Confessions of an Internet Marketer

Social Media has become an invaluable marketing tool, enabling companies to leverage community activity and engaged audiences to drive sales. Blogs provide important back link development, networking, and promotional opportunities. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, RSS feeds and other community forums enable companies to grow their market reach and support brand development. These tremendous opportunities are not in question, nor should they be denied. Every day I read article after article, blog after blog, highlighting and exalting social media as a revolutionary medium of empowerment: a movement that has enabled customers to identify themselves and reach out to others based on similar interests and brand loyalties.

And this scares me.

Pinterest, a social media site that allows users to post photos of “Products They Love,” is now the third most popular social networking site in the US. A new 2012 Digital Marketer report from Experian praises Pinterest’s ability to foster “meaningful connections” between retailers and consumers. Experian sees Pinterest as a way for people to express and promote themselves through brand recognition and evangelical consumerism. And the report credits the site’s potential for retail marketing. “As communities become less about friends and more about common interests, retail brands in particular need to take note if they want to make more meaningful connections with their customers.”

What does it mean when meaningless brand identification surpasses even the most inhuman forms of social expression, networking, and community involvement?

I, personally, am afraid that as people become more and more physically disconnected and dissociated, they are turning to social media and brand identity to fill the void. As a society, we are feeling a great and depersonalized angst, a loss that we fill with consumerism. When we no longer feel self-empowered, or self-assured, we reassure ourselves and re-empower ourselves by Liking, Sharing, Pining, Posting, and everything else. Why else would somebody Like Wallmart on Facebook? Why would somebody Pin a Prada bag or Stoli Vodka on Pinterest?

An article from the New York Times, “Psychology of Sharing,” breaks down the social media community into six types of people, each with five motivations for sharing.

The Six Types of Social Media Members:

1. Altruist sharers are helpful, reliable, thoughtful, connected, and use email to share.
2. Careerists are intelligent business networkers and are more likely to share content on LinkedIn.
3. Hipsters are less likely than others to use email for sharing content, and these sharers are creative, young, and popular. They consume content that is on the cutting edge and they care about defining their identity through their shares.
4. Boomerangs share information to get a reaction and to feel validated. They are empowered by social media and tend to use both Twitter and Facebook.
5. Connectors are creative, relaxed, thoughtful, and use both email and Facebook to make plans and share information.
6. Selectives are resourceful, careful, and thoughtful. They share content that is informative and frequently use email to share content with individuals.

The Five Motivations of Sharing:

1. To bring valuable and entertaining content to one another. 94% of respondents carefully consider how the information they share will be useful to recipients.
2. To define themselves to others. 68% of respondents share to give people a better sense of who they are and what they care about.
3. To grow and nourish relationships. 78% of respondents share information online because it enables them to stay connected to people they might not otherwise stay in touch with.
4. For Self-Fulfillment. 69% of respondents share information because it allows them to feel more involved in the world.
5. To get the word out about causes they care about. 84% of respondents share because it is a way to support causes or issues that they care about.

I think we all act according to the six character types and share according to each of the five motivations. These are not defined and un-bending rules, but rather tendencies. When I consider my own social media activity, I know that I post useful and constructive blog articles to share relevant information, to grow my internet marketing business network, and to establish my brand as an effective internet marketer. I write articles on causes I believe in, and I Like others on Facebook. I share video highlights of great dunks by Gerald Green on the New Jersey Nets to develop my own “Brand” and connect with friends.

But there it is. Rather than actively supporting causes we believe in, we too frequently passively “support” them online. Rather than actively networking and developing real relationships, we passively post and repost. Rather than actively finding areas for our own self-fulfillment, we look for brands to do it for us.

Consumerism for the sake of consumerism seems to be at least part of the direction that social media is currently taking our society. Because we are more able to express our Likes and Interests unencumbered by the traditional limitations of actual social interaction, we meaninglessly hopelessly attempt to Click and Share ourselves out of the void.

And Yes, I realize the irony of posting this confession in the social media realm.

Successful PPC Demands Thoughtful Considerations of User Intent

What, exactly, are you selling? What is your company, or your client selling? Are they selling a product, a service, a brand, a comfort, a time-saver, a money-saver, an investment, a quality control, an improvement, a status, an idea? Your company (or your clients’ company) is probably selling all of these things, and then more.

