Weekly Marketing News Recap: SEO is under fire, but inbound marketing can build lifelong relationships with clients

• The Verge calls out internet marketing.
• The Atlantic loses interest in SEO.
• Bing relaunches with new social search bar.
• Optimize content to target lifetime customers.
• Google continues to test sources results.

“Internet Marketing” Isn’t A Scam; Fix It, Please, The Verge

Key Findings:

• The Verge referred to tactics such as search engine optimization, email marketing, paid search, display advertising and social media marketing as spam.
• The article also went on to criticize internet marketing for operating in the public sphere with poorly designed websites, tacky infomercials and outrageous claims designed to target the desperate and naive.
• Several leading experts are requesting The Verge retract its article and apologize to the community.

Why ‘The Atlantic’ No Longer Cares About SEO

The Atlantic’s web audience has skyrocketed from approximately 500,000 to 13.4 million monthly visitors since it went to a free service in early 2008. While many may believe the Atlantic’s success came from clever SEO results, the publication believes their traffic increases were more the result of social sharing than anything else.

Key Findings:

• The Atlantic assigned a number of well-known writers, like James Fallows and Andrew Sullivan, to write original content for the publication’s main website.
• The Atlantic also launched two new properities – TheAtlanticWire.com and TheAtlanticCities.com.
• The online news portal is also adapting its editorial strategy to align with social sharing over SEO as a source of traffic.

Bing Relaunches, Features New Social Sidebar

Bring recently announced its plan to relaunch its search engine. The latest edition will have a much bigger emphasis on bringing social to life in search. While the website already included social cues on its organic page results, the new interface has completely revolutionized the way engines look and work today. In line with previous Bing updates, the content aggregator looks to be making a big push in the market to garner more traffic.

Key Findings:

• The new features will appear for Bing users in the United States in the coming days, but it will take several weeks before it goes live for every user.
• The interface upgrade will divide the web browser into three unique sections, making it easier for people to find information that pertains to them.
• Core Search will lose many of its social annotations that it had in the past.
• Snapshot will provide supplementary information to organic search results such as maps, restaurant reservation options, reviews and business contact information.
• Social Sidebar is a new addition and will serve as the new home social integration. Users will be able to see how their friends interacted with content by looking at the sidebar.

Optimizing to Lifetime Value of Customers to Maximize SEM Performance

The goal of many organizations is to increase lead generation, lead scoring and implement unique time marketing campaigns. However, in some cases, targeting a wide array of potential clients may not be worthwhile. Optimizing content toward lowering the cost per acquisition may be a savvier way to operate in today’s sphere, while concurrently driving up the ROI. Many marketers are learning how to score the leads they get and convert them into loyal, lifelong clients.

Key Findings:

• Spend Time with the CRM department to make sure all of the client segments are understood. This step may help marketers create compelling strategies geared toward the right professionals.
• Create unique client files to measure attributes that identify the customer segment. This file size can include customer ID number, existing versus new customer field, products ordered, geography or customer segment type.
• Identify the keywords that have the potential to drive the best customers and maximize campaigns.
• If the top customer segment spent four times of the average customer annually, and a brand paid three times the average CPA to acquire the client, the ROI would increase 25 percent the first year.