A case study on the use of a search engine optimised press release, a website landing page and a white paper to generate sales leads for a professional services company.

1. Slide 1
Case study:
Search engine optimisation
meets PR
How a professional services company
got their niche whitepaper into the
hands of 200 new contacts and their
friends in 6 weeks for $400.

2. Slide 2
Presenter
Michelle Archard
Senior Consultant, Online Marketing
CommOut

3. Slide 3
Background
• PharmOut employee finished
a project on client site
• We generated a white paper
to capture his knowledge
• Area is a target application for this
pharmaceutical consultancy
• Consultancy is less than 2 years old –
brand building is key
• Very niche area – ‘autoclave validation’

4. Slide 4
Campaign aims
• Get the white paper into as
many hands as possible.
Aim > 50 downloads
• Build the brand as a
‘trusted advisor’
• Improve Google rankings
for keywords around topic.
Aim: 2 terms in top 5.
• Gather contacts to add to in-house list
– Aim > 10 contacts

5. Slide 5
How it was done

6. Slide 6
Keywords
• Using online tools like wordtracker.com
and Google Adwords, identified 5 terms:
• autoclave validation
• loaded heat distribution for autoclave validation
• fda compliance gmp gcp glp
• vacuum assisted steam sterilization

7. Slide 7
Optimised press release
 primary
keywords
 secondary
keywords
written in
HTML, with
links back to
Landing page

8. Slide 8
Landing page

9. Slide 9
Download page

10. Slide 10
Releasing on the wire
• Australian Associated Press (AAP) –
Australian affiliate for PRnews wire
• New service -US PRNewsWire Web Only
distribution. < 500 words for A$400
• Goes to 3600 websites

11. Slide 11
Google Optimizer – which Landing page
gives the best results?
Tested:
Different headings
Picture/no picture
‘No registration
required’
8 combinations of
these 3 elements
Success = click
through to
download page

12. Slide 12
Google Optimizer – which Landing page
gives the best results?
10%
difference
between 2
options

13. Slide 13
Landing Pages – what works?
Best
75% click through
heading matched
press release
Picture of download
included
‘No registration
required’
Worst
65% click through
heading matched
press release
Picture of download
included
Not included: ‘No
registration required’
Makes a
significant
difference

14. Slide 14
Post-registration vs pre-registration
• 6% is the average completion rate for sign up forms in
B2B*
• Aim was to get white paper to as many people as
possible
• Decided to ask for personal details only if they wanted to
continue relationship
*Source: Marketingsherpa.com

15. Slide 15
Viral vs direct leads
• 24% of white paper recipients will pass it
onto their boss
• 77% will pass it onto their colleagues
• More important to get the viral benefit than
direct leads
• What’s more valuable? To get 50 leads or
to have 1,000 people see your info and
the interested ones will call sales on their
own?

16. Slide 16
Google alerts
Great for
tracking where
your release is
appearing.
Set one up for
a unique
phrase in your
press release
prior to
releasing it

17. Slide 17
Results

18. Slide 18
3 hours later…
• Picked up by 20 news sites

19. Slide 19
Immediate Results
• Within 75 mins I had 3 contacts to add to
the inhouse list
– Boston Scientific (huge medical device
company)
– Medimmune (2,500 employee Pharmaceutical
company, recently purchased by AstraZeneca
and partner with CSL)
– Ligocyte – Drug development company

20. Slide 20
Results
• Keywords:
• autoclave validation
• loaded heat distribution for autoclave validation
• fda compliance gmp gcp glp
• vacuum assisted steam sterilization
• autoclave steam sterilization
• Went from 0 rankings for all terms to 2 top
5 rankings (Google & Yahoo) in 2 days

21. Slide 21
Web stats - downloads
The stats
package on
your web
server will give
you this
information.
Better to use
Google
analytics

22. Slide 22
2 days later
• 89 hits to Landing page
• 77 clicked through to download page
• 42 downloads
• 8 registrations (10% of visitors)
• Plus
– 9 downloaded another white paper

23. Slide 23
After one week
• 127 hits to Landing page
• 116 clicked through to the download page
• 58 downloads
• 10 registrations (17%)
• Plus
– 13 downloaded another white paper
– 3 top 5 rankings on search engines (1 term on
3 engines)

24. Slide 24
After six weeks
• 392 hits to Landing page
• 264 clicked through to the download page
• 200 downloads (4 x our goal)
• 32 registrations (16%) – nearly 3x B2B
average sign up rate
• Plus
– 105 downloaded another white paper
– 8 top 5 rankings on search engines

25. Slide 25
Industry comment
A ‘friendly’ at a major pharma
manufacturer (not a current customer):
“I downloaded a white paper from your
website the other day. The link came up
on Google alert. It was very good. You
guys must be doing well.”

26. Slide 26
Return on Investment

27. Slide 27
ROI
External Costs:
$70 white paper proofreading
$400 PR Newswire
Possible outsourcing:
$1000 to edit and layout white paper
$500 Landing page & download page
$500 keyword determination and press release.
Cost: $2.5k
Return: $32k (Typical autoclave validation
project) + brand & relationship
building

28. Slide 28
ROI
• Only fixed cost is $400
• How else could you get your white paper into the
hands of 200 new prospects for $400 in 6
weeks?
– Trade mag ad? No
– Trade show booth? No
– Distribution by sales people? No
– Website? Maybe, if you have lots of everyday traffic
– Webinar? Typical B2B attendance for a niche topic is
<50
– PR? Maybe, if you get lucky with timing
– Mailing to purchased list? - ouch

29. Slide 29
Comments
• Great for multinational lead generation
• Experiment with the pre-registration or post-
registration for a download
• Research best practice Landing page design
(marketingsherpa.com)
• Offer something of value – checklist, white
paper, webinar
• If a form is there, people assume they have to fill
it out. Consider not having one.
• Build trust by offering something of value without
requiring something in return

30. Slide 30
Websites
• www.pharmout.com.au/autoclave/
• www.wordtracker.com
• http://www.aapmedianet.com.au/
• http://www.google.com/analytics/
• http://www.google.com/alerts
• www.marketingsherpa.com
• www.google.com/adwords (analyzer is part of
adwords)
• www.scribendi.com
• and … www.commout.com.au