1. Online Marketing 101
How to:
1. Connect Prospects to our Mission
2. Turn Prospects into donors using online
tools

2. Let’s talk
about online
activities
that
influence a
prospect
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3. From Curious Prospect to Donor
1. Make sure they can find you online
(natural acquisition)
2. Purchase names of like-minded people
(paid acquisition)
3. Make it easy for them to sign up
(conversion to list)
4. Convince them to Give (conversion to
donor)
 Strategically communicate with them
 Engage them in your story (social media)
 Make it easy for them to spread the word
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4. Which Tools to Use at What Stage
Natural Acquisition Paid Acquisition
- Optimized Website - Paid media buys
- Social Media Profiles - Paid search ads
- Universal Search - Email List relationships
Conversion to List Conversion to Donor
- Email testing - Personalized welcome email
- Landing Page testing series
- Web usability studies - Calendar of email messages
- Social Media1 & offline
engagement
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5. Natural Acquisition
“Being Found” Online
Search Engine Ranking 101
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6. Overview of Search Engines
 Why do we care about Search?
 91% of internet users use a search engine1
 87% of people click on the natural results (vs.
paid)
 The Big Players
 Google, Yahoo!, and Live.com
 Google has 70% of the search marketing share,
accounting for 70.77% of all US searches.2
 Each has computer algorithm to rank your
pages in the search results.
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7. How Search Engines Work
 Google, Yahoo!, and Live create their listings automatically.
They use “spiders” or “bots” to "crawl" links to web pages1
and add those web pages to their index.
Keyword Phrases
 When a human visitor to the engine puts in a keyword
phrase, the search engine is focused on serving relevant,
fresh content that the engines think is matched to the
searcher’s intent.
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8. It’s not about the keywords You
want to be found on.
It’s about the keywords the
searcher uses to find you.
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9. How people search
 87% of people click on natural search
results
 Only 48% even see paid ads
 Most people search for information, smaller
% for commerce
 People click on the word in results that
matches their query word1
 58% of all queries are three or more words
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10. How People Search
The Long Tail of Search:
 3% of Excite’s search traffic was 3 keywords – 97% of the rest
was in the “long tail”
 Amazon.com makes 57% of sales from keywords outside of the
“popular” terms.
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11. How Does a Search Engine
“Read” A Page?
Remember…it’s a computer
algorithm
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12. It’s a Translation Problem
A search engine tries figure out what your web page is
about through its pieces.
The spider reads just text, not images or flash. It also
evaluates inbound links to determine relevancy.
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13. Search Engines are Computers
A Lost in Translation example:
“My Apple is a lemon”
 It could mean your page is about fruit
 If the words “computer” also appears nearby,
the spider determines that the phrase is about
computers.
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14. Writing Spider Friendly Online Copy
Writing tips for online copy:
 Use contextual words in proximity to the
keyword phrase
 Repeat the keyword phrase & variations
 Use Headers like a table of contents
 Strategically link to the copy, and use the
keyword phrase in the link text.1
 Use alt tags for images, so that spiders can
“read” the image
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15. Every page matters
 Search engines don’t see “home” pages
 Every page is an entry page for searcher
 Conversions from landing pages for
targeted keywords can be improved through
testing
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16. More Details about Google’s
Algorithm
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17. How Google’s Search Results Work
 Algorithm has 200+ factors, some weighted more
than others. We know about 40 parts of the 200.
 In 2007, the Google algorithm changed 9 times
per week.
 Only 2 web pages are listed for one company, so
one company could rank for the first 152 slots, but
will only show up in the #1 and #2 spot
 Influenced by:
 Personal search (geo location, login)1
 Universal search2
 Behavioral search (previous browsing history,
bookmarks, intent= shopping vs. researching)3
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18. What Impacts Your Search Rankings?
1. The changing search engines
2. Your changing competition
3. Your website constraints
 Architecture/Links
 Content
 Site load speed
 Code use
None of these are under your control
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19. How do you Tackle the Challenge?
 Keyword research
 for each page
 Competitive Analysis
 of site and current online marketing efforts
 Analyze your site
 how each page ranks for each keyword
 Repair/Enhance site
 Submit non-indexed pages
 Monitor rankings/Analyze reports
 Fix/develop links & Universal Content
 Repeat
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20. Questions about Natural
Acquisition?
