prosar, Author at PROSAR Inbound Inc.

29 September 2014

3 First Steps to Successful Content Marketing Execution

Content marketing is a technique for obtaining new business. Online is fertile ground for growing your business and online content marketing is a means for you to acquire new leads.

Are you at a plateau in your growth and looking to top up your sales pipeline? Content marketing can widen your market. It is an effective, but not aggressive, way to extend the reach of your business.

The content marketing concept for small to medium sized enterprises is based on your niche and the unique value you offer.

Disclaimer: Strategy First.

These steps are tactics and useless without a strategy in place. For more on this prerequisite see 5 Components to a Successful Strategic Marketing Plan.

1) Identify Your Ideal Customer(s).

In the online world, niche is king. Your online identity must be concise and clear. If you make it difficult for a visitor to figure out what you’re really great at you will lose their attention. Focus in on your “ideal” customer(s). Not real people or businesses, but a composite images of your primary customers. Be as specific as you can.

Content marketing is an effective way to extend and further grow an already successful business. Success may have lead to diversification. Best practice is to limit (or segment) your online efforts to specific goals based on your ideal customers.

Defining your ideal customers will allow you to re-focus on your strengths and uniqueness. Focus on your core business and the unique value that brought you success.

2) What Will Catch Their Attention?

It’s a noisy world online. Many niche businesses are able to thrive online, despite the noise. They are able to stand out and catch their ideal customer’s attention. They had to get found online first, which led to a website visit.

There must be something of interest online to catch and honestly hold your visitor’s attention. Not pounding the visitor with a sales pitch, but convincing the visitor to stay and explore your website.

You do this by generating something of value for them to consume. This is your chance to shine by offering something perceived by your ideal customers as valuable. Something they perceive as unique. Something they won’t find from your competitors. Solving a business problem is a great approach.

The more business value in your content, the stronger the leads are that will result. If your content is broader in value, such as educational, you may get more visits. The qualified leads will be fewer. This is why strategy (the why) is so important in the direction you take. What is your goal?

3) Determine the Formats.

The choice of formats depends on your ideal customers’ preferred formats. Put yourself in your ideal customer’s mind. Ask your existing customers. What is the most effective and engaging online way they would want to consume the value you offer?

Remember, new visitors are still strangers at this point. If videos are their thing, don’t offer (initially) an hour-long webinar. If articles are their thing, don’t (initially) offer a 30-page whitepaper. These longer forms of content come after some form of relationship has been established.

Blog posts are an easy and inexpensive way to begin. The effectiveness of blogs is quite broad, mostly in establishing thought leadership on a given subject. They are an excellent choice for building authority and establishing content generation consistency. If your immediate goal is to generate leads you will have to offer something extra with more business value.

As simple as these steps appear they are not so simple to do. As with anything unfamiliar or new, just getting started can be tough. Translating the theory to the reality of your niche can be a challenge. Outside parties can help facilitate the process. Ultimately, your business is unique and the backbone of content marketing must come from you and your team.

What makes your business unique?

28 July 2014

Social Media Marketing – How Much Time Per Day?

Portrait of middle eastern businessman typing on the laptop and looks concentration, shot in the office

One of the most common questions I get from SMB owners and managers is: How much time per day should my business be on social media? Note that I am talking about the business side and not the personal side, although there is (and should be) some crossover between each.

As a business with an online identity, you should have social media accounts representing your business brand. Social media is a great way to achieve awareness, introduce personality behind your logo, and engage with an audience. It can also serve as a focal point to indirectly draw people to your website. This brings us to the definition of social media marketing using social media as a platform to guide your audience to a specific action. As with any business tactic there must be strategy behind your efforts; in terms of what you are trying to accomplish and what steps should be taken to get you there.

Every business will be a bit different but ideally you should be using social media to talk to your ideal customers. Most customers access more than one social media channel, so your business should be represented on several at least for maximum reach. Regardless of your choice of channels, this is where you are challenged for time and resources:

Number of Posts Per Day

The number of posts per day varies somewhat based on the social media channel. Twitter, for instance, is a channel best suited to many posts throughout the day. Facebook and Google+, on the other hand, are better suited to a smaller number of posts per day, with top brands averaging one post per day. LinkedIn themselves suggest one post per weekday, but businesses can be effective with as little as several posts per week. The guideline for LinkedIn company pages is to post as many times as your content supports. This social media frequency guide from Buffer is an excellent resource.

