Unless of course, the organic traffic source is coming from a long tail keyword that has commerical intent words within the search, such as “purchase Honda Vulcan in Bouler Colorado.”  Much of your organic traffic may be those people who are just beginning their research phase, or just looking in general, where PPC traffic may be closer to the buyer phase.

Optimizing organically for specific long tail keywords that show commercial intent is important, just as you would with PPC.

The four possible web traffic sources are:

1. Organic or natural search engine traffic generated by user search queries.  We often refer to this as SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization, meaning that you have a website that is properly structured to be indexed by the search engines and found relevant for a specific topic or theme. Many say this is “free” web traffic, but I assure you that in order to optimize a site and generate the content required to be seen by the search engines, someone has to be paid to do it.
2. Paid search traffic or pay-per-click (PPC). This is traffic you buy with pay per click ads on the search engines. You can also place banner ads in this paid traffic category if you like. Banner ads can be sold on a PPC basis or on a CPM or cost per thousand impressions basis. They may also be sold on a CPA or cost per action agreement. In any case, they are paid clicks and not based on natural or organic listings in the free search engines results pages (SERPS).
3. Direct traffic is generated when users type your URL or web address directly into their web browser. Direct traffic is normally generated by traditional offline advertising, collateral and PR. For example, when you place your URL or web address in you radio or TV ads, on your brochures and packaging. Your URL should be placed on absolutely every piece or PR, advertising and collateral you produce. It’s really the only true free web traffic you will ever generate since you are producing these touch points regardless.
4. Referral traffic comes from inbound links from other websites, blogs, twitter tweets, social media sites, affiliate sites, online press releases and the like. This means that other people and users like your website content, or they like your product/service enough to talk about it and link to it.

Ideally, your website traffic would come from a fairly balanced blend of all four sources. Why? Because a blend of traffic sources means you have a balanced marketing strategy that connects with prospects across multiple online and offline touch points, with strong customer retention and brand advocates that rave about your brand and tell others about it.

A balanced blend of traffic is the ideal scenario because it means that you are maximizing all opportunities, creating more brand equity and brand awareness across the marketing landscape, you are building customer and media advocates, and you are not relying on a single lead source to drive new business and growth. Which we all know is inherently dangerous and precarious.

I often hear of and see companies that get off on a tangent chasing a single web lead source, be it social media, pay per click, organic listings, inbound link sources, or direct type-in. It is neither healthy or effective to put all your focus and resources into a single lead generating strategy. Web marketing and exposure works best when it is maximized and integrated across multiple channels and lead sources.

I always say that effective web marketing means casting your net far and wide. You will simply catch more fish that way.

If you are not generating roughly an equal amount of your overall web traffic from organic searches, that means your site is not properly designed, built, or optimized for search engine spiders to crawl and index, or it means you do not have the correct copy/text on your site to attract your target market.

If you are not generating paid traffic or PPC leads, you either do not have a PPC program, or it is not being managed or executed properly. This is a large potential revenue source. There are those that say you can survive on organic leads alone, since 75% of search users prefer the organic listings over the paid. This is true, but you can never depend on your site always being on the first page of the organic listings, and 25% of 12 million searches a day is huge potential.

If your site does not have sufficient leads from direct traffic you are either not advertising enough, or you are not creating a compelling reason in your advertising to drive web traffic.

And finally, if you do not have enough traffic from inbound links and referrals, you are either not generating and publishing enough quality content, or you are not creating enough brand advocates. If you do not generate sufficient quality content, you are easy prey to be overtaken by your competition.

If you do not have repeat and referral traffic from brand advocates and users, you do not have sufficient retention and customer satisfaction, which means you have a high customer acquisition cost and lower ROI.

This is why I believe in a balanced, integrated approach to online and offline marketing, web analytics and research.

