I started turning ad groups on and thought it was curious that the majority the quality scores were twos. There were a few ones mixed in, as if that were any better. I was used to new campaigns starting out with a quality score of seven, so this was not the norm. I tried increasing some of the bids to see if this would alter the quality scores and it did not. With a quality score of two, my new ads weren’t even running. No client wants to hear their ads aren’t running, they want to see results.

I took a deeper look into the original, paused campaign that was still in the account. In looking at the quality score of the keywords still in the campaign, they were all low twos and threes with a handful of fours. It appeared that in this case, the historical account information was drastically altering the quality score of the new campaign.

Just to double check, I called the support staff at Google and verified that new keywords will inherit a quality score from the historical performance in an account. When no historical information exists, the quality score can initially be determined from the performance of that keyword across the whole market. If it has performed poorly across the board for the majority of Google Adwords customers, it will start out with a low quality score in a new program as well.

I knew that in this case there were good keywords involved that were relevant to the landing pages and were included in the ads. I had segmented like keywords into closely related ad groups. I had used best practices to put the new campaign together. This was not an instance of poorly performing keywords.

Google suggested opening a new Adwords account to see if that fixed the problem. They also suggested increasing the bids to see if that had any effect. The Googler that I talked to said he wouldn’t be surprised if the new account had no effect on the poor quality scores and thought it was more an issue of the bidding being too low.

I opened a new Adwords account and within 10 minutes had quality scores of six and seven, where in the original account, I was still looking at twos for the same keywords. I tried a little experimenting with bids in both accounts, just to see what would happen. In the old account I significantly increased bids on two ad groups. I waited for several hours to see what would happen. It did not increase the quality score on any of the keywords. I tried the same thing in the new account with the same group of keywords. I had increased quality scores by at least one point within ten minutes on a large number of keywords in the ad group.

In the end, I moved all the ad groups and keywords into the new account. The program started generating impressions and click throughs in the first few hours. In conclusion, I would recommend starting a new Adwords account when launching a new campaign where a previous campaign existed that had poor performance.

Have you had a similar experience with quality scores in a new Adwords campaign? Share your thoughts with us.

The first thing I did was list the house myself with an online MLS listing service. For $195, I got the same exposure that my real estate agent did. (Believe me, I checked all the top rated sites before and after. I can verify my MLS listing was everywhere my agent’s MLS listing was.) I researched the top real estate websites and the top for sale by owner websites and started placing ads. Many of these sites don’t charge for the listings. In fact, I only paid for two of them. In addition to the more traditional real estate websites, I also placed ads on Ebay Classifieds and Craig’s List.

Then, I took my keyword research and created a Google Adwords Pay Per Click campaign. I ran two nationwide campaigns with keyword terms very specific to my area. One targeted to PCs and one targeted to mobile devices. I also ran two local campaigns that were geotargeted within a 30 mile radius of my house with keyword terms that were very general to anyone looking for a house for sale. Again, I had one targeted to PCs and one targeted to mobile devices. The traffic for the mobile device campaigns was sent to the mobile website that I designed with Toor.me.

Since I was offering a commission to any agent who brought me a buyer, I wanted to inform the real estate professionals in the area about my home. I sent an email to around 125 agents with information on the house and how they could schedule a showing for their clients. To add a bit of incentive, I offered an iPad, in addition to the regular commission, if anyone brought me a buyer within 30 days.

All the online marketing is being tracked through Google Analytics. This way I can see where visitors to the site are coming from, track what keywords brought them to the site, and calculate a true return on investment by seeing whether or not they filled out an online request showing form. I’ve also asked anyone that called where they found the house.

In our next installment, we’ll discuss how I used social networking to increase the reach of my online marketing campaign. Feel free to leave a comment and let us know what online marketing techniques you’ve used to sell real estate online.

I asked the real estate agent what marketing had been done to move my house. I was disappointed to find out that 5 ads in the local newspaper was the extent of the advertising. Now in all fairness, let’s not forget the For Sale Sign that was pitched in my yard or the two open houses that were held. My agent also told me I was on “hundreds” of websites through the MLS listing. But, seven months later, I’m still sitting in my house.

So I decided to do a little online market research and see exactly where on the internet my house was showing up. I was listed on quite a few websites thanks to the MLS listing, but unfortunately, each real estate website that uses the MLS information picks and chooses what data they display. In many cases the image of my house was resized automatically to fit a preset space and ended up looking distorted and stretched. In my opinion, there really wasn’t a lot of information being given to a prospective buyer to get them interested in my house. I also noticed that my real estate agent hadn’t even filled out his own online profile completely. Instead of his personal image being shown, it was just a stock outline of a human head. What kind of a professional image did this portray?

