Managing Subscriptions

I've realized a tactical mistake I made in signing up for information and knowledge using my work email and now that I am changing jobs I have to figure out which enewsletters I want to still subscribe to. However, its not easy to change your email address on most of these enewsletters. Most ownly offer the option to unsubscribe - what a lost opportunity for them. A few let me manage my subscriptions but not change my email address. And some have allowed me to change my email and then they send an email to the new address and I've had to confirm - even though I had to login in the first place to change the information.

If you want readers, make it easy to subscribe and manage their accounts.

Hide and Seek with the Search Engines

It use to be, not so long ago, you typed in something in the search field and hit search or “I’m feeling lucky” and in return you got ten blue links, and you hoped that at least one was relevant.

But now, as searchers, we have expectations: we want personalized and highly relevant results; the ability to search from mobile devices; we want real time results (think twitter streams); and we want it in the format we wish to consume it in (think video).

With all those demands and expectations on the search engine it is no wonder that search engine optimization and search engine marketing has gotten more complex.

At the recent “The Search Engine Tune Up” conference produced by Marketing Magazine in Toronto, speakers talked about ways to be invisible to search engines and guiding principles for SEM.

10 Ways to be invisible

Just to be clear, you don’t want your site to be invisible, but some organizations seem to do it naturally. Andrew Goodman outlined at least 10 ways to stay invisible.

1. Be a minimalist with no or little content on your home page so that search spiders can’t categorize your site.
2. Ignore the importance of information architecture and use uncertain or vague categories. Search engines collect data on click streams so if all the visitors to your site are confused there are no clear paths to denote important content.
3. Make sure your site is slllllloooooooow. Search engines look at the user experience over time and how that relates to conversion, so if users are abandoning or exiting quickly, there are no clear paths to mark.
4. Make sure you don’t provide any indexing views like a sitemap so that search engines can understand the site.
5. Hide stuff; throw up a firewall just when the user thinks they may have found what they want and so the search engine can’t index it.
6. Less is more – provide very little content on your products or services and don’t provide content in different formats (e.g. photos with descriptions).
7. Don’t use title or heading tags – you don’t want anyone to know what they’re looking at or how to reference it, that goes for search engines too.
8. Don’t write for the web with search engine optimization and social media in mind, just keep those long, heavy text, scrolling pages with no headings or chunked text, oh, and it doesn’t matter if they aren’t clearly written or updated… they’re invisible.
9. Don’t measure referrals or build them, if you want to stay invisible, you don’t want to build up your linking neighbourhood with relevant referring links.
10. Focus on having 10 blue links returned in the results and cross your fingers that your site is one of them, or not if you want to stay invisible; ignore the importance of local search and universal search results that return photos and videos, which get higher click throughs.

5 Guiding Principles for Search Engine Marketing

Yes, it is still easy to remain invisible. But if you do want to be noticed and are exploring search engine marketing then consider these guiding principles:

1. Where you rank is incredibly important for getting visitors – people are less likely to scroll or go to another page, they are more likely to conduct a different search.
2. Search today is blended and personalized and shows photos and videos available on the topic (and just to add to your challenges search engines are using partnerships and their own brand to add to the results – think http://books.google.com/ ); people notice photos in the results first.
3. Free is important as search becomes your funnel, the goal then is to collect attention like currency and then monetize when you’ve built your bank of attention (think http://www.yelp.ca/ which offers free restaurant reviews and had over 26 million visitors in December and now sells ads on their site).
4. Consider mobile devices and what the user experience is – 41% of mobile users compare prices and read product reviews on their device while in the store; 37% have made a purchase using their mobile; 45% abandon the sales process because the shopping cart didn’t load properly - according to Tyler Calder at Search Engine People; He adds that “1.5 Million items were sold through Ebay’s iPhone Application through the holidays (1 item every 2 seconds)”.
5. Get social – in the past year Facebook traffic has increased 185% and on March 15, 2010 Facebook overtook Google as the most visited site; Consumers value other people’s opinions higher than any advertisement; Facebook can provide targeted demographics so you can go where your audience is.

