that I shared with you guys will run the math down you on run down the math with you on


MozCon 2014 - 05 - Kyle Rush - Architecting Great Experiments

why that's not a good idea. But it's possible that when you stop your experiment with something


significant, maybe your significance level is like way lower than what it should be from


the sample size, right? So what you think you are looking at is probably


a winning result, but it could be a false positive. That's one of the worst things that


could happen to you because you are then making a change in your plan of your optimization


strategy, right? If you have a false positive and you are like, oh, wow, changing the headline


and changing it from green to blue actually makes a big effect, you might change all the


headlines on your entire Web site to blue when it actually doesn't work, right? So that's


a lot of work that you would be investing and you just don't want to be in that sort


of situation. So I think that A B testing software companies


can do a lot better in providing this information to people. We are trying to make those changes


optimizably, but it's just not common knowledge. I think it's really, really essential to the


A B testing process. So that's why I wanted to share it with you guys. Like I said earlier,


I think we as a community do a really good job of sharing what we are testing, but we


are not exactly sharing how we are testing it.


Can we get some lights on the microphones just in case anybody has any questions? We


use Optimizely at Moz. We love it. Emails go out to the entire company sharing the results.


One thing we see, though, is we run a test and we get really excited about it, then a


few weeks go by and the email comes out. We didn't find a difference. Then we get excited


again and we didn't find it. And that can be a little discouraging. What kind of expectation


should we have? How often should we be finding significant or most people will be finding


significant results? What's the lesson in there for us?


I would say that's the story of my life. Like I get really excited about an experiment,


so I'm like, you know, I'm really high. I'm like, oh, it's going to win. And then I go


down. And then like maybe it starts winning again and then I go up and then I go down.


That's just, you know, it's a roller coaster ride. There's no real like magical formula


on how often you should be seeing significance. It just really depends on what you're testing.


My advice to you would be try not to get too invested in it because then you're going to


be on that roller coaster, right? I've run I don't know how many experiments,


but now when I started an experiment, I just give a very like I don't send a pumped up


email to the whole company when I send that out. I'm not like, oh, this is going to be


major. I can't wait to see the results. Because then it pumps everybody else up and then there's


that letdown, right, that it's not a winner. And most of the time it's not going to be


a winner. And so I think that when you're setting your expectations of when you're getting


into an A-B testing program, maybe you're just starting or maybe you've already started,


I would just say try to keep it very low key when you're starting your experiments. Try


not to get everybody pumped up. Just be very matter of fact and say this is what we're


testing, we'll see the results. When you get that winner, that's when you can be all excited


and pop the beers in the office. It's awesome. Yeah.


Question. Yes. Great presentation. Thanks for the templates.


I'm sure those are going to be really useful. The Terce versus verbose experiment that you


ran, did you route 50% of the traffic to each branch and was that a challenge to get buy-in


from people at Optimize.ly to have a drastic change in the home page layout and be able


to fork 50% of the traffic or do you guys have to go through a process for that? And


then the other thing is if you had to do like 90% to the baseline and 10% to the variation,


how does that impact the experiment, the length of it and the accuracy of the results?


Yeah. Two really good questions. So if I was turning it right, the first one is how did


we actually like technically route the traffic between the control and the variation in the


Terce versus verbose experiment and how did we get buy-in or was that a problem with the


company. And then also is when you don't split the traffic evenly 50-50, how does that affect


things. So the first thing, the technical details


on how we did it, most A B testing platforms will allow you to do this but in Optimize.ly


we just ran JavaScript on top of the page. So we just ran a lot of like one of the little


jQuery one-liners that selected the elements that we wanted to hide that was the content


that we didn't want to be there and we just do dot hide and it gets it out of there. So


there wasn't actually two pages. We just executed JavaScript on top of the page that adjusted


it. Most of the time you can do that. Sometimes you actually have to create two different


pages and that's when it gets a little bit more complicated. But this one turned out


to be an easy one because we weren't adding a ton of content. That's probably where we


would have needed to make two different pages. This one was just hiding content. So that


was easy. As far as buy-in, so like I said before, Optimize.ly


is a very fearless company. It's part of our core principles. We have this little acronym


called optify and the F stands for fearless. And whenever you do something fearless, you


can go and present at the company meeting and everybody applauds you and it's really


part of our principles. But even for a company that talks about being fearless, it's still


really stressful for a lot of people to remove their content from the home page. I was talking


about this before. A lot of people inside the company were like, oh, this sounds like


a great test, but I'm not going to get any traffic to my page after you remove it from


the home page, which I totally understand. But what happens is you have to have a conversation


with people and it has to be an open conversation and you have to say, here's the ultimate metric


that we're going after. We happened to run this test right before we put on our conference,


which was Opticon. And so the fear was that if we removed Opticon from the home page,


that it would get no registrations. Well, that ended up not being true because when


we looked at the links, the actual links clicked on the Opticon banner, it was only like three


or four that came in from the home page. So the overwhelming majority of our registrations


for the conference were not from the home page. So in that instance, we hadn't deployed


the variation, but we had an open conversation with everybody and all the stakeholders that


were involved and we said, hey, look, we've got a 31% increase in the actual metric that


we're looking for. We want new leads. And it really didn't affect Opticon registrations


because that wasn't even down any measurable percent. And so that's how that happened.


The last question, you know, how does changing the split from, you know, let's say instead


of 50-50 to 90-10, how does that affect your sample size calculations? It affects it greatly.


You're still going to have to run to a certain sample size. So in my mind, it doesn't really


help you much. But there are going to be experiments that are such a big change to your page.


You will want to run them from 90-10. And the key, the value I see in doing a 90-10


experiment is that if there's going to be a fundamental bug in your variation and you're


only running that at 10% of traffic, you might notice it very early on if you're only doing


10%. But it has to be a pretty fundamental bug. And so you could run your experiment


at a 90-10 split for, like, let's say, you know, a couple of days to see if there's,


like, maybe there's no conversions and there's that big of a bug that you just didn't notice


it. That's when a 90-10 split is helpful for me. But most of the time I just don't do a


90-10 split. It's also helpful if you want to do the retest.


You can sort of tease out differences and just make sure that in the retesting phase


when you do the 90-10 split that you're really looking at the data to make sure it makes


sense from the previous test. But you're still going to run into the problem


is where you have to hit that sample size. So you really just, like, in a 90-10 split,


you've increased your sample size by, like, 900% on the actual variation. That's only


getting 10%. Thank you for the question. Let's go over


here. My question has to do with audience segmenting.


You mentioned that you should stay perceptive of who's coming into your Web pages from what


sources. What about primary pages, like a primary product page or a disambiguation page


that won't change by audience? Do you still recommend trying to segment and see how those


audience react differently even though you won't be segmenting to look or feel that page


per audience? So I would say that my recommendation is just


to think critically about it. I wouldn't just not think about it and move on, which I've


seen a lot happening. If it's a page that has pretty consistent traffic, you know, it's


really about the experiment that you're running and what you expect the results to be.


Even if it's a product page, you're going to have different segments of traffic, right?


You're going to have already logged in users that maybe have already purchased something


from your company and then non-logged in users. It turns out those are very different segments,


right? So if it's an e-commerce Web site and somebody's logged in, that's a totally different


thing because they can repeat buy from you. But at our company, once you buy our product,


there's no buying it again, right? Like you've already purchased it.


So in that case, we would certainly want to segment that audience, right? We don't want


people who have already purchased optimizly to be getting a callout to purchase optimizly.


It doesn't make sense. So at some level, you definitely have to think


critically about that. But the interesting thing about audience segments, and I think


a lot of A-B testing platforms do this for you, but you can see audience segments after


the fact, right? So if you don't think about it right off the bat to segment and like take


people out of your experiment on purpose, you'll see in the end like what the difference


was between logged in and logged out and then you'll be like, wow, I really should have


ran that segment, right? I should have segmented those people out.


So my advice would just be to think critically about it. There's probably a little bit more


sophistication around it than you would think right off the bat. And so I would spend a


decent amount of time thinking about what kind of people are going to a page.


Yes.


Q When you're thinking about things to test,


how much do you or how do you balance the testing the really big things that are going


to be measurable difference with specific enough things that you'll be able to tell


which had the effect?


Yeah. So the question is how do you balance testing really big things that can have like


a fundamental impact on the page versus like small things that may not.


My the way that I try to do my strategy is and this doesn't work for everyone. It has


not worked for me in some situations. But you always got to do what you can, right?


You got to do it the best you can with your resources.


