It’s that time again – a time when we are reminded to be thankful for what we have, and look forward to things (and gifts!) yet to come.  Most people, this time of year, are asking for jewelry, clothes or video games to satisfy themselves this holiday season.  But you, the savvy marketer, know better than that.  What you want, what you REALLY want, is an optimized and profitable SEM campaign.  This blog post is here to give you some hints as to what you should be asking for from your successful SEM campaign.  If you’ve been on digital marketing’s “Nice” list, your campaign might demonstrate some of these characteristics.

Wish #1: A high conversion percentage (conversions/clicks)

Too many marketers focus on click through rate (CTR, clicks/impressions), when the more important metric is conversion percentage.  With pay-per-click advertising, maximizing your visits is the key to a successful campaign.  After all, the campaign that produces 100 clicks but no conversions is a very expensive branding effort, but the campaign that produces 1 click and 1 conversion provides a positive ROI.

Do these two things to maximize impact of your paid search traffic:

Detailed ad copy should not only persuade search engine users to click on your ad, it should also dissuade unqualified visitors from clicking.  If a user is looking for a red widget, but you only sell blue widgets, detailed ad copy will be attractive to blue widget seekers who are hit with a targeted advertisement, and red widget buyers will be directed away from your ad before they waste your money with a click on your PPC ad.

A landing page, for paid search campaigns, should focus on your conversion point.  Don’t waste space (and your visitor’s attention span) with too much content or too many links pointing away from the page. They’ll have no choice but to focus on your conversion point (contact form, “purchase” button, white paper download).  That focus will translate into a higher percentage of visitors who convert into potential customers.

Wish #2: A decreasing cost per lead

Digital marketers are often focused on a revenue (or potential revenue)-based metric. Cost per lead (CPL) is often a great way to measure your campaign’s performance. Often, CPLs are at their highest at the inception of your SEM campaign, but gradually decrease with constant monitoring and optimization. Generally, the longer your campaign runs, the lower your cost per lead (ideally!).  Keep in mind that clicks (and subsequently, conversions) are more expensive during certain parts of the year (lower search volume during the summer leads to greater competition amongst advertisers), so it is best to take a year-over-year view of your campaign’s performance.  But in general, you should see some efficiencies in your campaign as time goes by.

Constant improvement of your CPL (which is directly impacted by your cost per click) is dependent on constant monitoring of your campaign’s keywords (and groups of keywords, called Ad Groups).  Make sure that you change your keyword bids to reflect the performance of each keyword – increase your bids for those terms that have produced conversions at a tolerable CPL, decrease bids for those keywords that are driving traffic (and eating up budget!) with little return.  Be sure to give your campaign enough of a sample size before making decisions, I usually like to wait for at least 100 clicks before I have enough data to make an informed decision.

Wish #3: More budget!

Okay, I get it.  Every marketer has limited budgets, except, apparently, for these guys.  And one of the beautiful things about SEM is that you can set your marketing budget to whatever you are comfortable with.  But if you DO find yourself with some extra marketing budget at the end of 2011, be sure to put it in the right places.  SEM campaigns will give you a detailed view of which pieces of your campaign are working most successfully, and you’re digital marketing team can help you allocate that budget in the right places. After all, it might be useful to put more budget to search marketing during a potentially slow time of year.

2011 has been a great year, as Search Engine Marketing Continues to be a vital part of your digital marketing strategy. Here’s hoping that, when you open your SEM stocking this Holiday season, you find more candy (conversions and customers) than coal (high CPC’s and no traffic!).

The “Socialnomics” video created by best-selling author Eric Qualman, states that over 200 million blogs exist across the Internet. Blogs offer opinion, perspective, news, and original thought serving as one of the best information resources across all traditional and social media. Marketing is especially ripe for blogs because of the ongoing social media evolution and the emergence of new platforms. Blogs offer on-the-spot education and conjecture and the Internet would be a much different place without them.

In the insurance industry, a growing number of agents, carriers and vendors are using blogs to battle perceptions, educate and show the industry is filled with good people doing good things. Where are they you ask? The IMHQ blogroll is a nice place to start before heading over to the aptly named Insurance Blog Directory.

With this in mind, the team from Insurance Marketing HQ is proud to announce the second #INSchat set for 10/14 at 2p.m. EST which will focus 100% on blogging related topics. To be clear, you DON’T actually need to be a blogger to get value from the Twitter chat. We’ll discuss popular blogs with content that can foster professional development while touching on other social media tools and skills as well.

With help from the growing insurance community on Twitter, we’ll also delve into SEO best practices, blogging platforms, content strategy, making a blog social, and other areas that will help anyone become more accomplished in the art of bloggery.

Instructions for participating in #INSchat are the same as last time (just fill in the new dates), so bring an open mind and your blog questions, suggestions and advice.

