring sites and develop them into a business lead for you. We do this by measuring if a user filled out a form on-line and submitted their information to you for follow up. We have never been able to truly follow the calls received from all marketing campaigns, including Internet based; until now!.

To learn more about WhoCalled? and to discuss pricing please contact sales@sparkinternetmarketing.com or dial 1.877.772.7530.

With the use of unique phone numbers generated from our system for your different campaigns, we can now track phone based conversions for individual pay per click campaigns, search engine optimization and other marketing efforts. Combined with existing data we can determine which marketing efforts are generating phone conversions for your business.

Our call tracking system will allow you to effectively analyze both: your on-line and offline marketing initiatives. Find out where your marketing dollars should be increased and which marketing efforts are ready for retirement.

Here are some of the features available with this call tracking platform:

• Unique 800 or local phone numbers are mapped to your actual phone numbers and callers are dynamically connected to your actual number after dialing the unique number.
• Calls can be recorded for quality of service evaluation (custom audio disclaimers that the call is being recorded must be uploaded to the system)
• Detailed call records are made available through a reporting portal showing you the number of calls made during a period, the duration, where the call was placed from using zip code or postal code lookup.

There is no limit to the amount of numbers you can use and the cost of a new unique number is significantly less than purchasing a new 800 number from your local carrier - and you get these fantastic features which your local carrier does not offer.
We are currently testing this service out and plan to roll out to our customer base towards the end of November or early December.

To learn more about WhoCalled?  and to discuss pricing please contact sales@sparkinternetmarketing.com or dial 1.877.772.7530.

We’ve Got BETA Access To Microsoft’s Webmaster Portal Tools!

It’s official - we’ve got access to Microsoft’s Webmaster Portal Tools!

Over the BETA period we’re going to test the tools out using real sites. As part of the BETA

program we can’t disclose what we find but rest assured we’ll be making the best of it, and sharing what we can with you.

If you have questions feel free to ask. We’ll do our best to answer them without violating the terms of use.

One Step Closer To BETA Testing Microsoft’s Webmaster Portal Tools!

Spark Internet Marketing is one step closer to becoming BETA Testers for Microsoft Webmaster Portal Tools.

In it’s drive to compete with Google and Yahoo! Microsoft has been developing their set of webmaster tools such as the ability to claim a domain and monitor the indexing of that domain, submit xml sitemaps etc. The software is currently in BETA and we’ve just received word that we’re being accepted into the BETA program. Now we’re just waiting for the approval!

We’re looking forward to the launch of these tools as they will help us better understand how MSN is interacting with our clients sites which will in turn help us better optimize the sites for MSN.

CMA Conference - Day 2 Rick Murray, Me2Revolution, Edelman

Adapting to survive in the conversation economy.

You can pay for the experience or you can earn it. Corporate America is back from the tough times of business scandals.

The average informed person in the US consumes seven sources of media each day.

Media that they are consuming is different today. The BBC was the first to open up with their content. The New York Times finally made their content available for free just this month.

Edelman polled users asking who was the most trusted spokesperson, and the overwhelming response this years was “A Person Like You” - 51%.

We are using the opinions of people we trust to help us validate our perspectives and make decisions. This reinfornces why it’s important to be authentic in the future of conversations. You’re brand can be terribly damaged when you’re not authentic.

Authenticity, honesty and transparency are most important.

Trust in business is coming back, trust in government is not. Its a recognition that government cannot solve our problems.

The Pyramid of Influence is giving way to the Sphere of Infuence Network where users are spreading the word of your brand amongst their friends in their networks.

For business it is really scary to allow their customers to control their brand in a social network. However, it’s happening and business needs to either participate honestly and try to guide or influence vs. doing nothing and letting what happens, happens.

• PR is Public Relations
• Hype and Spin are out
• Google never forgets

The New Role for PR

• Convergence around big ideas

  Companies that actually have money can make a difference. Government does not have the money to do it. Business has the money to fix global warming. It’s a simple shift in principles. GE is doing it. WalMart consumes 5% of the worlds packaging passes through WalMart. WalMart is forcing suppliers to make their products more efficiently.

  Integrating content across channels

  Thinking about social concerns.

• Listening to new voices

  Consumer feedbcak - Hal03. When MS launches a major game like Halo3 they are talking to consumers a year in advance. They want their input to help create the next game. Get them engaged early and often. $150 million in sales before any advertising of the game really started - because of the involvement of the fans.
  Edelman wants to hear from the employees about what their honestly think about the products.