What I try to do is I try to start from a fundamental level. So if I say here's this


page I'm trying to optimize. I already know it's a high value page for whatever company


and we need to optimize it. What I'll try to do is start from the very top because I


don't want to get the copy, I don't want to be testing the copy and have that correct


if I don't know that the messaging is correct, right?


And the messaging is what you're asking the user to do and the copy is how you're asking


them to do that. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to start optimizing how you ask


the user to do that if you don't know that that's the right thing you should be asking


your users to do. So what I try to do is I try to start from


a very fundamental level and I try to test multiple messaging angles and then once I


have that I'll try to change the messaging and then I just drill down to less specific


changes each time. So once I know what's the best message to


be showing people, then I just refine that. And so that's the sort of way that I hope


to go about it. It's not always the case that you have enough


resources to start off right off the bat, right? Maybe you've just won the argument


that you should be A B testing and you're the lone person at the company, I've been


in this position, and you don't have a lot of developer resources to make fundamental


changes to the Web page. And so you really sort of have to work backwards


sometimes. But it's important to look at the high fundamental level and not just those


small changes. And that's usually how I approach it.


JIM HARTNELL Got time for one or two more. Yes.


Q Hi. Great presentation. And I just had a quick question regarding metrics. So we have


a number of clients and it totally makes sense to me your comments on e-commerce that you


can measure, you know, shopping cart purchases or online lead generation. But what about


softer metrics? Like if you're just trying to measure, you know, time on site, number


of pages viewed, clicks to call, that type of thing, would you still handle that the


same way? JIM HARTNELL Yeah. So like I said, I think


it's really important to measure as many goals as you can. Since you already know about those


ones, I would, if it's not terribly difficult for you to measure it in your A B testing


software, do it right off the bat, because you might notice some interesting things.


But, you know, as you go along and as you get a little bit more sophisticated, you can


focus on those things. And since they are soft metrics, like you said, it probably doesn't


make a lot of sense to be calculating your sample sizes and your MDE based off of those


soft metrics. But what you'll notice if you are measuring them is when you run an experiment,


the variation will actually affect those metrics. And also what happens is you reach a point


of optimization where it's very, very difficult to beat the control. So on the Obama campaign,


after like, you know, six weeks of, or six months of optimizing a page, it was really


difficult for us to get a winner. And so then we started focusing on the soft metrics, because


the soft metrics may not have a measurable impact in the primary goal, but they definitely


have an impact on like how usable your form is, right? So maybe, you know, in the form


errors that I was talking about, that's sort of a soft metric. Maybe we decrease form errors


by like 60%, but there's no difference in the conversion rate. To me, that's still a


huge win, right? Because now our form is easier to use. I've reduced user frustration. And


that person is probably likely to come back. But if they wanted the product so bad that


they like spent a lot of time fiddling with those form errors and they completed that


purchase, there's no guarantee that they're going to come back, because, you know, that


just took them a long time. So there's different stages which I would be focusing on those,


but I would say always be paying attention to them. Always measure them if you can.


Q The Obama campaign, that much traffic, how fast could you run a test on that site?


A So it varied, right? So depending on what was going on in the news cycle, when the biggest


traffic that I've ever seen in my life was when the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare. And,


you know, at the time it was 50-50, we didn't know which way it was going to go. We were


really stressed out. And then it went well, actually, if you remember, CNN like misreported


it. And so I was like, oh, my God, this day is going to suck. And then the follow-up news


stories came up and corrected that. And then like the floodgates just went in. I imagine


this like huge sucking sound on the Internet of like all the traffic in the Internet coming


to our Web pages. And we weren't prepared for it, because we had never experienced that


level of traffic. And so we went through our queue of experiments. I think we had like


seven in the queue. We went through them in like an hour. And so we always tried to have


a test running. So we were like, oh, my God, hurry up, run a test. And we were just changing


the background color to every little thing we could think of just so that we were running


a test. But, I mean, it was crazy. It was like many, many millions. And like, you know,


we would get experiment results in like ten minutes.


That's amazing. Yeah, pretty awesome.


Rand. Yeah. This is a simple one, but I feel like


it's really hard for a lot of us to know how do we come up with what will be a meaningful


test? Like how do you, especially when you start working with a new startup, with a new


company, it's kind of that, okay, I heard this is good. I saw this example maybe from


your talk last year. I want to try that. How do you find out what is a good idea to start


testing with? How do you validate that? Yeah. So, I mean, that's like the hardest


question. So thanks for throwing me a softball. But the way that I try to look at my experiments


is I try to use an ROI metric, right? So and it's sort of difficult to work with ROI because


you're dealing with estimates. But you have to have some way to measure the effectiveness


of an experiment. And so when you look at a landing page and you're just getting started,


you're like, oh, wow, there's probably like 80 billion things I could test here, right?


And that's the problem. There's so many things to test. And you have no traffic to test at


all. And so it's really easy to get bogged down in all of that and be like, oh, well,


I saw Google tested like these buttons and, you know, the text, and so I'm going to try


that. But what I try to do is I try to think really,


really critically. Because the most important thing is not getting an experiment out. It's


picking which experiment you're going to run, right? Because it's certainly the case that


you have like, let's say, ten experiment ideas and you don't think too critically about which


one you're going to run first and the first five are duds. They're statistical ties. You


go and you report that up to your boss and your boss is like, look, man, you spent like


three months optimizing our pages and there's no results, right? Like, stop wasting your


time. This is not going to work. But, no, the Obama campaign said this. And he's going


to be like, no, stop. So I would say you really have to invest time


on thinking how long is something going to take you to implement, right? Like how long


is that variation going to take for you to create? And then what do you possibly think


like what's a realistic expectation on the return?


I don't think anybody in this room will be like, oh, if I change my submit button from


green to red, I could expect a 50% improvement. I think we're all smarter than that, right?


But it's certainly the case that somebody might say, wow, there's a break in our development


schedule and it's about a week and it takes about a week to redesign our product checkout


page. So if I can like fundamentally change that page, it might be fundamentally better


for the experiments or it might be fundamentally worse, but at least I'm getting something


statistically significant. I'll let her know if it worked or if it didn't.


But in that instance, you're calculating ROI, right? You're chasing big changes in the way


that you're messaging. And that's sort of the way that I've chased it after the years.


But it's a very hard problem and I think we all struggle with it.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Hey Moz fans, welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Today we're going over crisis adaptation and I first have to give a huge shout out to Miriam


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Ellis who really helped me package all of this up to deliver to you today.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

If you're not already following Miriam on Twitter, I highly suggest you do.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

She is a local SEO genius.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So let's dive right in.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

You often hear this phrase in marketing and in SEO about meeting your customers where


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

they are.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

This might be important now more than ever because the current landscape, it's changed


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

so much, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And so in order to better meet your customers where they are, you really first have to listen


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

and understand how their needs have shifted, how their concerns shifted, what are they


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

searching for now.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Just really paying attention and listening online to your current target market.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

One of the things I also like to suggest is listen to competitive reviews, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Keep an eye on competitive reviews being posted on Google and other spaces to get a gauge


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

of how things have perhaps moved.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Know where your audience is, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

This could have also shifted a bit and Whiteboard Friday's OG, Rand Fishkin, launched Spark


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Taro that does exactly that, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So you can really deep dive into current data around what your audience is listening to,


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

who they follow, all sorts of great stuff for you to leverage in today's climate.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Connect with potential customers in meaningful ways, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Now is a great time to reach out and engage with not only potential customers but current


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

customer base and remind people that you are still here, you're still serving them in various


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

ways.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So it's really, really key.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And to partner with relevant businesses.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I've seen this do really well in some great examples of pivoting where a fruit delivery


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

company partnered with a bakery to include these free cakes within orders.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

What a great way to get some visibility for that bakery, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And vice versa, they could do different things.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And so I think it's a great time to leverage those relationships and help one another out.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I absolutely love that tip.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Now, how the other big, big priority right now is all around communicating changes and


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

updates to your website visitors.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So what do you need to cover?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Changes to hours is so important right now.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

It's essential that you have that information readily visible to anyone visiting your website,


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

if this applies to you.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

All forms of availability, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Video curbside, no touch delivery, have that information available.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Any expected delays and product availability challenges.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

This is a really great tip too.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Sanitation and any adopted safety precautions.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Payment methods accepted, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

This can be really helpful in the transaction.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Any philanthropic efforts that you're doing to help support people in need.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I'm seeing a lot of these show up in banners and readily available information for people