Hide or Seek
As you can tell, it is easy for a site to stay hidden. There are now too many pages for the search engines to index. If you are not putting key words in your page title, headings, content, alt tags and links and you don’t have a site map or relevant links why should the search engines bother with you?

But if you do want to get noticed, seek out communities of interest like Facebook as social networking sites are where your customers are looking for information, and keep in mind, they may well be looking with their mobile device.

Online Investor Relations - Transparency and Credibility are Key

Online investor relations has a mandate to be transparent and credible; it is a mandate that is being imposed by both legal considerations and a discerning public. And frankly, it is good business.

Online investor relations has a mandate to be transparent and credible; it is a mandate that is being imposed by both legal considerations and a discerning public. And frankly, it is good business.

In the aftermath of Worldcom and Enron, legislation like the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act – which has global implications, and the Ontario Securities Commission rulings, companies will have to be transparent in their dealings or else. This is a good opportunity for some companies to regain their credibility.

It’s a fact: stockholders (and potential stockholders) and media search websites for investor information. As such, your corporate website should ‘own’ that information in the form of a dedicated and detailed investor section or “room”...

Who is vital for Investor Relations
Create a contacts page

The number one priority for users seeking investor information - contact information. Key contacts or people and their respective contact information (especially phone number AND email) are extremely important to the media and to institutional investors in particular.
According to IR Web Report “fewer than 20 per cent of companies are providing credible IR contact information on their websites.” It may be available in the global navigation banner in the form of “Contact Us” but it should also be repeated right on the Investor Relations home page.

Who is using investor relations information…

• 56% of investment professionals used company websites at least monthly, with 28% using them weekly.- the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute member technology usage survey, 2000
• 89% of investment professionals were using company sites at least monthly, with 75% using sites at least weekly- a survey by Rivel Research Group, 2003
• 74% of retail investors spent some time online doing investment-related activities - According to the Voice of the American Shareholder study by the National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC) 2003
• 90% of retail investors who use the Web use company websites to confirm investment ideas and decisions.
• Source: 09 June 2004, How credible is your IR website? ByDominic Jones

What your Investor Relations site should do

Publicly traded companies must:

• Be transparent
• Release both positive and negative news, through: advertising, public meetings, regular news releases and a proactive website
• Have performance-based reporting (e.g. scorecards)
• Satisfy investor needs
• Have strong corporate governance

Therefore, a formal approach is required for your investor relations room which should also contain a corporate governance section.

Corporate Governance for Investor Relations
An optimal corporate Governance section on your site would include:

• Strategy and vision statements
• Company history, products/services, geographical reach, sector
• Company markets and future trends
• Competitor profile, sector challenges
• List of directors and committees
• Biographies of directors, date of appointment, policies of appointments, remuneration etc
• Terms of reference for nominations, remuneration & audit committees, their role and authority
• Performance evaluations
• Non-audit fees paid to the auditors and tendering process where non-audit fees exceed audit fees
• Detail of proxy votes and abstentions
• Any pending litigation
• Company policies
• Executive Compensation
• Fiduciary/Oversight Duties
• Affiliate Transactions
• Shareholder Voting Issues
• Proxy Statement
• Compliance with Disclosure Laws
• Internal Control Policies and Procedures
• Whistleblower Policies
• Drafting and Reviewing Committee Charters
• Audit Committee Responsibilities
• Insider Trading Programs
• Stock Plans
• Letter from the Spokesperson

In addition to the above, your investor relations room should contain:

