There are several reasons to be visible in both the organic and paid results but that is not the purpose of this post.  There are also many arguments when it comes to running Branded campaigns in PPC, but that is not the purpose of this post either.  So now your thinking, what is the purpose of this blog post?  To provide you with tips on how to stand out amongst your retailers and affiliates for paid branded terms.

1) Increase CPC to maintain 1st position

Rise above the weeds and be the first ad to catch the attention of visitors.

2) Use Branded Keywords in Ad Text

Having your targeted keywords in your ad text will improve the relevance of the keyword and ad text, increasing your quality score.  Also, using your targeted keywords in your ad text can help to increase CTR.  You can see in the screen shot above, “PUMA” is bolded because my search query was matched with a keyword PUMA is bidding on and is included in their ad copy.  When relevant use your branded keywords in the title, description and display URL of your ad text.  But beware don’t go over bored here.

3) Use Official Messaging in Ad Text

Official messaging in ad text will help users identify your site among your retailers and affiliates, which is very helpful because it gives you a one up.  In the PUMA example, Zappos can’t say “The Official Online PUMA Store”.  Many advertisers are including the “Official Site” messaging directly in the headline to make the messaging stand out even more.

4) Showcase Your Brand’s Registered Trademark Symbol

Is your brand name a registered trademark?  If so, are you using it in your ad text?  This is a great way to reinforce the official messaging of your branded campaigns, helping potential customers to identify your ad as the most relevant result matching their search query.

There you have it, 4 easy tips to help increase your Branded efforts in paid search.  If you don’t have the budget to ensure top positioning, make sure your ad copy is spot on – communicating to your customers you are the site they are looking for when they search for your branded query.  Don’t miss out on an possible opportunities when it comes to branded search.

We don’t think that Google place pages will make either Yelp or SMB’s sites obsolete, but Google is certainly stepping up its game and that is going to force Yelp (and other social review-based sites) and small business owners to up the ante in with their own online presence.

Google Place pages have expanded upon the business information that Google had previously only displayed within ‘bubbles’ in their maps interface. Dedicated pages with complete business information are now the norm, where before this wasn’t always the case. Google is also pulling information from some other social review sites such as CitySearch, in addition to the reviews that can be posted directly via Google. Since these are unique pages, speculation is that they would start being indexed in Google search results, though this doesn’t seem to have happened yet. We think it will happen though, and that this will be yet another footprint for SMB’s to gain in the SERP’s and to continue to build online reputations.

In addition to enlisting your customers to post reviews on Yelp, CitySearch and local review sites, be sure to add your Google Place page to the list. Have customers post reviews, and monitor the ones that are posted. Any negative reviews should be handled promptly and directly by the business owner or manager. And as a business owner, in addition to having filled out your Google Local Business Listing , visit your place and upload photos, add a description in your own words, and ensure that the information displayed is accurate. Check out Portland’s Pizzicato Restaurant – their Place Page has been thoroughly updated with images, descriptions and store information, making it an informative destination for a patron looking for a slice of gourmet pizza.

Pizzicato in Portland - Google Places Page

Does this make the local business’ own website obsolete? Absolutely not. Does it mean that SMB’s are going to need to think about adding content beyond basic hours and descriptions to their sites? Absolutely. Google Place Pages, in addition to Yelp, CitySearch, etc. are going to remain destinations for preliminary information – store hours, reviews, basic descriptions. The businesses website needs to, then, be the deal-sealer. Once a searcher has narrowed their search by using the 3^rd party sites, quite frequently they will pay a visit to the businesses site before committing to a visit. They will be looking for a menu, product descriptions, prices, history, deals and coupons. Use your site to provide more information than what might be found on these 3^rd party sites and the value of your site will remain undeniable.

I’m a GM, how do I obtain guest reviews?

There are a number of ways you can bring guest reviews to the attention of the customer without being pushy. Here are some things you and your staff can do to help increase guest reviews.

• Guest check out is the most obvious opportunity. Have your desk staff ask how the guest enjoyed their stay. If it seems like a positive experience, politely ask the guest to leave  a review, and give them some options as to which sites to leave a review at.
• Utilize hotel materials to ask for reviews (materials can be at the front desk, in-room, restaurant, bar, etc.)
• Include messaging on the customer bill

There are many more things a hotel can be doing to encourage guest reviews, however, most of this would fall on your hotel’s marketing team.