Audience Engagement Time Per Day

This may be the most important time a business can spend on social media. When you post something of value you are looking for acknowledgement back from your audience; comments, questions, added value. You have started a conversation, basically. When someone picks up on the conversation you want to continue it. This is what develops relationships, which are the roots of all business. This engagement is absolutely vital in establishing relevance, trust, and authority in whatever your business is built upon.

Consuming and Curating Content

Most SMBs do not have a full time resource for content generation. Creating and hosting your own content is the ideal to strive for in online marketing efforts. The difference between social media marketing and content marketing is independence, although social media will always be an important part of supporting your own generated content. The way to start is to read a lot of other content on similar topics, digest the information and add value in the form of curation (commentary) and reposting. This is an easy way to follow the old 80/20 rule (80% curation, 20% original content), and not to appear too spammy on social media.

Connecting Profiles and Pages

Here is the crossover where you and your employees connect your personal social media profiles to your business social media pages. The benefit for the business is to identify the real people behind your brand and the benefit for the employees is the professional reputation they build by associating themselves with a business. They are going to dip in to their personal social media accounts throughout their workday, anyway. Why not encourage them to cross post from your business page and contribute to the engagement streams? Your employees can be vital particpants in any number of business conversations and represent you by their association to your business. Personal social media profiles will always get more engagement than business pages, so do not dismiss them as part of your overall company brand. Connect the dots!

Social media marketing should be a chunk of your marketing plan with a budget allocated and an expected ROI. It involves consistent attention to be effective, anything less will lead to failure. Crunch the numbers for the time and cost per day versus the ROI per measurable success (such the number of new subscribers/leads, and average revenue per subscriber) and budget accordingly. Here’s a tip; a pinch of automation and a sprinkle of marketing expertise can make a big difference.

19 July 2014

Online Communities: How Do You Decide with Who You Want to Be Friends?

Do you remember your first day of school, standing on your own in the playground? Or the first time you walked in to the high school cafeteria and had to decide where to sit? In life, there are many groups of people offering us different kinds of communities. Social media is the same.

In the social world, you have many groups of people that share interactions, interests and information. They will each use different platforms that offer its members different advantages.

When creating your online community, it is important to think about your customers: What do they want? Knowledge? Advice? A quick sale? A quick laugh? A connection?

Here are five online community types that you can keep in mind when building or improving your community:

1. Its all about business!

Promoting your business it probably one of most popular reasons for starting an online community. Nowadays, every marketing strategy includes a social platform. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter, an online presence for your business is a crucial key to your success.

If this fits your intentions then use your SEO opportunities wisely. Know your keywords and maximize their usage in your content. Put forth your products and promotions and interact with your audience about product and services. Get their feedback and be available to answer their questions.

2. I want to be entertained!

Pinterest and YouTube are top online social communities for entertainment. If your goal is to help your audience relax and tune-out, use this fact to your advantage and create a community around people’s down time. Add video to your blog posts, or comment on a popular TV series, movie franchise or book to launch your community. If entertainment and/or leisure describe your online community type, post consistently and several times a day. Any excuse is a good excuse to be distracted!

3. I want to improve!

Who doesn’t want to improve! Online coaching, self-help videos and ebooks are all over the web. Everyone wants to be happy and feel good about themselves. If you can help your customers, community members or colleagues reach that goal, then why not? Whether you are sharing leadership advice, life coaching tips or entrepreneurship opportunities, make your page friendly, welcoming and warm…just like a good hug! Think about offering ebooks and online video sessions to interact with your online community. Post quotes of the day or advice that is accessible and useful.

4. Let’s make a connection!

You have customers online and in real life. The main reason for your customers to seek you online is to share their feedback, ask questions, give a review or show you appreciation. This type of community could be useful if you are a scholar, a researcher, or a company wanting to regroup a number of people from your industry into one forum. Use hashtags on Twitter to host chats and host a forum, if that fits best.

