SlideShare as a Lead Generation Tool
February 2, 2010
I’m starting to like Slideshare. In 2009 I uploaded 4 presentations and got 478 views (and 2 favorites!), or so they informed me in a recent email. Last month I starting using their new Leadshare tool to see if it would generate leads and what they would cost.
Leadshare is a self-service (DIY) tool to spread your marketing message and collect leads from people who view your presentations and documents. There’s no set-up fee, and you pay only when you collect a lead (starting at $3.00 per lead). You’re required to deposit funds in advance and get “credits.”
There are 3 ways viewers can make contact:
- When the viewer visits your presentation, they see the “Contact Me” option and fill out the form to learn more
- When the viewer downloads your Powerpoint or PDF they’re asked to fill out a short contact form
- The contact form shows up again (either after slide 3, or at the end or via a call to action on the bottom)
This flips the standard process of asking for information before people can view your documents. With LeadShare people view your document first, and then they’re asked for their contact info. When someone submits the contact form, you receive an email notification (and your account is charged for the lead).
Leads you collect are opt-in from people who demonstrated an interest in your content, so it would seem they’re more qualified than leads from AdWords. Your leads can be further qualified through questions you add to the form, from just name and email address, to address, phone, and up to 5 custom questions.
So, does it work? Since I set up Resolve Digital’s campaign a couple weeks ago we’ve received 9 leads at a cost of $27.00. After my initial follow-up I received no replies. I can’t say the leads have led to any prospects.
But I am encouraged by the program and plan to upload more presentations tailored to our prospects. It just makes sense that someone who provides their contact information after viewing one of our presentations is more qualified than somebody who simply clicks on an ad. And with ever-increasing competition and rising keyword bids on Google AdWords, I suspect it will lead to a higher ROI.
We’ll see. Meanwhile you can learn more about LeadShare here. And if you have experience with Leadshare please let us know how it works for you.
Bing Goes Boing! Review of Microsoft’s Bing
June 18, 2009
Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, was officially released to the public on June 1st. Since then I’ve been spending some time testing and getting to know Bing. Here’s what I think.
Simple, elegant design and great photography – Each day Bing shows a different background image on the home page. Powerful, beautiful, but totally non-intrusive. Makes Google’s home page look boring: all the charm of Craig’s List with more white space.
More useful results with “Quick Preview”
When you receive your search results you can rollover a little orange dot on the right side and preview the page without clicking on it. It shows a summary of the content plus relevant internal links. Helps you decide if the result is relevant and worth clicking on. Here is Resolve Digital‘s listing (#11 for San Francisco Web Design) showing the quick preview feature in action.
Left navigation options
Doing a search for “herbal dog treats,” in addition to the Search Results there’s a left navigation with Related Searches (including, Natural, Organic and Holistic dog treats) Useful. Below that is my Search History. Also useful.
Shopping results
The results include the typical listings, plus product photos. Nice. The left nav helps you search by Brand, Price, Cashback, etc. Very useful.
Cashback Feature
With a Windows Live ID you’re eligible for Bing’s cash-back feature. Find out how cash back works for eligible purchases.
Enhanced map features
Add to Collection feature allows you to make notes, tags, and share your map. You can add a pushpin, draw a path, mark an area and modify the style of your map.
Pay-per-Click opportunities
The most obvious difference with Google’s results pages is a lack of “sponsored links” on Bing. This seems like a huge benefit for advertisers who can take advantage of this opportunity while it lasts.
To summarize, the more time I spend with Bing the more I like it. Will it overtake Google? In some ways, it already has.
The Google Adwords Mystery
May 18, 2009
We’ve been doing some Adwords testing for one of our clients, a dog health supplement called Dog-Wa. We haven’t had much traction with the initial keywords, so they asked if we could branch out and try a different set.
Problem is, these new keywords range from $0.70 to $2.00 per click, way too expensive to make sense for their product (that retails for $14.95).
Here’s my client’s response:
“What I’ll never understand about Google Adwords is this: every book and article you read mentions that you can expect a sale for about 5-10% of the clicks you receive. So you need 10 to 20 clicks to make a sale. If your clicks are costing you 70 cents to $2 each, you’d need to spend $7 to $40 dollars on ads to generate one sale.”
“There are no dog supplements out there that you can afford to spend 40 dollars to sell. I know advertisers work to up-sell once people get to their sites. And I am sure they rely on creating steady customers. But I can’t believe this makes financial sense for any but a fraction of the people I see advertising. So in a nutshell, I don’t even see how Google manages to convince people to continue doing it. It is hard to believe that all of these internet advertisers are so benighted that they can’t figure out what a loser this system is. Am I wrong?”
No, Matt, you’re not wrong. But it does remain a mystery. It seems like simple arithmetic. How long can you stay in business spending $40 to sell an item for $15?
It makes no sense. I can only assume people aren’t bothering to do the math. Reading blogs like this one reinforces my suspicion. A lot of people out there are clueless.
The only possible alternative I see: Target long-tail keywords (those detailed 3, 4, or 5-word phrases) and abandon the shorter keywords that cost too much.
Thinking that I might be missing the obvious, I spoke with Victoria, an Adwords specialist at Google. She was candid enough to agree with our conclusions. Her only other suggestion: improve the “quality score” to bring down the cost of the ad.
Either that or focus on SEO and social media marketing. Anybody have a better idea?