• Include a form directly on your own website to obtain reviews from customers
• Use logos from credible review sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp that link to your hotel’s profile page
• Utilize your database and send a post-stay email asking for a review, and provide links to your hotel’s profile page on review sites to make it as easy as possible to leave a review
• If your hotel participates in social media, and you should be, use your “voice” to ask for reviews from your fans (Facebook) and followers (Twitter)

What about negative reviews?

Working with a number of hotels over the years, I’ve heard General Managers (GMs) pose the question, “Why would I want to invite potential negative reviews for others to see?” There are always going to be negative reviews about a hotel, you can’t always be perfect. Sometimes your front desk staff will have a bad day (and show it) or your cleaning crew will miss a few spots or you unfortunately had a bachelor party over the weekend. Granted the bachelor party isn’t something you can always control, but instances where your staff is rude or slacking, these are things that can be fixed. Reading negative reviews can be the best “research” to help you see what is broken. Your guests are telling you where you failed. If you see trends over a period where the same problems occur, it provides you the opportunity to address the issues and fix them. Don’t fear negative reviews, embrace them. The majority of GMs that are scared of receiving negative reviews are the ones that already know they have problems. My suggestion, get started fixing the problems immediately. Guests will leave reviews no matter, so the sooner you can correct any potential issues, the better off you’ll be.

Obtaining reviews isn’t as hard as some may think, it’s just a matter of encouraging or asking your guests for the review. Properties that are able to attain more reviews on reputable sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Citysearch, and even the Online Travel Agencies like Expedia, Orbitz & Travelocity gain more credibility and trust than hotels that have fewer reviews. When a potential guest sees a negative review, they generally don’t discount your hotel immediately, but if they continue to see the same trends in reviews, you’ve got a problem that needs to be addressed. Reviews are your friends. You can gain a lot of knowledge by listening to your guests. I suggest you do it.

Social Media profiles can get cluttered with comments from detractors.

Blogger buzz may not always be as positive as we’d like.

Google search results can be less than flawless (United Airlines, I’m talking to you.).

A fourth facet that can be overlooked is Online Brand Advertising. Of course, a website is advertising, but I am going to focus on the need to buy ads to boost your brand – even when you don’t have a reputation issue. Specifically, how can you (and why should you) buy branded ads on Google AdWords.  (Rest assured, display ads will be addressed in an upcoming post.)

We’ve already talked about United Air’s less than effective customer service strategies, and not to beat a dead horse, but I am aghast that despite the several negative listings in their Google results, it seems they are not taking the simplest step and buying their brand keywords on AdWords. United should be following the lead of their competitors and increasing their share of Google real-estate by buying ads, just like Southwest, Delta, and American.

Even if you do not have negative results to combat, there is always the possibility that they will one day appear. Be prepared. If your online reputation is consistently flawless, there is still reason to maintain AdWords ads for your branded keywords. A 2009 Marketing Sherpa study tells us that the top consideration of searchers when clicking on a Google result is brand – if the searcher recognizes your brand in search, it is far more likely that YOU will get the click, not your competitor, affiliate or reseller.

Now that you’re convinced (right?) that you need to be buying your branded terms on AdWords, here are a few best practices to consider when implementing your ads.

1. Use words like “Official Site” in your ad (a “®” will also work nicely) – these make it easy to tell the “real” site from the others and can dramatically increase your ad’s click-through rate.
2. Be thorough with your keyword list. Do your customers know you by multiple names? Are there abbreviations or acronyms to consider? What about misspellings? Buy all of them.
3. Know your competition. Are there other sites advertising on your brand name? Are they advertising compelling offers or other messaging that might distract your customers? Do what you have to in order to “out message” them. Make a habit of monitoring the ads appearing for your brand terms. If you think a competitor is inappropriately using your brand in their ads, check out Google’s Trademark Policy before taking action.
4. Bid aggressively. You want to be #1 for your brand terms. If you have competitors bidding on your brand terms, being #1 could be more expensive than you might think, but it will pay off. On the positive side, your ads are likely to have a very strong Quality Score on AdWords for your own brand terms, helping to boost you to the top at a lesser cost than your competitors might pay.