5. I have a problem and need a solution!

How many times have you went on Google to look for a solution to your problem? The Internet has become our easy-fix, our reliable solution finder, our mom with her crazy tips, or the replacement for that manual that we lost or threw out when we got our dishwasher. If you want to establish yourself as a reference in your field or a page to look-up when your client has a problem, then create an accessible online community that provides knowledge. Position yourself as an expert or create a question and answer forum for similar issues – washing and cleaning tips, travel and vacation ideas, health or nutrition related issues, real estate, dry cleaning or home brewing tips…the possibilities are endless!

No matter what, remember to have fun! Social media is all about interacting and getting to know your audience better. Remember to be one of your members and not just that mystery person behind the curtain answering their questions!

11 July 2014

Two Great Ways to Unearth Link-Building Opportunities

Link building can be intimidating to undertake. It’s laborious, speculative, and many organizations don’t know where to start so they avoid giving it the attention it deserves as an important factor for ranking well in search engines. Instead of pursuing links sporadically, it’s wise to go into it with a plan on how you’ll devote your efforts. Less time will be wasted and the results will be far more effective. To get off on the right foot, it’s important to understand how to unearth the link-building opportunities that have the best likelihood of providing SEO benefit.

Mine Google’s Search Results

Considering that the basic premise of link building is to get links from websites that Google considers authoritative, it then makes sense, as a method of finding these websites, to ask Google who they are. Here’s how:

You’ll need a list of your most desirable keywords. These are the words you’d most like to be found for.
Prioritize your list.
Starting at the top of the list, do a search using the keyword. I recommend not being logged into a Google account in order to minimize the effects of Google personalizing the search results based on what they know about you.
Investigate each search result.
If the search result is a competitor, they’re not going to be receptive to a link request, but before you move on to the next search result make note of them by creating a list of competitors. This list will come in handy later.
When the search result isn’t a competitor, you’ll want to review the website while contemplating on how they may be persuaded to link to you. If you believe there may be a way, add them to an outreach list.

Pan Through Your Competitors’ Links

Another great source of inspiration for link-building opportunities is to review the links going to your competitor’s websites, especially any competitor who’s showing up in the search results in a better position than you for your important keywords. This is where the list of competitors from the Google searches comes in handy. Their ranking success is due in part to their links, therefore learning about the types of links they’ve been able to attain will help guide your outreach strategy. Furthermore, you may decide to reach out to many of the same websites.

You’re going to need a link research tool to do this. The best ones cost money in the form of monthly subscriptions, but they likely either have limited-feature options you can use for free or they have free trial periods you can take advantage of.

When doing this research, be sure to use the URL of the specific web page you wish to learn about as opposed to simply using their domain’s URL. For example, if your competitor’s product page is showing up in the search results above your product page, then use their product page’s URL as opposed to simply using their home page’s URL.

When researching a competitor’s URL, you’ll likely discover dozens or perhaps even hundreds of links. Don’t be intimidated – the more inspiration the better. You can, however, potentially end up with a list of thousands, or even tens of thousands of links, more than you can ever go through individually. Professional SEOs have methodologies for analyzing such lists to weed out dead ends and create a prioritized list of websites to investigate. This saves time and increases your likelihood of finding valuable link opportunities, so if you find yourself in this situation and you wish to be thorough, consider hiring a professional SEO.

How to Spot That Diamond In The Rough

You’re essentially looking for websites that are trustworthy resources that have a readership likely to be interested in the content of your site. Ideally, links from these websites will send valuable traffic to your website and they’ll send signals to the search engines that your site has authority. For more on this, visit Google Will Ignore Your Link Building Efforts Unless You Focus on Quality.

If the search result is an article, investigate the rest of the website. Ask yourself if you can approach them by offering to write a contributed article. You can also investigate the author. Can you pitch story ideas to them that relate to your business? Can you offer up experts within your business to be sources of quotes for future articles?

If the search result is a complementary product or service, ask yourself if you can create a resource on your website that would appeal to their website visitors.

If the search result is an organization that does activities related to your products, ask yourself how you can get involved. Can you sponsor one of their events?