When designing a successful PPC ad campaign, good internet marketers and SEO consultants will do their research. They will consider the search frequency of an ad campaign’s keywords, the costs per click, the conversion rates, the bounce rates, the quality scores, the demographics, and all of the other analytic information that helps create the most amount clicks at the lowest cost. And with all this technical data, they often still miss the biggest elephant in the room: user intent.

Let’s consider, for example, a solar panel development firm attempting to broaden their customer base through Pay Per Click online marketing. This company was dedicated to lowering the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere each year, and they operated according to their strong environmental ideals. They created a well-researched and aggressively funded ad campaign to attract like-minded clients to their website. Their ads were keyword heavy, informative, and very Green. They were also, unfortunately, reaching only a fraction of their potential audience.

The solar development firm was aware of the direct economic benefit that their solar facilities could provide companies that maintained a lot of land, warehouses with a lot of rooftop space, and municipalities with sufficient development territory. This economic advantage, however, was not specifically addressed in their paid search marketing campaign. This company relied on direct marketing opportunities to address the financial aspect of their industry, even while they were attracting potential clients through recruitment marketing.

Simply by including the financial reward of solar development in their paid search marketing campaigns, this company was able to improve the conversion rates of their PPC Ads, generate more traffic to their website, attract a more engaged and broader audience, and improve their brand recognition in a very important business demographic. New ads focused on companies with warehouses, municipalities with budget deficits, companies suffering large energy costs, as well as those interested in a greener environment were now generating targeted and user-qualified visits to their website. The moral of the story is that successful paid search marketing cannot be boiled down to pure analytical information. It needs to consider the personal, individual, human elements that address why we buy what we buy.

I recently read an interesting article on user intent that boiled down these considerations into a very approachable and very marketing-centric example: diapers. If you are a company that makes and sells diapers, would you advertise their strength, their comfort, their cost, or their environmental costs? The savvy paid search campaign would include advertisements for all of these aspects of the same product. It would consider even more user intent, however. The savvy paid search campaign would also address the ideas of a happier, healthier baby and a mom who sleeps better. It will consider all of the users’ possible intents and associate them with all of the potential benefits of the products sold.

Why Aren’t My PPC Ads Working?!

There are many companies out there that are only too eager to jump right into the search engine mega-market. They see their competitors generating quality leads, recruiting clients, and making sales online, and, of course, they want to generate the same or better results from their own websites. Unfortunately, many of these companies begin investing big money into unprofitable Pay Per Click Ad campaigns, or, worse yet, pay opportunistic internet marketing consulting firms to do exactly what they want. And then they lose a lot of money.

There are a whole variety of reasons why a well-funded and aggressive Pay Per Click Ad campaign can fail. Bad ad copy, bad geographic considerations, bad keyword selections, bad budgeting, bad platform selection … hopefully, you get the point.

But there are a few very important reasons why a good – even great – PPC Ad campaign can fail. These are five:

1. Poor Website Design
   If a company’s website is old, it probably looks old. If a web user visits a website that looks outdated, they are more often than not going to Bounce and visit the next page down the list. Updating the look and feel of a website does not always require a massive, expensive overhaul. Simple but significant improvements to the navigation bars, colors, images, alignments, fonts, etc. can go a long way toward modernizing your ancient site.
2. Poor Website Layout
   If a company’s website is old, it often also suffers from poor layout. This problem is also faced by many new websites, and it also relates to the site’s organic SEO, so layout is a big one.
   Basically, important information that is relevant to your keyword strategies should be highlighted in areas where they are most likely to be seen. “Above the fold” material is not a description particular to newspaper articles, but one that is relevant to the content of your website as well. The layout of a company’s web page will determine what content is the most visible, and this content should be the most valuable as well.
3. Relevant Content is Hard to Find
   Many websites that present web users with valuable, engaging information that encourages users to contact the company make the same, simple, fatal mistake. They hide their contact information in a Contact Us page that is difficult to find and rarely looked for. If a company’s web viewers are not able to immediately achieve what they set out to achieve on the website, the company is doing something wrong. The old sales motto here is: “make it easy for the customer.”
4. Poor Landing Page Selections
   If a web user is brought to a company’s website as a result from a PPC Ad, they are often looking for something very specific. This is the nature of search engine marketing, or recruitment marketing. A well designed and strategically displayed ad will only target users that are genuinely engaged with the subjects of their search, and for this reason, these ads are likely to bring the most qualified leads to company’s website.
   If the page that they arrive at does not immediately provide them with the information that they are looking for, they are more than apt to leave the site and continue in their search. By strategically coordinating PPC Ads to the content of their landing pages, a company can guarantee the highest possible return on investment.
5. Poor Web Site Optimization
   The ranking of an AdWords PPC ad will factor in the relevancy of an ad’s content and the relevancy of its landing page to the search keywords. It is extremely important, then, that a website is strategically optimized for the set of keywords that it pays to advertise. This will bring down the Cost Per Click, bring up the ad’s search result rank, and increase the site’s conversion rates.