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

visiting websites.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And I think it's great to consider making sure that this information is easy for people


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

to access.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

In addition to these things, set up online orders and at the very least, catalog your


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

online inventory or services for people to still have that awareness of what you're currently


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

offering.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And I would suggest if you're a struggling business and you don't want to go into a huge


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

website build, you can absolutely check out and explore things like Squarespace or Shopify,


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And I would have never thought I would be suggesting these platforms a year ago just


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

because they're not usually great for SEO reasons, but they can do a beautiful job of


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

solving this problem so quickly.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And then you can roll out V2, V3 down the road when you're ready to make those improvements.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

But I think just getting businesses off the ground is so important right now.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Add products for free on Google Shopping.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

This was such a neat thing that Google offered, I believe, several weeks ago.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And it's doing great.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And what it basically does is it allows you to list products for free on Google Shopping,


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

giving you that extra visibility right now.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So if you're an e-commerce brand, definitely check that out.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Miriam had this great idea to create maps showing delivery radiuses, if that applies


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

to you.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So really giving someone visiting your site an easy to consume idea of the areas that


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

you serve.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Sometimes when you see the area code or the zip codes, it's a little overwhelming.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

You have to do a little work.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

But that's kind of a great idea.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And then this was mentioned in a recent Gather Up webinar by Darren Shaw, Rutific.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So if you are doing local deliveries and they're getting a little out of hand, Rutific is a


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

company that creates delivery routes to make them most efficient for you.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Which I thought was so cool.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I didn't even know that existed.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So it's a good little tool tip.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Double down on SEO and content marketing.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I absolutely loved Mike King's post on this, I think it was a couple weeks ago, where he


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

explains why economic downturns favored the bold.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

It's brilliant.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And there are incredible use cases around this.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And we'll link to that down below.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Someone who has impressed the heck out of me the last couple weeks is Kristin Tinsky.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I hope I'm saying that right over at Fractal.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

She is going above and beyond to create content pieces that are not only genius, but are link


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

building opportunities, apply to various clients, and use traditional journalism tactics to


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

gather offline unique data to present online.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I highly suggest you pay attention to what Kristin's up to.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

She is a genius.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Kristin, we have to meet sometime.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I'm a huge fan of you.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Keep up the great work.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Now let's dive into some GMB stuff.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And while this might not apply to you if you're a local business, I think there are still


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

things to take away for larger companies that also either have a local listing or just to


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

be aware of.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So here's an example of Uptown China restaurant, a local Chinese restaurant.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Awesome in Queen Anne and it's kind of going to be our example.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So what's the first thing?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Just correct any GMB errors, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Make sure that the current data shown and information is correct and up to date, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And then this is probably my favorite hack of all from Joy Hawkins about this warning


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

that we see on all businesses currently because of the pandemic that says hours or services


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

may differ.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

You can get this removed simply by updating your hours.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

How incredible is that?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So highly suggest you just update your hours.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And Joy also mentioned in this webinar I keep referring to that was so good that she suggests


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

using the hours that you were available to take phone calls and that Google has never


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

had an issue with that and it tends to make the most sense.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So something to think about, respond to reviews, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Now is also a great time to invest and be engaged with these reviews.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I think it's one of the most overlooked PR marketing tactics available where customers


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

exploring your brand, exploring your location want to know that A, you care and that B,


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

you're going to engage with a customer, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And that you have a timely response.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So I think it's important to respond to reviews especially on behalf of the business side.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Confirm or reject any new Google My Business prompts.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So we're going to continue to see different things roll out, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

There were senior hours available to I believe grocery stores that popped up as an option.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

No contact delivery.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

These things will always be changing.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And so I think it's important to maybe put a reminder in your calendar just to keep an


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

eye on are there any new options within Google My Business that I could activate or confirm


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

clarify Google loves that and it also helps fill out your listing better.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Update menu and product listings.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

What a great time to take some good new photos, right?


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Update your menu items.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I wish Chinatown China restaurant did this.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I might suggest it to them that they can add those offerings.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

They can add those things to really pop up on the listing and kind of make it shine.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Use posts right posts have always been really really great for Google My Business listings


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

because gives you a big photo it lasts for a while up here.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I believe for up to 14 days and it's very prevalent when you see it.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Now Google's also been offering covid-19 posts.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

There isn't an option to add an image with the covid-19 post.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

It's text only but it lasts longer and it's more prominent than a regular post.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So it will show up higher in your Google My Business listing and we've also seen it pop


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

up in actual SERPs in the organic area.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So pretty cool.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Good to know.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I suggest you doing that and just you know you have control over the messaging you can


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

say whatever you'd like you can provide updated info all that good stuff.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Use product posts so shout out to Darren Shaw who noticed this that people are getting really


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

savvy with product posts which is again it would show up in your Google My Business listing


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

with a big photo and a description and what he's seen people do is basically have a photo


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

of a car with text on it that says no touch delivery or different service options as the


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

products.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Google's currently letting that slide I don't know if that will last forever but it's an


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

interesting thing to explore if you really you know want that visibility if someone's


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

struggling with their business right now and you can kind of get that to pop up on the


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

SERPs.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Enable messaging, enable text messaging.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

So I've heard from so many SEOs that this has continued to go up in the right into the


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

right during the pandemic and it makes sense right.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

People want to just quickly get information from businesses and you can create a welcome


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

message so highly suggest exploring that if that's available to you and again I think


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I've said this like three times but update images it's a great time to do that and it


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

can really help stuff pop.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And lastly don't forget to share these tips with businesses right understand that there's


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

a lot of people in need right now and if there's anything that you know we can do to help by


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

all means let's make all that stuff happen.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

And the fact that you're not alone right so whether you're doing this work on behalf of


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

a client or you yourself or family or friends are really struggling with the business right


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

now there are different support groups and you know options as far as financial support.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I know we at Moz are going to be putting everything we have into helping you and others during


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

this time and so I created a form at the bottom of this post where you can fill in some information


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

and let us know if there are specific problems that we could help with.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

You know we were in this together we want to help you all as much as we can and so you


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

know I will be taking that very seriously and spending lots of time on replying or creating


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

material to help individuals struggling so please fill that out.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

Also feel free to leave comments and suggestions in the comments I think some of the best valuable


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

takeaways sometimes happen in the comments where you're either clarifying something that


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

I said or adding something really great and so I would really appreciate that and just


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

want to get all the good information out there so that we can help everyone out so really


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

appreciate you taking the time to watch this edition of Whiteboard Friday and I will see


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation

you all again soon.


#WhiteboardFriday: Crisis Adaptation


Daily SEO Fix Video - Use Page Optimization to Find Content Suggestions

Hi there, my name is Rachel and I'm part of the onboarding team here at Moz.


In this daily SEO Fix video, I'll be showing you our page optimization tool and how it


can help with your competitive research.


Head to the Moz Pro menu and in the left panel under your campaign, select the page optimization


tool.


Here you can enter any page on your website, so I'm going to enter the Moz blog.


Then you can add a keyword associated with that page, so I'm going to choose Moz blog.


And click analyze.


You can see the page title and descriptions along with a number of metrics.


We want to head to the content suggestions tab on the right.


Content suggestions help you build better content related to your topic.


We look at the top ranking pages for the keyword you started with and we gather other keywords


often used on those pages.


You can see this relevance bar.


This is determined by looking at how often a topic shows up in a highly ranking search


result.


Click on the dropdown under top ranking URL to see what pages are ranking for this keyword.


This is a great way to start your competitor and content analysis for this topic.


You now know what competitors are appearing high in the search results for similar content


to you and can use this to your advantage.


Quick tip I just want to note here is that you do have the option of changing the search


engine at the top.


This will ultimately change the content suggestions you see.


This could be particularly helpful if you are targeting multiple search engines or multiple


countries for example.


I hope this helps get you started with your competitive research journey.


Mobile Apps vs Mobile Web - Whiteboard Friday

Howdy Moz fans and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


This week we're going to chat a little bit about the mobile world and specifically whether


we should be investing our mobile marketing efforts into the mobile web, meaning a website


that is responsive and adaptive or specifically designed for mobile browsers, or whether we


should be worried about building a mobile app to help draw in traffic and gain customers


and users.


And I think these two worlds are actually quite different.


So I spent a bunch of time recently here internally at Moz going through a huge number of statistics,


trying to gather as much data as I could to understand these two worlds.


And I thought I'd share that with you.


I'll give a bunch of links at the end of this presentation, probably a good dozen of them,


that I'll make sure are in there.


