A friend of mine reached out and asked me my thoughts on product marketing the other day. Little did he know that question would send me off on a tangent. Because it did (and I thought I would piece together that tangent for this post).

For one reason or ten, I am insanely passionate about product marketing. I think it’s because I have seen the shift over the years from “two teams” to “one team”, from “hands off marketers” to “all in marketers”, and I couldn’t be more stoked about it. Today product and marketing need to be so closely tied, you can barely separate them. I believe that with my whole heart.

But alas there is a problem. The intersection of  the two functions often causes more friction and deeper silos than we could imagine. There is a turf war happening at a number of companies, and it’s too damn bad. The companies that solve for how these two teams can work together are going to win. They are going to win every time. Luckily for us there is a traditional function that helps lace us together for a common goal — product marketing.

Enter the second problem — most marketers don’t know what the hell that means. [facepalm] So let’s run through it shall we?

What is Product Marketing?

Product marketing as it traditionally exists solves for – what to build, who to sell it to, how to sell it, and what to price it at. Its a four cornered web of awesome that helps companies build something valuable for the right people, sell it well and make money. Wait a minute — that sounds super important? Why yes, yes it is. I have put together a magical picture (ridiculous attempt at a pun intended) to stress its importance…

So how come so many companies screw this up? Enter the where should it live dilemma.

Where Should Product Marketing Live?

You know what I love? Cold, hard truths. So here are a few of them: Most of today’s marketers suck at what to build and how to price it. While most product managers today suck at who to sell it to and how to sell it. Don’t hate the messenger. It’s true. FWIW it’s not their/our fault, marketers weren’t trained in product planning, and product managers weren’t trained in market research and acquisition/take to market strategy. Let’s all just blame the system and move on.

So if it shouldn’t live on either team, then what? This is where it get’s interesting. I think you’ll see the rise of growth teams, or product planning teams that try to really drive those core functions (this is a lot of what growth marketing was at Moz for me and what you see growth teams do at other companies – FB, Dropbox, Pinterest, etc.). I think these hybrid teams will hire in curious cats that don’t want to do one or the other. And I truly believe that in a few years we may just see the structured “two team system” as we know it — be uprooted altogether.

With today’s companies being more product driven than ever and offering more products than before on more channels than ever before, the cornerstone that is product marketing has become the inflection point between success and failure. I’m seeing it. You’re seeing it. It’s happening.

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I love beautiful things. I mean all of them. I love anything visually striking. It can be a photo, a painting, a splash of color on a wall, or a bright red lip on a confident woman — I love visual moments that shake me at the core.

To me “visual moments” are at the center of everything really meaningful on the web. We could talk all day and share the hell out of the words — but nothing stretches as far as a photo…a visual moment we can all relate to on some primal level.

So the other day when I saw Shutterstock released Spectrum, its new Labs tool that allows you to search their photo archives by color, I all but jumped out of my chair. Well done Shutterstock, well done.

For years I’ve used Shutterstock to discover beautiful photos for presentations, backdrops, cover shots, and more. I have lost hours of my life to that site. They have done some good things over the years — improved their drop down suggestions, improved the customer feedback capabilities and allowed me to suggest alternatives. I’ve thought many times — “they are really nailing this photo search experience.”

Then they jumped on up there and introduced color based search. #yesssss

Why Is This Such a Big Deal?

I truly believe we’ve seen a shift over the past 18 months. Social platforms are investing more in the visual experience then ever before. From the expansion of our Twitter backgrounds, to the increasing of our Google + cover shots, to the rise of sites like Pinterest — the big players know that we want more room to visually represent ourselves.

I believe this shift in empowering us to better visualize who we are and what we love is leading to a fundamental shift in how we are looking for information on the web. It won’t be just a search or even a discovery – consumers and users are turning to the web to simply be inspired. Continue reading →

“Personalize. Personalize. Personalize!” If there is any doubt, 2012 is certainly the year of personalization. For the past few years we have seen a growing focus on personalization. Whether it be in the message, the experience, the product, or even the reach out – making sure you personalize every step of the way is crucial.