In Part II of this post, I’ll shift from talking about AdWords Search ads and discuss the power of display ads on Google’s Content Network and their impact on your brand.

Until then, get to Google and make sure your brand is effectively represented EVERYWHERE it can be.

Honda, which has a Facebook fan page for each of its vehicles, posted a new Facebook page for the new Accord Crosstour, a vehicle coming this fall. What followed was a flurry of comments on Facebook ridiculing the new vehicle’s design. Many of these comments are pretty scathing:

This is just a small sample of the negative comments about the crossover. Now, what Honda chooses to do at this point could have a significant impact on its brand. Although this is a scary situation for any business, smart businesses who actively manage their reputation will see this situation as a great opportunity to catapult their brand image in ways that they couldn’t  do otherwise. Businesses who don’t actively manage their reputation will probably follow their knee-jerk reaction and cause significant damage to their brand.

So in this case, what are some of Honda’s options?

Option 1: Delete the comments and remove the Facebook page

This is the knee jerk reaction, and one that many businesses might decide is the best decision. If you’re being attacked via your own social media channels, the easiest decision is to simply remove everything, or delete negative comments to try and fight your customer’s reactions. As you might have guessed, this is the worst decision you could for multiple reasons:

1. This shows customers that you don’t care about their input.
2. This shows customers that you aren’t  a transparent company that can be trusted. After all, if you delete negative comments, how do they know you’re being honest with your marketing?
3. Your customers will simply take their reactions to other social media channels that you have absolutely no control over.
4. Your customers, or competitors, will have ammunition to attack you with.

Obviously, this decision can have a profound negative impact on your brand. Online reputation management does not mean artificially making your company look good online, and customers can smell this a mile away.

Option 2: Take it like a market leader, and then let them know you’re listening

This is the exact opposite thing you’ll probably want to do, but is a great decision that, paradoxically,  will separate your brand from your competitor’s in a very positive way. Why do you think that Honda’s customers are taking the time to comment negatively about Honda’s product? Because they care! After all, in order to comment, they have to be a “fan” of Honda’s Facebook page in the first place! A great decision in this case is to leave the comments and then include some of your own comments regularly responding, in a non-defensive way, to your customers. Choosing to react in this way has multiple positive outcomes:

1. Your customers know you’re listening to them, and know that you care about them
2. Your customers see that you aren’t deleting negative comments, and thus come to trust you, and your marketing message more. After all, you are showing that you are a transparent company.
3. Customers won’t take the message elsewhere, because there’s no need to. This way, you can monitor the conversation and easily respond.
4. You will be acting as a market leader by taking criticism head on. After all, you don’t need to hide from negative feedback because you’re a leader!

This is the option that Honda has chosen, and it’s working for them very well. They have responded to these comments directly on their fan page. Here are a few of their responses:

“We think the Euro wagon is a cool vehicle, too, and we appreciate the feedback… but a version of that wasn’t our intention here.”

“There are more photos on the way. Maybe it’s like a bad yearbook photo or something, and we think the new photos will clear things up.”

“Many of you don’t like the styling: It may not be for everyone. Our research suggests that the styling does test well among people shopping for a crossover.”

Which company would you rather buy from? The one that chooses option 1 or the the one that chooses option 2?

Companies that are very successful with social media understand that many of the “negative” things that can happen are actually giant opportunities for brand improvement that are otherwise not available in other channels. Obviously, Honda can’t take back the vehicle they’ve just built, and it’s probably going to be released this fall no matter what. But the way they are responding to this barrage of comments is outstanding.

Bonus: In my opinion, if they use this as a reason to start incorporating social media in the design of new vehicles or future crossovers, they will begin winning over customers from Toyota.

Branded Search Queries

If you’re not already monitoring your online reputation proactively, think long and hard why not…  If your not try an exercise for me.  Do a handful of branded searches in the search engines and spend some time looking into the results.  It is best to test different variations of your brand name to get an all encompassing report.  Test your domain name, abbreviations of your company name and misspellings.  What are your findings?  Any surprises come up when searching for your brand name?

In an ideal world your brand  would own the first page of branded queries in the SERPs and any/if at all negative coverage would be buried past the 3rd page of results.  So, how do you own the first page of results in the Search Engines?  Follow these 6  tips for owning branded results to get you started.

