JMU Strategic Internet Marketing

Google Analytics

For the entire year I have 210 total visits and 539 page views. 66.67% of visitors are new/unique visitors to my site. People tend to spend an average of 2:58 on my site which is kind of discouraging but I’m hoping I can eventually make that time longer. The top content on my site was my homepage, resume page, and interests page. I thought it was interesting that some of the page visits came from outside the United States, such as Canada, Hong Kong, India, Japan, and Brazil. JMU Marketing was the number one keyword that led to visits to my site. It was also interesting to find that my top traffic sources were direct, Google’s organic search, and Facebook.

Takeaways from MKTG470

I think some of the most interesting information that I learned in MKTG470 was how the internet actually works and how to make a website. Since the internet is becoming increasingly necessary, knowing how to design a website and promote your company and/or yourself online is extremely important. After being walked through the steps of actually learning how to use WordPress as well as how to write HTML code is a skill that I think will be very beneficial in the future after college. Optimizing a website is also critical for success and I believe by learning SEO and PPC is very useful. Using that knowledge and putting that to use on our own site’s was a great way to grasp the concept.

The Future

I plan to keep my website after the course ends. With some of the Google Adwords budget remaining I plan to continue to run a campaign for my resume page. After graduation I do plan on changing the focus of my site a little bit. A huge part of my site is obviously about being a JMU student and many blog posts talk about internet marketing related assignments. I do want to keep the website professional but would also like to blog about other things along with internet marketing, such as news, travel, and interesting facts. After being exposed to this material, I would pursue a career in internet marketing. It’s enjoyable and I think that it would be a promising position to have for the future.

Why Should Marketers Use Google Webmaster Tools?

Google Webmaster Tools is an important tool to have because in regards to organic search, if a company’s site is not indexed, then they are not going to rank. Without ranking, it’s very difficult to receive an adequate amount of traffic to the site.

Under site configuration, a marketer can submit an XML sitemap to help Google index pages that are harder to find or may not yet be indexed by Google. You are able to control crawl access by Google. For example, if your site has content you don’t want Google or other search engines to access, you can use a robots.txt file to specify how search engines should crawl your site’s content. In settings, Google Webmaster Tools allows you to associate a particular geographic location with the site if you are targeting users within a specific area. You can also set a preferred domain that will associate a preferred domain with your site such as to always or never show the leading “www.” in Google’s search results.

One of the four main technical benefits of Google Webmaster Tools is malware detection. Google sends out a notification if it finds malware on the site as well as offers suggestions on how to eliminate the malware. You can see crawl errors and problems encountered by Google while trying to access pages on their websites. You can also see crawl statistics to see Googlebot activity over the past 90 days. Webmaster Tools gives HTML suggestions for pages on your site as well. This lets you know if you have duplicate title or meta descriptions or if you have pages that are missing titles or title tags that are too short or long.

A marketer can see how their site is performing on the web through Google Webmaster Tools. You can see how many queries as well as the keywords searched where your site was shown as well as how many impressions and clicks your site received. You can see where other people linked to your site and how many times they have linked to it. Under keywords, it shows you the most common keywords searched when crawling your site.

What Information did Webmaster Tools Reveal About kimpate.com?

My site has shown up in a total of 110 queries with a total of 2,000 impressions. Currently, my top three search queries are Pizzazz, Kim Pate, and James Madison Marketing. My top pages are my home page and two of my blogs posts. I have 5 links linked to my site. The most significant keyword to my site is Marketing followed by Pate, Email, and Kimberly. According to Crawl Stats, my site’s average pages crawled per day is 5, average kilobytes downloaded per day is 126 and average time spent downloading per page is 1,034 milliseconds.

I would like to learn more about how to fix crawl errors as well as how to analyze and benchmark my crawl stats compared to other sites.

Today in MKTG470 we had a guest speaker come in named Deb Van Horn. She is currently the Vice President of Support Services at The Rockingham Group. Ms.Van Horn has her B.B.A. and M.B.A. from James Madison University and has been with  Rockingham Group for 10 years working in HR, Facility Management, IT,  Marketing,  and Operations. She is also currently a member of  James Madison University’s College of Business CIS/MS Executive Advisory Board.

