So you need more people to buy more widgets but budgets are tight, where do you start? Well I always find a bit of strategy goes a long way, so before you go gallopping off, let’s make sure your campaign has a THEME…

What is THEME?

THEME is an integrated search marketing model I’ve put together to make my clients integrated SEO & PPC campaigns more effective (plus I’ve even crafted it into a handy acronym so it’s easy for y’all to remember):

Tribes: THE WHO

Before you do anything, just as with traditional PR, first identify your publics. Seth Godin, cyber-god, ethical guru and marketing boffin coined the notion of tribes and when I crafted this model I think it’s definitely the most appropriate term. It’s basically a way of grouping audiences by their interests, rather than by unwieldy (and old-school in my opinion) demographics. I don’t think the word audiences is appropriate because in a web 2.0 world, they’re not listening – no-one’s on the edge of their seat waiting for messages to be sent to them. People are actively seeking the information they need, probably via a search engine, but even more likely via their social network. To give you an example, the tribes associated with a fair-trade tea company might be “tea drinkers”, “fair-trade lovers”, “ethical shoppers”, “hot drink enthusiasts”, “healthy lifestylers” and not forgetting “fair-trade tea drinkers”.

Action: Define and segment your publics or interest groups into tribes.

Hook: THE WHY

So you know who you’re trying to reach but what’s going to get their attention? How are you going to cut through the clutter? The best place to start is to work out what the no. 1 most important benefit to each audience segment is. What are the potential angles – the “hooks”? What is the one proposition that they couldn’t refuse? What would they be actively surfing for? What question would they ask their Twitter network? What is the ultimate reason the tribe would choose the service/product? The answer is normally the most obvious. So for our fair trade tea drinkers, the fact that a product can help them to drink fair trade tea is the proposition. It’s amazing how many propositions I’ve seen that have ommitted this small but crucial factor. So cover it off early and you’re on to a winner!

Action: Define a short one sentence proposition for each tribe.

Engaging Content: THE WHAT

Now you know who to speak to and what to mention to get their attention. But how are you going to hold their interest enough for them to take action? This is when you need the mother of all engaging content to give your tribes something they’d be mad to turn down. So what content will excite the pants clean off your tribes? If you put yourself in the shoes of each tribe and think “if I were to get free access to a valuable piece of information, exclusive offer, useful tool or guide, what would I want more than anything else in the world? What would I clammer over to get at?”.

If you get stuck, ask yourself how can you put a new spin on an old classic? Creating content, an event or a stunt is all about creating great value. It could be in the form of news, articles, tools, widgets, RSS feeds, white papers, a glossary, how-to videos, podcasts, surveys, blogs, top 10s, technical specification documents or even an actual event (online or in the flesh – but what would be the content of the event be? Networking? Learning? Creating an impression as a thought leader?). For our fair trade tea drinkers we might dream up a free fair trade tea giveaway offer. Always sanity check your ideas by asking how the audience will react to it. Will they share it, bookmark it, twitter it or blog about it? If you think the answer is yes then it’s all good, if it’s a no then let that idea go!

Integrated search marketing take SEO and then draws on the notions of traditional PR stunts and throws them into the mix with newer digital marketing ideas of link bait and viral marketing. This great post on creating viral content might give you a few more ideas, similarly my post on creative thinking might spark some fresh thinking.

Action: Create a big bag of ideas for each tribe.

Marketing: THE HOW

You’ve got some great content but how do you reach your audience with it? Your first point of call should be to consider any existing connections you have. Raid your contacts. How could your partners, employees and existing customers help? Then think how could you turn your approach round so you are helping your contacts? Second point of call is to think about what types of media each group gets exposed to? What media are they participating in? What media are they creating? Where do they spend their time? What brands do they love/hate? What would happen if you were to spend a day in their lives? What brands, books, TV, websites, magazines, group meetings, associations, lifestyle, social networks, blogs, papers, circles of friends, employer noticeboards / intranets, forums, businesses and people do they connect with? Which do they trust?

If I get stuck and need to get the creative juices flowing, I always use the 7 different types of  media as defined by John Grant in his fantasic book, After Image. John Grant defines the 7 types of media as knowledge, reputation, reality, memetic, dialogue, story and community. You may find that you spark a few more event ideas too.

OK, so we know the tribes we want to reach; we have a hook to interest them; an event to get them talking and even the media to be in the right space to connect with them, but as yet, we don’t know how precisely we’re going to do that. So this stage is all about pulling the research into an action plan, scoping out how long it’s going to take to implement, who’s going to do it, when and how much it’s going to cost. Once you’ve got a very rough idea, prioritise the quick big wins and implement them! Write that mini-guide, publish it on the website and go and invite people who might be interested in it to look at.

In the case of our fair trade tea drinkers we’d first need to decide how much tea we could giveaway and how the offer would be redeemed (instore via a coupon or posted out). The time and resources required to do this would certainly have an impact on this. So once that’s been agreed that would dictate the next steps. If we had 10,000 fair trade tea bags to giveaway but weren’t able to post them out ourselves we’d be better off approaching one media source (maybe a big consumer website or publication whose readers are in to fair trade and/or tea) with the offer of “a years’ supply of fair trade tea for one lucky winner”.