1. Claim your local listing
2. Start a blog – For Wordpress blogs, make sure you download the All in One SEO Pack
3. Create a Facebook Fan Page
4. Create a company Twitter account
5. Add your company in LinkedIn
6. Add your site to relevant directories

All of the above examples will help your claim more real estate in the SERPs for your brand name in a timely manner.  If you have already done some of the above examples, when was the last time you updated them or added more content?

It’s best to start monitoring and owning  your online brand image now, before you have to.

However, as with everything, there is an up side and a down site, and this is most certainly true with affiliate campaigns. When you start accepting affiliates, your are, in a sense, handing them your brand and giving them some leeway on how they can promote it. You are trusting your affiliates to treat your brand with care and oftentimes, this trust is broken. There are really compelling reasons to run an affiliate program, but we’re going to discuss  some of the downsides of affiliate marketing and what you can do to protect your reputation when utilizing affiliates.

The Affiliate Mindset

First, I feel it’s important to review the general mindset of an affiliate marketer so that you can understand how the people who promote your products think. Understand that successful affiliates treat what they do as a business, meaning that they often don’t care about your brand personally, they just want to increase revenue and decrease costs so that their business is profitable. Often, what works for affiliates online is not always in line with presenting your brand in the best light. For example, if an affiliate has built a large email list, they will be pushing your brand along with other brands and sometimes, those “other” brands are ones you might not want to be associated with. Moreover, if your program terms are worse then your competitors’ , there is a strong pull for affiliates to favor your competitors’ products. Often, the brand with the highest payout wins. This is not a negative thing from a macro view, as most everyone would be focused on increasing their business’ revenue! Just remember, your affiliates (in general) care about their ROI, not necessary your brand. Understanding this is the first step in setting up an affiliate program that is both beneficial to your brand as well as your affiliates.

Some Typical Issues

Listed below are some ways that affiliates can harm your online reputation.

• Affiliates can run PPC ads for keywords that are similar to the ones that you bid on, not only hurting your PPC ROI, but including brand mentions in their landing pages that aren’t the most flattering.
• Affiliates can sometimes undercut your own product prices by offering incentives to their users as a means to increase their conversion rates.
• They could include an affiliate link to your website in their own informational products that might be low quality.
• They can use spammy promotional methods to push your product.
• Using your products along with other re-bill offers that your leads don’t know they’re purchasing when they sign up for your service.
• Rate your product less favorably than your competitors’ products.

Now although these can lead to some serious reputation issues, all can be prevented through proper planning when launching your affiliate program.

The Solutions

Your affiliate agreement is your first line of defense

This agreement includes the specifics of what your affiliates can and cannot do to promote your products. Now, you don’t want to go crazy on the restrictions unless your want your program to be a flop, but best practice is to look at your competitors’ affiliate agreements to ensure that yours is competitive. Generally, you should prohibit affiliates from using your brand name in any online advertisements (PPC or Cost Per View) and keep them from bidding on keywords that include any variation of your brand name. You can include clauses about offering customer incentives and even include clauses about re-bills or reviews. Again, its important to look at what your competitors are doing and make sure that your agreement isn’t too stringent when compared with theirs.

Your termination clause

Include a clause that allows you to terminate the relationship with your affiliates at your own discretion. Obviously, the point is not to abuse this, but to simply give you the power to end your relationship if an affiliate is really harming your brand. Be very careful when going this route, and make sure your clause stipulates exactly what will happen with their commissions if they are terminated before their payout.

Active monitoring

Of course, you need to monitor your affiliates to make sure they are abiding by the rules of your program. Simply monitoring the first few pages of Google for your brand name and constantly reviewing your PPC competitors will help you quickly discover what affiliates are doing to promote your brand. Type in “<brand name> review” & “<brand name> deals” to get see what affiliates are saying. Always monitor the quality of leads that your certain affiliates are driving for clues as to what methods they’re using.

Be nice

The idea of this article is not to put you at war against your affiliates! Believe it or not, your affiliates are your customers too and it’s in your best interest to keep them happy. If an affiliate does something against your program’s terms, simply contact them and politely ask them to stop, and make sure you provide your affiliates with great support and sales materials from the beginning. If you work to keep the relationship positive, so will your affiliates.

