Welcome to MozCon 2015

#mozcon // hmny.co/mozcon15

Rand Fishkin - @Randfish

• Little red book given out to every new Facebook employee:
• “The internet is not a friendly place. Things that don’t stay relevant don’t even get the luxury of leaving ruins. They disappear.”
• “If we don’t create the thing that kills Facebook, someone else will.” Also true at google
• “The story of innovation has not changed. It has always been a small team of people who have a new idea, typically not understood by people around them.”
• 10x - Google
• Google is willing to kill display ads to build a new way of funding web content. E.g., google contributor
• Be willing to admit defeat on its own products. Sacrifice revenue to provide a better, more addictive user experience.
• Even Microsoft is willing to hurt core products in order to innovate. “What are you on, the ‘fuck Windows’ strategy?” - Bill Gates in the 90s
• Historically marketers lagged the industry. We build off what what already exists to market products. Our innovation has been restricted to the areas we’re allowed to control. We don’t know what SEO will look like tomorrow. Many wouldn’t risk current value props to innovate and grow. We don’t know what’s going to become an ally to marketing or what will become the trends that disrupt us.
• Content strategy is growing quickly, SEO isn’t far behind.
• Interest in social media marketing has slowed. Is dwarfed by SEO. Content marketing is catching up to social marketing.
• More time spent by SEOs on brand strategy, content curation, managing people, PR, and social. Less time spent on link building.
• Ad impression grown has slowed, followed by y/y declines. Google is showing fewer ads on average in search results, but they’re charging more per ads. More ads is not a good experience, but better ads is a better experience.
• RKG Reports - http://www.rimmkaufman.com/resources/quarterly-reports/ 
• Mobile still hasn’t cannibalized desktop. It has just cannibalized everything else in our life. However, mobile search is growing while desktop has flatlined.
• Facebook sends about 90% of all social media referrals. Despite the fact that Facebook organic reach is plummeted.
• Despite social growth, email and SEO are still ROI leaders.
• Apps in search results is a big SEO opportunity. 65% of people don’t download any apps each month. This could change that.
• Questions: #MozConQA

Hot to Make Your Marketing Match Your Reality

Dana DiTomaso - @danaditomaso

• Story about a client that looked reputable on the outside, but got terrible customer reviews. The marketing department did not care that the marketing didn’t match the reality. The depts wouldn’t speak to each other to solve problems.
• Your brand is broken when the different parts of your company don’t work together.
• Your brand is your promise. It’s more than marketing. It’s how you make people feel. Hundreds of different things come together to make a brand.
• “If you do marketing at @comcast, I'm sorry. You have a tough job. Write a book - I'll read it.”
• Westjet Christmas Miracle. Bought gifts for customers instead of spending it on a TV campaign and they got a ton of good PR from it. It went viral. However, once their flight attendant told a bad sexist joke on a plane. Gave a negative experience, but they apologized on social when that was brought to light. Westjet is having a lot of flight issues but their social team is proactive and on it.  
• Humans like consistency. Bad example: chat that’s half a real person and half automated.
• Good marketing feels right. Doesn’t feel like marketing. If it’s done well, people don’t even think about it. It’s like choosing Coke over Pepsi
• This is why we need brand strategy and why digital marketers should lead it. Digital marketers understand brand in a totally new way.
• The brand that provides a consistent and good brand experience is going to beat their competitors.
• Continuum: (feel good) Dove>>Coke>>Verizon>>Arby’s>>Protein World (feel shame)

• Both Dove and Protein World are about self improvement, but in a very different way. How they execute that message of brand improvement.

• Start with your core values. Imagine your company as a person, keeping in mind that people are flawed. Marketing agencies have to take the good and the bad, don’t gloss over anything. What would other people say your company stands for?
• How to build a brand strategy

• Step 1: Why did this fail before? “Choose wisely” a la Indiana Jones. SWOT. What is going to cause havoc for your brand strategy. Get the C level on board, but if they’re too involved you might need to get them to step back. For example, the CEO defaults to who your brand is until you develop your brand strategy. Your brand HAS to be more than your CEO.
• Step 2: Think about what the brand is and what it is NOT. Try a card sorting exercise. Write about 40 words down, but tailor them to your company, but try not to influence the process, especially if you work for an agency. Do this one-on-one as much as possible.

