SES Singapore 2011 – Day 2 “Hot Topics” Track – Live Blog

Day 2 (Nov 23) coverage of what’s hot and how can you ride the heat wave – all set for a incisive look at the what’s shaking up the social and search marketing fields. See live report of the Keynotes and Fundamentals Track here.

[3.30 pm] Display 2.0: Retargeting and remarketing by Vikas Gulati, Vice President, Marketing & Business Development, Asia Pacific, Sprice, Andrew Tu, Vice President, Business Development Asia-Pacific, Brandscreen, Jonathan Tilbury, Regional Director, ValueClick, Arshan Saha, Regional Director, Innity. Moderated by Matt Harty, General Manager, Accuen APAC, Annalect

Andrew Tu

• Remarketing in Asia before starting – 1) Tracking infrastructure – ensure it’s in place with conversion tags not just GA; 2) Product fit – not one-size-fits-al, be product specific – windows, proposition, offer, creatives, etc.; 3) Audience Pools – organic data is key now. Embed remarketing tags onto pages with highest traffic to capture audience pools; 4) Legs to “Scale” – remarketing works best with audience pools and audience reach are scaled. It’s long term.
• eCPA of remarketing campaigns significantly lower than non-remarketing
• Lessons learnt from running remarketing: 1) Not the solution for lowest CPM; 2) No point in testing if no infrastructure in place; 3) About audience pools not just mechanical improvements to CPA – remarketing strategies work in parallel with non-remarketing; 4) No magic bullet; 5) Long-term commitment

[2.30 pm] Using social media conversations and statistical analysis to maximize your community ROI by Mikko Kotila, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Statsit

• Social media and the art of cherry-picking: bulls****ing with selected statistics and case studies
• More people online doesn’t mean more are social
• Social interactions has to be about diversity – we may be losing it and actually getting less social
• Social media is just a fancy word for “The Internet”
• Connect: internet is empowering brands to connect with you and vv
• Contribute: internet allows people to contribute
• Compete: internet taps into human’s being wired to compete, e.g., Dell Swarm, FourSquare, etc.
• Before brand conversations used to 1-to-1. Now, it’s part of the community, doesn’t have to be at the centre, but should be part of it.
• It’s so 90s to “build” a community or groups
• Building the community: “spray and pray” approach does not work
• The 3 Types of Influencers: 1) Gatekeeper (8%) 2) Elite (<1%) 3) Reactor (91%)
• Stop relying on Guesswork
• Most people followed users outside the community – watch out for affinities across interests
• Other stats – Klout scores across users, etc. – a lot can be gleaned from Twitter stats

[1.45 pm] Search in a social world by Lydia Ng, Digital Marketing Search Lead, Singtel, Adrian Ang, Business Director, AdVantage SEO, Kelvin Quee, Head of Partnerships, Jamiq. Moderated by Matt McGowan, Managing Director, Americas, Incisive Media

Is Search Relevant in a Social World by Lydia Ng

•  Many people with many opinions who all want to be heard. But Search only excels at 1-on-1
• The Rise of Social – majority of people have discussed or read brands on social networks
• Paid media investments are decreasing and earned media is on the rise
• More clutter, more voice
• But relax, customer journey is non-linear
• Search is a strong Validation tool – search and social makes people more confident about decision made
• People expect unbiased search results
• Social conversions in SG are assisted by Search
• A new Search model: OLD – silo-ed and NEW – integrated: relevant, sociable and congruent
• Be Relevant – buzz monitoring; buzz clustering of hot topics; Listen and act – keyword expansion, ad messaging, and  landing page optimization
• Congruent – customer journey is not linear. There is information overload, everyone is shouting for attention, multiple screens. If our message is fragmented, it’s easily lost in the clutter. Repeat your message in Search and Social – most conversions when Facebook ad title and searched keyword matched. Repeat the positive aspects in your ad copies. Refute negative sentiment – e.g., if not value for money, emphasize what the price premium gives in return.
• Be Searchable: Social content has a short shelf life, posts die down within the first few hours, and message is easily lost in the clutter. SEO for YouTube – extended air-time, video viral time is long

