Waiting for Google

It is a funny image, if you do not have to deal with it, waiting for Google search engine to update its cache. As I mentioned, we made a number of changes on the website to reflect the new product direction. So, I have been monitoring the Google search results to ensure that it is being shown. How long do you think it would take? A data point - according to our internal log/sensor, Google bot comes to our site daily. Well, it took a total of eight days. Now, don't get me wrong. I am not complaining as such - but it does provide some perspectives on what kind of lead time any one revision could take. (I have heard story about two weeks cache update, but I rather not think about it.)

So, part of the website revision include a number of specific search terms that we try to get high ranking on - get the top two spots for prime search engine real estate. There are two variants. For one, we clearly kicked ass. Of course, it is a term that nobody is using. Hardly difficult, but, a victory is a victory, however you dice it. The second variant, and naturally the one that I really really want, got the site bumped up to the third company position but fourth entry on the search result. (This happens when one site has several pages that relate to the search term.) So, the next objective is to become the second company on the list (third entry.) I have a few strategies that we have implemented and we will see what happens in another eight days.

Staying on Google, we also implemented the Google conversion tool. It basically tracks the number of people who clicks on your AdWords ad (Google paid-advertising) AND conducts a conversion activity (leaving their contact info in our case.) It may not sound much, but it sure will provide a load of interesting data. Of particular interests to me, I would like to find out how many of our leads came from non-paid Google search vs. the paid-advertising. And, this will help me get a sense of what kind of budget allocation and further paid-advertising fine tuning ideas.

Separately, I am lining up all the duckies for the product launch. Buttering up analysts, consultants, and reporters to make sure that they pretend to be interested. This is a capitalistic system and these rules of the game are not meant to be a measure of a person's true self. Now, I do not mean doing anything illegal. But, take for example; the easiest way to curry interests with analysts is when you are a major paying customer of his firm. Now, you may say this is a clear case of interest of conflict, but I would argue that if I have the money, I want to ensure that the analysts are informed of what I/we are up to and we get regular feedback from the analysts' impartial perspective.

Anyway, let me stop before I spill all the little dirty secrets in the life of marketing.

Revising the data sheet. When it comes to collaterals, my personal experience is that it is simply easier to start from scratch instead of fixing the existing library. I have found the majority of collateral design in Microsoft Word are not taking full advantages of its rich function set and make revisions beyond adding a few texts just darn difficult. Now, I will not blame you when I see your poorly formatted Word documents like I would if you do not regularly scrub your e-mail lists. On the other hand, take it from me, it is not that difficult to figure out how to do text boxes, tables, insert and format images, manage section, or setup header/footers. It is a bit tedious to learn but, if you take pride in your work, it is really worth that extra ten minutes looking up the Help.

Anyway, after reading an article about LL Bean's direct mail philosophies, I am planning on doing a promotion-oriented Google campaign. Still thinking it through, but it should be interesting to see what happens.

Oh, btw, we closed a few deals and still filling up the leads pipeline from all the marketing activities. So far so good.

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