Empowering eCRM with Effective Search Marketing

Last week, one of our e-mail specialists at Intouch Solutions independently wrote a tip talking about how SEM can influence your eCRM campaigns. Jon Mercer (@cybermerky for you Twitter users) commented that Search Marketing can have a large impact on your online reputation and email deliverability. While he was referring specifically to paid search marketing, I would further extend that statement to include organic (or natural) search engine optimization.

While I haven’t thought as much on this topic as I should have, it is important to understand and remember that a powerful and effective search marketing strategy that incorporates SEO and PPC can positively influence ALL online activities. I have mentioned in preivous post how Search Marketing and Social Media should be considered within the same breath as online channels that feed off each other. This tip received by Jon expands the concept of integrated digital marketing strategies to include e-mail within that same breath.

The first of two points made by Jon was that effective online strategy should make relevance the priority. To quote directly, Mercer says:

If your listing or paid ad features your client’s new “product” or flash tool, then make sure the landing page concentrates on that product or flash tool.  If your content is not in alignment with your PPC ad, a consumer or end-user will consider future ads irrelevant and avoid clicking on them.  If and when this happens, search engine algorithms will then label your company/client’s ads as irrelevant, suppressing SEM/PPC conversions.  If a prospect has deciphered through your PPC ads that you are misinterpreting your offering (an ad for beauty products but the landing page is marketing or selling just a home page with registration), trust in your company is damaged and this prospect is likely to ignore or mark as spam any incoming mail from your company.

As a search marketer, I couldn’t really put it any more simply. Search marketing is always most effective when relevance is the top priority, but this doesn’t only apply to paid search ads. Relevance is the key driving factor for on-page SEO efforts. An effectively designed, written and optimized page can serve to improve both natural and paid search marketing efforts.

The second, equally important factor mentioned by Mercer for all online marketing channels is the concept of “continuity”. While closely related to relevance, it is a separate connection that should be made. To again quote directly:

Continuity is more of the flow of information from one source (your PPC ad) into all related sources (landing pages, confirmation pages, links and the website).  If your ad promises information about a specific indication or one particular item related to a specific drug, don’t serve up a page that just asks them to opt-in for “global” information.  Your abandonment rates will soar.  Your conversion rates will be low.  And your online reputation will suffer because now ISPs are gathering detailed information about recipient behavior (such as when an email is printed, which links are clicked within an email, how many recipients are opening emails from your domain, etc.)

As Mercer puts it, continuity is about taking the relevance of your add and ensuring that all subsequent touch points carry over that relevance to give your users an ongoing sense of continued relevance. Search marketing is the perfect channel for seeding these concepts of relevance and continuity because of the very nature of the point of contact. Users seeing your message through search are pulling a message based on the information they are seeking rather than being pushed a message at the inopportune time. Through search, the audience capturing your message is more likely to convert and maintain a connection.

Also, thought I’d include a few links to relevant pages/articles which help feed this concept:

Maximize Search and E-Mail Marketing: InsideCRM
Search and E-Mail Marketing: Powerful Twin Engines – Lyris HQ
The Symbiotic Relationship Between Search and Email Marketing: Lyris HQ

Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the opinions or positions of Intouch Solutions.