Following the SEMDays conference which was held in Bucharest between 24th -25th of September, we sat down with Gianpaolo Lorusso to discuss the importance of testing everything when developing a web marketing strategy.
Beaglecat: In what ways is a web marketing strategy different in Europe from one in the US?
Gianpaolo Lorusso: First of all I do not think there is a “European market” in the same sense you can consider the US one, because EU scenario is much more fragmented, both for different consumer behaviors across Europe and for the level of maturity of advertisers.
There are countries in which is still convenient to advertise for a product/service in searches and countries in which search CPCs would be prohibitive (for the same identical queries).
The situation is much more complex, but we have a little advantage upon US. Being a secondary market we can look at USA as a test field to see which trends are likely to develop in our countries too before they actually do. That is why we have to look very carefully to what is happening there.
BC: You’ve hosted ADworld Experience, if you could name three new things that you’ve learned during this event, what would they be?
G.L.: When you grow in expertise you start to retrieve less and less technical news from events, even in case of really vertical ones (as ADWEXP is). But you still can have a lot of suggestions and new ideas for your own campaigns when you see how other professionals faced and solved the same problems you have.
More than pointing at some specific things learned, I can say that every single time I organize it (the next will be the 5th one) I grab some new ideas I will start to use afterwards in my campaigns.
Another really useful thing events like this one can give is the opportunity to understand who you can really trust. The biggest problem on line is not to discover new things, but to know if you can really rely on them.
Knowing professionals personally and listening to their direct experiences is the best way to discover if they really know what they are doing. That is why good live events will probably never die, even in the web marketing industry.
BC: What are three key secrets of a successful email marketing strategy?
G.L.: A/B Testing (if you are not using the right subject no one will see your message).
Good copywriting (if you are not using the right words you will never have people doing what you want them to do).
A good mailer tool (if you do not know who is clicking on what in your messages, you will never optimize your campaigns in a professional way).
BC: From your experience, how big businesses handle the open rate obstacle, given that it’s very hard for them to feel personal and human?
G.L.: Testing is the only way to increase open rates. You will never know what will struck people’s mind before you try it in a subject line, or in an AdWords tag line. If you are not testing, you are not doing web marketing, …you are only guessing.
BC: If you were to imagine a pie chart, what would be the ratio between content creation, social media marketing and SEO?
G.L.: Dividing the three thing is useful for learning purposes and …to define our own job 😉 but there is not a “perfect mix” of these elements good for all businesses.
There are a lot of success cases based on the effective use of only one of these elements, but long term successful companies are those good at finding their own personal way to mix these aspects in a way that makes them attractive for their target users.
No fixed recipes. No secret ways to success. You can call it marketing.
Gianpaolo is Web Marketing Professional at Gianpaolo Lorusso. His personal motto is: success is not easy money, but being proud of what you do. His professional career have been shaped on this concept. He has been collaborating with several Italian and international medium to large companies as Web Marketing consultant for more than 10 years now. AdWords Qualified Partner since 2005, he is regularly speaking in several important web related events all over Europe. In 2012 he ideated and organized ADworld Experience, the biggest Italian event on AdWords & contextual advertising (and one of the largest in Europe).
Image Source: Pixabay
