Jamie O’Donnell of SEO-PR interviews Matt Malden, CEO of Yield Software and an exhibitor at last month’s SES San Francisco 2010.  Here’s a synopsys of Jamie’s reporting:

Yield Software’s Yield Web Marketing Suite handles three aspects of automated web marketing. It has a pay-per-click (PPC) bid management module that includes spending on the three major search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo.  Second, the Yield Web Marketing Suite offers automated SEO or natural search engine optimization. Using the Yield Web Marketing Suite, Web marketers can get higher organic search rankings for their important keywords and learn how to improve their landing pages, link building, on-page and off-page optimization. Finally, the Yield Web Marketing Suite offers Web marketers a landing page optimization module. Using Yield, marketers can conduct complex multivariate testing of landing pages, using a visual drag and drop interface to automatically implement recommendations.

Yield Software is great for advertisers who want to be more effective in the search space, particularly medium and large-sized companies. Yield Software has also been adopted by digital and interactive media agencies that are conducting bid management, natural search optimization and email campaigns in order to help them generate better search marketing results.

Yield Software empowers any organization in the world to attract high-value customers at the lowest cost. Using advanced algorithms and techniques, the Yield Web Marketing Suite optimizes internet marketing expenditures, attracts visitors to a web site and tunes web page content to have the greatest impact.

For more information about exhibiting at SES, please visit: http://searchenginestrategies.com

Now Available: Export via PDF and Excel

Thanks to an awesome and constantly responsive engineering team, we’ve added a feature our customers have been asking for a lot lately: report exports via PDF and Excel.  Now, when you’re in “Reports” view, you have three options for taking your performance data with you: Print, PDF and Excel. For me, the new Excel export feature is the best because (obviously) you now have the flexibility to work with your data and present it in whatever ways you might require.  As always, if you have any questions or issues, don’t hesitate to contact support.

New Natural Search Optimization Products Debut

How do we start a new year at Yield Software? While marketers and advertisers were wrapping up 2009 focused on a critical holiday shopping season, things were very different at Yield Software. We were working diligently to finish development on two exciting new product offerings that we are proud to launch today.

The first is the Yield SEO Analyzer. This is a FREE product that enables you to quickly and easily tune your pages for attracting more natural search traffic. Every website owner wants to acquire more traffic and what could be better than more, free traffic! The Yield SEO Analyzer tests your page against a library of best practices and tells you in a very easy-to-understand way what you can do to rank higher in the organic section of the search engine results pages. This is a great first step to show you the power and benefits of spending your energy on search engine optimization (SEO).

The second product is the Yield Natural Search Optimizer. For marketers who want to further increase the amount of natural search traffic they drive to their website, the Yield Natural Search Optimizer is the ideal solution. It includes all the functionality of the Yield SEO Analyzer, plus it includes additional SEO best practices testing, inbound link tracking, natural search rank trending and a comprehensive array of natural search analytics. All these capabilities make the Yield Natural Search Optimizer the ideal product to continually monitor, tune and improve your natural search rank to increase the traffic to your website.

So, if you are new to search engine optimization or want to see how well your pages are optimized, the Yield SEO Analyzer is a great place to start. On the other hand, if you already understand the tremendous benefits of search engine optimization, check out the Yield Natural Search Optimizer. And, if you are interested in a complete web marketing suite to optimize your sites natural search, paid search and landing pages, you will find that the Yield Web Marketing Suite is the perfect solution to meet your needs.

Building successful companies isn’t just about building great products, though that’s critically important.   There are many ingredients that enable companies to reach their full potential.  And, most of the ingredients start out with finding great people.  When my co-founder and I started Yield Software, we tasked ourselves with finding the most talented professionals in the software and marketing arenas.  We took the philosophy that quality will always win out over quantity.  Over the last three years, we’ve assembled a remarkable team that I’m extremely proud of.

It is also vitally important that a company identify and work with key individuals in their industry to accelerate the success of the company, especially in competitive segments.  These individuals, while not employees of the company, can provide the guidance, counsel and connections to enable your company to grow rapidly while avoiding the many pitfalls responsible for the demise of many start-up ventures.