This was the point that I shook my head and thought that I could do I better job myself. After all, I make my living marketing companies and their products online. Could marketing a house online be that different? Besides, five newspapers ads don’t equal thousands of dollars in commission. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and handle the online marketing of my house myself.

The first thing I did was a bit of keyword research to find out exactly what terms prospective buyers in my market were using in their online searches for homes for sale. From this information I picked two url addresses. One url was a popular keyword search that was relevant to my area. The other url was the street address of the house. The street address was shorter and easier to remember, so that’s the one I used in my advertising and on my signage. I set up the urls for one to redirect to the other, so we didn’t run into any duplicate content issues.

Second, I spent some time creating a real estate website for my house, www.531CumberlandSt.com with WordPress and a template from The URL Dr. Now in all honesty, I may have gone a bit overboard with the website in terms of how many pages it ended up being, but the idea was to get prospective buyers excited about the property so that they would schedule a showing through an online form. I gave more information about the house in the website than was given in the MLS listing. I took a lot of pictures and I also added an optimized video to the site, hosted on YouTube. I included beautiful header images of the local area that Bill Merlavage Photography provided to me. I added a blog where I could talk about what was going on in the neighborhood, community activities, updates we were making to the house, open house information, etc. I also included a link to a local mortgage broker who had special financing offers and a program that offered $5,000 toward the closing costs. I included a page for real estate agents with information on a 4% buyer’s commission I was offering and a form they could fill out to obtain marketing materials on the house.

But I didn’t stop with one website. Creating a real estate website especially for mobile devices was an important part of my online marketing plan. I used Toor.me for a mobile real estate website. Now this may sound like a lot of work but the Toor.me site probably only took 10 minutes to put together and was definitely worth it. The site easily allows you to download a printed bullseye that you can add to your exterior signage and flyers. A prospective buyer can scan the bullseye with their mobile phone and my Toor.me real estate website instantly appears. Talk about curb appeal!

Each of the websites give prospective buyers an easy way to contact me to set up an appointment or ask questions. This is key in creating a real estate website. You must make it easy for an interested buyer to schedule a showing. What is your experience with creating a real estate website? What has worked for you? Give us your comments and stick around for the next chapter in our real estate saga, “Can You Sell Your House Using Online Real Estate Marketing?”

David Meerman Scott in his "Duh, Winning!" t-shirt

This is yet another reason why I love David Meerman Scott. (Again, don’t tell my husband.) Who else would give us a webinar entitled, “Marketing Lessons from Charlie Sheen?” I just got done participating and it was packed with awesome information that any small business owner can use today to improve their online marketing efforts.

David started with a footnote to the webinar that he wasn’t necessarily agreeing with Charlie Sheen’s lifestyle choices. He was looking at his recent efforts to promote himself from a marketing standpoint. There is a method to his madness (Charlie’s madness that is). Let’s face it, we can’t argue that Charlie has received more media lately than one man deserves. But David pointed out several key reasons why. So what can we learn from Charlie?

1. Create great web content. Charlie did a great job with inbound marketing. He has millions reading what he Tweets and watching his self made videos. He’s making web content that people are eating up.
2. Interact in real time. Charlie was able to respond instantly via the web to people’s comments. Speed and agility are a huge competitive advantage for any company. You have to be in a position to capitalize on opportunities, fast.
3. Deliver content that the media will pick up. People in the media are going to Google, YouTube, etc. They are searching. They are paying attention to what happens on the web. They are looking for interesting things to write about. Charlie knew when he posted a video on UStream that the media would find it and watch it.
4. Marketing is a performance. OK. This is my favorite take away. I should remember this from the days in my teens as a candy making entrepreneur. I was cute. I was interesting. I was in everything from People Magazine to USA Today. It’s about performing. (Too bad we didn’t have the internet back then to capitalize on all that real time marketing.) Charlie has turned everything into a performance. Perform and people will watch. (Although a caveat might be to perform appropriately.)
5. Take risks. It’s OK to fail. As your mother always told you, if you don’t try, you won’t get anywhere. Not everything is going to work. How many of us in business have done everything right? None of us. You have to make a choice. Put it out there. See what happens. Adjust accordingly. Charlie’s first night of his tour bombed. He learned from the lesson and made the show better.
6. Measure and improve for winning. Again, learn from your failure. You’ve got to keep track of what is working and what isn’t. Learn from both sides.

Another great presentation by David Meerman Scott. I have got to see this man live. I”ll set that as a goal. Be sure and read my book review of David Meerman Scott’s best seller, The New Rules of Marketing and PR and from his New Rules Social Media Series, Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business. Also, be sure and visit David Meerman Scott’s blog at Web Ink Now.