I think the recent upgrades to our common advertising options (Adwords, FB editor, etc.) as well as our traditional standards (funnels, UX, etc.) have brought the customized experience to the forefront. I, for one, love it. It may take more work upfront but the rewards on customer sentiment and lifetime value are obvious.

Focusing on personalization is always the better option. Except for when it’s not.

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Loyalty…what a loaded word. It’s one I’ve explored a lot on a personal level over the years, but not one that rings as true in my marketing experience or professional portfolio. For almost a decade now I have been focused on “acquisition” marketing, which itself has changed a great deal over the years.

Only recently, as in the past 6 months, have I turned my attention to retention marketing. For those unfamiliar with the term it refers to “marketing programs that are aimed at increasing engagement, brand support, and loyalty to one company or product.”

You may have heard it surface in conversations as lifecycle marketing, loyalty marketing, customer success marketing, customer happiness marketing, etc. There are a lot of ways to say it but it all boils down to – programs that help keep customers happy.

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What the hell is “acquisition marketing?” If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been asked that, I’d be able to buy myself a few pairs of these (since one is clearly not enough). When we say “acquisition” what do we mean? Do we mean acquisition and mergers? Do we mean partners? Do we mean acquiring traffic? leads? conversions? Do we mean only performance marketing? Do we mean inbound marketing?

The short answer is – yes.

If you had asked me this question a few years ago I might have corrected you and called it “customer acquisition” because that’s where its roots lie. Years ago if you were in customer acquisition you used marketing channels to acquire customers. Often “paid” marketing channels were your weapons of choice, but you worked also on partnerships that would help strengthen your customer counts.

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Disclaimer: This post has less to do with the information I learned at PubCon and more to do with a few important lessons I learned.

I should kick it off by saying this past PubCon Las Vegas was my 7^th PubCon. Between Vegas, Austin, Dallas, and soon to be Hawaii I have literally wandered the U.S. to make sure I didn’t miss this show. I’ve spoken over ten times on topics like PPC, landing pages, retargeting, the state of our industries job landscape, PR and social media marketing. Not to mention I’ve been lucky enough to moderate panels around analytics, affiliate marketing, SEO, and more.

Like many of you I paid for my first PubCon out of pocket. I still remember tweeting out “should I go to PubCon if my company won’t pay?” and @Sugarrae responded with something along the lines of a “hell yes” and carried on to tell me that this is THE show that is worth attending.

Jesus was she right.

There is something inexplicably special about this show. It likely has something to do with the amazing people behind it, the story of how it came about, the way its grown, and the people that attend it every year. Then there is the hugs, and the sincere “how are you doing friend?” and of course the drinks, and the gambling, and the laughing. Wow has there been some really spectacular laughing.

Because of PubCon we have had secret jokes shared between thousands of friends, a face-to-face with Matt Cutts every year of our careers, we have had something to call “ours” and something to compare every other show to.

Some of us have gotten jobs, some of us have fallen in love, some of us have gotten raises, or started companies…all from a PubCon. We have left PubCon both proud of what we have learned over the past year and humbled by how much left there is to learn.

The crazy reality of all this is that all I’ve listed above isn’t even the half of it. I’ve heard stories of late night brainstorms that led to agency collaborations, new tools, revolutionary ideas and philosophical shifts in how we approach the industry we have all jumped into whole-heartedly.

At PubCons I have seen assholes apologize for being assholes, and quiet wallflowers take a stand (usually over a few cocktails funded by {fill in awesome company here}. This conference gives us a place to rethink things, to validate our gut feelings, and to catch glimpses of what is to come.

Dare I say that PubCon has always been my favorite show over the years? Closely followed by SearchFest up in Portland, and our own MozCon. What can I say? I’m a sucker for shows that truly are just a gathering of friends at some random place usually surrounded by bars. The bigger shows out there have their place and I would never take away what shows like SMX, SES, Dreamforce, etc. have done for me, but something about PubCon keeps it on a very special pedestal for me.