Offer the best payouts/terms

It’s surprising that many companies don’t consider this. If you monitor your competitor’s affiliate programs, simply differentiating the terms of your program can lead to huge dividends. After all, if you have better affiliate terms than your competitors, who do you think is going to get preferential treatment and ratings? You are!

Believe me, the amount of your payout isn’t the only way you can differentiate your affiliate program! Are your competitors just providing a one-time bulk payout for affiliate sales? Then you should try having a small one time payout, but including monthly payouts for as long as the referred lead is a customer. Do competitors have high payouts but poor support? Then you can get affiliates to favor you by providing the best support possible. What does this mean? It means providing your affiliates with dozens of articles they can use and customize to promote your brand and providing them with plenty of banners or pre-made landing pages that have been tested and convert well. Even with lower payouts, affiliates will gravitate towards programs that offer superior support or convert better.

Affiliate marking is an amazing tool for both small and large businesses alike. The fact that large players (Amazon.com & Entrepreneur.com, for example) utilize affiliate programs demonstrates that a well planned affiliate program can be a high ROI promotional method. Just make sure to monitor your affiliates and work with them on creating a mutually beneficial relationship, as this will lead to more sales and an untarnished online reputation.

Here was one attempt I came across recently, where I was surprised at the lack of social media interaction for a company that should probably be active. But at least they were proactive enough to reserve their branded Twitter account.

To Wells Fargo’s defense, they do have an active customer service Twitter account, but you would think it wouldn’t be difficult to use this main account to tweet out all that crazy bank information that no one really understands, right?

I digress, this is not what this post is about.

This post is about what happens to companies who aren’t ready to get into social media, but aren’t actively monitoring what is going on without them. You have to pull that little kid trick where you sit at the top of the stairs and try and peek down when your parents have friends over late and have put you to bed.

I’ve seen this a number of times with retail clients – brands especially who sell through other retailers. Some of those retailers will stop at nothing to get a sale, including setting up accounts that look like your brand, but link to their own site. This is not the most effective way to control your brand’s destiny.

Everything is branded with “Steve Madden Shoes” But the website is for an online retailer. Granted this account doesn’t have a huge number of followers, but you’ve lost some control of your brand none the less.

The bottom line is  if you don’t want to participate right now in social media, don’t sweat it. But take some time to research what is out there and at the very least, keep your brand protected.

Granted, a two page article from the Washington Post touting the death of your company may be hard to miss. The story spread through social media sites. And the Crocs CEO wanted to set the record straight and offer the world the company’s perspective, though the Crocs Blog Thanks to the Internet, companies are able to immediately address their customers and naysayers, and more often than not, this is becoming the norm instead of the exception.

PR and marketing is still changing. More companies are starting to get it, but most of them are still sprinting to keep up. Duerden’s reply to the Washington Post article also spread throughout Twitter, making sure all interested customers could see both sides of the story. The Crocs brand may be struggling to be more than a fad, but at least they aren’t going to go down without a fight.

Well, then you would be United Airlines. Everyone knows the airline industry has struggled for years now. Rising gas prices, tighter security, an economic meltdown…not really good things for air travel. Southwest has survived due to low prices, no frill flying. Despite some PR issues to deal with JetBlue remains popular with a lot of travelers for their relatively cheap travel at least throughout the east coast, and you get a tv and bigger seat. What about the rest of the guys? I’m talking the DeltaUnitedContinentalAmericanAirlines bunch. Sure most people probably have a favorite if the HAVE to chose between one of those carriers, but really, you get just about the same service, flights and bad food on any of them, and it becomes a price game. Except their prices aren’t that good.

And now, United Airlines has this guy writing songs and making music videos about his terrible customer service battle, lasting more than a year, because the airline broke his $3,500 guitar. And now they have an online reputation issue. As the video was only released yesterday, it only has a few hundred views In one day the video has been viewed over 3,000 times, not including sites where the video is embedded and it was picked up by The Consumerist. And that article has been viewed nearly 8,000 22,000 times, and is being spread through Twitter.

The unfortunate thing is that if United had just replaced the guy’s guitar in the first place, no one would have heard about it. Negative press about a company always spreads faster than good news. United is forced to play clean-up, if they chose to play at all. And the already low public perception of a brand is taken down a few more notches.

United Breaks Guitars Video