• Currently the brand is: two things
• In the near future, the brand may be: two things
• The brand is not: two things (easiest to start with)

• Step 3: Define voice and tone. MailChimp and Buffr are good examples. Brand strategy is more than voice. Many stop at voice, because it’s so easy to do. However, this is an incomplete implementation. Now is when you get HR on board. Brand strategy defines culture fit. Also, keep it simple. It’s not a 50-page document, it’s a business card.

• Write like this
• Not like this
• Why

• Share the dream with the rest of the company.
• Always track non @ mentions of your brand.
• Meta descriptions and PPC ads are a great place to include your brand messaging.
• Why does your brand get tossed aside in PPC ads? Be more specific. Forget CTR, focus on conversion rate and sales. Give your salespeople the leads that they want.
• Loyalty is a 2-way street. Deals for new consumers but nothing for existing customers. Good brand strategy increases customer retention AND gets you new customers.
• Get service on board. You’ll have fewer angry phone calls.
• Go beyond a document. It’s not just a static document, it’s living and breathing. Always be coaching. It’s an ongoing process. The only way to get cheerleaders is to help people do better. It’s okay if it isn’t perfect the first time.
• If you do brand strategy right, you’ll feel like every decision you make drives forward with a purpose.
• “They do have something they stand for other than making money”

How to Do Content Strategy (Probably)

Kristina Halvorson - @halvorson

• Wrote “Content Strategy for the Web”
• “Content strategy is the practice of planning for the creation, delivery and governance of useful, usable content” Old quote
• Not just what, but why, how, when, for whom, by whom, with what, where, how often, what’s next.
• “If your content is for everybody, then your content really is for nobody”
• “Inform your distribution by strategy, and not just because we know we should”
• “Content was something that just got added to the content landfill … without any kind of a strategic plan we’re left with content that just dies on the vine.”
• “Content strategy suddenly seemed to apply to everyone”
• More content does not mean good content. We couldn’t deal with the content we already had in the first place.
• Substance, structure (content components), workflow, governance (people components) all surround core strategy. Where will you focus your efforts to improve your content ecosystem? What will you say “no” to?
• What’s the story, topic, brand elements, voice, tone? How are we going to organize, categorize, and what are the elements of the content structure to make it work.
• People: roles, structure, processes, tools. Policies, standards, guidelines.
• Content strategy for user experience.
• Adaptive content strategy. “Ultimately we need to be think about content components and how they’ll be delivered.”
• Enterprise content strategy.
• There are four parts to getting strategy done.

• 1. Assessment, analysis, and strategy

• Think about what you can and should bring to the table, what meetings you’re not being invited to. Help those who ARE decision makers make good decisions about your content.
• Typical discovery checklist.
• “Oftentimes, what causes 11-hour meltdowns is that smart questions weren’t asked up front” Come with questions that are going to focus in on opportunities and challenges with the content, the planning, and the processes.
• “Strategy was another thing that kept me up at night for a very long time.” There are goals, strategies, and tactics. Without strategy, you’re just sitting around hoping something works.
• Your documented content strategy

• 1. Business goals and metrics
• 2. Audience segments and needs
• 3. Content strategy statement and guiding principles
• 4. Priority areas of focus
• 5. Roadmap for implementation

• 2. Architecture and editorial: content and structure piece

• “define and design” architecture and editorial are often ignored”
• Read: The content strategy toolkit

• 3. Implementation: how do we get it done?

• This is where politics and resources first come into play.
• Don’t be afraid to kill the stuff that isn’t working.

• 4. Maintenance: what do we do next?

• “As marketers, we tend to fall subject to the bright shiny object syndrome.”
• How do you make the case for content strategy? “the number one way to make the case for content strategy is to talk about pain points.” Figure out what your boss cares about and what’s hurting them. Start small. Start with solutions.
• Unanswered questions. Don’t base campaigns on assumptions. “Where do we have the opportunity to answer these unanswered questions about content?” “Ask the questions nobody has before.” “How can we differentiate with our content, really and truly differentiate?”
• How will you make content strategy a part of your world?
• http://tinyURL.com/mozconCS 
• “Oftentimes we’re measured on pagerank … but ultimately, if people click on that and they don’t find what they’re looking for or the content sucks, then they’re going to leave.” “People want pretty specific things from you as a brand, but if your content isn’t meeting those needs, then it was a nice idea.”
• “I think that engagement is a pretty lousy metric … ultimately those are pretty cheap to come by, but that doesn’t do anything to express intent.” Content should be about how to solve a problem or how to make a decision.