So it is with this in mind that I announce the establishment of the Yield Software Board of Advisors, which includes three amazing industry veterans.  First, I want to welcome David Moore, the Founder and Chairman of 24/7 Real Media.  He is not only a true visionary in the space, he is the Vice Chair of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and he has a true passion for helping start-ups and entrepreneurs realize their potential.  Next, we also welcome Adam Gerber.  Adam is the Chief Marketing Officer at Quantcast.  I met Adam at AdRevenue08 in San Francisco and immediately gravitated to him based on his sheer intellect and analytical nature.  He is an industry veteran in the agency space, having worked at both at WPP (which is an investor here at Yield Software) and Publicis.  Last, but not least, we welcome Kris Duggan to our Advisory Board.   Kris is currently the VP of Sales for Socialtext, and previously led the enterprise sales team at WebEx.  He is an expert in SaaS business models and sales motions, and we’ll benefit from his counsel.

We are excited to be working with David, Adam and Kris.  They will be instrumental in the continual evolution and improvement of the Yield Web Marketing Suite as well as helping us get the word out to all companies, small and large, who want to leverage internet marketing to achieve their key business objectives.

L-R: Rob Grady, Brian Goler, Todd Irwin, Michael Litchfield, and Derek Gordon

Five Tips for Product Marketing in the Digital Age

This week, I was happy to participate in a panel at the just concluded Ad:Tech San Francisco 2009 conference at Moscone West. The panel, “Crossing the Chasm 2.0: Product Marketing in the Digital Age“, was part of the Entrepreneur’s Track, which is new to Ad:Tech and was really popular. Our panel focused on the lessons from the classic book “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore, which was published in 1991 before the Internet technology boom began in earnest.  The essential question we were tasked with addressing was: do the rules of  “Chasm” still apply and, if so, which of the rules may have changed given contemporary contexts.

My fellow panelists are accomplished, smart and super nice. Our moderator was Todd Irwin of A&R | Edelman, and I was joined by Rob Grady, VP of Marketing at WetPaint, Brian Goler, VP of Product & Marketing at oDesk, and Michael Litchfield of Doremus on the panel. Our audience was filled with entrepreneurs in various stages of starting and growing all sorts of new businesses, including B2B and B2C businesses. Though “Chasm” focused primarily on technology companies and argued that companies must cross the chasm to popular adoption in order to achieve real success, we chose to widen the definitions to include B2C / non-technology companies, as well.

We talked about whether or not the rules of “Chasm” still apply (they do) and what might have changed given contemporary contexts. We all agreed that time frames associated with the bell curve have likely compressed a great deal, and that the business climate for start-ups is much more brutally Darwinian today than perhaps it was back in ‘91.  We also questioned (but didn’t achieve much agreement around) whether the chasm had moved higher up on the bell curve or not.

The more practical advice that emerged from the panel for entrepreneurs and small business owners:

First: focus with laser-like intensity on a core, key market. In particular, be very clear who it is you’re building your product or service for; what very specific problem you’re addressing for that person; and where that person lives / works / plays / travels to.

Second: remember that the world’s base of consumers has grown remarkably in recent years. Your core, key market — that very specific person you seek to serve — is as likely to live in a Western market as they are in an emerging market (think the “BRIC” nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China.)

Third: build to add value and build to be able to scale. It seems obvious, but it should be said anyway: people will only buy something that truly has value for them. Return to the old lesson of the four “P’s” — Product, Price, Placement, Promotion — and be very sure each directly addresses your core, key market. Also, be sure that as people begin to use your product or service, your infrastructure is able to scale with demand.

Fourth: make buying your product or service as easy as possible. Too often, entrepreneurs build a terrific product only to make it difficult to find, tough to understand, or impossible to purchase in an efficient way. The digital age has produced fast-moving and impatient people. Roadblocks cause folks to abandon a purchase without a second thought. So: never build roadblocks!

