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Don’t Just Search. Make a Buzz Using More Savvy Domaining Tactics |
By Rikki Kirzner
Contributing Writer
As keeping up with the changes in how people search and use online resources becomes far more complicated and difficult, domainers often turn to search engine optimization (SEO) solutions as a way to build awareness of their brand and domains. However, SEO alone is not enough to increase sales and profits.
“If I could give domainers any advice at all, it would be don’t think like search people and don’t believe direct marketing messages that come from search companies”, said Christopher Skinner, founder and managing partner of MakeBuzz, LLC (Makebuzz.com).
Skinner, who spent the past 12 years researching, experimenting with, and perfecting search and tracking software, technology, and methods to develop effective online marketing strategies, said, “Optimized searches are not the only or even the most accurate approach you can use to grow volume and increase market share.”
Skinner and his team at MakeBuzz invented bid management software and in the process gained an intrinsic understanding of the algorithmic workings of search engines. This enabled Skinner to become one of the early pioneers of search engine optimization (SEO) and to learn about the shortcomings of search technology. He said, “We also invented key parts of how paid placement is managed and this, together with SEO and eight years of experience, has taught us to see what works and what doesn’t”
One of Skinner’s most successful early ventures was his work with Performics, helping it build and launch its Search Engine Marketing Services in 2001. Performics was acquired by DoubleClick in 2004 which in turn was acquired by Google. Today, Performics is the 3rd largest affiliate network in the United States and one of the largest search engine marketing (SEM) companies in the world.
“Our relationship with Performics taught us how online media and ecommerce work”, Skinner said. “More importantly, it taught us how it doesn’t work”.
MakeBuzz has been employed by more than 300 clients over the past 12 years. Skinner estimates he has managed and optimized $500 million dollars in online and traditional media, and although he has never calculated it, estimates his return is in excess of $2 billion dollars in total sales Although he has chosen to scale back significantly in the past three years, Skinner, was at one point, supporting150 different client accounts, including Microsoft, Google, Ann Taylor, and AOL all at the same time
Skinner explains that MakeBuzz’s approach is very different than other marketing companies. The company focuses on very different metrics than its competitors, namely, maximizing profit volume, and maximizing market share. Skinner explains that over the years MakeBuzz invented practices and strategies that go far beyond maximizing ROI which as he explains “is a short-sighted way of creating a success in business. We learned success achieved through maximizing profit volume is far more important than just increasing ROI.”
When Makebuzz accepts a client, one of the first tasks is to gather data from brick and mortar stores, call center(s), and other third parties in order to gain an understanding of how well all marketing efforts--not just the online portion--are working for the organization. The effects of internet integration on all those elements are all measured to determine how the internet affects each of the elements that comprise the business.
“Too many marketing companies are only concerned with the result of their online media campaign on ecommerce. They never measure how an online presence also impacts stores and call centers,” Skinner said. “The vast majority of retail economy occurs in the traditional offline world but this offline economy is highly influenced by what happens online.”
“We also learned that tracking was never the nirvana we had hoped,” Skinner said. Recent surveys from research companies and pollsters including IDC, Gartner Group, and others confirm Skinner’s conclusions. Their recent research reports conclude that people are relying on multiple sources of information, especially their friends, peers, and family to learn more about products and services they are considering for purchase.
A large global airline recently learned this painful truth when it realized its investments in online media (e.g. ads, search engine paid placements, and other online promotional activities) were unable to increase its online sales to more than a few thousand tickets per month. Even worse, the airline’s tracking methods couldn’t provide enough information about why prospective customers were going to its competitors when they were ready to book domestic and international flights. The airline sought help from Skinner.
Skinner’s analysis of the behavior of the struggling global airline’s prospects mentioned earlier, revealed a completely different situation than what the airline concluded its customers were doing. Among the many mistakes the airline made was assuming that its cookie-based tracking was sufficient to detect if a sale was directly attributed to a prospect typing in a specific search term, without factoring in any other human behaviors. Consequently if the airline made a high return on their media investment on a particular search term, they considered their money well spent. Skinner showed them why this decision turned out to be a big mistake.
In one case, the airline cancelled its media buy on the search term “Paris vacation.” Skinner’s software revealed the following typical scenario. Someone searching for “Paris vacation” usually was in the early stages of planning to purchase airline tickets. Over the next few days or weeks, the traveler might search for “Paris weather,” “things to do in Paris,” “Paris nightlife” and other activities to enjoy while on vacation. Plans were certainly discussed with a spouse, family, and friends who had been to Paris over the course of several weeks. Eventually—perhaps even from an entirely different computer—the traveler decided to purchase a Paris vacation from his favorite travel reservation website (Orbitz, Travelocity, etc.). Unfortunately, this particular airline wasn’t listed as offering Paris vacation packages because it had cancelled that media buy and they did not get the ticket sale.
Skinner recommended that the airline change the way it thought about and viewed their prospective customers and re-evaluate their customer acquisition costs. As a result of Skinner’s recommendations, the airline is now selling a significant increase in seats per month online
Challenges of Web 2.0
Web 2.0 enables people and companies to create social networks and alliances capable of interacting in ways that weren’t previously possible and fundamentally creates new challenges for domainers. Peer to peer and community communication means more time spent nurturing customer relationships than extolling brand names and product features. Users are quick to rate and review products, share experiences, and criticize companies.
Skinner is intrigued by the challenges presented with Web 2.0 and ridicules some companies who attempted to create fake blogs or manipulate blogs to market their products or gain competitive advantage. He said, “Marketers are going to struggle until they understand how to take proper advantage of Web 2.0. Traditional promotional activities like paid placement, search engine optimization tricks, banner ads, etc. are going to result in failure for many organizations who don’t adopt to the new paradigm.”
Finally, when asked what he sees happening in the future, Skinner doesn’t foresee the domain industry or popular search engines changing much in the next 3 to 5 years. However, Skinner said, “In the long term there could be some serious changes in the domain industry that we cannot even imagine. I have to wonder if we will even have extensions 10 years from now called .COM. My hunch is probably not. I would expect to see someone go directly to christopherskinner if they want to find me. The ICANN rules on who owns that and how this is done have yet to be resolved and while there is no clear consensus on the direction the domaining industry will take or how it is going to change, we can be sure that changes will come.”
Skinner also believes that mobile will have a significant impact on domaining in the long term. It will create the need for new ways to brand a mobile presence. He already sees many businesses adopting unique domain names for their mobile presence, such as CNN.mobile.com—the domain for the mobile version of CNN. He also cautions companies and domainers to make sure their mobile domain name is readily and easily identifiable and encourages companies to avoid names that are ambiguous or difficult to spell correctly.
Skinner said, “I expect we will also finally have a more useful user centric mobile device capable of telling us where we are, helping us search, blog, and do all the other things we expect to do while chained to today’s laptops and desktops.”
Not only is Skinner convinced that this will this happen, but when it does, marketing will experience another radical paradigm shift creating new challenges once again.
“With this device, we will finally be able to unleash ourselves from our computer and be humans again.”
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