But just to give you a broad overview, basically the mobile web kind of looks like this.


There's a lot less time spent in the mobile web, meaning on mobile websites, on a mobile


device than there are in the world of apps.


Far, far less time spent.


But weirdly, and this is very strange but confirmed by several different sources, there's


more traffic overall, meaning more unique people making more different visits rather


than, which makes a little bit of sense when you think about how those things are done,


right?


Remember that a visit to a web page is a much less intense activity than loading up a mobile


app and then spending time in it.


So, sure, that can make some sense.


It's also growing faster.


So the mobile web is about two times bigger in terms of raw traffic, and it is growing


faster than the mobile app world, which will also make sense in a sec when we talk about


apps.


This is Morgan Stanley data.


I think they're using Comscore as one of their sources, and there's another one that packs


this up as well.


Mobile web traffic is also highly distributed, and you can see that in everyone's numbers,


everyone from SimilarWeb to Comscore to Nielsen.


They're all reporting this.


It's a lot like desktop, which again makes sense.


It's not that we spend all our time on just a few websites.


In fact, because so much of the time that we spend on the web in desktop is on Facebook's


website and on YouTube's website, and that is mostly app traffic in the mobile web, the


long tail looks really long when it comes to the mobile web.


There's essentially tons of people visiting tons and tons of different websites all across


there, making, I think on average, a few hundred, visiting a few hundred to a few thousand unique


websites in a month across mobile browsing.


The mobile web search, social, and word of mouth or type in or bookmarking, those are


the big sources of mobile referrals, which isn't surprising.


Those are pretty big on desktop as well.


Pretty distributed, broad system here, a lot of similarities to the desktop web.


We're pretty familiar with this world.


Mobile app world quality is kind of different though.


Apps dominate.


I mean dominate like they crush the times we spend on mobile devices.


You might have seen Mary Meeker's State of the Internet report for this year showing


mobile traffic in 2014 eclipsed desktop traffic.


Desktop traffic is weird.


It basically kept growing, growing, growing from 1990 to 2010.


Then it's basically today almost exactly where it is in 2010.


It's weirdly, I think a good trivia question would be, do people spend more or less time


on desktops today than they did five years ago?


Of course we would all say, well, they spend less, but actually we spend a teensy-tintsy


bit more than we did then.


It's just that mobile has gone crazy.


Mobile has eaten up all of the rest of the time in our lives.


We don't see our friends or family anymore.


We don't eat meals.


We just browse our mobile devices.


Mobile is about 85 to 90 percent depending on the source of time spent on mobile.


It's your YouTubes and your Facebooks and all those kinds of things.


It sends and receives far fewer referrals.


Basically most of the ways that people are getting to apps is not from another app or


from a website.


It's directly from the launcher.


They're going to their home screen.


They're clicking on that app.


That makes pretty good sense.


They're also not sending out as much traffic.


If you're browsing Facebook on a mobile device, it seems like on average you're less likely


to click onto a mobile web link and then load up a web page versus maybe if you're browsing


Facebook on the desktop web, which also makes sense.


You want to stay in the app that you're in.


Mobile speeds are slower, especially outside of countries where 4G and LTE are common.


The top 25 to 50 apps in mobile—and it depends on who you ask for.


Some sources are showing that just the top five apps are responsible for 80 to 90 percent


of all app usage.


This is data from Forrester, data from Comscore.


Marketing Land did some work on this.


What we're essentially saying here is if you're not in the top 25 to 50 apps on a platform,


you're probably getting very little mobile app activity because it turns out that the


long tail is nowhere near like it is on the mobile web.


People don't visit hundreds and thousands of apps.


They visit just a few.


In fact, the average mobile owner uses about 24 unique apps per month and visits between


10 and 30 times as many unique websites in a given month.


Seven percent of heavy app users, so the people who download the most apps, use the most apps,


they're responsible actually for 50 percent, a full half of all download activity.


It's sort of a small subset of app users who just go crazy.


They download every app they can.


They treat apps like websites.


They have this huge long tail.


For the 93 percent of the rest of us, a little bit different.


Most new discovery for mobile apps comes from three sources, mobile web, word of mouth,


or app store top lists.


That tends to be how we get to the app world.


These two are very, very, very different.


They're different in usage.


They're different in how they operate.


They're different in how you would need to do marketing around them.


It's my general opinion based on what I've seen about the mobile web that every business


needs to optimize for the mobile web.


You have to optimize it a few ways.


That means you must have responsive or adaptive design.


It's just not an option anymore.


You've got to have a mobile search friendly experience, so being able to get the mobile


search friendly tag, which means you can rank better, but it also means that you're delivering


a better user experience from search because search is so big to the mobile web world.


You should be SEO aware and optimize your site for search engines.


That's critical.


If you're watching Whiteboard Friday, you're probably doing a fine job at that.


You need to load fast, even on slow connections.


I think one of the challenges is that a lot of us assume that everybody's on 4G, everybody's


on LTE.


That is not the case, especially in a lot of the developing world.


Even in the United States and in Europe and other countries like Japan, there is plenty


of connection speeds that are slow or limited due to where people are, particularly when


they travel or are inside buildings or are having connectivity issues.


I'm sure you've all experienced that.


Finally, you've got to provide that great user experience and a great content experience


that delivers answers quickly.


I don't mean just loads fast.


I mean gives people the answers they're looking for quickly because, as we know, Google is


using click-through rate and pogo sticking and all those kinds of things.


If you have a bad experience where you're not delivering, even if your page loads fast,


you're not delivering the answer someone was seeking when they performed a mobile search.


They land on your mobile web page.


They're going to click the back button and choose somebody else.


They're less likely to choose you in the future.


Google's less likely to rank you in the future.


Very frustrating.


Mobile app development, again, this is my opinion.


I think that there are plenty of folks out there who have reasonable disagreements about


the way that I think about this.


Based on what I've seen, I would generally recommend that mobile app development is only


right for your organization if you fit a few criteria.


First off, you need to have a great strategy around what your mobile app will do and that


there need to be features and value that your app provides that you could not provide well


or could not provide at all in a mobile web experience.


If an app—apps can do things like push notifications even when the app is dormant.


That's very, very tough for a website to do, although Google has talked about potentially


making that available in Chrome someday, so maybe.


Integration with contacts or integration with other apps, integration with the phone features


itself, the calling and the device system or the root functions of the phone, those


types of things, if you can provide value off of that that you could not do through


a mobile website, okay.


By the way, the mobile web provides a lot more features and functionality than many


folks often think it does.


I'll link you to another great piece that was on Hacker News the other day that has


just a great chart of all the things that you might want to be able to do and whether


they're supported on mobile web or app or both.


Second, you've got to be able to convince not only yourself but convince your team,


convince your audience that you can be among the top few, let's say, 100 apps in the world


or you only need a small handful, maybe a few hundred to a few thousand people to install


your app in order for it to be successful.


If you can't make one of those claims, either we're going to be one of the top few hundred


apps in the world or we only need a few hundred to a few thousand people on our app, well,


the way apps work is the rich, right, the dominant apps get all the traffic, all the


activity.


I think it can be very frustrating to say, hey, we're going to build a great app that


sits somewhere in the middle of the pack just like our website sits somewhere in the middle


of the pack.


That's not how it works.


All the attention goes to the most popular apps.


C, your app can beat the retention curve odds.


So, again, in my research, what I found time and time again is that mobile app retention


is just awful, terrible, right?


Basically after 90 days, the overwhelming majority of apps, I think more than nine out


of ten apps, will never be opened again after 90 days.


So you've got to find a way to make your app retain users and keep their interest, keep


them coming back to you again and again, and that is no small feat.


Number four, you've got an amazing team of app developers or an incredible one or two


people who can do great app development and make a world class product.


Because if you're not going to be best in class, app world just doesn't feel like it's


worth it.


All right.


Now let me add a quick caveat at the end of this.


What I want to say is that this world of apps versus mobile web could change.


In fact, I think there's a lot of people in the SEO world who believe that it's on the


verge of changing because of what Google is doing with mobile app integration into mobile


web search.


So if I do a search today for best pasta Portland on my mobile device, I'm going to get pretty


much exclusively mobile web content.


And that's true until and unless I perform a search that really is very app focused or


app centric.


So if I were to perform a search like find best local restaurants near me, it might come


up with Yelp or travel destination app.


Google will pull up in my results probably TripAdvisor and stuff like that.


That is happening a little bit today and we do see it and I think there's folks who are


going, hey, this is an opportunity and it is an opportunity.