Fifth: be very efficient in your marketing and communications. The cost of starting and growing a business has never been lower, including marketing. By leveraging online communities (such as Facebook, LinkedIn and WetPaint); cloud-based services (like Yield Software’s Web Marketing Suite); targeted marketing channels (such as search marketing); earned media (such as feature articles by mainstream media or bloggers); and the variety of direct social media (such as your own blogs, Twitter streams, YouTube channels and the like), you can achieve real market share and growth.

Thanks to the digital age, entrepreneurs can get a lot done with relatively little investment. And the ability to get right up to the edge of that chasm–and to eventually cross it–has never been easier or more efficient. By using the huge variety of low-cost or free tools and services now available to you, there’s every opportunity to start a business, grow it and to cross that chasm into a world of success.

Building a sustainable program of communications with your customers and your prospects is an important strategy for continually driving traffic, leads and / or sales. But I often hear from small business owners they just don’t have the time to do the necessary legwork to foster a multidimensional program.

The good news is technology and web-based services are changing so rapidly, there are lots of great ways to create multiple outbound communications that get the results you’re looking for without a huge investment of time or money.

What follows are ten tips, tricks and strategies for effectively communicating with your prospects and customers.

#1: Produce Once, Reuse Many. Many small business owners fall into the trap of believing every form of outbound communication must be wholly unique. While it may be important to adapt headlines and content length depending upon the medium, it is perfectly acceptable to, say, take a blog post you’ve recently written and use it in an upcoming email newsletter you’re preparing. While there will be some audience overlap, most people are forgiving on this front and you shouldn’t encounter much in the way of objection for re-purposing content across multiple communications channels.

#2: Start an Email Newsletter. Using low cost or free newsletter services such as Constant Contact is a great way for you to stay in touch with both prospects and existing customers (I use Constant Contact for the Yield Newsletter). Be sure to give visitors to your site a visible and easy way to sign up for your newsletter – newsletters are most successful when folks voluntarily opt-in to receive them (for instance, if you look on Yield Software’s Community Pages, you’ll see sign-up boxes on the top and bottom of the page). Sending newsletters to folks who don’t ask for them not only irritates them, it could be breaking the Federal Can-Spam Act. Take a look at newsletters others put out so you can get a sense of what works and what doesn’t from your own point of view. Using Constant Contact, you can set up a simple and attractive template for your newsletter. Try sending a newsletter out every two weeks or so. They don’t require a lot of writing, and you can certainly re-purpose content from your blog, or point to other sources of content you find interesting or useful. And, of course, you should also highlight any special promotions or special offers you have — and link to those pages. (Small pitch: be sure to use the Yield Web Marketing Suite to optimize all your landing pages to ensure you’re getting the best possible conversion-to-sale you can.)

#3: Sign Up for HARO – Help a Reporter Out. This terrific service, founded and run by the highly energetic Peter Shankman, helps to connect reporters and writers working on stories with sources or subject matter experts. Typically, Peter distributes two-to-four emails per day showing the most recent reporter entreaties. Peter also hosts periodic conference calls where he goes over best practices for responding to reporter queries and how best to incorporate PR strategies for your own business. It can be hard to get, but landing a mention – or better yet, a full feature – about your business in a story can drive great awareness about you and traffic to your website.

#4: Set Up a Blog. I’ve encouraged you to do this in other posts and so I’ll say it again: start and maintain a blog. Ideally your blog will be integrated into your main website and URL structure (and not hosted on separate blog hosting platform with a unique URL.) There are enormous SEO benefits to maintaining a blog and it’s a great way to continually reconnect with your customers. Blog posts don’t have to be long and involved – a paragraph each day or two with updates, or links to relevant news or information, or highlighting one of your customers or employees is all it takes. Throw in a few photos from your company’s Flickr stream and before you know it, you’ll be a bona fide blogger!

#5: Set up Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. If you haven’t already, bite the bullet and do this. I guarantee you that your competition either is or very soon will be using these platforms for their business communications. (Take a look at ours as an example – the links are in the right-hand column of our Community Pages.) Some people choose to keep their professional and personal lives separate for each of these services, which is totally fine. Doing this adds a level of management complexity, which is why I don’t distinguish between the two, but I understand why people prefer to keep things separate. Each of these platforms provides excellent networking opportunities for individuals and businesses, and standing on the sidelines looking in just isn’t an option any longer.