• Contact details – investor relations email, phone; analysts and advisors
• About us (or links to it) – including company activities and fact sheets
• Annual report, interim, quarterly and preliminary statements
• Archive of annual reports and financial data (for 5-10 years) including relevant shareholder circulars, revenue, operating profit, pre and post tax profit, EBITDA (earnings before interest taxation, depreciation and amortization), and dividend payments
• Shareholder documents relating to listings in other markets (if applicable)
• Extracts of financial highlights & summaries (indicated audited or not) from financial reports so information isn’t buried
• Company information – brochures and newsletters
• Calendar of events (AGM, dividend payouts, result announcements)
• FAQs
• Glossary of terms
• Credit ratings (S&P, Moody’s, Fitch)
• Press releases and archives (or link to your media room or to financial releases
• Relevant news (good and bad)

Some Best Practices – how to have the best Investor Relations Room:

• Recognizable URL, identifiable branding
• Company intangibles – brand and human capital
• Searchable, indexed
• Reports in multiple languages
• Translations of webcasts
• Financial data in more than one currency
• Multiple formats (e.g. for annual reports) – pdfs and html (financial reports in Excel); printable
• Virtual visits to company facilities
• Accessibility (visual, hearing, cognitive and motor impairments) www.w3.org/WAI/Resources; browser/os compatibility
• Quantitative and qualitative information
• Key financial ratios
• Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
• Return on Net Assets (RONA)
• Total Shareholder Return (TSR)
• Cash Flow Per Share
• Discounted Cash Flow Per Share
• Earnings Per Share (EPS)
• Interest cover and gearing ratios
• Dividend and capital history including stock splits
• Capital gains tax information
• Tax information – mergers/acquisitions
• Financial presentations – available as webcasts and related slides; include Q&As; and archived
• Executive presentations, speeches, reports, articles
• Share price history as downloadable spreadsheet
• Access to electronic filings (e.g. US Securities & Exchange Commission using EDGAR system)
• Stock price (current) and Data
• Opportunity to purchase (e.g. how to contact a broker etc)
• Stock symbol and trading codes; stock exchanges where traded (links); relevant banking terms
• Shareholder information
• Analysis by size, type and geographical holding
• Percentage holdings and details by principal shareholders
• AGM details including votes for and against resolutions and abstentions
• Reasons for any resignations of directors
• Electronic proxies, forms, share registration facilities, etc.
• Shareholder information forms (change of address, stock transfers etc)
• Any dividend reinvestment plans, savings accounts, etc
• Share price, trading volumes etc
• Outstanding bond and note issuance with maturities, coupons, security rankings
• SEC Filings
• Reconciliations
• Investor Inquiries/FAQs – specific to finance
• Transfer Agents
• Dividend Reinvestment
• Dividend History
• Investment Clubs
• Splits & Dividends
• Analyst Coverage
• Analyst Estimates
• Historical price lookup
• Sales & Earnings
• Earning Estimates
  

Tools to consider for Investor Relations:

• Investment Calculator – to assess value of shareholdings over time
• Events Calendar
• Investor Webcasts
• Email Alerts (subscribe)
• Interactive Stock Chart
• Email option for investor news, alerts
• Help and feedback options

Related links to consider for investor relations:

• Industry, regulators, competitors
• Corporate Citizenship
• News
• Diversity Programs and Corporate culture
• Some websites that feature good IR practices include Deutschebank and Carmanah Technologies.
  

Why you need an investor relations section on your website

The purpose behind making information available via the Internet is directly related to who is using it and how it is being used. According to Rivel Research...

• 44% of U.S. portfolio managers said they had bought stock as a result of information they obtained on corporate websites.

Company websites had a "substantial impact" on their attitudes toward a company and its stock, stated:

• 48% of U.S. portfolio managers,
• 43% of European portfolio managers, and
• 43% of Canadian portfolio managers
• Source: Rivel Research, March 2003 report

Of course you need to provide information that your users require but you also need to provide information to address legal issues and perceptions.

The Importance of Disclosure
“Times have changed. These days, an explosion of do-it-yourself investing -- driven by Internet and cable news delivered up to the second--is shaking up the marketplace. And securities regulators, conscious of the growing importance of the retail investor, are demanding disclosure be more equitable,” writes Kevin Liblin in “No More Secrets” (Canadian Business, October 10, 2000).

