Internet Marketing and Search Engine Discoverability Pilot

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partners

Kickoff and Agenda

• Introductions– Allison Dawson, US Dynamics Marketing Manager– Jennifer Tomlinson, Marketing Manager, Worldwide

Partner Group– Dave Foreman, Interactive Limited

• Introduce two pilots to key CRM partners across the US– Search Engine Optimization (individual partner effort)– Paid Search Landing Page (collaborative effort)

• Next Steps and Calls to Action

Overview - Organic and Paid Search

• Organic/natural search– An effective search engine optimization

(SEO) program will enable search engines to rank your Web pages high in search results by improving the organic content of the pages

– Strong search performance can be your most cost-efficient online strategy

– Immediate and measurable results, such as increased site accessibility and more qualified site visitors, inclined to purchase

• Paid search– Text and display ads that appears in

search engine results when customers enter keywords

– Paying for the privilege of getting better, higher placement on search engine results pages

– Advertiser pays only if a user clicks on your ad/text listing

– Critical to competitive standing– Performance can be tracked all the way

through to conversations and sales

*84% of technology buyers begin their online searches with one of the major search engines

Organic

Paid

*Statistic from MarketingSherpa & KnowledgeStorm

Top organic search results do not include Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners

Snapshot of 20 organic rankings inGoogle when searching for “CRM”(no geography specified)

• #2 organic ranking is Salesforce• #3 organice ranking is

crm.dynamics.com• 5 competitors with ranking #2 and #5

(salesforce, sugarcrm, zoho, sap, netsuite)

• 3 partners, rankings #10, 15, 19 (2 ISV, 1 multi-vendor, but geared to IBM- Avidian, oncontact, crm.com)

• Top 3 paid search ads are competitive (Salesforce, QuickBase and Numara.

Neither Microsoft’s Corporate Campaign nor The Partners' Campaigns are at the Top of PPC Listings for

High Traffic Keywords

Competitive Challenge

• Partners Cannot Compete With the Major Brands such as SalesForce.com– Partners do not have the budgets to target high

volume keywords – Most partners lack the experience to develop first

class landing pages• Given their budgets, Dynamics partners end up

competing with one another (on Microsoft Branded Search Terms)

Brand Keyword Dogfight Enriches Google…

At the expense of our Partners while confusing customers

Broad CRM Keywords Require 15 Dollar Per Click Bids Just to Show Up on The First Page of Google

Broad CRM Keywords (such as CRM) Have 75 Times More Traffic Than Branded CRM Keywords (such as

Dynamics CRM):

Keys To Successful Online Marketing• All effective online campaigns are built on two pillars

to achieve high conversion rates (leads): – *Best Practices - requires experience and a sustained effort– Feedback Loops - statistical significance of test data is

critical for learning and evolving• Online marketing evolves quickly and requires

constant improvements • A minimum of $5,000/month would be required to:

– Proper design and implement a first class landing page– Get statistically significant volumes for split testing– Adapt site according to test results*Refer to conversion-rate-experts.com for more info.

Group Marketing Can Leverage Partner Resources

• Group marketing can focus campaign manager and Partner efforts on strategic planning rather than working on many individual (and often, competing) campaigns

• Group marketing will produce higher traffic levels that will allow for more rapid and accurate testing of landing pages

• Group marketing will create a wealth of feedback about actual sales that result from specific campaign improvements

Page Search Landing Page - Cost Impact on Partners

• Proposed fees will be $800/partner per month – Partners may increase monthly spend levels at any time

• In some cases Partners may have monthly budgets that can shifted to cover some or all of this cost

• If goals are achieved, average cost per lead will be $250 by within 60 days (lead costs should decline dramatically as landing pages are tested and improved)

Pilot Proposal- attack on two fronts• Pilot One: SEO (individual effort)

– Assemble group of high performing US Dynamics CRM partners as focus for website and search optimization. Goal of increasing discoverability of US CRM partner websites

– SEO audit of participating partner websites

– Update partner websites with SEO tactics– Measure before/after search ranking and

website results with traffic and conversion numbers

– Partners will work with Microsoft approved SEO vendor

– Partner cost is $1500 (after MS co-funds 50%)

– Managed by Outrider, Microsoft and approved SEO vendor Axelerate

• Pilot Two: Paid Search Landing Page (collaborative effort)– Assembling a group of CRM Partners

who are willing to co-invest on a Microsoft Dynamics CRM pay per click campaign

– Interactive Limited will host the page and will use Bing and AdWords to drive traffic to an optimized landing page

– The landing page will be split tested and the campaign will be continuously improved using advanced landing page optimization tools

– Partner cost is $800/month– The project will be monitored by

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing managers – Managed by Interactive Limited

Pilot 1: What can I expect if I participate in SEO?