#6: Connect Twitter with Social Network Updates. Be sure your Twitter account is linked with the social networking platforms on which you’ve established a presence (i.e. Facebook). A great way to do this is using FriendFeed, which asks you to put in user information for each service. Then, when you post updates to your Twitter stream those same updates will then automatically appear in your Facebook and other update streams. This way, no matter how your customers, friends and family may follow you, they’re getting the same update. And because Twitter enables you to post your updates via your mobile phone, you can be highly efficient with this activity. (Just remember: this is a form of mass communication. Once you’ve hit the “enter” button, you can’t take what you say back!)

#7: Install a Twitter Monitoring Application. While Twitter on its on own is a terrific service, a number of other companies have sprouted up to make using and getting the most out of Twitter a breeze. The two leading desktop apps, TweetDeck and Twhirl, do this using a dashboard feature that enables you to not only do your updates but also to keep track of all those you follow; save searches for your own or your competitor’s business; and monitor tweets pertaining to a specific set of keywords (for instance, if you’re baker, you may want to follow all tweets using the word “bakery”.) I personally use TweetDeck but Twhirl is also hugely popular, too. Both are free and both get better and better each passing month. HootSuite is a Web application that enables you to manage multiple Twitter accounts (for instance, if you keep your personal Twitter account separate from your business and other accounts). HootSuite also allows you to schedule tweets for later broadcast and a bunch of other cool things. If you have an iPhone, check out a cool little app called Tweetie; like HootSuite, it allows you monitor and update multiple accounts via a single interface on your iPhone. Check out each of these and pick the one that feels right for you.

#8. Sign-up for a Press Release Distribution Service. Though most small and growing businesses very rarely issue press releases, when this makes sense for you, a distribution service like BusinessWire or PRWeb is a great way to distribute your release. While not free, the most basic service for each is pretty low cost for local distribution (i.e. San Francisco Bay Area) and hits the major online news sites – which, frankly, is almost all most small businesses really need to do. Distributing the occasional release (which should have real news in them) can be great for SEO and building link-love to your company’s website. Additionally, well-written, relevant and timely releases can capture the attention of reporters and bloggers. Releases can also generate new traffic to your site, so be sure the release includes links to relevant pages on your website that pertain to the news you’re announcing. Ideally there will be a special promotional offer for these visitors.

#9. Use Screencasting. Screencasts are digital recordings of a computer screen. They enable you to capture the interactions you undertake on a website or a Web application as a way of providing a demonstration. Screencasts can also be promotional in nature, highlighting the best places on your website that folks should be sure to check out during their next visit. Most screencasting software not only captures your interactions as they unfold, but also capture your narration – the audio – as you take folks through your online tour. One of my favorite blogs, Mashable, did a great job of listing the leading screencasting tools, most of which are very, very affordable.  Because I use a Mac, I use IShowU, which is a great piece of software for Mac users. Creating screencasts can be fast and easy, and you can create new ones whenever you’d like. Then, feature these on your website, via your blog posts and in your newsletter. You can also send out tweets via Twitter when a new screencast becomes available.

#10: Set Up a YouTube Channel. Anyone can make videos. Even you. Small business owners, in fact, often do so with the help of their kids or close friends. Tape an interview with one of your customers, for instance; or a trip to source new products to sell on your site; or the manufacturing process for your cool, totally unique little doodad. If you’ve created screencasts, you can feature them on your YouTube channel, too. You can then feature the videos in your channel, as well as those from others, on your blog and throughout your website. With quality video recording equipment getting less and less expensive by the day, and with the availability of high-quality, low cost editing software, video production is now a DIY (do it yourself) endeavor. (Buy a Macintosh computer, for instance, and it comes bundled with iMovie, which is a nearly professional, yet easy-to-use video editing software included in the price of the purchase.)