Search Engine Overview
Elements of SEO
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21. Paid Acquisition
Paid online advertising
Email List buys
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22. Paid Online Advertising
 Two Models
1. Pay per impression (like traditional media
buying) for either a week or month (CPM)
 Can place graphic banner, flash or video
 Or could pay per name acquired (CPA) - though
select networks
2. Pay Per Click (PPC)
 Used on search engines, and through Google
network (blogs and other sites - NYT)
 Pay per keyword
 Placement based on bid as well as “Quality Score” 1
which is tied to ad performance (conversions)
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23. Email List Buys
Three Types
1. Purchase of email addresses (ie JohnKerry.com)
 Negotiated with website owner
 Pay flat rate per email, without deduping from your list
1. Sponsored Email
 Negotiated with website owner
 Pay flat rate per email, without deduping from your list
 i.e. Amnesty sends a message to members about IRC issue
1. Care2.com petitions
 Price negotiated with Care2.com
 Supply them with petition text and follow up email text
 You pay per names delivered
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24. Questions @ Paid Acquisition?
Traditional media buying
Pay Per Click advertising
Email buying
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25. Conversion to List
Landing Page Testing
Usability Testing
Web Analytics
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26. Conversion to List
Goal:
 Make sure that no one who interacts with
your landing pages, or website gets
confused or distracted during the sign up
process.
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27. Conversion to List
 Landing Page Testing:
 Consistent messaging from email or ad to landing page
 A/B or multivariate testing
 Personalize landing page based on passed through
personal data
 Create header phrases based on best practices & test
 Usability testing and eye tracking to enhance page
conversions, effective content, navigation & layout
 Make conversion compelling & clear
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28. Conversion to List
Web usability testing
 On the Web, usability is a necessary
condition for survival. If a website is difficult
to use, people leave. You can test the
usability of your website.1
 American Heart Association increased their
online donations by 60% in the first month
after implementing improvements based on
usability testing.2
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29. Conversion to List - Web Analytics
 Monitor how prospects navigate your site to
improve conversions
 Traffic source (email, natural, paid, links from
other content?)1
 What do they do when they arrive?
 Is there a drop off in traffic through funnel? 2
 Keep in mind that web analytics is a
trending % process, part science/part art
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30. Web Analytics Terms 101
1. Unique visitors, not “hits”
 Hits – Measures every element that loads when a visitor request
a page (images, javascript, the html itself).
 A visitor requesting a page with 30 elements would register as 30 hits!
This is an inflated # you shouldn’t measure.
1. Bounce rate – Measured in two ways:
 % of visitors who see just one page on your site, or
 % visitors who stay on the site for a small amount of time (usually
five seconds or less).
 Your homepage bounce rate should be 30% or less
1. Conversions – the # of visitors that did what you wanted
them to do when they were on your website
 For example: donate, download a .pdf, sign up for a newsletter
 Industry standard conversion rate is 8-10%
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31. Questions @ Conversion to List?
Landing Page testing
Usability Testing
Improving web site conversions
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32. Conversion to Donor
Email welcome series
Calendar of email communications
Social Media & offline integration
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33. Starting a Conversation that
Makes Prospects Want to Donate
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34. Conversion to Donor - Email
 Converting new names to supporters requires
welcome series email
 Best Practice for Welcome Series:
 Action email first, not generic welcome message or ask
 Match action email to the prospect’s sign on issue
 Ask for donation within the first week
 Segment these names for at least 2 weeks before
adding to generic messaging
 Test message elements to increase conversions (from
line, subject, copy, headers, link text, signer, P.S.)
 Test landing pages to increase conversions
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35. Conversion to Donor - Email
 Personalize the Message
 Segment list
 Ask for preferences in issue, frequency of
message
 Send them messaging based on preference
 Personalize based on donor’s info/web activity
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36. Calendar of Email Communications
 Create messaging so that it’s a building
conversation
 Test individual messages
 From line, subject line, body content, links, headers, call
to action, signer, P.S.