To even the playing field for non-institutional investors, more and more companies are making webcasts and conference calls available to all investors.

There are differing opinions on the value of disclosure; there are some benefits and some costs that can be attributed to it. What companies need to keep in mind is that transparency means nothing to hide – and if you don’t hide anything you become more credible. You’ll have to do your own cost benefit analysis.

“When firms choose to submit to more onerous disclosure requirements they experience an increase in stock prices, reduced bid-ask spreads and greater share turnover,” says the Ontario Securities Commission in a Cost Benefit Analysis of Investor Confidence. “However, when regulations are imposed, some firms may find the costs outweigh the benefits.”

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act, is U.S. compliance legislation covering governance issues, regulations for audit committee responsibility and protection for whistleblowers. And while some believe SOX is too much and too costly, the fact remains it is law.

“It is now becoming fashionable to believe that corporate behaviour should always be viewed with suspicion,” says Dominic D’Alessandro, CEO of Manulife Financial, quoted in a May 6 Globe and Mail article. “This is a very dangerous premise upon which to develop a governance regime. I am afraid that by doing so we run the risk of imposing onerous and impractical restraints that will stifle entrepreneurial activity.” He estimates that it will cost Manulife up to $30 million a year to comply with new regulation from both sides of the border, particularly the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

How you deliver investor relations
Transparency and credibility must start at the top. The CEO needs to be committed to ensuring that information is available and that there are resources to provide the information to investors and media. The CEO, as chief spokesperson, also needs to stand behind that commitment and be available to answer questions from the investment community including media and analysts.
Setting up an investor relations room and maintaining it with up-to-date information will require a commitment of time as well as standards and processes to ensure that all information that you say you’ll provided is posted in a timely fashion and in user-friendly formats – such as financial reports in excel as well as PDF.

Conclusion - transparent and credible
A valuable online investor relations site or section does require a lot of work but it will be invaluable to investors and media, and therefore to you. By providing as much information as you can and keeping it current and accurate you move towards ‘transparency’ and also to greater credibility.

Some might ask “can we afford to do it?” If transparency and credibility are key goals for your investor relations then the more appropriate question is “Can you afford not to?”

Online Media Relations - Establishing Credibility

Successful online media relations requires some smart thinking and a lot of diligence put into the who, what, why and how.

News has taken on a life of its own on the Internet and it has become more demanding. Internet users, including members of the media, can search the Internet for information they need and turn-it-around as quickly as it takes to type. The rules are different and they are blurred; advertising isn’t necessarily clearly separated from editorial, and corrections are not necessarily posted as corrections – the information is usually quietly up-dated (and sometimes ignored altogether). And of course, there’s also the issue of photo manipulation.

Who
The number one priority of surfing journalists: contact information. If you want to remain friendly with the journalists covering your beat, you better provide names and phone numbers right on the media relations home page. In fact, it’s best if you organize this contact information into categories including areas of expertise and geography (two great examples of this include the IBM and Microsoft media relations home pages).

"It's amazing why companies keep information such as addresses and phone numbers a secret," Hollywood's KNX Newsradio Executive Producer Ed Pyle told ClickZ (March 20, 2001). "Unless you're located in Area 51, you ought to make this information very easy to access.”

Despite the basic necessity and learning of anyone that’s ever received one hour of media or public relations training, it is still not uncommon to come across press releases that have NO CONTACT INFORMATION!!! There is absolutely no excuse for such an omission which deserves a rap on the knuckles.

And if you do publish the contact information, you better make sure that person is available to return a journalists phone call quickly (within an hour or two, or use a substitute).

Stan Sutter, in a poignant Marketing Magazine Article entitled 10 Things I Hate About PR” also points out yet another unforgivable shortcoming of bad PR: “So many press releases we see are just badly done. They're often overwritten and take forever to get to the point. And they're often missing the basic who, what, where, when, why and how much: information that journalists all need as the starting point of any story.”