  Engaging Local Customers. They are the media you want to reach if you engage them early and often. You’re not telling them what to say, just giving them the information they want.

• Public Advocacy

  Creating credible sources of information. Outreach to bloggers, creating mini sites about specific topics. Giving those that want to engage with you a venue to do so.

  Evolving role of the CEO. Should the CEO blog? Not necessarily. Only those that are passionate about something should do it.

Changing rules

• We haev to be open and honest, and not script what people say. It has to be totally authentic.
• Dialog vs. Messaging
• Honesty, integrity, authenticity
• Urgency, Immediacy
• Depth of content
• realtime updating
• Journalistic level of accuracy
• Demonstrable ROI

PR is the “Engine of Interactivity”.

The future PR Team? They are master integrator, A stategist, channel agnostic, generalist.

• Data Analysis
• Brand Planners
• Media Strategists
• Community Managers

Final comments - Be It! Don’t Buy It! Do not try and buy the conversation.

Questions and Answers

Q: Where is the media in all of this?

A: Media remains very important as partners. There are citizen journalists which need to be engaged now more than ever in addition to traditional media. Media themselves are changing as well to accomodate these changing times.

Q: GM Fastlane and WalMart Edelman is doing is great. Share some of the insights you had internally, and what steps you took public facing to clear the path.

A: Trained all of the 3000 employees on the new rules. Staff can answer employee questions all day long 24 hours a day with a global hotline. It’s also part of their new employee orientation program. Don’t want them to be afraid to participate, just want them to know how to do it right.

Q: Will people become overwheled by the advertising on social media sites and move?

A: No one has the answer to that question, other than to say that  early adopters are always looking for next big thing to use. Those people will always be switching platforms. However, the rest of us eventually form the core users of the older platforms.

CMA Conference - Day 2 Mike Murphy, Facebook

Mike Murhpy from Facebook kicks off day 2 of the CMA Conference. Will the rest of the day be as good as day 1? Given the lineup I certainly expect it to be.

A quick poll Mike did on Facebook prior the conference of Torontonians shows that the 18-24 year olds prefer referrals from friends as a means of advertising. This shows a tremendous opportunity that social media platforms have as an advertising platform.

Creating compelling content is something that will make this work. One key component of making advertising on social media networks successful is making the content appealing enough to want to share, without making the advertising message the core factor of the piece - it should be secondary to the “entertainment” factor.

What makes Facebook unique and interesting?

• Were known as a social network, but believe they are different. Facebook is not meant to meet new people, but to interact with existing friends.
• Users must authenticate into a network on Facebook - whether it’s a college or corporate network by providing a .edu or corporate email address.
• Privacy settings allows you to control how much of your information can be shared with non friends.
• Facebook is 57000 networks and the users only have access to a small portion of the entire user-base because it’s about their friends and not everyone thats on the system.
• Well over 50 Million users, adding over 200, 000 users per day.
• Over 50% of users visit the site every day.
• Experiencing dramatic growth in Canada and other countries including South Africa, Egypt, India and Australia.
• Each user added to Facebook adds additional value to all users on the system because each user related to the new one has a better overall experience and this trickles down through the relationships.

Facebook users - their demographic are very willing to answer questions and interact with marketers.

The decision to allow 3rd party developers create Facebook applications was tough but smart decision. As a result the user experience improved at a rate far greater than if they attempted to develop applications themselves.

• Facebook has more Photo Sharing page views than other photo sharing sites
• Facebook delivers more Events invitations in a month than evites does in a single year.

Millions of users on Facebook mention brand names in their profiles. These data sets can be mined and used by marketers to develop applications and leverage the network for advertising activities.

Facebook groups are another mechanism for connecting with brand advocates - very loyal brand advocates.

The New ROI - Return on Involvement.

• Connect with people who identify with your brand
• Give a reason to share
• Watch your message spread
• Get new consumer insights

Questions and Answers

Q: What is facebook doing to prevent 3rd party applications from annoying the user experience?

A: Users vote by controlling the realestate on their profiles -so the system is naturally self controlled.

Q: Is there a way marketers can promote the use of applications?

A: Because Facebook is a viral site the organic marketing that happens in news feed is what creates the most growth for applications. 10% of the applications get most of the traffic. Mike’s group is responsible to ignite the viral component of an application.

Q: What is Facebook doing to improve the user experience for companies developing Facebook applications?