Next Steps

Creating an outreach list of potential link-building opportunities is a major part of the link-building process, but it’s only the beginning. Your next challenge is to approach these websites. Email them, use their online forms, call them on the phone, or even send them a letter by mail to start a conversation about getting a link. Be sure to communicate why linking to your website would be truly beneficial to their readership. Ask them for their ideas as well.

Don’t be discouraged when your attempts don’t seem to be working out. Keep in mind that link building is a numbers game that can be thought of in terms of prospecting. You won’t always strike gold, but going through the process will, over time, pay off. Link building is time intensive so I recommend scheduling dedicated time on the calendar on an ongoing basis.

Now that you know what it takes to launch an effective link-building campaign, give it the attention it deserves. This is your chance to take control of how you rank in the search engines.

25 June 2014

7 Common Dangers of Social Media Illiteracy to Your Business

Most people can agree that social media is a large part of modern culture. So much so, that it can be easy to make the mistake of thinking that (aside from the very young, old, or the counterculture) most people know everything they need to about social media.

While most people use social media on a regular basis, you may be surprised to find out how many people are, in fact social media illiterate.

Social Media Illiterate (def.): Individuals who may or may not use social media often, but do not understand all of the important nuances and subtleties that can make the difference between appearing either intelligent and clever or, thoughtless and idiotic.

Here’s the terrifying reality: These people WORK IN YOUR COMPANY.

So, here are seven common dangers of social media illiteracy to look out for in your business.

1) Most 20 year-olds aren’t the social media experts you think they are.

Be wary that most 20-somethings aren’t sufficiently well-equipped to build and safeguard brands. Conduct online research on your potential new employee before giving him or her this important title.

Even so-called social media specialists, whom you may have hired to helm your social media campaign, have been known to screw up on a very public scale due to negligence.

The importance of hiring someone who is fully social media literate cannot be over-emphasized.

2) Failing to realize that employees represent themselves AND you and your company.

Never underestimate the power of an employee to unwittingly take down your brand. This might seem utterly ridiculous, but humour me for a moment:

You know that a brand is a carefully curated perception based on what your company represents. It can take a good deal of time and effort to build it and should be safeguarded at all costs.

Both you and your employees (from the top executives to the most junior interns) need to be educated on the ins and outs of social media. Much of this can be accomplished by relaying researched best practices to employees but the remaining gaps should be filled by experts in inbound marketing who can teach the necessary skills and knowledge to avoid costly mistakes.

3) Failing to reread your tweet/post/blog before you publish it.

Once you write a post tailored to each of your buyer personas or target audiences, be sure to put yourself in their shoes and re-read your post. Consider how they would interpret it and how it would appeal to them or possibly turn them off.

The truth is that a bad social media post can spread like wildfire. Even if you manage to delete a terrible post once you realize your mistake, it may already be too late. Think of what a parent tells their kids (‘Look both way before you cross the street!’ – this is almost the modern equivalent). Once it’s posted to the Internet, it’s there.

The power of screenshots is significant. They take less than a second and allow a mistake of yours to become immortalized on any computer or smartphone without your consent, knowledge, or control. And unfortunately, the screenshot is here to stay.

If your followers are very influential in their social media circles and a lot of people begin sharing or retweeting your post-gone-wrong – you or your employee can single-handedly, potentially irreparably, damage your brand.

4) This goes for spelling, too. STAHP MSPLLING THIINGS. DONT UZED POUR GRAMRR.

No matter who you are or what you represent, it simply does not reflect well. That is not to say you can’t use everyday, casual language (if it fits the context and the brand). Whether you like it or not, you WILL be judged, so be aware.

Of course, sometimes mistakes happen. Having someone on your side who is social media literate will minimize such accidents, and will ensure they are quickly and thoroughly cleaned up if they do arise.

5) Failing to apologize when you make a mistake (and to fully recognize and publicly acknowledge it when you have).

When making a post that you notice begins to garner negative feedback, here is exactly what not to do:

• Delete negative comments

• Ban loyal fans from your company’s social media pages, accounts, and online groups

• Tell those with negative feedback be quiet or leave

• Ignore desperate appeals from broken-hearted, loyal customers

Don’t be one of those companies who continues to dig themselves deeper and deeper. Be sure to admit your mistake as soon as you realize it. Ignore this warning at your peril.

