UNPAID Search

The HEART of Downtown

Volunteering is something that has been ingrained in me since I was very young. At every phase of my life I have volunteered with various organizations. Yet as I became older, the desire to stay involved in non-profits has remained but it became more difficult to find a cause that invoked the passion for which I was searching. Several years after graduating from Marquette University in 2002 I decided that it was time to take a hiatus until an organization once again found its way into my heart.

Last September, I finally found the motivation for which I had been searching. The downtown of the village in which I have come to call my home was hit exceptionally hard by the economic crisis of 2008. It is now time to rebuild and I decided  to be a proactive part of the solution. So last fall I joined the Lombard Town Centre as a volunteer marketer and embraced their mission of an unwavering dedication to the downtown. Since joining I have sought opportunities to use my marketing knowledge to help this organization push forward.

With this renewed focus towards contributing the rebuilding process of downtown Lombard I began to think of how pay per click and other forms of paid search advertising could make an impact on advancing the awareness of this organization and helping to make tangible steps towards producing results.

Google Grants

Not only can SEM efforts be effective for a non-profit organization, but budgets can also remain realistic with the assistance of Google Grants. Google Grants are an under utilized tool by many non-profits nationwide. Grantees are the recipients of free Adwords on Google SERPs:

Non-profit organizations are able to build and manage their Adwords campaigns in the same fashion that a private sector company would - however there are a some restrictions:

     • A daily budget set to $330 USD, which is equivalent to about $10,000 per month

     • A maximum cost-per-click (CPC) limit of $1.00 USD

     • Only run keyword-targeted campaigns

     • Only appear on Google.com

     • Only run text ads

     • The organization must remain actively engaged with their Grants AdWords account

While Google Grants are an exceptional tool waiting to be leveraged, there are still other means to forward a mission by using interactive marketing.

Google & Beyond

There are many opportunities available to non-profits to use the Internet for more than the traditional web site. Google supports philanthropy by providing several other services in addition to AdWords.

Google Apps for Non-Profits and Google Earth Outreach coupled with YouTube for Non-Profits are all excellent ways to proliferate a mission without adding costly line items to an already strained budget. These powerful options from Google combined with social media and the support of organizations like SEOBook.org and SEMCares.com give non-profits powerful allies and sounding boards in their quest to bring change to the global community.

The important realization that all non-profits must realize is that in the new age smartphones and tablets the traditional means of communicating with constituents and stakeholders through direct mail and telemarketing is long since past. There is a new generation pool available to them that communicates in a different fashion. It is imperative that non-profits come to the realization that they must embrace the opportunities that exist for unpaid search and capitalize on them accordingly.

Micro SEO, Macro IMPACT

The rules of search engine optimization, or SEO, are ever changing. Google writes and rewrites the book of what good SEO should be several hundred times per year. Yet, while the rules continue to change, the foundations of what SEO can and should be have been fairly constant over the years:

• Application of diligently researched keywords

• Intelligent Metadata

• Carefully chosen ALT tags for images

• Relevant navigation choices and links

• Clever copy that appeals to both spiders and humans

These are just a handful of the important aspects to SEO, but the list is certainly not complete without the mention of microsites. For a small to mid-size organization, one of the most important optimization techniques that can, and should be leveraged is the microsite. A microsite as defined by Wikipedia is:

"an individual web page or a small cluster of pages which are meant to function as a discrete entity within an existing website or to complement an offline activity. The microsite's main landing page can have its own domain name or subdomain."

Micro SEO
Microsites that engage users with SEO rich content are sure to attract prospective visitors that are enthusiastic and passionate about your product or service. By creating a supplemental website that provides a particular audience with extensive information and relevant content on a finite subject, you allow your branded site to link to an external website that contains strategic content, enhancing your SEO efforts. 

If a microsite is such a powerful tool is there any reason to not have one? It is important to note at this juncture is that the purpose of a microsite is not to enrich and enhance the SEO for a brand website. There needs to be a reason that supersedes SEO - defining a niche market or micro audience that has interest in a very specific topic and they are proactive in seeking out information.

Macro IMPACT
Mashable feels that the folks at Mollydooker Wines certainly understand this concept. Their "Label our Lefty" microsite went viral as they asked wine enthusiasts to engage with them to name their new offering of sparkling shiraz. Mollydooker claims that their microsite enticed 80,000 pageviews and 14,000 unique visits while it was live. The Aussie winery sought to have a simple goal (name the wine) and achieved success (have customers engaged with the winery). Here is the promotional video that lead to their microsite success:

The success that Mollydooker enjoyed is not unattainable. If the design of a microsite is approached with well defined intentions and employs the essential elements of a well optimized web site, the results most certainly have the potential to bring success. However, if the sole purpose of a proposed microsite is simply to provide SEO and backlink to a parent site, not only to you risk being penalized by Google for black hat techniques, but you will most certainly lose credibility amongst the target population - possibly damaging your brand.

So don't be bashful, find your niche audience and build a microsite that gives them what they crave, just be sure to service their need for relevant information and not your own desire for a better page ranking.

Speciality BLEND

When we talk about communicating and gathering responses we must understand that as important as it is to deliver the message, the manner in which the message is delivered is what truly builds relationships over time. Empathy is the overwhelming key to a successfully cultivated relationship:

"Interactive Marketing is the evolution of marketing to a conversation. “The term interactive, as we interpret it, points to two features of communication: the ability to address an individual and the ability to gather and remember the response of that individual. Those two features make possible a third: the ability to address the individual once more in a way that takes into account his or her unique response. Thus we see interactivity as a tool that allows good marketing to become good conversation. The promise of the interactive paradigm, we anticipate, lies in its ability to put a more human face on marketplace exchanges without losing the scale economies of mass marketing.”  Source

Relationship Marketing

For those of you who may follow Social Media Examiner or have heard of Mari Smith - these are two great resources to enhance your understanding of relationship marketing. In the below video, Mari explains how Starbucks engages with their customers and shows that they "care" about them. This empathy strengthens the relationship, and, in turn, strengthens the brand. Its not about B2B or even B2C marketing, it's simply a concerted effort to have a P2P conversation.

Not only has Mari taken notice of Starbucks and their ability to build relationships, but Social Media Today also agrees. In a very recent article, they express the keys to engaging with customers. The below email is one example of how Starbucks builds and strengthens relationships:

If we refer back to our working definition of interactive marketing, we must focus on several key factors: reach the individual, remember the response and use a previous response to further build the relationship. Starbucks is very clearly taking these words to heart. Their reward? Loyal customers that feel that they have invested in a relationship with one of the world's most-trusted brands.