I thought it would be worth writing up a few things I took away from this particular PubCon (since I always say I am going to do it and never do)…

• I need to get over my issues with it and participate more on Google + … FINE! Geeeshhh.
• I need to start saying thank you more to the people in this industry who have supported me for years. Thank you so very much– Marty, Topher, Brad, David, Brett, Steve, and Steve and so many others.
• I must stop making jokes about not being able to see over the podium when I talk, no one has ever really laughed
• I took away I should push myself to do better things with Facebook advertising for SEOmoz, I’m slacking there – ask Brian Carter and Kate Buck Jr. about what they are doing.
• I realized I’m really happy with my job and finally at the place we all hope to get to – a place where I can hear about a new opportunity but not want to explore it
• I’ve realized I will forever be thankful to the veterans of this industry that continue to push out epic ideas that get me thinking– Loren, Streko, Tim, Greg, Chris, Lisa, Rhea, Andy, Tony and so many more.
• I learned that duplicate content issues really piss people off, I’m going to suggest to our bloggers list that we should write more on this
• I took away a whole lot of great information around social and its convergence with our current digital strategies – ask Joe Hall about the data battle out there, it will tell you a lot about where we are going.
• I realized there is not so much a revolving door in this industry (like many other industries) but instead a constantly open one and I am excited to see where all the newcomers will take us in the future, cuz they are freaking smart yo.
• I’m reminded again and again that the amazing women I know in this industry have become true friends and I am a better person for it – Kate, Ruth, Kristy, Monica, Dana, Pam, Carolyn, Shannon, Vanessa, Janet, Lauren, Melanie, Merry, Michelle and so many more.

Okay that’s enough rambling for me, but I will say one last thing that any future PubCon-er should know – this all started from a group of people that literally built this industry on questions and through connecting in forums…where we all tried to help each other move an industry forward.

Sometimes I think we have forgotten that. I only hope that as Brett and his team continue to put together these shows every year we somehow find our way back there – to a point of conversation, and questions, and curiosity…and collaboration.

That’s where I want to be. Sitting around a table with you crazy freaking braniacs, trying to share what little experience I have, and absorb all of yours. Thanks again to the brilliant team behind PubCon… once again you’ve managed to remind us how amazing, ambitious, and special this industry really is.

See you in Hawaii!

I get asked this a lot. Not like “a lot” but like “a looottttt.” Perhaps its our quest for the quick fix, but as marketers we are always looking for the immediate fixes we can roll out to increase our conversions. While most marketing pieces don’t work that way, conversion rate optimization is an exception. There is always room for improvement….

There is always room for improvement

I truly believe there is always a few things you could do to your top landing page right now that would get you more signups, better engagement, or higher quality scores. The hard part is knowing which one is going to work for you.

The process usually looks a little like this;

Step 1: You see your competitor roll something out and you think, “hmmm would that work for us?”

Step 2: You tell yourself you are going to test, like a good marketer should! You create 3 to 4 tests in your head, spec’ing them out in mockups, and put together the prettiest little testing plan you’ve ever seen.

Step 3: Realize your design team is too busy.

Step 4: Realize your development team is too busy.

Step 5: Freak out that you aren’t making any moves, and roll out the exact change your competitor made to their site.

Step 6: Continue to panic since you know this is bad practice.

Oy. It’s true right? I know I am personally responsible for this way too often. The sad reality (we all know way too well) is that we don’t always have the resources available to get up solid tests. So what can you do to your top landing pages immediately, without feeling a huge panic? The usual suspects are things like best practices for landing pages. This includes things like;

• More white space/clear out clutter

• Above the fold call to action

• Larger call to action, surrounded by more white space

• A trustworthy looking layout/make sure your site looks trustworthy

And so on, and so forth.