–Duane “DJ” Sprague

Begin with extensive qualitative and quantitative, primary and secondary research, including focus groups and interviews to determine and quantify the following information about your customers or intended customers as they relate to your product or category:

1. What are their problems?
2. What are they trying to accomplish?
3. What do they aspire to?
4. What resources do they currently use to research solutions to their problems?
5. What options do they currently have to solve their problems?
6. What age group do they belong to?
7. What is their gender?
8. What is their educational background?
9. What media do they consume?
10. Where do they live?
11. What do they do in their free time?
12. How much do they typically make in annual income?
13. What types of careers do they typically have?

You get the picture.  The more you can define your various buyer segments, groups, cells or “buyer personas” the better.  And don’t stop there.  To really get a feel for your personas, give each a name, age, gender, bio, and a picture of what they may look like.

Now you can start really getting into the psyche of your buyers, and creating an integrated marketing campaign that addresses their needs and expectations from every touch point.  This is where you begin to build a powerful and memorable brand that creates loyalty and referral business.

Apple computers did this very well, as did Harley-Davidson, Audi, “W” hotels and resorts, Ritz-Carlton?Ǭ�and Disneyland.  Until you understand where your customers are coming from, and what they are trying to achieve and become, you cannot speak to them effectively.

Bottom line: Your brand image and experience should revolve around your buyer personas.

The ideal scenario for integrated marketing and brand management

The IMC Manager offers improved brand management and ROI.

A company with an Integrated Marketing Manager should deliver a higher ROI because they are able to manage and leverage every customer contact point, and deliver a more consistent brand experience, which usually translates into improved customer and employee retention, and better customer acquisition ratios.

In addition, an IMC Manager should be able to purchase media and advertising more cost effectively because they can roll all media and collateral purchases into one, thereby allowing improved negotiating leverage.

One problem I have seen with companies of all sizes is the fragmentation of media and marketing related purchases among many different departments, locations or individuals. One company had three different SMS texting contracts from three different providers, four different web development providers, three different customer database platforms and four different contact management systems, with several departments buying their own media! Nothing worked or integrated together and there were duplicate customer contacts and records, inconsistent messaging and many lost opportunities for cross-selling, up-selling and retention.

The marketing department is really the nerve center for the brand, so the more consistency, control and continuity in the brand impressions, the better. Not to mention cost controls through improved contract and vendor management.

Typically, but not always, the more centralization and integration you can achieve, the more brand and messaging consistency you will enjoy.  Not to mention increased cost savings and enhanced customer database marketing opportunities.

As always, there is no single silver bullet in marketing, but thinking through the advantages of an integrated and consistent approach will certainly reveal a host of benefits.

Best of luck!

Duane “DJ” Sprague

In other words, goals are not met without the entire team and organization at evey single level being aware of and working toward them.  Each person and department must also be given their own goals, budgets and tracking tools to carry their own weight and participate in the company goals.

Naturally your marketing goals and budget must also be aligned with the company goals.

Success in an integrated team effort.  And this is where leadership and esprit de corps really show what a company is made of, and capable of.

Think of how your brand persona will resonate across the entire communication spectrum. Think about how the collective brand touch points will impact your buyer persona, and what feelings or impressions they are likely to have and remember.

Think about the visual impact of everything, the smells, the sounds, the taste, and the tactile feel of everything physical and tangible.

Begin with the end in mind, and work every detail backwards from that core vision.

This is how Walt Disney began formulating his vision and design for Disneyland, the happiest place on earth.

Not that your brand needs to be a Disney production, but formulating a solid and detailed vision of how you want your customers to experience, perceive and talk about your brand is important. Lexus did this quite well, and took an ordinary Toyota and turned it into a top luxury brand almost overnight by adhering rigidly to their standards and vision for their brand persona.

I actually owned the first Lexus, a 1990 ES 250, and yes, it was a Camry, it even had the same Toyota part numbers.