But Google's also made another change where they are now indexing content inside of apps,


including in Facebook, which was a big announcement a few weeks ago, and potentially will be placing


those inside of the mobile search results, potentially even if you don't have that app


installed.


That's the game changer, right?


If it turns out that mobile search, which is now more than 50 percent of all search,


becomes a place where Google does sort of what they did with Google Plus.


Remember where they were giving highly biased preferential treatment to posts that had been


Google Plus, even from people who were barely in your network or connected to one other


person.


They made Google Plus like the center of the local ecosystem and all those kinds of things.


If they do the same thing in the app world and they give this biased preferential treatment


across the board to apps rather than to mobile web content, we could see this equation start


to change.


Then it might make sense to say, hey, even if I can't attract and keep people and build


the best app in the world, maybe I should build an app anyway just to be able to expose


my content and get the benefit to Google.


I think it would be a little bit of an odd move from Google, but it's not impossible.


I think in six to 12 months we're going to know a lot more.


There will be plenty of studies and data about the clickstream patterns on mobile search


and how often the results appear and how often they're clicked and how often that leads to


a mobile app download.


All those kinds of metrics should be available in the next six to 12 months.


Then we'll be able to report back to you with a lot more about whether this equation has


changed.


All right, everyone.


Thanks for joining us, and we will see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard


Friday.


A Content Engine That Drives Revenue — Whiteboard Friday

Hey Moz friends, I'm Ross Simmons and today we're going to be talking about something


that I hold really deep to my heart.


The idea of using content to generate revenue, generate business results.


We're going to be talking about how to create a content marketing engine that ultimately


will make your money jiggle jiggle or fold, I don't know.


But either way, what we're going to be talking about today is something that I really hope


you can apply to your content marketing teams, that you can apply to your entire engine and


ultimately shape the way that your content culture operates.


And it's rooted in four simple steps.


Research, create, distribute, and optimize.


And if you can embrace a culture that leverages those four things consistently year after


year, quarter after quarter, month after month, I am convinced that you will be able to see


revenue results and the goals that you have set out to accomplish directly from your content


engine.


Let's dive into each of them.


So the first one is research.


There's essentially tactics, people, and timeline and goals that are going to be applicable


to each of these different categories.


When it comes to research, the tactics that you want to embrace upfront and initially


are rooted in things like community research.


What does that mean?


It means you're going to go and find the communities that your audience is spending time on online.


You're going to go into these communities and you're going to start to understand the


trends and the types of content that they're consuming, the problems that they're talking


about on a regular basis.


You're looking for qualitative insight to understand the problems of the audience that


you're trying to reach.


Then you're going to do things like keyword research.


You're going to understand the search intent behind the words that your audience are going


into Google and typing in to find problems, to find information, to solve problems that


they're having on a day-to-day basis.


Keyword research is a great solution and a great way to better understand the thinking


and the things that people that you want to connect with are looking for.


If you can understand this, if you can create content that services them as it relates to


their informational intent or understand the way that they buy and whether or not they're


looking for coupons or whether they're looking for things near me and you can create content


based off of this research, it will make it easier for you to be able to generate revenue


off the back of your content.


You also want to do things like backlink research, which is going to inform backlink outreach.


You want to do backlink research because it's going to give you insights into knowing what


content you can create that is linkable.


What is content that is being produced that the ideal publications that your audience


is reading are linking back to?


You want to use all of this to inform your own strategy.


Social sharing research, paid media research, look at the content that people in your audience


are sharing on social, look at your competitors and what information and resources they're


promoting because it's very likely that if they're running ads to a certain landing page


that it's probably generating some revenue.


So you want to look at that and use it to inform your own strategy as well.


What type of people on your team do you want to have making these types of decisions and


doing this research?


It's pretty holistic.


You want SEOs, you want social media managers, you want your community manager involved,


you want your PPC folks involved, you want a strategist, an analyst, maybe even some


developers involved.


This is an important piece of the puzzle that oftentimes gets overlooked.


When we think about our industry, content marketing, there's two words there, content


and marketing.


We forget about marketing actually being rooted in research.


So you want to embrace the research side of things before you start creating content and


you want to have a holistic team doing this.


This might take one to three months and that's okay.


It might take some time.


But the key here is to understand that this investment in time is going to ultimately


pay the bills.


It's going to generate revenue for you.


So be patient, embrace it and use it.


The goal here is simple folks.


You want to unlock content market fit.


What is content market fit?


It's complete alignment between the content you create and the market that you're trying


to connect with.


And if you have content market fit, you're going to have content that is worth creating.


So let's talk about that one.


Creation.


What type of content should you create?


This is going to happen as the second step in your content marketing engine.


You don't want to just start writing blog posts without intent.


You don't want to start creating white papers without intent.


You want to first understand the research and let that inform what you create.


Should you develop blog posts?


Should you develop research-based assets?


Should you create infographics?


Or maybe you should just create some memes and share them on Twitter and LinkedIn and


Facebook etc.


Maybe that's the play for you.


Every brand is going to be different.


And every single type of asset that you create, every single type of asset that you invest


in is going to have a different outcome and it's also going to have a different type of


goal that you're aligning with it.


You should determine which content you invest in based on the research.


After understanding your audience, you will have a better understanding of the types of


content that you should create.


And you're going to have a handful of different people involved in this process as well.


But it's going to be rooted directly in the types of assets you create.


Maybe you have writers.


You'll definitely want to have an editor.


You don't want typos and all that good stuff.


You're going to want a designer maybe.


If visual is the way that you're going to go, you might need a videographer.


You might need a developer, an illustrator.


There's so many different people who you might need involved to create a great content.


And that is the goal.


It might take one to four weeks.


It might take even longer than that.


But the goal is simple.


Create content that is worth reading, worth sharing, worth linking to, worth watching,


et cetera.


You have to have intent behind every single asset that you create.


And you also have to recognize that not all assets are created equally.


It might take a day to create a great meme.


It might take months to create a research-driven asset that actually has some utility and functionality


within it.


And that, too, is OK.


It's a different level of investment, which might mean it needs to deliver a different


type of ROI and revenue.


But at the same time, it's an investment worth making.


All right, research and create.


That's typically where most brands end.


They create their content.


They say, yay, we're successful.


We're writing content.


We're creating content.


This is it, right?


But they forgot, again, as I mentioned earlier, content marketing.


You actually have to market the content that you're producing.


How do you do that?


Distribution and optimization.


These are two things that you actually have to do forever.


Notice that?


Forever, forever, create once, distribute forever, create once, optimize forever.


What does that mean?


When it comes to distribution, these assets that you've created, you have to spread them.


You have to ensure that they are reaching the audience that you want to connect with.


Maybe that's through newsletters.


Maybe that's through communities that they're already browsing in.


Do you sponsor that new community?


Do you go into that community and seed it yourself, where you actually start responding


to people in that community with links to the content that you've created?


On social media, maybe you're going to start injecting that content into threads on Twitter.


You're going to share it on LinkedIn.


You're going to go into Facebook groups and start to spread it in Facebook groups as well.


You want to distribute your content where your audience is spending time.


And this might blow a few people's mind, but SEO is a distribution opportunity as well.


When you're thinking about optimizing your content for search, search is a distribution


channel.


And you can optimize your content not just from an SEO on the Google side, but also from


a YouTube side.


Search from a Facebook side, from a TikTok side, from a Pinterest side.


Search across the board is an opportunity to optimize your content to ensure it's being


distributed.


Who's going to be involved with this process?


Again, a handful of different people depending on the research that you did up front.


If the research tells you that you need to be in communities, maybe it's going to be


a community manager.


Maybe it's going to be a social media marketer.


Maybe if you identified that sales team is going to play a key role in your distribution


strategy, that it's your sales team that's actually going to be sending this to prospects


and leads.


When that white paper goes live, you want your sales team empowered and in the loop


so they can reach out to them.


Maybe customer success is going to be involved and they're going to be sharing content and


resources with people who have questions and problems with a product and a feature.


Maybe your product people need to be involved and it's going to actually be something that


they can consume while they're reusing the product.


Again, you create once, you distribute it forever.


The goal, simple.


You want to reach the ideal audience with your content no matter where they're spending


time.


You want to make sure that that content is being distributed there.


And if you have that underway, by all means, trust me, you're probably 20 steps ahead of


most brands that you're competing with because most people think that content marketing just


means creating content and calling it a day.


If you start to distribute your content, you're 10 steps ahead.


Congratulations.


If you want to go 20 steps ahead, also optimize your content.