This brings me to my next point.

6) Failing to listen to good advice and forgetting to stay humble.

Continue to research and listen: read blogs on the subject (clearly, you’re off to a good start), discuss grey-area topics with other industry professionals, subscribe to blogs, Twitter feeds, and LinkedIn groups with people who know more than you about social media.

Never forget to stay humble, we can all learn more and improve, and we never know when or where that education may come from. Pride too often creates crucial blind spots that can hurt your company’s edge, perceived intelligence and adaptability.

7) Failing to have an active presence on social media (A.K.A. giving your competition a leg up).

This is one of the biggest mistakes your company can make. Your competitors are getting an edge on you by *deep breath in* gathering intelligence on the industry and their customers; making important connections with other industry leaders, customers, and prospects; reading and analysing the market at large; establishing a presence to simply say “we’re here, we’re current, we matter”; giving customers that extra level of value-added service to make them feel that they matter; and generating leads and new business for their company – *PHEW*. There’s a lot you’d be missing out on without a good, consistent social media presence.

That’s the power of social media literacy.

12 June 2014

Google Will Ignore Your Link Building Efforts Unless You Focus on Quality

The foundation of Google’s success in providing relevant search results has been its ability to evaluate links. They consider each link to your site to be a vote towards how relevant and important your web pages are. These votes add up and contribute to how well you rank in the search results. Each vote, however, is not considered equal.

A Vote Counted vs. A Vote Ignored

Google’s ideal link situation occurs when a web page with great content is published, then people who are authorities on a topic notice its value and decide to link to it from their websites because it will be helpful to their readers. Google would consider this a good-quality, natural link. The challenge for Google is evaluating every link on the Internet, and their solution is to program their automated system to recognize if:

a link is good quality and would work well as a vote towards authority, or
a link is of such low quality that it should be ignored in terms of conveying SEO benefit.

Like Sherlock Holmes, Google’s algorithm looks for clues.

Clue #1 – The Topics of Focus are Relevant

When a website has a topic of focus,and they link to one of your web pages which features either the same topic or a related topic, this sends a clear signal to Google that this link should count as a vote. Think of a fashion blogger linking to an up-and-coming clothing designer. Alternatively, if there’s no relationship in topics, this would signal that this link should either have an extremely weak vote or totally nullified vote.

Clue #2 – The Quality of the Source

Google’s system judges the importance of the website that’s linking to you, primarily by examining their inbound links. If they are deemed to be authoritative, their link to you will be considered a strong vote. A link from a fashion blogger who’s very popular will be regarded as a much stronger vote than a link from someone who’s just started their blog.

Clue #3 – How Natural the Link Appears To Be

Google examines the linking website for clues that indicate that links are for sale. If this is suspected, that website’s outgoing links will, in all likelihood, not be counted as votes. Same goes for links that can be generated by website visitors, such as links in comments sections. Google also examines the link itself. Their algorithm has developed an eye for:

links that look natural, such as linking to a website by using the company name, product name or the URL, or even saying “hey check this out”. This is how normal, unsolicited links tend to look.
links that look unnatural, such as linking to a website by using that company’s most desirable keyword. For example “cheap medications online”.

Focus on Quality

Link building remains a very important part of ranking well in the search results. Creating great content alone will only get you so far. Getting noticed by the right websites, and getting links from them is essential. Invest your link-building efforts towards quality links from quality websites because a few strong votes will far outweigh a multitude of low quality votes that are either extremely weak, or that don’t count for anything at all.

7 May 2014

Hiring an Inbound Marketer? Here Are 3 Important Things to Consider

It can be tough to find the perfect person for a job. When it comes to inbound marketing, the process is even tougher. Our industry is so new, fluid, and fast-paced that many are scrambling to keep up – let alone establish concrete hiring practices. Consequently, it’s no surprise that few agencies have a go-to strategy when it comes to seeking out and nailing down a killer inbound marketing consultant.