Social Media

Two of the main topics that Ms.Van Horn focused on was social media and online advertising. First discussed was the benefits of social media. A few benefits of using social mediums, in this case Facebook, for companies is that it can influence new sales, it facilitates relationship building with customers, its a good way to education and make people aware of your company’s product or service offerings and it provides a means to collect feedback from customers.  The Rockingham Group’s Facebook page has over 600 “Likes” with 65% of them from the Female demographic and 27% percent are 55 years of age and older. To figure out how engaged their fans are on their page they use an Engagement Rate. This can be calculated by (Comments + Likes + Wall Posts)/ Number of Fans. They not only use this metric on themselves but also on  competitors to see how they match up with their competition. Currently, 30% of fans are current policyholders. Facebook presence is beneficial to companies because this puts a name to a face and helps companies connect and get to know people.

Online Advertising

One of The Rockingham Group’s goal with online advertising is to stay visible. They advertise on Facebook for people to “Like” their fan page. They don’t pay for impressions but pay per action, meaning if someone “Likes” their site through the advertisement. They also sell products online through Facebook. This advertisement sends people directly to the quoter based on the type of product being advertised. The Rockingham Group is also present on Google, by advertising with text, image, and display ads. Overall The Rockingham Group has decent content with a performance rating of 36%compared to the industry average of 24% and have a pretty good click rate of 5% compared to the industry with 2.9%.

Thank You

Thank you, Ms.Van Horn, for coming to speak to our Strategic Internet Marketing class and educate us on e-marketing with The Rockingham Group.

Contact

To contact Ms.Van Horn, her email is dlvanhorn@rockinghamgroup.com.

To My Blog Post Evaluators: Dr. Clarke allowed me to write about this speaker instead of Janet Miller.

This past weekend I attended the American Marketing Association’s 33^rd Annual International Collegiate Conference in New Orleans.  I participated in competitions, networked with business professionals and other marketing associations around the country, as well as attended multiple successful business speakers. One session that I attended was “Internet Marketing Strategies” which was given by Pam Webster, the Assistant VP of Recruiting at Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

The basis of the presentation was about marketing strategies employed by Enterprise to drive traffic, reservations, and customers to its three consumer brands. In the car rental industry people search for the best deal that they can find and are primarily focused on saving money. Enterprise focuses on their pricing strategy and practices an EDLP strategy to attract customers. The online marketing strategies used by Enterprise include: SEO, SEM, ad networks, affiliate marketing, affinity marketing and social media.

Search Engine Optimization is their most important form of online marketing. SEO determines a company’s position on SERPs. The key components of achieving high optimization are relevancy, popularity, and content. Some relevant keywords used by Enterprise are car rental, rent a car, and Enterprise. These keywords are embedded into the content of their web pages as many times as possible to have search engines crawl their web pages. Enterprise has an in-house internet marketing team that continuously works on SEO.

Search Engine Marketing is another form of online marketing used by Enterprise. This primarily includes Pay-Per-Click advertising. The position of a company’s advertisement is based off the price that they bid and the relevancy of the ad to what the searcher enters into the search query. Consumers’ eyes typically start at the top of the page and then move the right. These are the optimal places that companies want their ads to be shown.

Ad networks are any sites that host advertisements for other companies. For example, Enterprise has advertisements on CNN and Facebook. Search engines serve ads based on browsing history through cookies. The price of ads are dependent upon the space of the page that is desired as well as the size of the advertisement that the company wants the host site to display.

Affiliate Marketing is when Enterprise puts banner and text ads on coupon sharing sites. Increased visibility can be acquired by higher commission rates. For example Enterprise pays a commission to rentalcardiscount.com.

Enterprise also uses Affinity Marketing. This is leveraging customers’ loyalty to a club or association, such as Costco or AARP. Members receive benefits like discounted rates. Enterprise pays a commission to the club or association for completed car rentals that are through the advertisement on Costco’s website.

Enterprise does use social media and primarily use these outlets to share their story as a company, and inform customers on their sustainability efforts and the charities that they are involved with.

Overall, I learned a lot about how actual companies use internet marketing strategies and which ones are the most important to make an online marketing plan successful.

I Need My Beauty Sleep!