 Measure success based on:
 Rates for: delivers, opens, CTR, and landing page conversions
 Overall: Cost per acquisition/email. Donation average per
acquisition/email. Overall number and type of touch point per
donor/activist
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37. Email – Mobile challenges
Unique Challenges with Mobile users:
 Emails and web pages need to be designed
for mobile use, otherwise renders weird.
 Mobile traffic is not caught through
traditional web analytic programs because
JavaScript is not executed
 Additional mobile analytic programs or add-
ons are required
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38. Conversion to Donor – Social
Media
Monologues are over, no more: I’ll publish and
put it out there and you’ll consume and you
better not complain!. It is now a dialog.
- Avinash Kaushik, Occam’s Razor
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39. Conversion to Donor – Social Media
 Engage Them in Your Story
 Social media/web 2.0 = Web pages created by
all users without central control
 Good for:
 Listening to better understand supporters (focus
group)
 Spreading the message about missing
 Building attachment to mission
 Building closer grassroots relationship among
supporters
 Having donors help define national issue focus
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40. Conversion to Donor – Social Media
 Enable them to Spread the Word
 Ask them to forward email
 Post online content that is easily shareable
 To the prospect’s blog, Facebook profile, etc.
 Ask them to invite others (to social profile, to
petition, etc)
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41. Social Media – Tracking & Testing
 Testing & Improving Social Media’s role in
conversion
 Calls to action (eye tracking), frequency of use
of platform tools (posts, sent emails, etc) cross
campaign
 Track keyword activity cross social media
platform (online reputation monitoring)
 Track visitors/subscribers, stickiness, #of
comments, and conversion based on platform,
increased traffic to your website.
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42. Conversion to Donor – Integrated
 Higher Donation Rates & Long Term Donor
Value with Campaigns that integrate online,
DM, TM and face-to-face engagement
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43. Questions @ Conversion to
Donor?
Email welcome series
Calendar of email communications
Social Media & offline integration
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44. Summary
 Natural or Paid Acquisition
 Focus on words, analytics and testing
 Ease of Sign up
 Use best practices, consistent messaging, and
test for usability
 Getting them to Give
 Personalize messaging based on prospect’s
interests
 Coordinated multichannel works best:
 Email,
social media, DM, TM and face-to-face for
donor conversion and evangelism
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45. Appendix
More info
Additional Learning Resources
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46. More about Google
 Google’s aggressive Spam filter is
committed to delivering quality results
matched to the searcher’s intent.
 Filters out pages with:
 Redirects
 More “garbage” vs. good content
 Deceptive coding (this is always changing)
 Non-unique pages
 Sites that only contain inbound links
 Same/similar colored text and background
 If found to be Spam = not listed
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47. Some of the factors we know about
Freshness1 Page Load time2 Complexity of Page Code3
Title Tag4 Meta Description tag5 Meta Keyword tags6
Heading Tags7 Alt attributes8 Links9
Body Text10 Keywords used11 Keywords in file name12
Number of outbound links13 Number of inbound links Internal linking structure14
Keyword proximity to keyword density on page
determine meaning
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48. Additional Tools
 Analyzing your competition:
 SEO for Firefox
 SeoMoz’s Tools
 Compete.com
 Picking keywords:
 SEO Book’s Keyword Tool
 Understanding how the Engines see yrou
site:
 Google Webmaster Tools
 Yahoo Site Explorer
 Live Search Webmaster Central
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49. Learn More – Search Marketing
 My blog: Search Marketing for Nonprofits Blog:
 http://Searchmarketingfornonprofits.wordpress.com
 How Search Engines work:
 http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2168031
 The expert on linking strategies:
 http://www.ericward.com/
 SEOMoz
 http://www.seomoz.com
 Bruce Clay’s blog
 http://www.bruceclay.com
 Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day (book)
 http://www.yourseoplan.com/
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50. Learn More – Web Analytics
 How web analytics is like using Evite for a holiday party
 Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
 Web Analytics Demystified (book)
 http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/
 Google Analytics 2.0 (book)
 Web Analytics: An Hour A Day (book)
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51. Learn More – Social Media
 Social Media Today
 http://www.socialmediatoday.com
 The Original Signal – Web 2.0 blog
 http://www.originalsignal.com/
 Social Media 101
 http://www.slideshare.net/joannapena/social-media-101-creating-
conversations-in-social-circles/
 Groundswell (book)
 http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell
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