What does that mean?


It means that you're going to consider offsite optimization.


You're going to consider onsite optimization.


Ensure that the title tags, the H1s, all of those things are rooted in research.


Make sure that if you have a piece of content, you're also cross-referencing that people


also ask questions box on Google to inform what other content should we be adding into


this piece.


A piece of content that you published three years ago that generated some backlinks, generated


some organic traffic, and started to decline because more content on that topic started


to show up doesn't mean it's no longer a good asset.


What it means is it needs to be refreshed.


It needs to be updated.


So take the time to do that onsite optimization effort to make that content just as valuable


today as it was three years ago.


Invest the time in optimizing your content with new data, new information.


You want to do that.


You also want to ensure that the interlinking within your website between that asset and


other assets, priority landing pages is happening.


You want to optimize your content forever, but not just from a search lens.


You also want to think about it from a conversion lens.


Can these pieces get people closer to the money?


Can they get closer to sign up, to an acquisition point, to that key conversion goal that you're


setting out to accomplish?


Those are the types of things that you want to be thinking about.


Who would be involved here?


Everything from SEOs to CROs to writers and strategists.


You might even have some people on your team that are solely dedicated to running an in-depth


audit and review of your content assets and then updating them on a regular basis.


If you have billions of pages, maybe you need to involve the team that's running engineering,


et cetera, and make sure that they are building essentially a model that will make updates


to your content on a regular basis.


These are the things that you want to be thinking about because you should be optimizing your


content forever.


Why?


Because the ultimate goal is to extract value from the content that you're investing in.


You will notice that over the course of this video, I've referenced content specifically


as assets consistently.


Because assets are things that you create, you invest in because you expect to have a


return.


When you're thinking about your content marketing engine, you want a return.


You want a return on your investment.


And the goal with all of this, with all of the content that you create, with all of the


research that you've done, all the stories that you've started to distribute, and the


content assets that you've optimized over and over again is to ensure that you're generating


revenue, you're generating results.


And if you can do that, then you're going to have a content marketing engine that could


fundamentally change the way that business is done in your industry, in your niche, and


within your content culture.


So I encourage you to embrace it.


Embrace a content engine that can drive results by researching, creating, distributing, and


optimizing your content consistently.


Thank you so much for your time.


I hope you enjoyed this.


You can find me on the internet.


I'm all over the place.


MozCon 2015 - 20 - Marketing Innovations: Creative PR, Content, and SEO Strategies with Lexi Mills

Now today I'm going to walk you through three core elements. I want to talk to you about


how the industry is different this year compared to last year. I also want to talk to you about


what tactics you should be employing. But most importantly, I want to walk you through


some real life case studies. I want you to see what it looks like when you apply industry


knowledge and tactics simultaneously. Because if you can see it and visualize it and communicate


it to your teams in this way, you'll be significantly more likely to be able to achieve it.


Now over the last few years, I've worked in SEO and PR agencies as well as in-house and


on the most bizarre range of clients. Anything from pet insurance through to music. I've


done some travel. I've done ticketing. And what I was thinking about when I was prepping


for MozCon is what is that one key factor that is common no matter what position you


hold, no matter what industry you're in? What is that one factor that's common in content


marketing today? Unfortunately, it's that the game is getting harder. There is no other


way to say it. And it's quite largely because everyone is trying to keep people on their


property. And Google's no different. They've been doing it for ages. Just the other day,


I Googled this band 311, and I was scanning through all the rich content. I was like,


wow, how much search has changed. And then I got this eerie feeling. It's like, what's


missing? What's wrong? And then it hit me when I got to the bottom of the first page,


when I saw the first e-commerce result. And it was for Amazon. And I just thought, oh,


my goodness, not only is everyone trying to trap you onto their properties, but if you


want to get any space, you have to compete with Amazon? Yeah, this game's really getting


tough. And what's more, publishers are trying to keep you on their pages, too. And it's


understandable. Look what happened with the latest mobile update. Some of the biggest


publications in the world lost over 20% of their traffic. And let's not forget that the


last three years are littered with publishers that just didn't make it through Panda and


all the other updates. So how are they responding? Well, every year in my agency, we have SEO


PR campaigns, and we have traditional PR campaigns. And what I try and do is look at the traditional


PR campaigns and just work out how many natural links do you build. When you're doing normal


PR, how many links, if you get 100 pieces of coverage, do you naturally get? Well, the


hard and fast truth is that we're getting 30% less outbound links naturally. And further


to that, we're getting 20% reduction in referencing and citations. And this is even happening


in the technology and business media, who have always been my go-to. They've been so


good at linking out and referencing. But it's the publisher's way of coping with the environment


that's changing around them. Furthermore, when I'm speaking to some of the biggest editors,


they're striking some big deals with the ad agencies. Ad agencies are buying up space,


collaborating with the publications to make and create content. And what this means is


that it's harder for us to sell our content. It's harder for us to place buy lines. Because


why would a publication give you space for something when somebody else is willing to


pay for it? And then finally, one of the biggest challenges that I'm seeing as a PR person


is that there's a reduction in the impact of media. At Dynamo, we do loads of PR to


fund Kickstarter campaigns, which is really fun. You can get press coverage and you see


the total go up instantaneously. It's a really fun way to do PR and see the impact of it.


But a year ago, we'd get one or two articles on TechCrunch or Engadget and you would just


see the funding title soar. And now we're having to line up eight or nine articles to


go live sequentially to have the same impact that one or two articles had a year ago. This


is a drastically different landscape. So what's really important now is focusing on how we


get better. Well, I would argue that in this day and age, tools are no longer a luxury.


You have to have the best toolbox you can get and you need to invest time doing it.


But beware, it is a rabbit hole. You have to test every single one. And I do this regularly.


So I've worked with my team to find the best media database. And the best ones that I found


is Gorkana and My Media Info. My Media Info focuses on the US data. Gorkana will give


you all the details, phone numbers, email addresses for UK media. But none of these


are perfect. And you need to be aware of that. You will look at these systems and you will


see flaws. What you are looking for is the least flawed system. Secondly, you want to


get some kind of paid for Harrow because Harrow is oversubscribed. And I use ResponseSource.


It's pretty cheap, but it's very UK focused. But let's remember that most publications


are now global. And if they're not global, they have a global influence. So getting coverage


through using a UK based Harrow type system is going to be beneficial. But there's a side


benefit here. When you're getting all these inquiries through, you'll get a very good


idea of what it is media are looking for. For example, if you're signed up to consumer


tech right now on ResponseSource, your inbox will be flooded with Christmas content requests.


How many of you have got your Christmas content sorted? How many of you are selling your Christmas


content right now? Well, I'm telling you, if you haven't done it by the end of August,


it's pretty much over and done with. Finally, you need to have a good CRM. We use BuzzStream.


Pick whichever way you want to use it. I've got people using Salesforce as well. And last


but not least, I want to tell you about my new favorite friend, Yesware. Because when


you've got a team who are on the phone all day every day sending 30, 40 emails within


a couple of hours, and then they're not seeing coverage straight away because media are moving


slower, what happens? They take their foot off the gas. They're getting demotivated.


If you've got Yesware on your email system, what you will see is how they're opening,


when your emails are getting opened, when people are looking at it, and it's incredibly


motivating. And you will see if you compare the email and phone metrics of your team in


the morning to the evening, when they're using Yesware and when they're not, that they will


keep the pace up better than ever before. And pace is important because you have to


hit these things with velocity. Now, there's been this trend over the last


sort of maybe 10, 12 years to segment your PR efforts regionally. And this makes sense.


You know, don't spend too much trying, trying to get everyone to collaborate. And I'm not


saying that you won't always have to have some element of your campaigns that are regionally


focused. But if you're trying to compete in a really competitive landscape, doesn't it


make sense to be pushing something from every corner of the globe with every single team


you have? Wherever possible, try and make your campaigns global ones. Make content that


all your teams can get value out of promoting because then you're getting more people pushing


it. But beyond that, you need to make some new


friends. Journalists, they hop everywhere. You know, I've got loads of friends who have


gone from technology into business and then from business into different areas of consumer.


But where people stay is at your news agencies. And what you're seeing here are a list of


the news agencies I use. Now, what they do is they function a lot like a news desk. So


essentially, they'll generate news, they'll write copy, they'll put images in, and they'll


send it out on their wires. Then the big media agents, the big publications will pick what


of that content they want to use and pay to publish it.