• More people are associating LinkedIn groups with lead generation
• Quick facts about LI groups: 1) Use Groups directory to find groups; 2) Groups are person-to-person: companies can’t own groups, only persons, and 99% of interaction is person-to-person just like in B2B world; 3) Group names are scarce – once registered, gone forever – every person can register up to 10 LI groups; 4) Groups give owners strong control – approve/reject, delete, moderate posts, kick out members
• Case Studies: Innovation in Health by Philips; and B2B Social Media Lead Generation by Skotidas
• Core benefits of joining LinkedIn groups: 1) Personal brand building (“mere exposure effect“); 2) Positioning – stand out and become synonymous with content, giving your greater credibility and trust in the market; 3) Inbound lead generation – be prepared for approaches, post new discussions, send free group email to link back to website, compelling and genuine content distributed in the group and embedded within site; 4) Outbound lead generation – approach group members and ask them for a meeting
• But beware of Costs 1) Reputation – be choosy in who they allow to join, train how to engage, and remove people who do direct selling; 2) Money – send hundreds of invitations, invest in LinkedIn media – InMails, Partner Messages, Ads; 3) Time – group admin needs to be rapid (approving, rejecting, moderating); 4) Content – source and distribute, content calendar, someone has to post; 5) Member engagement time – 3% rule – only 3 will become regular, 50% are lurkers, 50% have forgotten; 6) No thread depth = brain dead groups – start with a big promise of activity, but quickly flatline
• Best practices: 1) Naming – be relevant and appealing, don’t use company name; 2) Social sellers – choose the right people, create a plan for their contributions; 3) Invitations – be highly relevant, don’t use stock standard – LI profile of inviter must be highly relevant and credible to the target audience – will determine % conversion rate of Invite to Join (30% is good); 4) Member Engagement – plan ahead to time; topics must be interesting to target audience not you (have a process to determine the attractiveness of content); 5) Approach group members individually and ask for contribution; 6) Ask your social sellers to help you create buzz
• Lead Generation: 1) Selling – Never hard sell, never promote company brand overly, offer continual information and advisory value; 2) Inbound marketing – have forms in content that you share; 3) Tracking and measurement – add unique, trackable campaign link to each group post, record the click, capture conversion on website, integrate with CRM, analyse the results, and identify return on investments
• Q&A: Lead Generation: For short term quick wins – join groups where your prospects are; But in medium-long term, open your own and build your community there with your thought leadership content.
• Q&A: Inviting: okay to approach other group members one-on-one.

[11.30 am] SEO: A Veteran’s Tool Box by Mark Kum, Search Strategist, New Media Marketing Division, EC21.com and Richard Mabey, Managing Director, The Egg

• Step 1: Identify your Targets – ask your top offline competitors – use Google Trends
• Step 2: Market Analysis – use available statistics
• Step 3: Comparative search trends – how high do you rank, how often, and when searched for what
• Step 4: International and Local Search – use local search engines
• Step 5: Evaluate site assets – PageRank of 5 and above can get you to the top
• Step 6: Site foundation – 301 redirects are risky
• Step 7: Content analysis –  Description and placement of keywords
• Step 8: Site Tags – keywords in h1 tag
• Step 9: Internal links – link to your home page from within the site as much as possible
• Step 10: Re-start and refine!

[11 am] Online customer engagement by Cuneyt Uysal, Regional Manager, Southeast Asia, Sitecore

• Website launches typically entail Analytics, SEO, Lead scoring and nurturing, CRM , email marketing, etc. – integration of multiple systems is costly
• Sitecore integrates everything into a single platform – Customer Engagement Platform
• The typical Customer Engagement Journey – from Awareness  to Conversion to  Loyalty
• Generating traffic to your website is not just about mass numbers – it depends on what that traffic does, e.g., buy, ask, return, sign up for offers, rave and recommend?  Key is to get actionable data.
• Measure visitor value by weighting goals according to their sales value in terms of commitment to value (more the commitment, higher the value)
• Sitecore has “Executive Insight Dashboards” that give value per visit metrics – a Holy Grail of sorts
• Social ad spending grew nearly twice as fast as expected
• A good customer Engagement journey is not just about promoting a rock concert – you need to ensure people have a great experience and enjoy themselves
• Common pitfalls of customer facing websites: 1) Don’t see what customer is doing 2) Don’t listen to what customers are saying 3) Don’t speak to specific needs
• Reality: everyone’s journey is different: Track for Looking, Confirming and  Buying
• Provide unique customer experiences by tracking user behaviour on site – from IP,
• E.g., A telco’s customer journey: Motivate – Inform – Realize – Optimize – Support
• Random acts of marketing make it difficult for customer to engage with you
• Engagement Automation helps in Orchestrated Marketing
• Case Study: Heineken Star Player – HDTV, Web, Social, Mobile and Fan pages
• Success is measured using s scoring system for different behaviors over the customer journey, focus on “high scoring” customers (=> highly engaged)