Sleep. It’s one of people’s favorite pastimes. It makes you feel refreshed and it keeps you healthier. I personally feel that I need the above average number of hours of sleep to feel truly rejuvenated. When I say I need my beauty sleep- I mean it.  Up till now, the concept of beauty sleep has lacked scientific support. After browsing Twitter, I came across some information based on a recent Swedish study. There is now evidence that getting a sufficient amount of rest leads to a more beautiful you!

The study included 23 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 31. They were photographed two separate times. The first was after a normal sleep cycle of 8 hours and then once after being deprived on sleep, which roughly equaled the volunteers receiving 5 hours of sleep total. None of the participants could wear makeup and had to have a neutral facial expression throughout all the photographs.

To fairly judge these photographs they had 65 untrained volunteers rate the photographs. The criteria used in the judging were attractiveness, tiredness, and healthy appearance.

Overall, the judges rated the sleep-deprived photographs of the individuals as much less attractive or healthy looking. Without an adequate amount of sleep it’s going to show on your face. The study also suggests that your amount of sleep each night actually affects how other people perceive you, and probably how they treat you based on your facial features and what they signal to others. Most women, including me, use makeup and other beauty products to help look more awake. It turns out the cure might to just get some beauty sleep. Not only does sleep make you look more beautiful, but there are numerous other health benefits too!

Sweet Dreams!

A reoccurring disturbance in the news for the past couple of years has been regarding the Mexican drug wars. There has been an ongoing problem with drug cartels in Mexico but they have recently been targeted in American news since there have been several kidnappings and killings of Americans. Most of the country’s narcotic-related violence has been taking place near the northern border or in cities where many Mexican drug cartels are known to be, such as Tijuana, Chihuahua, and Ciudad Juarez, which has been a violent border city for almost 100 years.

This past week my friends and I spent our spring break in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Many parents and other students were in shock to hear that we chose Mexico as our spring break destination, but in reality the level of danger of travel to Cabo versus any other popular destinations this year such as Punta Cana and New Orleans has little difference when it comes to safety.

The country of Mexico updates their travel warnings every 90 days and the most recent update hasn’t been since September 2010. The state of Baja California Sur, where Cabo San Lucas is located, is one of the safest states in Mexico and was specifically omitted from the Travel Warning issued by the Department of Homeland Security.

Here’s an interesting fact: New Orleans is the most deadly city in the U.S. with 64 murders per 100,000 populations. This factoid didn’t seem to have any parents in a frenzy when thousands of spring breakers headed there for Mardi Gras this year, yet Mexico spring breakers were criticized because of news articles that had little to do with their actual destinations.

Think about this: Would you not visit Miami because of the violence in New Orleans? Well, Cabo San Lucas is about the same distance from the Mexican violence centers as Miami is from New Orleans.

Not only has American travelers to Mexico remained steady it has slightly increased. Funjet Vacations actually saw a 15% increase in spring breakers heading to Mexico this March compared to last year. As well as the U.S. Commerce Department said visits to Mexico by U.S. residents rose 8% during the first six months of 2010, which includes spring break months, compared to 2009.

The moral of the story is crazy people are everywhere! No matter where you are in the world, whether it’s Mexico, the Dominican Republic, or Louisiana, or what’s in the news, you need to be aware of your surroundings and make smart decisions.

I had an amazing time in Cabo San Lucas and would recommend this as a vacation destination to everyone!

What’s Retargeting?

Recently, there has been some controversial buzz about the practice of behavioral retargeting in digital media. An example of behavioral targeting is when a consumer visits a particular website, let’s just say Victoria’s Secret, and they choose to add a bathing suit to the shopping cart but then decide that they are not ready to buy it and simply leave the site. The next time the consumer gets online and browses a completely unrelated page; let’s say the New York Times, an advertisement for the bathing suit the consumer left in the shopping cart from the day before appears on the page.

What a Great Idea!

I think that the use of retargeting is an extremely clever tool. It doesn’t make me feel uneasy knowing how it is done. Most people have grown accustomed to being tracked online and shown ads for categories of products they have shown interest in as well as being remembered on various sites. Retargeting itself is based off the use of cookies, which has been around for a long time and is nothing new. Cookies are used by many Web sites for advertising and customizing content to better suit customers’ individual preferences. People always want to feel that companies treat them as individuals and using this type of strategy truly lets companies are give customers personalized messages.

I Don’t Want Companies in My Business!