• Month one: SEO audits of participating partner websites by Microsoft approved SEO vendor; gather website performance metrics before updates

• Month two: SEO site updates made to partner websites

• Month 3-9: website performance and search engine result rankings tracking (post SEO work)

Pilot 1: Partner Gives/Gets - SEO• Gives

– Access to website analytics data pre-SEO audit

– Access to website manager/marketing manager to work with SEO agency as needed

– Commitment from partner to participate actively in SEO process

– Agreement to share metrics from website and rankings with Microsoft

– $1500 co-funded fee, payable to SEO vendor Axelerate

• Gets– Full website and search engine

audit report– 10 hours consulting time from SEO

agency to make website updates– 6 months tracking of website

progress after SEO fixes in place– Access to Microsoft approved SEO

vendor at reduced price (retail value $6000)

– Benefit from Solution Profiler updates made to www.microsoft.com/dynamics website partner listings

Pilot 2: What can I expect if I participate in the paid search landing page?

• Secure group of at least 5 partners• Work as a group to determine campaign direction and lead routing• Execution:

– Month 1 – all funding put toward development of two test landing pages and set up of a pay-per-click campaign

– Month 2 – all funding dedicated to PPC advertising costs – Ongoing:

• 80% PPC advertising costs• 20% program management fees from Interactive Limited

• Monthly – Regular rhythm where Partners can have impact on the campaigns, learn from the group marketing effort and have full access to the campaign managers

Pilot 2: Partner Gives and Gets- Paid Search

Gives• *Min $800/month to cover page

set up, clicks costs and campaign management fees

• Provide feedback about lead quality, sales pipeline and wins generated from the campaign

• Participate in monthly meetings to provide suggestions to improve campaign

Gets• Leads from a landing page that is tested and

optimized using industry best practices at an anticipated cost of around $250/lead

• The economies of scale needed to create and test landing pages that use feedback tools, split testing, lead capture forms, videos, white papers etc.

• Direct input into the landing page design, ad copy, and offers provided on group calls

• Complete transparency into how leads are generated and distributed

• Full access to analytics data• Access to best practices information and test

results that may help them improve other web marketing campaigns they are currently running

*Campaign will be managed at a cost of 20% of ad spend by Interactive Limited.

To Summarize• Partners may choose to participate in one or both pilots• Pilot 1: SEO

– Partners optimize their own web sites using Marketing Services Bureau vendor Axelerate (individual projects)

– 50% co-funded by Microsoft (will cost participating partners $1500)

• Pilot 2: Paid Search Landing Page– Collaborative effort where partners are working together for

mutual benefit– This may be more attractive to partners who have already done

work to optimize their web sites– $800/month to participate

Next Steps

• If you have individual questions or would like a follow up call, please email us directly (cc your PAM):– Pilot 1: SEO, Jennifer Tomlinson jesidd@microsoft.com – Pilot 2: Paid Search Landing Page, David Foreman

dave@interactivelimited.com• Please let your PAM know whether you are

interested in one or both pilots by Wednesday, October 14th so we can get started!

Questions?

Appendix

Long Term Vision For Group Online Marketing

• Pool financial resources of Partners to develop centralized high volume Internet campaigns using best practices and feedback loops

• Enable Partners to focus marketing on competing brands rather than lead cannibalization

• Secure long term co-funding from Corporate so campaign can use more sophisticated tools to improve feedback and results

Online Marketing Examples & Other Work By Interactive Limited

Visit ERPSoftwareBlog.com to see a group blog created by Interactive Limited and Anya Ciecierski for Dynamics GP Gold Partners. Launched in June of 2009 with 12 Partner/members, the site now has 24 members who contribute posts. The site already ranks #8 on Google natural search results for “ERP Software” and is on track to have 3000 visitors for the month of August 2009.

Interactive Limited has worked with over 35 Microsoft Dynamics Partners over the past 10 months. Projects have included complete site designs, optimization and campaign development. References available upon request.

For a sample CRM landing page created by Interactive Limited with annotations:http://crm.interactivelimited.com/SampleLandingPageMSCRM.jpg

For examples of the basic process of Internet marketing optimization refer to this slide show from one of the top experts in the field:

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/images/multifiles/articulate/webclinic-04-22-09/player.html

For an overview of landing page optimization tools from another top expert:http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/articles/101-google-website-optimizer-tips/

Presented by:David S. Foreman dave@interactivelimted.com888-800-0999