So if you ever look at something like the LA Times and you see LA Times journalist or


Daily Mail journalist, actually, it's come from a news agency. And people at news agencies


inherently tend to stay longer. So if you want to make friends with anyone, make friends


with your news agencies because A, they want to be friendlier to you because they make


money out of publishing your stories. And thirdly, because you're getting a wider spread.


I guarantee you, if you get something on the Solent News Agency wire or the Southwest News


Agency wire, you will get four, five, six, seven, eight pieces of big coverage instantly,


which means you're getting the power of their selling and their authority.


But there has never been a time where storytelling hasn't been important in content marketing


or PR. And now that is no less true. In fact, no story exists unless someone wants to listen.


But trying to find the right story is hard. So one of my favorite things to do is just


look at existing stories. This is an image of the Tower of London. And they did this


incredible puppy exhibition last year. And everyone just wanted to talk about it, everyone.


So why would I spend time thinking of a brand new story when there was already a story out


there that everyone wanted to talk about? And I had a client that sold tickets specifically


to this attraction, which I thought was kind of exciting. So I thought, right, okay, what


are we going to do? We need the client to be at the center of the story, because if


they're not, they're going to be cut out. So in order to put the client at the center


of the story, what we did was we did some research that nobody else had done. We looked


through our data and we just came up with something really simple. What are the top


10 global attractions? Because we're pretty sure that the puppy exhibition was going to


make sure that the Tower of London was at the top. And it was. And then we got some


fantastic coverage. Now, I have a principle. If something's worked once, there's a likelihood


it's going to work twice, right? So I knew that selfies were still a really big subject


that the media were always writing about. They were getting loads of search traffic


from it. So I thought, okay, all right, let's look at that. Let's mix it with Instagram.


And let's find out which attractions people are taking the most selfies at. Because they


tag them, right? It's not that hard. So we've got the top 10 global selfie locations. By


the way, quite a few of them are in the US. And we went out and we got loads of coverage


again with a very similar tactic. It was doing data-based work within a particular industry.


Now, the reason I'm telling you to test this is that not all industries are lacking data.


Not all industry journalists will be favorable towards it. So don't think that data is going


to work for you every single time. But if it works for you once, definitely check if


it's going to work twice. And if it works twice, certainly look at doing it a third


time. And that's exactly what we did. We went onto YouTube and we thought, right, okay,


how are we going to get data out of YouTube? I bet people film their proposals. So we went


onto YouTube and we found the top global locations that people get proposed at. Disneyland is


at the very top of the list. Took this out to the media and we got some fantastic results


again. But all of this was based on our manual research. And I appreciate that trying to


work out what you should be researching, how to craft a story, is kind of tough. So what


I would recommend you do is learn from your research companies. Work with them. They're


doing research every single day. They know what works. They know what fails. They've


seen what has sunk and what has flown. Ask them. It's to their advantage because they're


going to be able to tell you exactly what will work.


So one of my biggest lessons this year was when I was working with Yelp. I was watching


the team and they were starting to do all these BuzzFeed type articles. Every time there


was a big TV show, something like the Great British Bake Off, they would come out with


the top bakeries in Britain that you could go visit. Or if it was fireworks evening,


what are the top ten places that you can go watch fireworks? But that wasn't when I got


my greatest insight. And it wasn't when we had the big comic display at comic book displays


and we put out content about that. In fact, it wasn't when we made lists about anything


for the first couple of months. But it was finally a couple of months down the line,


I noticed that the phone was ringing. People were ringing us and saying, have you got content


for X and Y event? How much easier would your life be if you were getting inbound inquiries?


Well, we thought a hell of a lot easier. So we went and built the Yelp calendar. It was


a printed calendar. We sent it out to all the journalists and it showed them all the


dates that they should be aware of. Furthermore, it reminded them that we can give them content


for it. Now the Yelp calendar, I'm not going to lie, is pretty good. But you don't need


that to know what dates are going to be exciting, what trends are going to be happening. I would


actually argue that some of the best trends can be identified by looking at print media.


Because if you go into a hairdresser's or a doctor's surgery and you've got those four


or five months' worth of the same magazines and you flick through them, you'll very quickly


identify that there are certain themes that aren't going away. There are certain structures


that they cover every month. In fact, there's a bit of a running joke in the science community


that the new scientist only has one set of headlines and they rotate them all every year.


Keep an eye out for it. The other thing I've been focusing on is Netflix.


I never had a subscription until recently. But it shows you all the top trending shows.


Well, things trend for quite a while on Netflix. That's a really good idea, what you should


be making content about. And if you combine that with when you know a new show is going


to launch or a show with similar actors, suddenly you've got the basis for some really great


content. Now, all of these things are going to help you. Undoubtedly, they're going to


help you. But do you want to know the tactic that's going to trump all tactics? And I guarantee


you will be the differentiator between those that win and those that lose categorically


from now on for the next two years? It's going to be speed.


Let me show you what I mean. Do you remember that dress? You do. It doesn't matter if it


was blue or black or white and gold. What you remember is what an incredible success


it was, right? Everyone wanted to be part of that story. Well, when we saw this, we


had a client called Depop. Depop are a really cool app that allow you to sell and buy cool


stuff. Well, this was a cool dress. They should be selling it. So we got up. We were like,


okay, let's divide the team up. Part of the team, you need to go and look for where this


dress is. You need to go and find it, double check that it's there. We sent one staff member


off to get that dress. And then we sent the rest of the team calling through all the media


houses saying, we're going to have that dress by this evening. We'll bring it round. You


can do a photo shoot. This was executed with absolute and utter precision. And we've got


some absolutely brilliant coverage out of it. But the thing that made it completely


possible is that nobody was asked to do more than one thing. If you want to execute well


with speed, you need to divide your team up and they need one focus. And it is really


tempting, really tempting to give people more than one, but don't do it. You will not succeed.


Now I hear this a lot. People say to me, is it all about a good idea? Yeah, good ideas


help. But you know what's even harder than getting a good idea? Selling a good idea.


Now in February, my team came up with a really naughty and a really risky idea. And I really


wanted to do something dangerous. So I thought, right, I'm going to have to really sell this


to the client. So I'm going to sell it to you the same way I sold it to them. Sat them


down and said, right, remember last year? We made that fake baby bath. It was a little


miniature baby bath and it was all to celebrate the royal baby birth. You know how we made


a product page and we put it up and we PR'd it and remember how great it was because we


got some really awesome coverage? Okay, keep that thought in mind. Remember that feeling.


I've been speaking to these guys, butlers in the buff. They're in a business where they


have naked butlers. Bear with me here. You know how your website looks like this? Well,


I quite like it to look like this on Valentine's Day. Do you think we could sell naked butlers


running you baths on your website? Now this is a mock-up of what you're seeing here. But


what's really important is that I mocked it up so that you could see exactly what it is


I was thinking. He understood the framework within which we were going to promote and


create this and I linked it to something that had already been successful. And that meant


he said, yes, excellent, and we created the butler in the bath package. And this is what


the website looked like on Valentine's Day. But I appreciate this isn't for everyone.


We did get some really awesome coverage. But I had to pre-prepare the client. Not everybody


is going to think it's such a brilliant idea. And there was this journalist at the Metro


who was one of them and she wrote a rather scathing article. But do you know what was


really interesting? Because I had pre-prepared the client where they might get some bad press,


he had already made his peace with it. So do you know what he saw when this article


got published? He saw that he got a link from the Metro and he couldn't see past that. Now


what's really important here is that this was quick, cheap and easy because we got all


the images we needed from butlers in the bath. And those images were great. And that's also


what made this story fly, was that the images were really strong. And you don't have to


spend much time on Twitter looking at different journalist conversations with PRs to see that


every single time they will ask for images. And when you look at this horrible story on


the BBC, you can see why. Does anyone want to read that? No. It looks boring. If you


get good images, you will significantly increase your success rate of your campaigns. And they


don't have to be high quality. They don't have to be taken by a professional. You can


take images on your iPhone and that will be sufficient for media. In fact, HTC did that


this year. They launched one of their new phones and they took a whole load of product


images. Can anybody spot what's wrong with this image? Let me help you. You know how


I said you can take any media image with an iPhone? Well, you can unless you're taking


a photo of a reflective surface that happens to be an Android device. Images are easy to


do, but get a completely separate person to double check them for you. Because otherwise


you'll miss stuff like this and you'll end up like HTC with several pages of coverage


not about your new device, but about the fact that you're using iPhones to take your own


product images. Now, it's one thing to do a really great PR campaign or content campaign


or whatever we call them these days. But if you don't sell it back, you are not going


to get repeated budget. And I have to say having worked cross industries and worked


both agency and in-house, this has been the greatest insight. So I'm going to show you


how I do my quarterly reporting because I think it's really important because it gets


people to trust you. It gets people to remember what you've done and to reinvest in you. So


I always start with a really big visually overwhelming sweep with logos and cuttings


of everything we've done. And then I pull out really core sections. I want to pull out


the text that the client read that made them feel something, that made them feel proud,


that made them feel like they had done a good job, made them feel like their boss was going


to read it and think, yeah, I did the right thing hiring this person. And then I pull


out very core social bits. But this is where I see too many people go wrong. It's really


easy to get big, big numbers with social, right? Now, unless you're being specifically


targeted on social, don't put reams of social information into your reports. Nobody will


look past them. A couple of key highlights is more than enough. But there are some people


who are led on social popularity, some people who are led on ego, some people who like the


association with brands, and there are some people who are volume led. And in every report,


if you have a way of listing out absolutely everything you have done, you will target


those volume-based people too. But finally, think about how you actually order the report.