Overhead view of businessman and businesswoman shaking hands — credit: getty images/ Tom Merton

I’ve talked to a few company managers who have completely stopped checking resumes or cover letters; possibly based on their limited time to do so, possibly because they’re basing their hiring practises on portfolio work. LinkedIn also provides some good insight when surveying candidates for some positions – but at times can be misleading, especially when we’re hiring for something like inbound marketing.

If you’re looking to hire any type of marketer, you have to face the reality: marketing has changed. Rather than staying specialized in one specific area, a successful inbound marketer today needs to wear multiple hats and acquire various skills. This isn’t due to any one change in particular, like technology. Yes, that has contributed, however the primary reason is the changing face of consumers.

HubSpot indicates that agencies must be holistic in their hiring approaches. Keep in mind, although you might not feel entirely confident seeking out the perfect employee, the employee getting interviewed is just as unsure as to what you might be looking for. The fresh, consumer-centric mentality is new both for seasoned marketers and young inbound strategists who might be new to the game.

There are an increasing number of things to take into consideration when hiring an inbound marketing consultant or strategist for your business, but here are three that you simply can’t afford to overlook as compiled by Matt Sullivan at HubSpot:

1. Define your business goals and let the candidate explain how his/her techniques will get you there. Be specific (e.g. 6X as many leads in 6 months, 10% increase of revenue from Internet leads, etc.). Without a good definition of success, it will be difficult for you to hold your consultants or employees to your standards. Because you have the destination picked, a good expert will be able to put together a roadmap for you.

2. Ask to see behind the curtain. If a candidate won’t allow you or your staff to participate in any of their inbound marketing efforts, you need to be suspicious. The worst thing that can happen to you is that your expert is using black-hat techniques to artificially accelerate the results. The long-term side-effect can be devastating to your efforts. Your expert should also be giving you an education. Moreover, you should set up a weekly or semi-weekly agenda of meetings with this candidate to survey their progress; keep the lines of communication open.

3. Get references and case studies. This is your opportunity to find out what they’ve done in the past. Even if the candidate is your cousin or neighbor’s son and has no previous experience, you need to make sure that your resource has legs to stand-on. Don’t simply rely on their pretty website or number of Twitter followers. That said, what you can do (if your schedule permits) is do a quick survey of their personality online. Are they quick to respond to issues with their following?

The hiring process isn’t easy for any job, particularly for inbound marketing where the field is so new and few marketers even fully grasp the methodology. That said, hiring an inbound marketing consultant is not a waste of money, it’s an investment. Considering the number of daily tasks and challenges, possible mistakes in every campaign, and the pace of this industry, you don’t have much of a choice. Just be sure to approach the process with attention to detail.

5 May 2014

Top 4 Tips When Doing Your First Social Media Audit

You are all set!

You have an online strategy that might include some advertising, keyword searches and inbound marketing tactics, but what about social media?

Often, you want to develop a social media strategy but don’t know where to start.

What channels should you include?

Which one is best?

And what about your current presence?

How can you improve it?

Are you doing ok?

To have a first glimpse at your own presence and to better evaluate your own needs when you first meet with a social media expert at PROSAR, here is a look at what you should be considering!

I have to say, I love this infographic because the 3 main tips explained here are my own starting steps when first developping a social media strategy for a new client.

Step 1: What is the competition doing?

If you don’t know where to start, look at your competition. What are they doing online? Do they have a Facebookpage? A Twitter account? A YouTube channel? A blog? And what are they posting? What direction does it go? Are they trying to position themselves as an expert in your field? Are they just trying to be fun and entertaining? Are they offering discounts?

You can consider the number of likes or followers that they have but also consider their size when making this assumption. If the company is global and you are local, it will be easier for them to gain a more substantial fan base. The same goes for their time on social media. If your competition has been there already for a few years and post daily, they will tend to seem more popular than you. It takes time to buid a readership and solid fan base.

Step 2: What works?

Social media is all about being unique and standing out. This said, success stories and proven strategies should not be ignored. When following the progress of your competition, see if any tactics stand out. Are there any successes that you can notice? A tutorial that went viral? A contest that had many participants? A tweeted event or hashtag that flooded news feeds?

Become a fan or a follower of your competition’s pages, keep an eye out for their blogs and see if any trends seem to be more popular than others.

Step 3: What is best for me?