Okay that’s all great, but what about the not so obvious improvements out there? That’s what I’d like to tackle today. I’m lucky enough to say I’ve been screwing up landing pages for close to 7 years now. It’s true. I’ve tested all sorts of things on all sorts of sites in all sorts of industries, and whether the usual experts want to admit it or not, there are things beyond best practices that can increase conversions almost universally.

*Note the “almost” okay? So don’t go bitching in the comments when you tested and concluded something different

All right, now that disclaimers are out of the way, let’s talk about 5 other ways to improve your top lander right now.

Other Idea #1: Social signals galore
We all know that adding social buttons to your site increases engagement, but did you also know that it often increases conversions? Just knowing they can reach you through a variety of social channels triggers an added trust response when a visitor is trying to choose between buying and leaving. So if you are social (which for those of you who aren’t by now…you are just being foolish) make sure to add those social buttons front and center.

Other idea #2: Numbers make people smile
Okay maybe not smile, but they are more likely to convert! It’s true! I’m not just saying this because I love calculators. If you can add numbers to your landers, often your conversions will increase. This covers things like, adding your member count, adding the total number of community members, or adding how many people are online now, etc. Remember those ghetto visitor tickers from back in the day? Yeah, don’t use those. Instead show off how much money your software tracks, or how many shoes your site sold. Show off your awesomeness in real, tangible numbers. It works, I swear.

Other Idea #3: Quotes, quotes, and funny quotes?
While we all know a testimonial helps conversions, did you know that it’s almost impossible to have TOO many testimonials on your lander? It’s true. Get them up there! Rotate through a dozen, or link to a full page of them. Also (and this surprised me!) don’t weed out informal or funny quotes. People like to see the candid nature of a true reaction to a product or service. If someone said “You da bomb!,” you go ahead, bold it, and get it up there. Word.

Other Idea #4: Logos are pretty, but faces are prettier
So you know that best practice about getting up a logo for each person that reviews you? Yeah you can kind of ignore that…as long as you get up their face instead. I’ve tested this a bunch and almost always, the face of a testimonial giver out performed the logo of their company. It seems obvious; yet way too many sites are rocking a testimonial, with a name (in text) and the logo of the company next to it. So say cheese, and get those pictures up!

Other idea #5: You want the money? Give out your number!
Whoa that sounds weird, but alas its true. In a world that is increasingly moving to the cloud, more and more sites are dropping the physical address and phone number for more scalable solutions to customer service. #hugefail The truth is you need to have a number they can call, you need an email front and center, and if you have a physical address…throw it in their face! The placement I’ve tested that wins the most is still (believe it or not) top, right corner, usually followed by a site search box. I guess not all throwbacks are lost in the hustle. So grab your digits and get them up there.

So there you have it. Hopefully some of them surprised you, or at the very least reminded you that you should always be tweaking those top landers. I’ve always believed that every page on our site can be a lander, but that us marketers need to know the big winners as they win. These are the pages you constantly tweak.

Once you nail the best practices, you owe it to your inner CRO self, to really push the envelope on what you know. And just remember…if you find yourself simply copying your competitor’s landing page changes, you should probably smack yourself. No really, that is not doing your beautiful pages justice.

So best of luck on the optimizing front friends! I’d love to hear what sort of tests you have run, and the surprising results they delivered!

For the past few weeks I’ve wanted to get a post up. I kept seeing all these juicy topics run through my Twitter stream, and kept jotting down little post outlines on notebook paper (yes I still use that stuff). No matter how good my intentions were, I simply couldn’t manage to get a post up.

Last night I was doing one my late night runs through the city (which come to find out is actually a pretty safe & normal activity here in Seattle) and I was like… “I’ll write a post about how I am going to commit to getting more posts up,” thinking that would be an easy foot in the door.

Then I thought, Jesus that’s lame. No one wants to be the “I am going to…” promiser, and never deliver. So instead of writing a post about my hopes for this blog renewal, I figure I might as well jump right in.