What are you going to put first? Well, in this day and age, you might be doing PR, but


your budget is coming from SEO. If your budget is coming from SEO, then your SEO metrics


at the very top of the report. And even if they're not the best metrics, even if you've


done better in PR metrics than SEO metrics, those SEO metrics come first, because that's


the person that's going to be signing off your next budget.


Now I want to talk to you about building on success. Once you've had one thing go well,


you just want to make sure that you can get the most out of it, and in fact, you feel


safer with that idea. And this is something that happened this year as well. I was speaking


to my client, and they said they were really struggling to hire German-speaking customer


service staff. I was like, really? That's interesting. Maybe there's a business story


there. They said, what's the name of your other German-speaking staff? And he said,


Hans. It's like Hans is in Hans and Gretel. Brilliant. OK, we're going to go out with


a story. Hans seeks Gretel, and we're going to put that job spec up on the website, and


I am going to get you some coverage. And we did. And what was the client's response? And


I'm sure you've had this in-house as well. That's brilliant, but I want three times the


amount of coverage and links. Great. OK, fine. I can do this. Because the way I was thinking


about it was, right, we got several bits of coverage from doing one launch. OK, well,


what happens if we do two launches, and what if we mix it with ducks? Great. So we built


a couple of extra pages on the website, and we said that we were looking for the best


duckling to test our bogs. And we put up the job spec, and we put up some fun facts about


ducks, and we put out a national media advert. And we got some great coverage. And that was


phase one. 16 pieces of coverage, piece of print press, nine links. OK, we've already


competed what we did with the last project. Well, then I called up Solar News. Remember


I told you about the news agencies? They said, come on down. Come watch us adjudicate which


ducklings are the best bath testers. Come get some photos. You can put them out on your


wire. You can write a story, and you'll make money out of it. So they did. We put all the


images into a Dropbox as well to make it super easy for journalists. And we got a whole load


more coverage. In fact, we got nine pieces, and we got another 10 links. Because you know


what was quite interesting is that there were people that didn't cover it the first time.


But when you keep hammering out a door, it often opens. Finally, meet Gilbert. Yes, Gilbert


is the ugly duckling, and he did win the competition. Gilbert is owned by Gemma. And we announced


this to the press in the final phase of our project. And what was the consequences? Well,


ultimately, we ended up with 18 high links. That's in Dynamo PR. That's links above DA


of 30. 25 bits of coverage. Pretty impressive circulation figures for whatever they mean.


But what occurred to me was that these were still a lower link ratio than I would expect.


We had great on-site content. We had loads of places you could link to. And what I really


wanted to do was build a campaign where it was really, really difficult for you to not


link to us. And I thought about it, and I was like, you know what? It's product-based


campaigns. Product-based campaigns are the main campaigns that it's always completely


impossible to write about without linking to the product.


So in another conversation with the client, we got chatting about the color white. You


know how hard it is to photograph white things? It's really hard. And that's why most e-commerce


people that work with a lot of white products build everything in CGI. Everything. So if


it's already built in CGI, it is probably quite cheap to reskin it, right? So if I want


to make new products, I can make them blue or green or bumpy or soft or big or small,


because you've already paid the money to have those files built. Interesting.


Now when you start to think that a lot of people in this world don't know how to spell


bathroom sweets, and you combine that with CGI bathrooms, so CGI bathrooms, bathroom


sweets, what do you get? Chocolate bathroom. Clearly. So we went out with this story. We


decided that we'd build a microsite that said, okay, people don't know how to spell bathroom


sweets. This is the problem. We contacted the literacy society. We got them to comment


on it. We got an incredible bathroom suite built. We worked with a chocolatier to tell


us how many calories were in it, how long it would last. So we had all these incredible


chocolate facts, so it became a food story. And then we wrote a letter from the CEO saying,


why as a business are we doing this? So we had a business story. And then we launched


it. We went out with phase one. We did a whole load of embargo briefings. Because remember


I said at the beginning, media isn't having the same level of impact as it used to have.


So you have to tee things up. So we got a whole load of journalists lined up to cover


it. We did embargo briefings. We did a launch event at an awesome chocolate restaurant.


And then we went out with phase two, and we took it out to the wider media. And then after


phase two, we took it out to trade and luxury, because they're interested in it too. And


then after we did trade and luxury, we took it internationally. In fact, you probably


saw it on the TV in the States a couple of times. After that, I was kind of annoyed,


because the Daily Mail and the Mirror and the Independent had told me that it wasn't


cool enough for them. It wasn't really their story. So I rang them up again. I was like,


you realize the rest of the world has covered this. Are you really not going to cover it?


Of course not. Phase six, why not get some social and blogger outreach, right? You've


got great visual content. So we did a couple of competitions. And finally, we were in phase


seven. At the moment, the team is currently selling it in for Christmas gift guides. Every


time there's a how to spend it or a chocolate-related story, we go out with it. We've been looking


at marketing and business case studies. And every time there's an article related to literacy,


do you know how boring those images are for the journalists to print? Not if you have


a chocolate bathroom or not. So we're going out with it every opportunity we get. And


there's a psychology behind this. Because if you get a whole load of links and coverage


coming into one story, and then it goes dead, what do you think that tells Google? That


it was relevant and it now isn't. But if you create a strategy where you're consistently


building links into one of your assets, you're telling Google that all those other links


are also probably still relevant. But it wasn't just the multiple phases that made the story


work. We had multiple stories. If you look at the press release, it was the world's most


indulgent bathroom. We had how much it cost. That's cool. That's a big stat. We had how


many calories. We had the fact that there was a literacy story in there. And we had


the fact that somebody had launched a product. We even had extra content around literacy.


So that meant if the journalist didn't buy it, we could go out several times over with


different angles until we won. And that's why we ended up getting over 126 links in


a couple of weeks. The average DA of those sites was over 54. And furthermore, we didn't


even count any links of a DA below 20. So I'm telling you there are more links out there.


And we're continuously getting value from it. The game is getting harder. It's undoubtable.


But if you get better at your imagery, at your reporting, and at scheduling your campaigns


to go off in different sections, as well as getting faster at the way you sell and getting


faster at the way you execute, you will be stronger. Thank you very much.


Wow, that was amazing. So much information. For a lot of people in this room, they've


never reached out. They've never pitched a story. They don't have any PR people in their


Rolodex. So when you first make your first contacts with news agencies, what are some


tips for initiating that?


I like to always talk to people before I've locked a story down. Because if anyone is


getting involved in a story, they're more invested in it. So if you call them up and


say, we've got an idea and we're thinking of doing this, would that work for you? Suddenly


you're asking their opinion instead of just trying to push something on them. And then


it becomes a two-way engagement process. And actually, they become kind of excited. I mean,


the news agency knew about our duck project for an incredibly long time.


Any tips for that very first email when it's absolutely cold, you don't know them at all


in order to get that response?


Yeah, don't email them, ring them.


Ring them?


Yeah, always ring people. It's much better because even slight nuances of language can


be misunderstood. And if you ring someone, you know exactly what their contentions are.


Interesting. So obviously you pitch a lot. How often can you expect failure? And how


much failure is okay when you're pitching these stories?


I don't think it's about failure. It's about doing so much and being so focused on the


end goal that to a large extent you don't notice the failure until you're reflecting


back on the campaign. So now and again, I will go through my inbox and be like, wow,


I made 40 phone calls and sent 60 emails and I only got 30 pieces of coverage. I'm not