There is no science to this next step. You are the expert of your own industry and know your clients best. According to your needs and your competition, you should be able to choose a channel where you want to establish your presence. Social media is there to compliment your marketing strategy and help you implement some parts of your plan. Use it with this in mind.

Step 4 (My own personal recommendation): And now what?

If I can make one personal recommendation, it is to seek help. You will notice when doing your own personal social media audit that what works best is a constant presence in different mediums. You are an expert in your field but with a bit of help, you can assure that your strategy will work in social media as well. Read up on more social media tips from the PROSAR blog, and give us a shout to build the best possible marketing strategy for your business!

For the whole infographic from Awareness, see below!

19 March 2014

How Will Canada’s Anti Spam Law Affect Your Business?

Canada’s Anti Spam Legislation (CASL) arrives on July 1, 2014. Described as Canada’s law on spam and other electronic threats, we Canucks finally get our version of the United States CAN-SPAM legislation. While CAN-SPAM covers e-mail only, Canada’s law steps further by covering a broader range of activities including e-mail, instant messages, text messages and some messages sent through social media. CASL defines this collective group as commercial electronic messages. CASL may be the most vigorous legislation of its kind anywhere in the world.

Business concept male finger pointing delete key on a metallic keyboard — credit: Creative RF/ daoleduc

Marketers are familiar with the US CAN-SPAM legislation with its “opt-out” regime where a business may send commercial e-mail until the recipient revokes consent by clicking an unsubscribe link at the footer of the email. Introduced in 2003, the US bill permits e-mail marketers to send unsolicited e-mail as long as it adheres to defined unsubscribe, content and sending practices. Full disclosure of the senders identity and contact info must be included in the email.

The teeth of the CASL lie in its focus on consent (“opt in”) to receive commercial electronic messages as opposed to the softer, more passive “opt out” of US regulations. In other words, the CASL requires that users explicitly indicate that they wish to receive any messages. As of July 1, 2014, marketers must receive the recipient’s consent, either express or implied, for all commercial electronic messages sent in and out of Canada.

What is consent in this context?

• Anyone who receives a commercial electronic message from you must have given you his or her permission (consent) to do so ahead of time

• There are two types of consent:

– Express, meaning someone actively gave you permission to send him or her a commercial electronic message

– Implied, meaning it would be reasonable to conclude you have someone’s permission to send them a message based on a prior business relationship

Express consent is straightforward in its requirement of the recipient specifically agreeing to receive commercial electronic messages indefinitely until revoked by the recipient. Express (opt-in) consent must be identified; the recipient should have a clear understanding of what they are opting in for. An example would be signing up for a newsletter or blog subscription on a website. Businesses collect email addresses through sign ups and express consent is established through this process. Canadian lawmakers will be happy; the recipient knows, understands and agrees to the communications they will receive from the sender.

Implied consent applies to most day-to-day B2B communications. In this scenario, if a business relationship already exists with the person to whom the email is sent, implied consent is established.

Implied consent, unlike express consent, is not indefinite. Implied consent only permits sending commercial electronic messages for two years following the last business situation that created an applicable relationship, such as a purchase. As such, it will be critical to develop a means to track the currency of all relationships upon which any implied consent is based.

Implied consent also applies if the recipient’s electronic address is “conspicuously published”. For example, placing an email address on a website would establish implied consent for any party to communicate with that address. Implied consent also applies if the recipient has disclosed their electronic address directly to the sender, and has not expressly stated that they do not wish to receive unsolicited messages.

CASL goes much deeper than this brief discussion, covering many areas from activities for harvesting email addresses to computer application installations. It is comprehensive in scope and depth. Most plain speak discussion of CASL is published online by law firms, which indicates the devil is in the details and is best interpreted by those that speak legalese.

For our purposes, we believe the takeaway is paying close attention to best email campaign practices to ensure you are compliant. If you are not involved in the practice of spamming your fellow Canadians with irritating business solicitation with no base of an existing relationship you should have nothing to worry about. If you are not buying email lists and maintaining good list management you should have no problem.