At Benisch eMarketing, we recommend that companies looking to expand their business through paid search advertising and PPC Ad campaigns look for internet marketing consultants that will explain this to them. As consultants, we do not make the final decisions, but it is our obligation to explain to you why your PPC Campaign is not working.

Preventing Click Fraud through PPC Campaign Analytics

As an internet marketing consultant for small and mid-sized businesses, I often recommend that companies invest in Pay Per Click Ad campaigns. These online marketing opportunities present effective and affordable opportunities for under-optimized businesses to recruit quality leads directly to their websites.

The nature of PPC recruitment almost guarantees an engaged and active visitor. Users type keywords into a search engine because they are looking for something. They are already actively searching out and pursuing information toward a (more often than not) specific end. By spending a few cents to a few dollars per click, the savvy small business can meet them at the top of the search results page, the time and place where they are most receptive to valuable and pertinent information.

So it just makes sense for small businesses to divest their marketing capital away from push ads – like the typical print ad – and invest it in recruitment ads, like search engine PPC.

By paying per click, though, every business is necessarily susceptible to Click Fraud. Malicious and unscrupulous competitors can click, click, click away the limited marketing resources of many small companies. How, then, should a small business reap the rewards of search engine PPC Ads without making themselves too vulnerable to predatory online competitors?

The following four recommendations will help.

1. Set a daily budget for specific ads and campaigns
   By limiting the exposure of your most expensive ads, they are less likely become victim to click fraud campaigns. By setting a daily budget, small business are also able to limit – to the penny – the amount that they have available for PPC marketing.
2. Develop quality landing pages
   By designing quality landing pages for their PPC ads, small and mid-sized companies can reduce the Bounce Rate of their PPC campaigns. If a web user is recruited to your website from a PPC Ad, and they find exactly what they were looking for during their search, they are less likely to immediately leave the page. If an optimized PPC ad and landing page have arrestingly high Bounce Rates, it might be an indication of foul play. Internet marketers can then, when appropriate, identify and block the IP address of the offending party, and protect the campaign’s ROI.
3. Limit the Geographic Placement of an Ad
   If your business operates in a particular state, limit your ad exposure to that state. If your business operates across the US, limit your ad exposure to the US. By protecting your ad from unnecessary exposure, you might also protect it from Click Fraud.
4. Purchase Click Fraud Reporting Tools
   I rarely recommend that my clients purchase software that does automatically what I can do personally. And this is not just self-interest. If I am doing my job as an internet marketer, I will notice unusual spikes in CTR or Bounce rates through the analytics process. So the purchase of automatic software to do this, to me, seems like superfluous spending. But if your company invests in thousands of PPC Ads, keeping a vigilant eye on them each week can be more than even the dedicated internet marketer can handle. In this case, it might be worth investing in some software to back-up your marketer’s analytic eye. Check out these three options:
   AdWatcher
   Click Auditor
   Click Tracks

Should Your Company Hire an Internet Marketing Consultant?

It is all very nice and easy for me to recommend that companies invest in their business and hire a quality internet marketing consulting firm. After all, being an internet marketing consultant, I am more than slightly biased in this favor.

This being said, hiring a web consultant is usually only beneficial to a company’s bottom line when they hire a quality consultant, and for many, determining a consultant’s qualification is like reading another language.