{jump}

You all see what went down today in the PPC world today? Those longer titles (that every single one of us knew was coming) finally got released today. Got to love Google and their not-so-sly way of testing things. I can name at least three Twitpics of people capturing this over the past few months.

So longer titles…let’s talk about it. What does it mean for us PPC-ers and our clients/companies?  Well more characters to start. I know all of us just took a deep breath while we had flashbacks to 26-character freakouts…eeek! Google will now be showing the first description line of our ads as the title for select ad placements (basically top position snaggers).

Why is Google doing this? Their words “we’ve seen higher click through rates.” Uhmmm, yeah duh. As we can all see these listings now look a bit more organic…pretty convenient huh? I guess all that colored background testing was getting a bit boring.

Few things to think about… (one) Google is only do this for some advertisers — at least for now, and (two) they said we can all increase our chances of being selected if our two description lines have proper punctuation and appear to be completely separate thoughts/lines. I kind of like this passive aggressive way of Google reminding us to adhere to the guidelines and provide a legit search experience.

I also enjoy the fact that those advertisers doing bulk ad uploads which result in awkwardly worded ads might actually be hurt a bit by this. Well maybe not since we know this will eventually roll out across all advertisers, but a girl can dream.

Anyway, my thoughts? I’m stoked. Simple titles like {site – Official Site} can now have a bit more pizazz and work for those longer brand names. Also, I can start playing with brand bylines as titles. Not to mention, this is a simple reminder that our “restrictions” are only restrictions as long as Google wants them to be. I like to see these changes rolled out.

At the very least it reminds me we still have people at Google testing out layouts that might actually help us brand effectively, and not just help them fool searchers into clicking (and subsequently blowing through my budgets).

Okay so those are my thoughts on today’s news. What you all thinking? Anyone against this? You guys over it, since we broke the story two weeks go? Or should we all go back to bitching about the lowercase display URL issue? Because, that one still ticks me off.

Today is an exciting day folks. For those of you who have been sitting around wondering how to get 100% share of voice on Adwords, Christmas came early with Tuesday’s announcement from Adwords. They have officially launched leaderboard ad placements on Google Images through their Display network.

A few months ago Google launched the thumbnail image along side text ads above Google Images, and that was fine…only problem was there were two ads per query, and the spacing/format was a bit awkward if you asked me. I think invasive would be a good word for it. You can see what I mean here, from me searching “blue jeans” :

Yeah it’s better than nothing, but I, personally, haven’t seen huge CTRs from these placements. I think it was due to a combination of factors, but ultimately those ads just aren’t compelling. The good news is I think the Google Gods were listening in on all of our complaining and decided to make this sexy new placement as an option:

Dead sexy right? I’m not sure if you are all seeing what I am seeing…but it has something to do with %100 share of voice…or what I am calling “The Promise Land of PPC.”

So what are the details? Well they just launched this. I did a bunch of searches and haven’t seen too many showing up, so either people haven’t opted in yet, or they are rolling it slowly. Also this is all beta (like everything in the Google world) so they might introduce another ad up there in the same format soon enough.

So get on it. This is a great example of someone doing something all sorts of right. Let’s say I wanted a fancy pair of red heels for the holiday season and I did a search for “red high heels,” clicking through to Google images (Disclaimer: this may or may not be a real story…I heart shoes.) Anyway, look at Anne Klein. Holy smokes, now THERE is some coverage.

Even more interesting is taking a look at the Google results on the web results. Look who ISN’T anywhere on the first page (organic or paid)…

Yeah. Look at all of that competition they would have to compete with on the search network. Nutzzz.  Need another example, check this out. I was doing a search for “las vegas flights,” which from my experience working for TripAdvisor I can tell you is a pricey freaking word. Anyway, check out the competition on the first page of the web results:

Now, let’s just say I clicked through on the image searches (which I realize would be a bit unusual) but look what I got:

Well done AlaskaAirlines.  They are getting serious brand equity with that buy. #whoa #thatPPCstrategistdeservesaraise.