The URL Dr. launches affordable custom web site design and hosting services. The web site themes being offered are designed in WordPress. Three levels of service are being offered from Do It Yourself for $9.99 a month to Full Service with online marketing starting at $199 a month. The system features an online video learning center with instructional videos to walk customers through the set up, management and marketing of their web site. Online marketing videos covering pay per click management, search engine optimization, and social media will be added in the upcoming months.

I took part in a great webinar today, The Science of Email Marketing. Dan Zarrella, an award-winning social, search, and viral marketing scientist at HubSpot and author, presented some fascinating facts related to email marketing. I highly recommend viewing the entire presentation, but if you don’t have an hour to spend this week, let me repeat his top takeaways.

• Majority of people have 1 inbox for email. If you can reach that inbox, you are reaching your potential customers as businesses and consumers. So there really isn’t that much difference between B2B and B2C.
• Best day to send emails for highest clickthrough rates – Saturday or Sunday
• Best time to send emails – 6:00 to 7:00 AM EST
• 80% of people read email on mobile devices. Make sure your emails are optimized for mobile devices and look good on them.
• Use lots of links. The more links the lower your unsubscribe rate.
• Link to specific landing pages with a call to action.
• Include reference information in your emails so people save them for future reference. Include data, statistics, dates, how-to’s, tools, and useful information.
• Give people who subscribe to your email newsletter special access, pricing, coupons, etc. Make them VIP’s.
• Send email from someone they’ve heard of, not just customerservice@company.com.
• Don’t be afraid to send too much email. Unsubscribe rates didn’t go up substantially for sending 6 or 8 or 10 emails a month.
• Your newest subscribers are your best. Clickthrough rates go down as the subscribers get older.

Dan’s data for this webinar was collected from 9.5 billion emails sent through Mail Chimp, focus groups, and a survey. The webinar also included a list of “not to use” words for subject lines that you might want to check out in the SlideShare presentation.

What successes or failures have you experienced in email campaigns? Let us know.

Get Seen gives the beginner great advice on choosing a camera, lighting and sound, recording and shooting tips and tricks, editing, and uploading. Steve shares a ton of online resources and free services that the novice can use to create a professional look in their online videos.

Video is everywhere online. Facebook, YouTube, web sites, and blogs are just a few places that video can be used. The only limit to what you can video is your imagination (but for heaven’s sake…keep it clean). For small business try:

• Product demonstrations
• Interviewing a customer
• Blog entries
• Covering a trade show, conference, or convention
• Interviewing someone noteworthy in your industry
• How to’s
• Telling a story about your company or product

Remember, not everyone will watch your video the entire way through, so be sure and add titles, credits, and a watermark to your video with the url address of where someone can find you for more information.  Music adds to your video, but you have to be careful that you aren’t infringing on any copyrights. Get Seen suggests SoundCloud.com, Iodapromonet.com, CCMixter.org, and Jamendo.com for sites that offer safe to use music. The book also details information on Creative Commons licenses to let others know what they can do with your work.

We’re reminded that YouTube isn’t the only video hosting site out there.  Get Seen gives other recommendations for websites that you can spread your message across like Blip.tv, Metacafe, and TubeMogul. The book also covers how to utilize iTunes for your video podcasts with detailed information on iTunes-compatible video, submission requirements, and promotion ideas.

Broadcasting live is another way to differentiate yourself from the competition. Live streaming opens up a host of unique video opportunities. Don’t get scared by the live aspect, even the novice can accomplish live streaming with the equipment and services available. Get Seen covers various web site to use to accomplish a great live result.

Just like any part of your online marketing program, you need a plan. Who is your audience going to be? What message are you trying to get across? How are you going to offer unique value? How often are you going to publish video content? You also need to know how you are going to track your results. You can measure success by number of views, number of comments or feedback,  and number of times the video was shared or embedded.

Top 10 Takeaways from Get Seen – Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business:

• Give people something to look at.
• Do something unique. Stand out from the crowd.
• Don’t try to be someone else. Be yourself.
• Listen to constructive criticism but don’t let negative feedback get you down.
• Always carry your video camera with you to capture life as it happens.
• Keep making video. Practice makes perfect.
• Do what you love and be original, and you can never go wrong.
• People like behind the scenes footage.
• Keep it short – two to three minutes in length.
• Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. It shows realism and that you’re human.

Get Seen is part of David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Social Media Series.  This is yet another reason why I like DMS. In the big world of online marketing, if you’re using video to connect with people, showing some humanity and allowing your viewer to connect with you, it’s a much more effective strategy than rattling off a pitch. Small business needs to pick up their video cameras or iPhones and start capturing  and sharing the moment.

When you consider that Facebook has more than 500 million active users, Twitter has 175 million registered users, and every day nearly four years worth of video is uploaded to YouTube, it is quite obvious that you can not ignore the importance or impact of social media. Unfortunately, for many small business and schools, they just haven’t figured out how to make it work for them.