An SEO’s Guide to the Insane World of Content

Matthew Brown - @MatthewJBrown

• “Content marketing is the approach of creating and distributing valuable and consistent content to a targeted audience”
• “What’s the most annoying noise in the world? It’s people telling you to make great content.”
• Content strategy and content curation are above email, and more.
• 2.5 million blog posts are published daily. 67% of marketers think blog posts are the most important content. And everyone is creating more content. And it’s ALL going on Facebook.
• 25% of all social traffic goes through Facebook according to Shareaholic.
• http://www.wikihow.com/Handle-a-Dog-Attack
• Users bail quickly. 56% because they just want to find a quick answer.
• 79% of marketers are shifting to branded or paid content. NYT paid post was 35% of their shares in the vertical. Users didn’t just read it, they shared it, even though it was an ad. NPR paid post was 55% of their shares in the vertical. No one cares if content is paid or sponsored if it’s good.
• Content fatigue happens after 1,000 pieces of content per day.
• Google is the only company trying to prevent content fatigue. It’s in Google’s best interest to prevent it.
• What’s good content?

• Relevant and recent is how you develop content loyalty
• Long form
• Target a specific persona: “We’re really targeting people who may never come to our site.”
• Evergreen 10X: Ten times better than other content you’ll see on social.

• But how do you stand out?

• Break the mold just a little bit.
• Let users control their story experience.
• Make it about me. Extremely personalization. Even simple tricks will wow people.
• Break the standard article template.
• http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-krugman-battles-austerians/
• Just because something is simple to you, doesn’t mean it’ll seem simple to the outside world.
• What is code: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-paul-ford-what-is-code/ 
• Tinder but for code: coder
• Make hard concepts fun to grasp
• Linkable assets
• Life after publish: get people to come back
• Know your personas
• It hits all the distribution channels: they made it special for print and mobile.
• https://github.com/BloombergMedia/whatiscode 

• What’s the goal for distribution

• Two challenges: no distribution plan and no success metrics
• Don’t stop at social shares and engagement.
• Buzzfeed’s POUND (Process for Optimizing and Understanding Network Diffusion) is a better way: http://www.buzzfeed.com/daozers/introducing-pound-process-for-optimizing-and-understanding-n
• “I know if I optimize this process … that will be enough.”
• Old way: get all the links and shares to the hub
• New way: Publish content, not just links, to all the streams that work for your audience.

• You’re targeting content loyalty. “The way to create an actual sustainable content strategy is to create content loyalty.”

• 2.6 days is the average lifespan of a single piece of content.
• 11% is the average percentage of loyal readers (return visits) across a network. If you can move this number, that’s the most sustainable thing you can do.  
• What leads our readers to come back more. If we can get them to come back 5X in a single month, they’ll become a loyal reader. What causes that? Height of the  - first page seen. (Chartbeat)
• Every site and brand could have a different secret sauce. It takes 12-17 months to figure this out. It’s not usually something that’s going to work in the first 90 days.
• Content types that create loyalty: tools, blogs, news. But what works for your site and brand?

• Start with a content audit. What’s working for your readers and what’s causing loyalty?

• SEMrush to benchmark organic value.
• Buzzsumo
• Metric to add: traffic and on-page engagement

Delightful Remarketing: How You Can Do It

Duane Brown - @DuaneBrown from Unbounce

• Over 60% of people abandon a shopping cart every year
• On average, ecommerce is only 6% of a business’ revenue
• 1 Billion people are on mobile devices. Phones are less expensive than computers.
• What is delightful remarketing

• Ads match your audience
• Think about context “You want to make sure it’s going to be a great experience for people overall.”
• Has to be a delightful experience

• How do you create delightful remarketing?

• Commerce + burn pixel = the a-team. This means you remove people from your remarketing campaign after they finally buy. “you don’t want to annoy your customers at the end of the day”
• SaaS + Intercom = marketing
• AdWords Customizer: add a countdown clock to your ad.