Internet marketing consultants must describe their activity in a language that is foreign to many of their potential hiring companies. As marketers, we advocate Search Engine Optimization campaigns, Landing Page design and development to support these campaigns, on and off-site optimizations, back link generation, Analytics, and a variety of other internet marketing strategies that
our clients usually are not familiar with.

We do our best to explain the tremendous benefits of these campaigns and then immediately provide disclaimers that no campaign is “Guaranteed.” We compete with Do It Yourself sellers like Hub Spot that try to make all this online marketing accessible to the average business owner, and our services are typically much more expensive than that free Word Press software. So why hire us?

When most companies make their Do It Yourself internet marketing purchases, they, unfortunately do not realize the amount of time they will need to invest in learning how to use their new software. They develop a basic understanding of keyword strategy, but lack the real time it requires for a thorough and strategic keyword selection analysis. When they are presented with 200 keyword ideas, all of which at least loosely describe their business, they have no idea how to begin scrutinizing the level of competition, search frequency, and user intent associated with these keywords. And they end up paying for software that helps them develop ineffective marketing strategies.

I 100% recommend small and mid-sized businesses make the investment and hire a quality internet marketer to guide them through these campaigns. Frankly, unless a marketer spends all day analyzing the competition’s strengths and weaknesses, it is not likely that their marketing campaign will yield great results. Most often, it is not only more effective, but more cost effective for a small business to hire outside expertise.

So how can a small business determine which consultant to hire? Who is quality?

I recommend that small businesses consider more than a consultant’s client list when determining who they work with. One consultant might have engineered very successful campaigns for large companies and generated significant returns. That does not, however, mean that they are in tune with the needs and limitations of small businesses. First of all, their fees might undercut their services and their strategies might not apply on a smaller scale.

I recommend that small businesses looking to hire a consultant, instead, invest in the candidate that will communicate effectively, prioritize your particular needs, and provide genuine recommendations.

Your company will rely on the consultant’s ability to help you understand these technical terms and strategies. If the consultant is not interested in educating you, how will you be able to judge their performance?

Your company will also rely on a consultant’s ability to prioritize your needs. Big ideas are great in this industry, and almost always the ultimate goal, but a marketer needs to be able to achieve big things incrementally. Your company wasn’t built in a day, and neither will its internet marketing campaigns.

Your company will also rely on a marketer who provides genuine recommendations. This will require a two way trust. You must be able to believe that the marketer has your company’s best interest in mind, and not their own bottom line. They must believe that your company is dedicated to success, or all of their marketing skills and know-how will be wasted in unread white-papers and un-acted upon recommendations.

At the end of the day, you are the boss. I recommend hiring a consultant who understands that they work for you. Even though you have sought out their skills, your word is final and it is their responsibility to guide you effectively through the world of optimizations and scripting code.

How Campaign Analytics Works

Have you ever wondered how campaign analytics works or how PPC ads are tracked, measured and analyzed? This article on the four stages of the internet marketing cycle might help.

What Can Campaign Analytics Tell Us? Campaign Analtyics can answer many important questions. 1. Which Marketing Channels send the most cost effective visitors to your website? 2. How are various landing pages on your website performing? 4. Which combinations of Search Engine, Ad Groups and Keywords sends the most engaged audience with lowest Bounce Rates and lowest Costs per Conversion? 5. Which referral sites are sending quality traffic? 6. Which online press releases are generating quality traffic to your website? Which blogs/forums are generating quality traffic? 7. What percentage of visitors from PR campaigns/social media sites complete a conversion? To Answer these questions, we look at the Online Marketing Cycle.

The Online Marketing Cycle The typical online marketing cycle consists of four stages: Reach, Acquisition, Conversion, and Retention.

Reach Reach is the likelihood of gaining your potential client or customers’ attention. The more visible the campaign – the higher the search engine rank or more distributed the press release or newsletter – the larger the Reach. Acquisition Acquisition indicates how successful your online efforts are in getting potential visitors to your website. Conversion Conversion occurs when a potential client or customer is persuaded to take a desired action, for instance, signing up for an Email Newsletter, “Liking” your company’s Facebook business page, or making an online purchase. Retention Retention occurs when your company has fulfilled the expectations of its customers and they come back to buy again.