This law targets mass market email advertising, largely unsolicited and undesired by all Canadian businesses. These are the advertising bad guys, the dark side of online marketing. For those who still send unsolicited e-mail messages using questionable email lists, your days will be numbered. No doubt, they deserve their just deserts.

March 27 update: this law applies not only to any commercial messages sent in Canada but also any commercial messages RECEIVED in Canada. The fines are $10 million for corporate violators. Other G20 member countries are touted as participating in enforcement, so the impact will be international. This week the story was picked by the Globe & Mail and the Financial Post.

22 November 2013

How A Mission Statement Improves Your SEO

Recently I made a presentation to the Ottawa Chapter of SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization). My talk was focused on developing your organization’s online presence — much lighter fare
than the other presentation that evening: a technical and data-driven presentation by Bing with their PPC Case Studies! (pretty cool stuff, btw)

One of the online mastery tips stressed the importance of remaining true to your brand and consistent in your core messaging. Some people picked up on this point and we discussed some of the challenges in maintaining an organization’s online brand. I’ve thought a little further about this, and below I’ve outlined some of the issues and how a mission statement can mitigate them.

In our digital world, branding at a corporate level is supported by many groups: management, staff, industry watchers, customers, and even the public-at-large. That allows it to leverage the online contributions of all these different groups of people, which can be a double-edged sword. On the positive side there are many people to carry the burden of monitoring, researching, blogging, posting, liking, pinning, tweeting, and so on, and so on…. However, on there are inherent risks as well, such as:

Many Individual Voices: Who wouldn’t want more people talking positively about their company and supporting the corporate brand? Harnessing the exponential networking power of the Internet is exciting and rewarding, but it also opens a vulnerability. All those voices are individuals, each with their own perspective and bias. Your organization may have little influence on what they say; how do you get all those voices singing from the same hymnal?

Varying Tones of Different Social Media: Not all social media “sounds” the same. Not only do some online social vehicles cater to different demographics, but people even communicate differently. With a short message, such as Twitter and many online posts and comments, the message can appear terse or flippant and easily be misinterpreted. So how does an organization ensure that the message is being communicated properly?

Focus of the Message: When corporate markets generate online content, they do so strategically. The topics are specific to the corporation’s product, service or industry, the tone is metered to resonate with the targeted reader, the messaging is supportive of the organizational brand, the language includes keywords to help organic search. An array of tactical decisions focus the message. How can management edit the myriad of messages being sent out by staff and the public?

The short answer to these scenarios is “you can’t.” And, you shouldn’t. The nature of the Internet is transparency and communication without boundaries. Corporations that try to micro-manage this are fooling themselves and endangering their relationships with employees and other stakeholders. Most corporations monitor and vet much of the social media and blogging activity. On their own corporate accounts they can delete or edit serious transgressions (but shouldn’t be altering posts simply because they don’t agree with them).

I’m sure there are other potential negative consequences as well (feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below), but I believe the point has been made: along with the upside of people supporting your organization brand online, there are several potential negative repercussions.

This is where your mission statement comes in. First. let me be clear that this is not a panacea. The most wonderfully worded mission statement will not insulate your organization from the potential harm listed above. However, here are some ways on which it can help:

Reflects Your Brand: Your mission statement is a reflection, perhaps even summary, of your brand. (If it isn’t, call me. Soon!) The statement should give the reader an idea of what your company stands for and why it exists. As such it sets the tone and provides context for online content written by others.

Philosophical Guidance: Understanding where an organization is coming from can better inform writers (and readers) and effectively guide blogs and comments.

Talking Points and Keywords: Strategically written missions include specific words and phrasing that effectively convey the desired message. They can therefore provide some actual wording and keywords for writers.

In order to have some influence, people need to know it. so it should be used whenever appropriate and easily found on your website. (Don’t bother checking our website, I know it’s not there. Our website has many serious faults and will soon be replaced.) In addition to promoting your mission statement, it would be wise to guide your corporate writers in how to produce good, readable content.

Organizations are now faced with the struggle of leveraging stakeholders to talk (blog, tweet, post) and promote the organization online versus the vulnerability of less control over their messaging. A well-worded mission statement that is effectively communicated can help provide context and guide the digital dialogue.

What is your take on the issue; are there aspects not considered here?