If, on the other hand, the offer could be redeemed via a coupon that could be printed off and redeemed in the local supermarket, the offer would be better placed on the company’s website so traffic could be driven to it. This could be achieved by using the media list to approach relevant Facebook groups and social networks asking them to contact their members with the offer and including the web link in the email/post. Quick word of caution here…Whatever you do, don’t spam anyone! If you’re offering something of value to a tribe and asking the administrator’s permission then the message will come from them, who the group will trust even more. In our example, the fair trade tea drinkers tribe will get an offer for free fair trade tea from their fair trade tea lovers social network. Do you think that will be an effective campaign?

Action: Produce a project plan with and scope the necessary resources. This may include sourcing and collating media lists for each tribe. Focus on the detail of the top few priorities only. Come back to the rest later! Otherwise things change and you’ve wasted your time. This integrated search model is all about being the most effective with the least resources – a predicament most of us find ourselves in most of the time!

Evaluation: THE WHEN

Can you sit back and relax now? Well, nearly, when will you know your integrated search campaign has been a success? When you’ve assessed the demand for your content – the sign ups, the sales, the traffic. So make sure you are measuring everything you can as part of your final checks before launching each campaign. Google Analytics for website visits/goal conversions. Google Alerts to monitor mentions of your brand and events. Feedburner to measure your RSS subscribes. Then analyse your results on a regular basis and do more of the things that work! Benchmark your own results and aim to refine and improve your campaigns over time.

Today, yesterday’s news, is no longer old news, as it’s always today’s news to someone who’s never read the story before! Yes like a good wine, content can indeed get better with age. So I hope you’re sitting comfortably, as we’re in for the long haul.

Action: Create Key performance Indicators (KPIs), track these factors, analyse them and use these insights to inform your future decision making.

So there you have it, the first draft of a fledgling integrated search marketing model. I’m currently testing it out on a number of current projects and finding it really useful. It can get quite complex and so I’m developing work sheets to make it as easy as possible. Watch this space!

If humans only use a small percentage of our brainpower, what exactly is the massive part that we don’t use for?

And, why am I happiest when I have the freedom to be creative?

Hmmmm, I can actually hear the cogs going round when I’m in creative mode, surely there must be a connection?

“But I’m just not creative”

If only I had a quid for every time I’d heard that. Sure, everyone is different, that’s the beauty of humanity. But everyone has the gift of creativity, it’s an intrinsic part of being human. I think either a lot of people have never been given the opportunity to be creative or realised that the exercise of practising has any value. Maybe the only time they tried being creative was the time they were mocked and promptly gave up for good?

Creativity is not just about art

Creative thinkers understand that creativity is more than being an artist, a musician or designer. Creativity is about problem solving, lateral thinking. It’s about taking the sum of everything you’ve ever known and taking a random leap into the infinity of your imagination and boldly going where your brain has never been before.

Creativity is fun

There’s no wrong ideas, there are only endless possibilities. Some of them are worth continuing with and some can be shelved for another day. No thought is ever wasted. Even though it might seem that you didn’t find the solution that day, you’ll discover that next week, next month maybe even in 10 years the “rubbish” idea you had is suddenly relevant.

The era of creativity

Web 2.0 opens up endless possibilities. People have the power to publish, connect, discuss and create… whatever they want. The open source and creative commons licensing movements are growing exponentially. The power is shifting from centralised creativity to distributed creativity.

What will web 3.0 bring?

Even more creativity is on the horizon. It’s up to us to shape it. With  co-operation models replacing competitor models, we won’t even need to do it all on our own. We have the ability to carve new paths that have never been dreamt of before. To rewrite how things are done.

To be witness to the inaugeration of the first black american president, Barack Obama, demonstrates what a significant turning point we’re at. Just because something’s never been done before doesn’t mean it’s not possible. In fact now more than ever, it’s time to take the leap, do something different and be an agent of change.

For the sake of social, animal and environmental justice. Get inspired. Find your creativity. The time is now.

A place where I start when I’m in need of creative marketing strategy is John Grant’s After Image: Mind-Altering Marketing*. Although several years old, I still find it extremely useful:

Firstly, I gather as many insights as possible (via Google analytics and/or a simple SWOT and PESTL analysis), then make specific objectives and finally make a quick list of the 7 types of media he outlines in the book (knowledge/reality/community/dialogue/memetic/story/reputation) – using the list to trigger all sorts of creative ideas.

* Disclosure: This is a sponsored link.

• Share my insider tips on SEO, PPC, viral marketing, email marketing, social media, content production, information architecture, usability, direct marketing, analytics and online pr.
• Ponder current trends, review what’s hot and generally try and predict the future.
• Connect with like-minded folk who weald the choices at their disposal like bodhisava ninjas.

We’re at an amazing time in our planet’s history and it can really go either way. The odds aren’t great, BUT, the internet gives us everyday joes the chance to collaborate, connect and shake up how things are done. We have the power, we just don’t all realise it yet.

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