So what makes this new ad type blog worthy? It’s an ad buy that a lot of very rich advertisers don’t know about. I suggest you get in there, and take advantage of this ASAP. Get creative with those display ads too… without any other ad there, the contextual experience is yours to control.

Whew…this just gets me all sorts of excited. Who is freaking out? Yeah me too.

When it comes to conferences let’s just say I’ve been to a few. Okay maybe more than a few…maybe more like a lot. Okay fine! I admit it…I’m a conference junkie.  I can’t help it, somewhere between too much coffee, a few too many cocktails, and a lot of handshaking I find myself completely elated to be in this industry…with all of you.

{Enter BlueGlassLA.}

This past week I have been in Los Angeles (huge thank you to Rand—my boss for allowing me to work from coffee shops and enjoy the Southern California sunshine), for the first ever BlueGlassLA conference. For those of you (clearly living under a rock) and not sure what BlueGlass is, you can read all about the merger here, and quickly understand why I was excited for this one.

After tweeting out I was attending a few weeks back I got a DM from someone—who I will not publically embarrass at this time—and it said, “seriously what could possibly be special about this one, it will be the same old stuff.” My reply was, “just you watch, this one will be special.”

{Pats self on back for being right}.

BlueGlassLA didn’t just attract a top-notch speaker lineup, but it filled the room with people that are making waves in our industry. I was literally shocked to see all of those faces in one room, and even more shocked to see them all meeting each other, hitting it off, trading biz cards, clinking glasses. I mean wow…just…wow.

Okay this post isn’t meant to make you feel bad about missing BlueGlassLA (although it may not have been your best decision ever) instead I wanted to highlight something original that BlueGlassLA reminded me of…

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

What the hell am I talking about? BlueGlassLA set out to change up the conference agenda. You can tell by scoping out the schedule they wanted to capture the full cycle of Internet marketing, from the very beginning (seeking out investment) to the middle chaos (trying to build a community and harness attention) to the end challenges (increasing traffic, making money, optimizing the pieces).

While I have always been aware that you needed each piece to perform for success, I think somewhere along the way I forgot that it’s not about having each piece do well, it’s about having them intersect and do AMAZINGLY well.

The BlueGlassLA speakers each spoke to their successes, their failures, and everything in between but perhaps even more importantly, in my opinion, is that they all alluded to this idea of reaching out to your network for help in the areas you don’t know. In doing this, you are able to make sure that no piece is overlooked, or half-assed.

Even the moderators and BlueGlass employees themselves touched on this as they complimented each other (in typical sarcastic, smart-ass ways) on how well they each know their piece of the Internet marketing pie. By surrounding yourself with people that are the best at what they do, you start to see a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

I felt like this whole damn conference exuded this tenet, and I was privileged to sit in the audience. I think in many ways the conference audience became an extension of the knowledge on stage…again demonstrating the power of smart people eager to learn more.

Too often at conferences there are “tracks” of topics, and I go about my paid search, SEO, and social panels. While I get to see friends, and hear about a new site or tool to check out, I rarely walk away thinking “Jesus that just blew my mind.”

By tearing down the walls between the different parts of Internet marketing and filling in some, too often overlooked, holes, I think this conference reminded me just how little I know. For those of you who know me well, you know that I value few things more than “knowledge” and “exposure to new ideas.” They keep us humble, and stretching, and motivated.

While I could have written about my experience at BlueGlassLA in a few different ways, I felt the need to really reiterate—what I believe—to be BlueGlassLA’s biggest achievement—the way in which they took a bunch of really smart Internet marketers and reminded us just how much more we have to learn.

For that I think the audience walked away from the conference a little more excited to “get after it,” and that is freaking priceless.

Did you mess up by not attending? Yeah. You. Did.

Luckily for you, and for me, it looks like they are going to be putting on another one later this year in New York. See you there? I’ll be up front eating my piece of humble pie.