Month: January 2014
Welcome to the Digital Age
How long has it been since you ordered a new print magazine subscription? Just a few years ago, I was always excited to receive my new National Geographic or Cosmopolitan magazine in the mail (weird combination, right?). Now, the only time I ever look at magazines is if I am waiting in line at the grocery store. Within the past few years, print advertisements seem to be fading away along with print publications. The only reason I still subscribe to the Sunday paper is because of the coupons. I can actually get the same coupons online, but it costs more to keep ink in my printer than it does to just buy the paper.
What about advertisers who depended on magazine and newspaper ads to sell their product? Most of them have restructured their marketing plan, allowing for more digital advertising. Within the past few years, digital ads seem to be taking the place of print ads. I work in a digital marketing department within a multibillion dollar corporation. I’ve seen this first hand as our advertising budget is shifting more towards the digital side. Even though there are more digital ads now, are those ads as effective as print ads? More effective? Does the consumer pay as much attention to digital advertisements? Maybe they pay more attention.
Using Survey Monkey, I created a brief survey in attempts to better understand the impact of digital advertising in today’s society. For my survey, I chose to explore the effectiveness of digital ads in relation to more traditional print advertising. After analyzing the survey results, I hope to better understand the following:
- How demographics (age, income, education) play a role, if any
- The credibility of digital ads, as perceived by the consumer
- How digital ads affect consumer buying habits, if any
- Digital browsing habits of consumers
- Digital advertising’s role in determining ROI
By being able to better understand where the target consumer spends their time online and they type of digital ads they trust, marketers will be able to more effectively allocate digital marketing funds in order to achieve conversions. From personal experience, I feel like I am more exposed to digital ads than print advertisements. I actually learned about UF’s Social Media Masters program from a LinkedIn ad. After seeing the first ad on LinkedIn, it also showed up on my Facebook page, leading me to click on the link and request more information. Would I have looked at the same ad in a magazine twice and took action on it? Maybe not.
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please take my survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GWGCVFK
I’m looking forward to analyzing the results. Thanks for visiting my blog!
Post-Assignment: Reaching Out to Teavana
Even after my assignment for Digital Research Methods was over, I am still thinking about Teavana’s SEO and SEM strategies. I love tea and SEO, so go figure. I want to know more about how Starbucks, Tazo, and Teavana plan to co-inhabit one space.
So, I just reached out to Teavana’s social media team on Facebook. We will see if they respond. I know that they will see the post at least twice- directly through Facebook and through their web monitoring software. It’s worth a shot. Just trying to find answers here!
Tea Time! Teavana’s Tailored SEO Tactics
So I have a bad addiction to tea. Not just any tea—Teavana’s loose leaf tea. Every afternoon, I drink a whole teapot full of liquid happiness. Could be worse, right? Apparently I’m not alone.
The first time I was dragged into a Teavana store by my boss (yes, we go shopping together), I thought she was crazy for spending so much money on tea. It’s the same tea that you buy in grocery stores right, you know, a box of 30 tea bags for $4.99? Wrong! And so the addiction began…
Teavana has a loyal customer base. Once you try the tea, you are sucked in for life. The problem is, getting people into the store to try the tea. Keeping this in mind, Teavana has developed a very intricate SEO strategy in hope of being noticed my consumers who are just browsing for tea related products. In a society where coffee is the dominant hot beverage, it is important for Teavana to create both brand and category awareness in order to increase the customer base, thus increasing product sales.
Based on my knowledge of Teavana, I chose to Google the following key words. Beside the keyword, I have noted the position in which Teavana’s website first appeared.
- Hot Tea (#4)
- Herbal Tea (#1- Sponsored Post)
- Teapot (#7)
- Oolong Tea (#1- Sponsored Post)
- Tea Sale (#1)
- Tea Store (#1- Sponsored Post)
- Tea Blend (#2)
- Tea (#2)
- Tea Strainer (#4)
- Loose Leaf Tea (#1, #2, #3, and Sponsored on Side Panel)
In the coding on Teavana’s website, the following keywords were mentioned: Teavana, buy tea online, oolong tea, black tea, white tea, herbal tea, rooibos tea, mate tea, tea products, tea accessories, tea bags, and loose leaf tea. The following sentence also appeared in the coding: “Buy fresh, high quality loose leaf teas online from Teavana. From Rooibos to Oolong and everything in between, Teavana has great tea gifts and products for enjoying afternoon tea.” The words in bold are words that I chose for my Google search.
Although I wasn’t surprised that Teavana would show up with these keywords, I was surprised at the amount of sponsored posts and the high organic SEO positions. It was also interesting that their main competitors, Tea Forte, Mighty Tea, and Bigelow Tea, were always mentioned after Teavana in all ten searches. Are they not utilizing SEO as well as Teavana? Has Teavana’s SEO always been so important to them? Has their acquisition by Starbucks had any effect on their SEO and PPC marketing strategies? I feel like I have more questions now than when I started. Perhaps, that’s one of the main points of research.
The Social Potter 