• The Dos of Delightful Marketing

• Frequency: Look at 2-3 ads per day for anyone. You don’t want your customers to get brand fatigue
• Age: Don’t show your ads to people who aren’t going to convert.
• Location: “I’d rather spend 80% of my time trying to target to 80% of my business”
• Look back window
• Creative

• “At the end of the day, if no one has converted, I’ll just rip it apart and start from scratch”

The Perfect Pair: Using PPC Data to Influence SEO

Stephanie Wallace - @SWallaceSEO

• “Often teams are very siloed, and there’s little sharing of data.” “That image of SEO and PPC as the perfect team simply isn’t reality.”
• “The key to effectively leveraging PPC is learning how to test.”
• Identify content gaps. See where paid search is the only entrance path and adjust SEO accordingly for more organic traffic.
• Define striking distance ranking opportunities
• Leverage PPC for CRO “SEO is all about improving user experience at its core”
• Final tips

• Some things work better together. SEO needs PPC data. PPC has keyword data that SEOs should be using.
• Curate your own tactics
• “Embrace collaboration. It’s more than just data mining and optimizing. We should be working with our PPC team.”

Tracking Beyond the Pageview

Adrian Vender - @adrianvender

• “Web analytics should tell us how people get to and through our content”
• We’re not really tracking interaction. People can read, scroll, download, navigate, etc.
• Content reporting is difficult. It’s hard to know where you find the performance of your content. In general it’s very hard to know what reports you should be looking at to find the reports you’re looking for.
• Detailed content tracking “just” involves some additional JavaScript.
• Google tag manager: one container code placed on your site. Manager your extra tracking scripts through GTM.

• Step 1: Choose and configure a tag.
• Step 2: Set up a trigger based on a URL, clicks, form submissions, and more. Tip: use Chrome DevTools to inspect element.

• What to track

• Content scrolling.
• Outbound links.
• YouTube and Vimeo.
• URL Fragments (i.e., AJAX pages)

• “Analysis is hard. We collect a lot of data and it sits there and we don’t know what to do with it. We have to be better analysts here.” “If we want to be successful in our marketing campaigns, we have to embrace the idea of being analysts.”
• Understand GA Event Reporting

• Use shortcuts and dashboards. Configure your perfect report, THEN create a shortcut and/or add to a custom dashboard.
• Connect content interaction to conversion using Custom Segments. “Segmentation is the way to let us see very specific conversions on our website.” “It’s important to get our tracking right. It’s important to know how to analyze. I know it sounds obvious, but we may not be doing it enough.”

• Resources at http://www.adrianvender.com/mozcon-2015-tracking-resources/ 

Too Busy To Do Good Work

Marta Turek - @MTurek 

• A habit is a decision that was once conscious and has now become unconscious.
• Creating flow in work

• capacity
• context:
• mindset
• review

• 49% of people think meetings are the biggest time waster in their day
• How much time to I have to do real work? Meaningful work.
• How to make time to do work

• Start saying no to select meetings. If there’s no agenda, decline. Avoid or reschedule 15-30 minute gaps. Reschedule sudden meetings.
• Create blocks of uninterrupted work for 2-4 hours. Create a meeting invite for yourself here so your team can see you’re busy.

• Know what to work on

• Practice systematic time playing with lists

• Master list: everything you can think of that you need to do and ad hoc requests
• Monthly list: all the priorities of the month ahead
• Weekly list: plan your entire week in advance
• Daily list: transfer here items from your monthly and weekly list.

• How to be effective

• Switch off all pings, popups, and notifications.
• Do not check email. It takes “20 minutes to get back to the level of focus you had after a distraction.”
• Time yourself Understand how long work actually takes.

• Organize your information

• “The average executive loses an average of six weeks looking for information.”
• Use clearer naming conventions for files and campaigns.
• Indication actions in labels and naming schemes within the actual user interface.
• Email is not a storage container. It’s a shipping container. “Information goes to die in emails.”

• Extract critical information from your inbox. Either in a document management platform, a master task list, or a master knowledge base. This makes it possible to quickly share and delegate information.

• Label file names clearly and create a visual and intuitive file structure.
• Set up a master client knowledge base and add to it daily.

• Understand interdependencies

• Use a change sheet to track team actions. Keep it to high level points.
• Use more detailed subject lines. You’ll see this reciprocated.
• You don’t always need to send an email. Instead, you want to move your communication to the relevant platform.
• Use a shared Google doc to collaborate on and house agendas. You’ll also keep your meeting notes there.