What
Everyone, especially media, want information fast and they want it to be current. Therefore, be committed to keeping your information up-to-date and make it easy to find – have descriptive, clear headings and date information.

Your media room should contain:

• Contacts, addresses, phone numbers and email (for each contact or office)
• News – up-to-date and newsworthy
• Fact sheets and backgrounders (include number of offices, number of employees, safety info – if applicable, etc)
• Press Releases – clearly named and dated, with an archive for older releases
• Biographies of executives
• Press clippings – links to other articles
• FAQs
• News features
• Case studies
• Speeches and presentations by senior executives – in html, PDF and original formats (Word or PowerPoint)
• Executive and product photos – high and low resolution options, easy to download
• Product/service information (brochures in downloadable formats)
• Brand your site (but don’t recommend downloadable logos because logos are part of your branding, image and reputation – if you post downloadable logos you lose control of how and where they are used)
• Audio and Video clips – name them clearly and indicate size and format; Provide sound bites from the CEO
• Global and local information
• Calendar of events – with a contact for more information
• Quick links to affiliations, partners, community, industry information etc.
  

Why
Media need a quick reference tool to find the details about your organization – and let’s face it, you’d rather they find out from you then someone else. No matter what angle the reporter’s story, if they can’t find the information they need you will be giving them the message that you’re not being cooperative or transparent and you will lose credibility. If you lose credibility, then who knows what angle a journalist will cover. If you hang your clothing on your line then there is no need for anyone to look for dirty laundry!

How
It can’t be said enough... Make sure your information is current and accurate.
Make sure online information can be found and is accessible – this includes:

• clear taxonomy (naming conventions)
• structured information architecture
• following through on posting information you said you would
• no broken links
• information available (as appropriate):
• in a variety of formats (html, PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel)
• in a variety of languages
• Make sure your story is news worthy (especially press releases)
• Write well – be concise and spell check
• Forums and blogs can create dialogue and interaction but make sure you moderate them

Conclusion
Stan Stutter further advises media relations professionals “you should know your target and their needs. If it's clear you know what my media organization is about and what I'm delivering to readers, I'm much more likely to take you seriously. Don't waste our time with useless and badly targeted information.”

Therefore, availability of contacts and corporate information is the most important means for online media rooms to be effective agents for transparency and credibility. It’s hard to measure a media room’s success but everyone knows the consequences of not having a strong media relations presence.

Get discovered – Understanding search engine optimization

If you’re one of the 694 million people who used the Internet in March 2006 (according to comScore) then you also probably conducted at least one of the 2.7 billion searches on Google or 1.6 billion searches Yahoo (Center for Media Research). Did you find what you were looking for?
Everyone loves a great find – whether it is where to purchase gas at the best price or get a good deal on shoes. It is human nature to search out our interests and revel in our discoveries. So it is no surprise that the behaviour of users on the world wide web has shifted from send me information and tell me what I need, to I want to choose what information I receive, when I receive it and how I receive it. Users want more control of their information and they are demanding the flexibility.

So what does this mean for your website, especially when you are trying to drive traffic to it so you can achieve your strategic site goals? Essentially, people are using search engines to find what they want, so you better know how to make sure they find you.

Search has become an online sales tool; a highly effective marketing channel for engaging consumers throughout the purchasing consideration process. Consumers pull information to themselves in various ways with different media and may take as many as 12 searches before they make their purchasing decision, each find helps them to refine their search and define their needs more until they get very specific in what they want, including brand choice. So users will arrive at your site at different phases of their decision making process – are you ready for them?