There are some various privacy issues that are associated with retargeting ads. Some people feel that their privacy is being invaded by using this type of advertising. Consumers feel that they are being watched as they roam the internet and it makes them feel very uneasy. Currently, the FTC is exploring ways to regulate retargeting with ideas such as “opt-out” programs to give consumers a choice to be tracked or not.

This is Only the Beginning

I believe that this is a promising marketing strategy. This is a highly personalized marketing technique that attempts to give the consumer exactly what they want when they want it. PPC re-targeting companies such as Criteo have been extremely successful this past year.  Their studies show that retargeted customers are 70% more likely to complete a sale. Just in Quarter 1, Criteo reported a 100% client base increase and a 600% increase in online purchases.

Let’s Compromise

With this being a brilliant marketing tool there should still be a happy medium so consumers are not freaked out by companies. I think with an option to not be tracked and/or maybe more subtle ads that offer discounts on searched items could help balance this controversy and make people more comfortable with the idea of retargeting.

Twitter Importance for Students and Marketers

Twitter Challenged

Before I took Mktg470 with Theresa B. Clarke I thought that Twitter didn’t have much of a purpose. I also told myself I would never get a Twitter account. Now that I have a Twitter account and designated some time to simply explore Twitter for a few hours and follow a reasonable amount of people, I have realized that Twitter is a good place to find interesting and useful information in a speedy manner. It’s also another fun tool to connect with friends, colleagues and others you don’t know, but want to. I still don’t really know how to work Twitter tags and feel a little confused tweeting links, videos, and images, but think I just need some more time on the site to figure it out.

Twitter Importance for Students

It is important to engage in Twitter now and when I enter the workforce because it is a beneficial networking tool. Twitter is actually a good way to meet and have dialogue with an array of people. In marketing, and business in general, networking is key. It’s all about who you know and you can learn a lot from many different people. Having an outlet to connect with people online you might not have normally had the chance to communicate with can lead to many unforeseen opportunities.

Twitter Importance for Marketers

Twitter is also important tool for marketers because it is a great way to connect with customers and have a relationship with them. Customers can give companies feedback on their latest promotion or product. Twitter is also a good place to promote new events, products and other various sales promotions for companies in a quick and efficient way. Companies can easily post announcements, news, tips and facts about themselves and their products or services. It’s also a valuable way for businesses to get advice and varying outlooks from other qualified business professionals.

My Theme

I installed the theme anIMass 7.63 by Richard Dickinson. I chose this theme because it had just the right amount of pizzazz. It is not too bright, but not extremely plain at the same time. It is just right.

The Search

I originally tried to look for themes by their “Tag”. I started off searching for the particular colors of blue, purple and green because those are my three favorite colors. After searching through all of those themes I realized that you could search by “Term” instead of “Tag”. When I changed that search option and kept searching by color I ended up finding a lot of different themes that weren’t coming up in the previous search. I did a quick search for themes with a right sidebar but there weren’t many themes under that term listed on WordPress. I tried around five or six themes and there was always something missing when I finally saw it activated on my website. One theme I particularly liked only facilitated the blog portion of my site and took away all my pages.  I started to feel discouraged because I couldn’t find a single theme I was interested in after that. I ended up searching through almost all of the themes on the website before I found the anIMass 7.63 theme.

Color Scheme and Background

The text is black and dark grey on a white background which I think is professional but then the links and various headers are blue and purple which blend well together. The main background is purple as well which I think symbolizes me well. The color purple is a blend of the stability of blue and the energy of red.  According to the Color Wheel, purple symbolizes power and ambition and is associated with wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, and femininity. The picture of the sunset at the ocean along with the touch of light blue reflects the meaning of tranquility, loyalty and authenticity as well as my passion for the beach and traveling. I embody these qualities and feel that this theme truly represents me.

Problems

When I first installed this theme there was some extra widgets in the right sidebar that I didn’t want, luckily I was able to edit the theme and delete the widgets. One problem that I have run into is that it changed my favicon automatically and I haven’t been able to change it back. I’m going to continue to see if I can personalize my favicon.

Welcome to my blog. I am currently enrolled in Strategic Internet Marketing (Mktg470) taught by Dr. Theresa B. Clarke at James Madison University. As part of the course requirements, all students will be completing some of the assignments as blog posts. This is my first official blog post for Dr. Clarke’s course in the JMU Department of Marketing.