Your time is precious and limited – I understand that. But by choosing the right collection of outbound communications tools for you, it’s very likely you’ll be able to efficiently and effectively stay in touch with customers and prospects. Try starting small and adding new elements to your strategy over time – I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

For more blog posts in our small business marketing strategies series, go here.

We officially launched our product at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco at Moscone West. While we were excited, we hardly knew what to expect. We exhibited in the Long Tail Pavilion which is where the new, upcoming companies are typically congregated.

When the show opened, we experienced some nerve-racking minutes where no attendees were in sight–not at our booth nor any of the long tail booths. Wait, wait, wait. How long would it take to get past the lead sponsor booths who had secured the best real estate?

Finally, they start to trickle in. Demo after demo after demo. It was great. Derek and I were working the booth together and were talking non-stop until the exhibit floor closed. No lunches, no breaks. I was blown away by the level of interest in our product and the validation we got from the people who do web marketing on a daily basis. Not the press, not the analysts, but the users.

The most validating themes were around how great the product looked (especially from UI designers), how it looked easy-to-use, and how affordable it is. We also got visits from some of our beta customers, some really cool bloggers, a woman who sells cow bells online and members of the twitterati.

The second day didn’t let up. The good news is that one of our senior engineers came by the show to see the booth and meet some attendees. He started talking to the attendees and was so engaged, he ended up staying all day. The crazy part is that he was really good at demoing the software and answering questions. Although, I’m not letting him quit his day job! Its great when engineers like interacting with customers. Makes for a better product.

I got a chance to walk around the rest of Web 2.0. The main themes were focused on Twitter and mobile. However, the two companies that I thought were worth checking at were image search by Gazopa and multi-party video chat by ooVoo.

So, now we are officially open for business. Life is never going to be the same!

MarketingProfs is always a great resource for information, education and networking.  I also subscribe to their email newsletters, which are uniformly terrific.  In this morning’s email marketing newsletter, they point to a blog post in CopyBlogger by Brian Clark called “Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques” that I thought would be helpful to Web marketers everywhere.

He points out that all marketers — from novices to pros — are interested in attracting the attention of their target audiences, drawing them in and convincing them to buy a product or service.  There are a number of ways to do this, of course, including strong graphics, use of video and the like, but compelling copy is almost always at the core of any good marketing strategy.  Check out Brian’s blog post for his detailed advice, but here are his high-level tips for writing effective copy:

Repetition

Reasons Why

Consistency

Social Proof

Comparisons

Agitate and Solve

Prognosticate

Go Tribal

Address Objections

Story Telling

I’ve been a marketer for more than 20 years and have used all of these techniques, so I know them to be effective.  Use one or more of these when writing copy for your newsletter, PPC ads, landing pages or other marketing devices and you’ll see better success.

Tacos are good PR

What an interesting night we had at the Mighty Nightclub last night. It all started several weeks ago when Derek approached me to sponsor a taco truck. I was skeptical. How were tacos going to help us connect with the tens of thousands of web marketers who would like to try out the Yield Web Marketing Suite?

Then, he introduced me to Myles Weissleder. Myles is awesome. He’s a one man show and the best way to describe him is that he’s everyone’s best friend. He runs this event called SFNewTech where he gets some of the best, brightest and most connected crowd in the valley to network, socialize and watch product demos of hot, new companies.

Photo by Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com

So, this time it was held at the Mighty Nightclub. We sponsored the taco truck, and we demoed first. 5 minute demo, 5 minute Q&A, NO SLIDES. Live demo… love the pressure. They even had a film crew there, so we’ll see if it makes it to the Web in some form. People were engaged, people were tweeting. Now I know why tacos = PR! I was also thrilled to see that innovation and entrepreneurship is alive and well. Really liked Gregarious Narain’s demo of Lil’Grams and Ryan Waggoner of MightyBrand.

To everyone I met last night, it was fun. Thanks for keeping me so entertained!

From ‘Private Beta’ to Available Now!