A: Facebook is constantly working with the developer network to answer their questions and concerns and improve the development tools and infrastructure. There are many VC firms funding developers who purely develop Facebook applications, so investors in these companies should not be concerned.

“Marketers need to be a part of the experience.”
                                            - Mike Murphy

Spark Is Attending the PubCon Conference in Las Vegas

Yes, it’s true! We’re heading down to Las Vegas in the first week of December for the PubCon mega conference.

This years conference is expected to be an outstanding event with keynote speakers such as Matt Cutts (Google), Craig Newmark (Craigslist), Guy Kawasaki (Garage Technology Ventures), John Batelle (Federated Media Publishing), Danny Sullivan (Founder and Editor of Search Engine Watch and now Search Engine Land) - and many, many more.

Sessions for this years conference include topics such as:

• Social Media
• Linking & WebmasterWorld
• SEO: Organic Search
• SEM: Search Marketing
• Advertising Track
• Domains & Domaining
• Web Hosting
• The Webmaster World
• New Marketing Tech
• Video and Multimedia

With multiple sessions occurring in each topic area we’ll be hard pressed to cover it all with two people! This years PubCon is shaping up to be an outstanding event given the topics to be covered, and the outstanding line up of speakers and keynotes. Rest assured, that coming out of this conference will be a wealth of new information, strategies and tactics which we’ll be apply to your Internet Marketing Services.

If anyone else is going to the conference, please post a comment here. We’d love to meet up with you face to face!

Spark Is Attending the CMA Digital Marketing Conference

The pace at which the Internet Marketing industry changes can be dizzying at times. In order to keep up on things we’re attending the Canadian Marketing Assocation’s (CMA) Digital Marketing Conference in Toronto on October 25th and 26th.

This years conference includes speakers such as Mark Hurst, founder and president of Creative Good, Inc., Mike Murphy, VP Media Sales, Facebook, Simon Asad, Co-Founder of Heavy.

For a full list of speakers and topics visit the CMA conference page. We’re looking forward to attending this year, and bringing back to all of our customers the best of all of the new trends and marketing strategies. Our goal is to always stay on top of and ahead of on-line marketing strategies and trends so that we can keep you ahead of the game!

Google Analytics Conversion University Video Series on YouTube

A few weeks ago Google launched a YouTube playlist of videos they produced as part of their “Google Conversion University”. These videos are aimed at helping users of GA get the most out of it with as little difficulty as possible. Below is the Google Conversion University Introduction by Brett Crosby. Below that is a link to the 11 videos currently in the playlist.

Here is the complete list of videos:

1. Google Conversion University Introduction by Brett Crosby
2. Google Analytics - Non-Ecommerce Sites: Beyond Averages
3. Google Analytics - Rules for Revolutionaries
4. Google Analytics - Bounce Rate: The Simply Powerful Metric
5. Google Analytics -Context and actionability in web analytics
6. Google Analytics - Optimal AdWords Campaigns
   
7. Google Analytics - Optimizing Customer Experiences
8. Advanced Techniques in Google Analytics
9. Creating a Data Driven Culture by Avinash Kaushik
10. Successful Web Analytics Approaches by Avinash Kaushik
11. Other Data-Focused Marketing Products from Google

Help Us Populate Our Blogroll

Our blogroll has one deserving entry - help us add 10 more!

We’ve been posting on this blog for quite some time now, and of course participating in many conversations on-line. As a result we’ve been quite successful with it thus far, and have made quite a few connections. One area we’re struggling with is populating our blogroll. Courtney Tuttle currently occupies the sole position on it because of his DList. One entry is not enough though. We take the blogroll seriously as it represents an endorsement by us of quality blogs our readers should be aware of. Courtney certainly meets that criteria.

We want to add at least 10 more blogs to our blogroll by the end of the month. So I am opening it up to everyone - submit a comment to this post by October 30th explaining why you deserve to be listed. We’ll check out your blog - and if we agree we’ll add you.

Good luck!

Google PageRank Update Rolling Out Now

Although Google has not officially made any announcements about updating PageRank, there is enough chatter in forums and blogs to suggest that it is updating now. Most people are reporting a drop down in PR, while others are not reporting any change at all. We’ve not seen any changes yet, but we’re keeping an eye on it. While PageRank is important it’s not the only factor involved in SEO. In fact it’s one of perhaps hundreds of individual factors.

When we have definitive proof of the PageRank updates we’ll post an announcement on the blog.