The social media gurus have been saying for a while now that social media is not a “platform to blare your message.” Having the attitude that your organization isn’t going to participate in the conversation because you can’t control what people are going to say, is completely missing the point. I hate to break it to you, but your customers and prospective customers are out there talking about you anyways. Can I tell you how bad it looks when the subject of the conversation isn’t participating…regardless of what is being said?

Social media is the perfect tool for building relationships. People want to do business with companies that they trust. Kids want to go to a school that has a unique personality that they can identify with. Parents want to send their kids to a school where they can participate with what is going on while their child is away from home.

Social media is the perfect way to communicate what is going on in your company, with your products, and with your people. It shares with the world what is happening on your campus, what the sports team accomplished, and what the theater department is producing. This sharing of “micronews” communicates your company or school’s culture with the world. It answers the question, “Do I want to do business with this company?” It also answers, “Do I want to spend four years going to school here?”

Social media gives a voice to an organization. It is the perfect medium to show what a unique personality you have. A printed brochure just doesn’t have the capacity to accomplish that in quite the same way.

One of the best things about social media is that many times, you don’t even need to toot your own horn, your fans will do it for you. Your best customers, your alumni, your current employees, your students…these are the people that bring your social media personality to life. Their comments let others see the real you. If they are truly your fans, they’ll come to your defense if negative comments are made. And if they are, you need to be part of the conversation to react and deal with the problem before it gets out of hand. A great deal is said about how an organization handles problems and negative publicity.

Social media can be a bit more tricky to track the success of. There are the obvious key metrics like number of comments, followers, retweets, likes, etc. In fact, we’ll be looking more at social media metrics in an upcoming review of “Social Media Metrics – How to Measure and Optimize your Marketing Investment.”

With our culture’s interest and activity in social media, you must be a participant. If you aren’t your prospective customer base is going to gravitate to the companies and schools that are active. The place to start is with an examination of your organization, your goals, and what you want to accomplish with social media. You need to involve numerous departments and people within your organization to offer ideas on the best way to get into the conversation.

So what are you waiting for? Start interacting today and let the world know what is special about your company or school.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR

In the upcoming week, I’m paying tribute to one of my favorite online marketing and pr gurus, David Meerman Scott. I love David Meerman Scott. I’m not afraid to admit it (although please don’t tell our spouses). Love and admiration aside, I think David’s books are a must read by any small business owner and / or anyone that deals in online marketing and ecommerce. So, I’ll be reviewing my favorites in this book review series that I’m calling: “Don’t Hate Me For Loving David Meerman Scott.”

First up…The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition

“New Rules” details how the internet has completely shattered the rules of traditional marketing and public relations. It’s not about contacting the press to sell your story. It’s not about posting a brochure of your product offering. It’s not about using propaganda to sell your wares.

The New Rules are about having a voice and taking part in a conversation. It’s about solving problems for people and educating. It’s about establishing yourself and your company as a trusted resource, an expert at whatever it is that you do. It’s about new ways to reach people.

It doesn’t matter how customers find you, just that they do. Your job is to create great content that informs and educates your potential customers. We’re reminded once again, that it all comes back to content, plain and simple. Put your message out there in as many different formats as you can. Each form reaches a different audience that could be interested in your product or service. Great content can come in the form of white papers, e-books, email newsletters, webinars, wikis, photos, blogs, videos, and podcasts.

Remember this is not supposed to be a brochure or a sales pitch. Use examples and stories to make what you do interesting. Meerman Scott tells us to research who is visiting our site and to know what their questions are, their motivations, and the problems they need help solving. The people who learn information from you are more likely to hire you or buy your products when they need it.

Targeting potential customers with the new rules of marketing has us using various forms of social media to start conversations.  These conversations are giving our companies a human voice, allowing us to differentiate ourselves and our services from the competition, and connecting us with networks of potential clients. The book outlines great suggestions for blogging, social networking, video and podcasting.

I was especially interested in the new rules of news releases. Press releases have had a makeover in the 21^st century. As business owners we don’t just send news releases to the press anymore, we’re sending them online where the masses can find them. They are bringing potential customers directly to us, as well as bloggers and journalists who may be interested in our story. We’re writing news releases with the same keyword-rich language that we build into our web sites, with the same positive effects. Meerman Scott also outlines how to reach the media and how to pitch your story to them.

Going back to basics, success is in the planning. “New Rules” tells us how to build a marketing and pr plan that works with your company’s goals. After setting goals, identify buyer personas and determine the best ways to reach buyers with compelling content. Develop an editorial plan for your.

All in all, The New Rules of Marketing and PRredefines how we all will be doing business today and in the years ahead. Meerman Scott reminds us that, “Marketing is more than just advertising. PR is more than just a media audience. On the web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.”

Next up, “Real-Time Marketing & PR.”