SES Chicago Presentation - Relationship Building

My presentation from SES Chicago 2012 for the "Screw Linkbuilding, it's Called Relationship Building" session.

Transcript

1. Chicago | November 12–16 Screw Link Building, It’s Relationship Building Katherine Watier VP, Online Strategy and Market Insights
2. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI • Slide text. The leading search marketing conference in Europe and continues to get bigger and better year-on-year. Bringing together the industry's brightest minds and most seasoned practitioners. • Learn how to optimise your web site for the most efficient crawling and indexing. Use keyword analysis to discover top converting words and phrases for optimum conversion. • Make link building for super ranking at the major search engines second nature. Tackle local, mobile, video, analytics and social media like a marketing Ninja. In fact, become your own leading search marketing expert. • And while you're at it, network and mix with your peers and the leading vendors and suppliers in the industry. • Optimise and rank better with pay-per-click campaigns. Learn how search engines rank web pages and optimise yours. @kwatier
3. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Ketchum’s Online Strategy Approach to Pitching • We pivot the pitch • We personalize based on previous conversations, online data • We test subject lines • We use campaign tracking to track open rates • We ask for and love social shares • We are not a traditional search firm or PR firm
4. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Why? Because we are afraid of this:
5. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Online Pitching Link Building =
6. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Online Strategy’s Online Pitching Work Our world is chaotic: • Client projects are different • Each client has a different account person who talks to the client directly (we often do not) • Some are long term projects, some are short • Our team does the measuring • Executing plan can happen quickly This is why we need a relationship management/link building tool. We picked BuzzStream.
7. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Coordinating Multiple Clients and Teams • We often have to create new niche lists quickly • Spreadsheets were not working – out of date, not sharing of conversations • Traditional media databases don’t have good blogger info and don’t measure mozRank • Backlink checking was too time consuming • We need to save time (and our clients $) • Our solution: BuzzStream
8. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Customizing BuzzStream • We broke the tool • We created a taxonomy of custom pitch topics (almost 500 categories) using custom fields for links
9. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Having Conversations with our Link Prospects • Every pitch is personalized with intel hand added to the database, or correspondences from previous pitches • BuzzStream collects contact and social media profile intel that is also added into the pitch requests
10. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Full Circle Relationship Building 10 Profile: Dr. Steven Chen, 39 San Francisco Provider in Planning Stage 10
11. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Engaging Contacts on Multiple Platforms • We spend quite a bit of time mining the data • We grab new links found by BuzzStream, research the contact and often ask them to join client’s social media properties and blogs to develop an even closer relationship • Often we outreach based on RSS feed activity • Twice a month we use our database to find opportunities to deepen relationships or follow up on link building pitches
12. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Utilizing LinkedIn • Content generation for group, posted by client • Client also re-posts on other LinkedIn groups we target • We provide new lists of potential group members for her to upload regularly • We use LinkedIn to find social media engaged doctors for future pitches
13. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Full Circle Relationship Building • We use ONC’s Twitter handle and LinkedIn group to identify influencers in those spaces • We build relationships with influencers and target them with pitches based on their interests • Link building from provider association sites to HealthIT.gov • Creation of LinkedIn group for HHS ONC to encourage conversation • Relationship building with providers
14. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Case Study: Pitching via email and phone Pitching Timeline: • Ketchum team pitched via email on a Friday • Mr. Mearian followed up that day confirming interest • Ketchum team followed up on Wed of next week via email to confirm interest • Mr. Mearian emailed and called our team that day confirming interest • We pitched the story via phone • Story was covered that day • Thank you email follow up that evening
15. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Example: Lucas Mearian Computer World – Article & Tweet
16. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Importance of Face to Face Interactions • Pitched Mom It Forward (MIF) Blogger a story, did not hear back • Met MIF blogger in person, discussed why she had not picked up the story, and what she looks for in a pitch • MIF blogger provided advice on best practices for subject line, content, etc • Invited MIF blogger to attend Ketchum event for DC Week • Continued relationship via email • Pitched IBM story for IBM 5 in 5 • Worked with mommy blogger to write lifestyle feature story
17. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Pick up the Phone! In many cases, a combination of emailing and speaking over the phone led to links & better stories
18. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI We Ask: What do you want from us? • Sometimes its easier to just ask the bloggers/major media publications what they want in a pitch instead of guessing • We interview contacts at major publications and now have targeted tips of how to pitch: • Ketchum blog post…
19. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Case Study: Pitching that resulted in social shares Assignment: Pitch testimonial about young mom and survivor of cancer who use electronic health records to niche cancer bloggers • We identified the blog Stupid Cancer as major influencer in this space. They are the self proclaimed “voice of young adult cancer” • Stupid Cancer reaches a huge audience via their social media platforms – 47,184 Facebook Likes – 12,681 Twitter Followers • In pitch, asked that they share link via Facebook and Twitter
20. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Stupid Cancer – Facebook Post & Tweet
21. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Case Study: HHS/ONC maintenance link building • Site transitioning from old to new, we outreached to all webmasters that linked to the old site asking them to change their links • We received these responses: “I would like to thank you for letting us know about the upcoming change. This is probably the first time that we have been notified in advance of a change in a URL. It is greatly appreciated!” mozRank: 4.72 “Wow! That is thorough follow-up! We will update. Thanks for making it so easy for us. I am impressed!” mozRank: 5.53
22. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Using Pinterest to Pitch Prospects Challenge: • Pitched infographic to food bloggers, but they did not want to publish on their blog Solution: • We identified food bloggers that also had Pinterest boards • Pitched food bloggers to share this infographic via their Pinterest board Hi, Rachel Thanks for the information. While I won't be able to integrate this into my blog, I did add it to one of my boards on Pinterest! Thanks again. And happy Valentine's Day! Jennifer
23. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Tracking Pitching Successes We use a combination of: • BuzzStream: – BCC stores all emails in the database – Relationship status changes once email is sent and backlink finds a link. • GA Campaign tracking: – Because we use @ketchum.com email addresses, it helps track email click through rate. • Open Site Explorer & Google/Bing Webmaster Tools • Use often to find backlinks from particular web properties • Traditional media monitoring • Bitly
24. Chicago | November 12–16, 2012 | #SESCHI Clear Takeaways • Hoard data about your prospects and automate data collection when necessary • Track all conversations and use to leverage for each pitch • Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone, ask the blogger questions, interview them about what information they would like to share • Ensure that all prospects are invited to follow on social and are asked to share on social
25. Katherine Watier VP, Online Strategy and Market Insights Ketchum | 202-729-8355 | @kwatier www.linkedin.com/in/katherinewatier gplus.to/katherinewatier katherine.watier@ketchum.com www.ketchum.com Contact Chicago | November 12–16