The importance of search engine optimization

A quick scan of the facts reveals why SEO is so important for marketing effectiveness:

• Being found and clicked on
  62% of users click on first page search results with an accumulative 90% clicking on results from the first three pages of returns. And 87% of results clicked on were from the organic (non paid) portion of the search results – which are totally dependent on their ranking by ensuring they follow the optimization techniques.
• Given credibility – leaders rise to the top
  “…users ascribe industry leadership to those brands within top results, and believe them to be leaders in their fields given their placement in the results” according to Robert Murray, President, iProspect

Some things you should do to be found

So how do you ensure that your product, service or information is one of the top results amongst billions? More importantly, how do you ensure that you’re included in the 12 searches made in a buying cycle? You need to increase your search engine optimization, which requires a good understanding of search engines. For instance:

Crawlers (A web crawler, also known as a web spider or web robot, is a program which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner.) rank by:

• Content – should be relative and descriptive
• Title tag – concise and descriptive
• Design – strong information architecture as base (read Design II – structure comes before design and Information Architecture – the science of layout)
• Links – cross links and external links
• Age - how long your site has been up
• Neighbourhood - who are you linking to and who is linking to you
  

Here are some tips and best practices that you should follow:

• Try the 8 second test – have someone view the page for the first time for 8 seconds then ask them what they think the site is about – you may be surprised
• Page titles (title tag written in the head of your html and appears in your browser title bar) should be between 40-69 characters (Google)
• Have user friendly URLs (ideally the url should be easy to remember and reference so avoid complex folder systems or if dynamic, don’t return more than 3 parameters)
• Write about 250 words per page which will enhance search engines’ efforts to index
• Be more specific in writing your headings (e.g. not Our Office but Our Toronto Consulting Office)
• Have keywords in main body content and throughout the site – top to bottom; in headlines and sub-headings; in call to action links
• Have 10 phrases for your site, each phrase should have two or more words
• Maintain context – put words in link so search engines know what the link means and it will also look at text around the link to ensure it is in context (so not just a page of links, and please, no “Click here”)
• Use your own search engine to test key words – if your site isn’t promoting your key words then how can the search engine find them…?
• Write good headings and people will remember them.
• Users misspell words in over 10% of queries (tend to go to spammers) and 50% of users will still click on a misspelled response – therefore develop a strategy for misspellings (good example see About.com)
• Cross link within your own site by indicating links to similar or related content
• Use a 301 redirect – which Google likes (The W3C guidelines for a 301 "permanent redirect" say that this is for use when a page has been permanently moved and you want people to record the new address in place of the old one - read more on redirects on SearchEngineWatch.); use it when changing URLS; is dynamic; It is normal to dip in traffic when change URLs (code example: www.beyondink.com/301-codes)
• Use 404 pages - Page not found error (The 404 or Not Found error message is an HTTP standard response code indicating that the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server either could not find the file that was requested, or it was configured not to fulfill the request and not reveal the reason why. See wikipedia for full definition) – Search engines will index them so use keywords on them and customize them so they keep your navigation that way people are more likely to stay on your site (see A List Apart for coding a 404 error page)
• Use robot.txt to block internal search pages or repetitive pages (like printable versions) so search engine doesn’t think pages are redundant or doing something suspicious
• Search engines like PDFs because they are text based; they can be added to site map and should be added under a publication page (but not if you have an html version)
• Create an information architecture that includes key words (Most costly Search Engine Optimization mistake is a bad IA; IA represents 80-85% of usability)

Tools and techniques to try
To see how search engines (specifically Google) see your site:

• On Google search your site; click on Google’s Cache; then select cache text only to see what it sees
• or you can copy and paste your page from the browser into notepad
• In search: type site:url (your url) – to check if your site is indexed
• Site ranking with some search engines http://rankcomparison.di.unipi.it/
• Meta Tag Analyzer & Trends www.golexa.com
• Find out who is linking to you http://www.i4market.com/tools/backlinks.html
• Assess keywords & link popularity http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/web-page-analyser.shtml
• Check for broken links http://www.dead-links.com/check_links.php
• Link checker & reports – download http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

Search engines are just a tool to help you help people find your site faster. You shouldn’t let terms like search engine optimization intimidate you. You can quietly, efficiently and effectively help people discover your site by arming yourself with the knowledge and tools that work best in today’s online world. The only other option is to just stay lost.