Is the quest for search engine optimization making your brand “generic?”

By Steve Fodor

Is it more important for your brand to be found by search engines, or to portray your brand in a way that makes it stand out? The answer, of course, is both. But the quest for writing SEO-friendly headlines and content may be diminishing your brand’s unique position and point of view.

The foundation of successful marketing communications is telling a compelling story about your brand based on information about the consumer. It’s about understanding the emotional experience the consumer or end-user is seeking, and then crafting a story about how your brand delivers an experience that no other competing brand can match.

In today’s data-driven, online media environment, storytelling and consumer information is often interpreted as meaning “cookie data” rather than understanding and responding to the emotional experience a consumer is seeking. Copywriters and content creators are challenged with creating headlines and content comprised of SEO-powered words, often at the expense of creative storytelling.

No one knew how to tell a brand story based on emotional appeal better than advertising legend David Ogilvy, in my humble opinion. Consider some of his more exceptional brand storytelling efforts. “At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” With that headline, Rolls-Royce owned the experience of “uncompromising luxury and quality” without having to pound a list of SEO-powered benefit words into the readers’ heads. The readers reach the conclusion about the brand themselves. For SEO purposes, that ad for Rolls-Royce might need to say, “Luxury cars, exceptional quality from Rolls-Royce.” That might make the message more SEO-friendly, but the story loses a lot of its appeal. Or take Dove Soap. “Darling, I’m having the most extraordinary experience” was the headline of a Dove soap ad from Ogilvy. That tells an emotionally-driven, experiential brand story in a much more interesting way than, “Germ-free, moisturizing soap for sensitive skin,” which is probably how someone would do an online search.

Some in the business of marketing content creation believe the “art” of crafting a brand message has been lost because of today’s online, data-driven media environment. The quest for search engine optimization has forced developers of marketing messages to focus on keywords and cookie data rather than creative storytelling, often portraying brands in more “generic” ways. Perhaps. But the true art of branding and storytelling is balancing creativity and consumer-based content creation with the rules of being found online. A task that’s much easier said than done. After all, if it doesn’t sell, it ain’t creative.

Advertising Creative Credit:David Ogilvy

Boosting Online Presence for B2B Marketers on a Budget.

By Steve Fodor.

I don’t pretend to know everything, but I know one thing to be true: B2B marketers today need to boost their online presence with less funds, fewer people and in an ever-increasingly cluttered online environment.

What’s the point of having invested in a Web site if it does not get found? Or if it doesn’t sell? Content development strategies continue to grow as a way for increasing SEO and telling a brand story. And it’s a great strategy, if you have the time, people and resources to do it. A recent study points out that 60% of B2B companies have no marketing staff dedicated to content development, and 24% of companies have only one person dedicated to the task.

So what to do? A colleague of mine and I were discussing this dilemma the other day. The problem we’re trying to solve is: how can we create greater online presence for a client with minimal funds and not enough resources to really implement a content development strategy? Here’s some food for thought.

Give your Web site a “call to action.” - So many Web sites are basically, well, online brochures. If I come to the site once, I’ve seen about everything there is to see. Your Web site…regardless of industry… must first and foremost sell your products or services. Call-to-action specials, sweepstakes, promotions and “new” items that are available should be seen in a big and bold way. It’s easy and relatively inexpensive to frequently feature new items and promotions with calls to action on your home page.

Better yet, create micro sites for specific promotions. – Adding micro sites to support specific product or service specials and/or new promotions puts new content out there to be found, and can be created at a fraction of the cost of a new Web site.

Expand your presence through promotion on third-party e-newsletters. – Third party e-newsletters are often overlooked when developing online media strategies. But, just about every industry has online newsletters authored by credible industry experts. They usually are opt-in (meaning people actually request the content) and present promotional opportunities at a fraction of the cost of other more “mainstream” venues. In our experience, we’ve actually seen some online newsletters perform better than established publication Web sites.

These are a few ideas a B2B marketer can do today and on a relatively small budget to boost online presence. We call making the most of available marketing funds our Industrial-Strength Marketing® approach. Having been in business since 1985 and working exclusively with B2B marketers, we know that just throwing money at a marketing problem is not always possible (or advisable). We have a few more Industrial-Strength ideas to share. If you’ve got a few, let us know.

Flickr Photo Credit:28 misguided souls