We need to get inside the head of our customers, and create not only the right media channels, touch-points, venues and impression opportunities, but we need to use the language, verbiage, short-speak and lingo they would expect from someone who knows them. Next, we need to integrate the imagery, colors, design themes and fonts appropriate to their taste, style and expectations.

Integrated marketing is advanced marketing, because we need to understand, use, leverage, and integrate every planned and unplanned customer touch point, and we need to understand the basics of psychology, sociology, interpersonal and mass communications.

We also need to integrate our brand message and personality across the entire company, so we need to have a working knowledge of sales, customer service training, accounting, CRM programs, purchasing, packaging, PR and more.

In other words, we need to preach the integration model to the entire organization, so that they really understand and support the integration strategy, and why it is so important to building a powerful and sustainable brand that has meaning, equity and differentiation in the market. Call it job security for everyone.

One of the most common mistakes in advertising is the pursuit of a quick fix. This most commonly occurs in one of two ways. The first is where one competitor in a market creates an ad or a campaign that looks good or exciting (although it may not actually work), and then the competitors in the same market copy it. The problem is that none of the companies stand out anymore, and the entire message and impact is watered down with a sea of me-to look-alike ads.

The second situation is where a company will buy a variety of individual and completely different ads, events or campaigns from a variety of different vendors and media reps. These ads never work together or support each other because they are completely different. Nor are they part of an integrated look and consistent, theme, message or strategy. In essence, every company looks like the others, and the power of branding, campaign momentum and frequency is lost.

Roto-Rooter owns the plumbing category with their radio branding campaign and jingle that ran for 30 years.

Motel 6 did all the right things with their campaign. They concentrated their buy and owned one medium to create frequency. They used the power of sound and echoic impact to create permanent brand recall, and they used creative and production consistency to establish a solid brand image and message.

A true branding campaign provides the listener with a positive mental image of the product, the experience, and the company.

In the case of Motel 6, the positive brand image was the down home feeling of honesty, friendliness, and cleanliness.

The branding campaign may also provide a mental escape using humor, theatre of the mind stories or jingles.

Typical ads that sound like ads get subconsciously tuned-out, because people are bombarded and overloaded by thousands of ads every day, from every direction. They’re tired of ads. They hate ads. Ads that answer the question nobody is asking (who, what, when, where, why). These are ads that speak to them, but not about them.

Ads that talk about the company, and the sale price, but never stir the soul, speak to the heart, fire the imagination, solve the yearning, or create a desire for the experience that the product can deliver.

Motion requires emotion. If you want to move the market, charge your advertising with a real brand. A brand that is alive, tangible, identifiable and distinguishable. A brand that fills the mind and stirs the soul with at least one emotion or hot button.

Think desire, fun, adventure, honesty, solutions to problems, passion, freedom, happiness, achievement, success, power, sex-appeal. Think Harley-Davidson, Apple, Disney, Victoria’s Secret, Sandals Resorts, Ritz-Carlton, Rolex and BMW. These are powerful brands that stir the emotions and create a cult-like following. They stand for something. They are unwavering. They are dependable in their brand experience.

Advertising is not about screaming, it’s about seducing. The screamers are amateurs, the seducers are masters. Masters use powerful words with emotional impact. They use verbs, and they place the listener inside of their story, their temporary escape from all that is dreaded in the toil of daily life.

A branding campaign pulls the listener in, and ever closer in heart and mind to the seducer who knows their plight, and understands their needs and desires.

In order to make a branding campaign work, you need a 3 frequency per week, 52 weeks per year, on as many radio or TV stations as you can afford. It will take 3 months to see the beginning of the benefits of the campaign. Within one year, your business volume will increase by 50%. After two years, it will increase by 100%.

A branding campaign builds equity and creates a position in the mind of the audience. A strong equity and positioning message creates a positive mental image, which is essential to product category dominance in the mind of the consumer. When you have an equity position, the consumer thinks of you first in that category, and tends to shop you first, and refer other people to you.