• More quick tips

• Bookmark frequently used programs.
• Use Pocket to bookmark articles, whitepapers, and blogs that you want to read later.
• Use a password management tool.
• Standardize. We’re knowledge workers. We should be creating. We should be working on new things. We shouldn’t be stuck on repeatable tasks. Add instructions for these tasks so you can delegate.
• Use a project brief for all new projects, tests, and campaigns. Do NOT forward crazy long email chains. Just put everything into a simple document.

• If you’re using email as a task list, you could be losing track of the big picture.

Online Personalization That Actually Works

Cara Harshman - @CaraHarshman

• “[Email and remarketing] are proven channels to get people to do what you want them to do.”
• Until now, personalization on your website is very underutilized. “The same visitor gets the same experience to matter what they came in on” “The one-size-fits-all Web is dead … and lazy.”
• A framework for personalization

• Who to target based on context, demographics, or behavior.

• Context example: Secret Escapes: spending a ton of money on adwords. Adjusted messaging to be personalized based on their search query / keyword. It’s called symmetric messaging. It increased conversions by 32%. Bounce rates go down and quality goes up.  
• Behavior: The Clymb: Get the best products in front of people who have purchased from them before.
• You have existing audiences right under your nose. An email list is a great place to start. Try it, see what you have on your own site. “The best person to understand your audience is you.”

• What to show them:

• The content that’s fueling your personalization campaign.
• New visitor >> onboarding experience with tour of site.
• Return visitor >> sign up for email newsletter.
• Located locally >> show local in-store pickup options (save on shipping)
• Has not visited in 90 days >> give promotional offer for limited time discount
• Pro-tip: Don’t be creepy. Great marketing feels right.

• How to prioritize:

• It comes down to three things:

• The potential business impact
• Technical effort to execute
• The requirements to sustain it

• Take big bites for big impact. Audiences that represent a lot of traffic or a lot of value. Small personalizations with big traffic or value. Think about the traffic you’re spending the most amount of money to acquire.
• Be realistic about the technical effort it’s going to take you to implement this personalization campaign. If you don’t have the software, do you have the developer resources? Diversify the amount of complexity.
• Don’t slice your audiences too thinly. Give your audiences the chance to surprise you. This will prevent content problems and will ensure that your audiences aren’t pigeonholed.

• The power of personalization is in how you wield it. There are plenty of ways we can use personalization for good. To give your customers the experience they expect. We, as marketers need to start thinking about how we can start leveraging this strategy as well to be more relevant.
• Think about who you’re personalizing for and then see how you want to start getting them built.

Ultimate Search & Social Mashup: Expertly Curate Owned Audience Cookie Pools

Marty Weintraub - @martyweintraub

• Filled with unrehearsed moments!
• If you want to make money with social you have to integrate.
• All over the world, people are using hybrid tactics, and the data is very clear.
• Turn readily available huge-social-data into attributable conversion.
• Takeaways

• Sell with internet-wide with psychographics (what makes us up)

• If you can’t sell it on an elevator, you can’t sell it on the Internet
• When it comes to psychographic selling you think of mainstream channels, but there are tons of smaller agencies with incredible data.
• Layer targeting to produce tight audiences. Clarify by active filters. Add potent financial qualifiers.
• Create dual root personas. Behavior + class. Disciplined, high intent, etc.
• The more we focus the more we run out of people. Specificity vs. scale.
• Social intent is about keywords.
• Social goals:        

• scalable psychographic traffic
• attributable conversion
• real links from good authority sites
• social signals from strong users
• focused likes, follows, shares
• insulation from harsh SEO updates
• PR distribution to bloggers and media

• New expectations for social marketers in terms of their place in the marketing process

• Conversion is expected, more so when targeting is employed.
• “The notion that whenever we drive people to our website, we want to ask ourselves ‘is there any reason we want to keep track of this audience?’”
• “Is there anything here that bears separating out for a different treatment? There typically is.”
• Curate lists as valuable brand assets. “Owned audiences.” You look at these primary audiences and you need to figure out who owns those audiences.

• Filtered retargeting from social cookie pools

• Understanding filtered following is a prerequisite for modern marketing strategists.
• RSLA
• “The secret to all of this is that creative is the last mile of psychographic segmentation.”
• Marketing is list building. When we buy keywords, we’re buying data. As marketers we’re going to need to take a longer view of the conversion funnel. A persona you can actually own and continue marketing to.