As of this moment, we’ve officially launched the new Yield Web Marketing Suite, a simplified way to drive new traffic and customer conversions at a low overall cost.  As part of our launch week activities, we’ll be demonstrating our browser-based system at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, which opens tonight and continues through April 3, 2009 at the Moscone West Convention Center.  And we’ve got to admit it: we’re all pretty darn proud of what we’ve accomplished and are really looking forward to showing it off!

The Yield Web Marketing Suite, which up until now was in private beta, is built with small and mid-size businesses in mind.  Primarily, our team has responded to the long-standing desire to make search marketing more simple and intuitive. By combining and automating the three key elements of search marketing – paid search, natural search and landing page optimization – within a single, completely automated system, the Yield Web Marketing Suite helps folks like you work smarter.  And because the system seamlessly integrates with the three major search engines – Google, Yahoo! Search and Microsoft’s Live Search – we think a lot of people who’ve been sitting on the sidelines will now become more engaged.

And let’s face it: search marketing is the most effective way to attract new traffic and revenue, especially in such a tough economy when marketing budgets are lean. Moreover, the team here at Yield Software has spent more than two years building a system that works day and night to help our customers optimize all their search marketing programs so they don’t have to—making the whole process much more efficient.

Here’s how:

First: we help your company rank as high in natural (and therefore free) search results as possible.

Second: we work to get your paid ads placed in the right position on search engine results pages at the right price.

Third: we make sure clicks on each of those links lead to landing pages that are optimized to convert prospects to paying customers.

Each of these activities, by themselves, can be complex and time consuming, and often require constant supervision in order to achieve success.  Up until now businesses have been forced to piece together a range of tools and third-party experts to address the totality of their Web marketing needs, none of which interoperate or play well together.  To address this we’ve built our system to automate, simplify and optimize each of these three Web marketing components within a single interface:

Paid Search

Enables pay-per-click (PPC) campaign set-up for one, two or all three of the major search engines, including geo-targeting.

Determines, establishes and constantly optimizes keyword bids to meet targeted outcomes within budget constraints.

Optimizes bids and budget allocation based on traffic, conversion or conversion value.

Natural Search

Continually analyzes Web pages for conformance to search engine optimization (SEO) best practices.

Provides an easy-to-understand description of each best practice.

Provides clear instructions for addressing and resolving any areas of improvement.

Landing Pages

Enables the creation of multivariate landing page experiments using a simple visual interface to create different versions of a page.

Provides easy step-by-step instruction for implementing experiments.

Automatically displays the most successful versions of a landing page more frequently, optimizing conversion rates over time.

Dan Kaplan, one of our private beta users, recently blogged about his experience at PeriscopeUp, and he had this to say (which we loved):

“I’ve been involved as a beta user of Yield Software and these guys have done a great job of making a hard problem seem easy.  They make it easy to use and get started, even for people who have little experience in search engine marketing, and it gives me the flexibility, as a professional, to apply my knowledge on top of their optimization algorithms. It also saves me a ton of time.”

Yield Software is offering all new subscribers to our Yield Web Marketing Suite a free 30-day trial.  Because the system is a Web application, no downloads or systems integration work is required, and there are no contracts so subscribers are able to cancel their subscriptions at any time.  Following the 30-day trial period, promotional pricing starts at $129 per month.  For more information or to subscribe to the free 30-day trial, go here.

Let me close by saying thank you to our amazing group of engineers, led by the fearless Matthew Baird, and product folks (with new mom-times-two Jenae Wiegert leading the charge) for getting us to this point.  I’m biased, but I think we have the best team anyone could hope for and I’ve witnessed first-hand the blood, sweat and tears they’ve put into making our new Web Marketing Suite the best there is.  And I really mean it when I say we’re lucky for the leaders we have: Matt Malden, our CEO and co-founder and John Coker, our CTO and co-founder are the best and brightest around.  These guys have not slept much in two years and the strength of our new offering shows it.  It’s a privilege to work with everyone here at Yield Software.

Still nothing (and no one) is perfect.  We’d love to hear from you about what you love (of course) and also what you think we can do better.  With your continuous input and guidance, we know we can get as close to perfection as possible.  You can send us an email at support@yieldsoftware.com or a tweet on Twitter–we’ll definitely be paying attention!