We had an unbelievable response to the first social media best practices Twitter chat and look forward to growing #INSchat.

The topic of Errors and Omissions insurance as it relates to insurance agencies and specifically social media and technology, has been a hot one over the past few weeks.

Insurance Journal featured a comprehensive look at all risks associated with social media usage in, “The Growing Risks of Social Media,” while industry thought-leader Steve Anderson mentions E&O policies when discussing coverages needed to protect against the risk of data breaches, where personal information is stolen or made available accidentally.

To get a clear understanding of how Errors and Omissions policies are relevant to technology and social media, it’s important to first define E&O. According to BusinessDictionary.com, Errors and Omissions liability insurance is defined as:

Insurance coverage that protects professionals (such as accountants, architects, brokers, consultant, engineers, lawyers) against claims arising from their actual or perceived negligence, errors, and mistakes in the performance of service for others.

A slightly different explanation is offered on the International Risk Management Institute, Inc. (IRMC) website which defines E&O as:

An insurance form that protects the insured against liability for committing an error or omission in performance of professional duties. Generally, such policies are designed to cover financial losses rather than liability for bodily injury and property damage.

Understanding the types of coverages needed to mitigate the risk from your agency’s social media usage is not only good for your own protection, but valuable in determining how to protect business partners that are active on the social web, potentially opening up new streams for “rounding off” accounts.

Insurers have been slow to create policies that address social media usage specifically (they’re still learning how to use it). For this reason, knowledge from someone who has years of insurance and social media experience is more readily available than anything you can dig up from an insurance company. While they are few and far between, Leslie White, risk manager for SocialFish.org, wrote a groundbreaking post titled, Social Media, Liability and Insurance, in which she discusses the liabilities involved for any small business engaging on the social web.

I encourage you to read the entire piece, but in discussing Errors & Omissions coverage specifically, Ms. White states:

“Associations with extensive media activities should consider a media liability policy. However, if your association has an Errors & Omissions policy for its professional programs, the E&O policy can be modified to extend coverage for media exposures.

One advantage of a media liability policy is it can provide coverage for losses arising from the content of the publication. If the blog posting or article explains how to do or make something and someone gets hurt or suffers a financial loss, the association may be held liable. The policy can also be endorsed to cover claims arising from bodily injury or property damage arising from the content or subject matter.”

There is some gray area in defining the words “media” and “matter” so Ms. White encourages companies to make the definition as broad as possible to cover all web properties, electronic publications and even volunteers and authors.

As mentioned previously, data breaches are a concern, especially when sensitive information is available. Fortunately, most agencies will not have to worry about their websites, since the quote forms or other lead engines present only ask for very basic information. However, LOSS of data is a huge concern as operations become more digitized and CMS systems expand.

Aside from protecting data, bloggers and social media users always have to be aware of things like plagiarism, copyright infringement and defamation, which can all be easily avoided with some basic common sense training and a social media policy. Don’t badmouth the competition. Don’t steal other people’s work. Give credit where credit is due. Don’t post sensitive information about clients.

Benchmark-setting court cases and legislation is needed before a precedent can be set. Until then, it’s best to listen to the experts, formulate E&O coverages that protect your agency’s specific liabilities and apply a similar model when assessing the risks of clients active with social media and digital insurance marketing.

Since the insurance industry is playing catch-up in the social media marketing space, it may be some time before a forward-thinking insurer develops a specific coverage to address the risks faced by bloggers and social media practitioners.  But when it happens, it’s likely they’ll get plenty of attention from the people it matters to most.

According to a 2010 Pew Research Center study, 61% of adult internet users in America (205 million), “…looked for information or completed a transaction on a government website in the twelve months preceding.”

In sharing this study, SearchEngineLand’s Debra Mastaler signaled a call to action for bloggers and web professionals looking to harness the local and national masses flocking to government websites. How you say?

People visit government websites for many different reasons. There’s the DMV, (un)employment, recreational licenses, social services, tourism, business licenses, issue/policy research, military and endless other forms and information sources. Even on the surface, with the right strategy, it’s not a stretch to make insurance marketing parallels.

To be clear, this is not a “get rich quick” strategy, in fact, it is quite the opposite. Leveraging a government website’s search engine traffic takes a balanced effort of optimizing links to the government sites, titles, content and making it readable and interesting enough to inspire people to share.

Look for hot-button issues and take a neutral but informative insurance-related stance. If you sell health insurance, optimize for the public health provider (in Rhode Island, its RIte Care) and be there to help people who are no longer covered. People seeking DMV forms need insurance. Business owners seeking licenses need insurance.

Insurance agencies that are situated in active hunting communities may consider Outdoor Insurance options to rank up with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Be creative and use your own online government experiences as inspiration.

As mentioned, this strategy takes a commitment, but the potential “sticky link bait” created by leveraging government websites can prove to be a source of organic internet leads for the long haul.