WordScience

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Ever play around with Google Alerts? As a marketer, you should. They can work for you in many ways, and like so many great online marketing tools, they don’t cost a thing.

First, go to http://www.google.com/alerts to set up your account. You can set up one or multiple alerts, and  specify things like send alert “as it happens” or batch them up daily or weekly. You can even choose the type of content you want Google to look for, whether blogs, news articles, videos or something else. You can ask for only the best results, or all results that match your keywords. So once you figure all that out, you’ll be ready to fire up some Google Alerts to support your content and relationship marketing strategies.

12 Ideas to Get You Started

Here are a dozen ways you can make Google Alerts add value to your marketing efforts:

1. Track your keywords – You do know what yours are, right? (If not, I can help you.) Find out how they are being used and by whom.
2. Track your company – ditto
3. Track your competition – ditto
4. Track a press release – Not hard to do. Plug in selected key words from the release and hopefully you’ll get results for your PR metrics.
5. Build your press list – Who’s writing about topics and companies that align with your keywords? Should you add these people to your press list? Click on the alert to find out more.
6. Find ideas for article topics – What’s getting picked up by Google on specific keywords? This will give you ideas for articles to write with your company’s own unique spin.
7. Automate PR tracking – This makes it so easy to track all kinds of PR presence. And it’s frigging free, did I mention that already? Take that, you large, useless PR monitoring firms.
8. Find opportunities to engage and expand your network – When you see an interesting alert, send an email like, “Saw you quoted in XSY article about such and such. We also believe that is an important topic for our industry because…” and invite them to visit your website, blog, whatever. Maybe add them to your press list, if they’re an influencer.
9. Look for lead opportunities – Similar to above. For example, if you provide eBilling services, you might set up an alert using the work, “eBill.” Reach out to companies that pop up in your alerts. Have a standard but customizable letter or email template that explains why you’re contacting them.
10. Discover trend leaders – Who is blogging and covering your niche? Who’s getting the coverage?
11. Find award programs for your niche – For example, plug in the keywords “software award.” Who’s winning? What did they do to win? Who gives out the awards? You’ll learn a lot.
12. Find content to share with others – Who doesn’t like receiving a great article about a subject that interests them? Share with your executives, your customers, your prospects, your colleagues.

Great Time to Be a Marketer

If you set up alerts using powerful, relevant keywords, you’ll get results that will benefit you in many ways. Now that I’ve alerted you to the possibilities, go on, set one up now. It will only take a few minutes, and you’ll gain tons of value for your marketing efforts. And did I mention, it’s free?! What a great time to be a marketer!

Too Much Too Soon?

Too much on your plate? You could assign someone on your staff to be the Google Alerts attendant. (You could just as easily have a Twitter concierge, or a Facebook assistant.) Just let someone “own” it and get involved. If you want any help getting through all this, if you need a Google Alert attendant, feel free to visit my WordScience website,

http://wordscience.vpweb.com. I’m sure we can add a few more ideas to the twelve we’ve shared here.