Yesterday I finished reviewing marketing statistics for each of our Essentials clients. This is something I do every month, and every month I am reassured that the systems we put into place for our clients are working. Which is not to say we don't find things to tweak, areas to improve, or new ideas to implement -- we certainly do.
Let me share a story about one of our clients, whose name I will keep confidential. Let's call him Sam.
Sam's marketing statistics look terrific. His website traffic is healthy, and showing steady growth. Not only that, but his website visitors are clicking through an average of nearly eight pages per visit! This is truly phenomenal. Google searches generate about 40 percent of his website traffic, with another 40 percent finding his website through his e-newsletter and "referral" sites. One of his referral sites is the local radio station's website, where our client is regularly featured on a weekend talk show. Very nice that they gave us a link on their website, and we can now track how much traffic they send.
The most popular points of entry for his website, however, remain his home page and his online newsletters -- both the current issue and his archived issues. In fact, his online newsletter pages account for nine of his top 10 most popular entry pages! Why? Sam has a healthy e-newsletter distibution list, and an interesting, compelling online newsletter -- like this.
Additionally, Sam has finally become convinced of the power of blogging! Way to go Sam, you posted to your blog 31 times during the month of May! Woo hoo! How is this helping him? Well, Sam's website has 246 pages indexed on Google -- 205 of those are from his blog. All things being equal, the website with more indexed pages will outrank the website with fewer.
Sam's website showed a net gain of 10 spots on Google over the past month, and it ranks on PAGE ONE for ALL of his key search terms. Again, Way to GO SAM!
In fact, Google sees Sam's website -- the number of indexed pages, the volume of traffic, the SEO coding -- and scores it as highly valuable to their users. Now, they didn't send Sam a check ... but they did reward him with six site links on the Search Engine Results Page. Do you know what site links are? Those are the links that show up on the search engine results page below some sites. Google awards these site links automatically, but only to websites that meet their standards of best practices. In fact, Sam has as many sites links as Starbucks!
But there's more to Sam's marketing success. You see, Sam is pretty darn savvy.
He sends out 250 hard-copy newsletters IN THE MAIL (yes, that's US Postal mail) every month. Yes, that's every month -- to his targeted list. His printed newsletter and his e-newsletter are nearly identical. The key topic this month in both his printed and electronic newsletters is Women, Money & the Law. Now, just guess what Sam is doing? He's having a workshop this month -- targeting women -- on the topic of Women, Money & The Law.
So what is the secret to Sam's success?
Integration.
Every aspect of Sam's marketing is integrated to coordinate beautifully with every other aspect. Sam does not have a solitary website, languishing away, waiting to be found by the handful of folks who search for an estate planning attorney online. No, Sam has a gorgeous, user-friendly website with tons of relevant, compelling content ... content that is updated and re-indexed almost daily. Sam drives traffic to his website with his blog, his e-newsletters, his newsletters, his personal networking and even his radio talk show. Then, he capitalizes on that success to host workshops and seminars.
Sam's marketing is running like a finely-tuned sports car.
And the real beauty? Most of this happens behind the scenes, with little effort on Sam's part. Oddly, we sent a prospective client to talk to Sam recently, and she came back to us disappointed. She had asked Sam specific questions about his marketing numbers. His response was, "All I know is that I'm constantly busy, and I could not survive without Integrity Marketing."
Well, the truth is we have the numbers -- and plenty of them -- to quantify Sam's success. But I, for one, am pleased to know that Sam hired us to do what we do best -- marketing -- so he can do what he does best -- practice law.
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