By tracking and measuring the reach, acquisition, and conversion initiatives of your company’s internet marketing campaigns, we are able to eliminate or improve under-performing efforts and increase conversions.

Marketing Cycle Flow Chart

From the above figure we can see the stages in between the initial viewing of an online ad until a final conversion. At all stages we can see a certain percentage of visitors dropping off. Each drop off tells us something different about the effectiveness of the online ad or the webpage to which it directs. The main objective of online marketing is to reduce the drop offs at each level so that overall conversion improves and the acquisition costs of each conversion are lowered significantly. High drop offs at the first level (Drop Off 1) indicate a low Click-Through Rate (CTR). Significant drop offs here may indicate an underperforming media source or ad creative. By analyzing ad placements, creative types, and keyword selections, we, at Benisch eMarketing, can identify the best performing ad venues, ad types, and creative combinations. High drop offs at the second level (Drop Off 2) indicate a low Entries to Clicks Ratio. This may indicate that the landing page is not loading properly. High drop offs at the third level (Drop Off 3) indicate a high Bounce Rate. Significant drop offs here may indicate that there is a poor correlation between the ad creative and the landing page, that the source of the ad generates poor visitor quality, or that the landing page is poorly designed or confusing. High drop offs at the fourth level (Drop Off 4) indicate that visitors experience difficulty completing their task, whether completing a purchase or filling out form. These drop offs demonstrate that the forms are either too long, too confusing, or poorly located.

Restaurants and Social Media, No Reservations Required

Restaurants and Social Media, No Reservations Required Please excuse me for not titling this article “Restaurants and Social Media, a Recipe for Success.” I know the pun is the most beloved of all the writers’ crafts, but I simply couldn’t stomach the thought. Ahem. Banter aside, an active social media presence truly provides restaurants of all cuisines and calibers the tremendous opportunity to stay engaged with their clientele. How easy is it to take elegant photos of your dishes and add them to your restaurant’s Facebook page? How much time does it take to Tweet your evening’s dinner specials? More importantly, how rewarding can these simple efforts be? A 2011 study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that more than 51% of adults use the internet to guide them toward a restaurant, bar or club. The savvy chef, manager, or restaurateur will meet bring their business to their clients. As a former chef, I know the value of customer feedback and communication first hand. There was never a managers meeting without an exhaustive discussion of comment cards and Yelp reviews. Feedback from our customers was always our most valuable asset, and we saw every criticism as an opportunity to fix our own errors, reach out to the guest, and create a lasting relationship built on mutual appreciation. We wanted our customers to know that we cared, and we often turned to social media and community forums to demonstrate our commitments. This all said, there are really six stand-out advantages that social media awards the socially active restaurant: The chefs, restaurants, owners, managers, and PR execs of a restaurant are able to notify the public about evening specials. A well described meal usually wets the appetite: Tonight we are serving whole roasted halibut tail over braised lentils with a curried, lobster sauce. Simply by reminding guests of their great experiences, the chances for their return visit become significantly improved. The two-way communication between a restaurant’s chefs, owners, or managers and their clientele makes getting feedback easier and usually more genuine. An unsatisfied but embarrassed guest is more likely to forgo the complaints and the comment cards and go straight to web to voice their disappointment. Find them there and get them back. Menus will frequently reference the farms and fisheries that produce their products, but it is not often that customers remember the name Eva’s Garden, or Verrill Farms, or even Niman Ranch. When a restaurant takes pride in what they serve, they can feature their sources online to everyone’s benefit. By filming how dishes are made, chefs can demystify the culinary process and engage their clientele outside of the restaurant. The celebrity chef is a modern phenomenon, and today everybody seems to appreciate a skilled culinarian demonstrating their craft. Social media marketing can help chefs, managers, and restaurant owners seem more familiar to their clients. Everybody likes to feel at home at a restaurant – in essence, this feeling of comfort and accommodation is precisely what the restaurant sells (more than even food and drink). By helping familiarize your guests with your team, you can help build that sense of belonging, of knowing and understanding, and strengthen that essential feeling of comfort that drives success in the service industry. And oh yea, watching a chef skillfully filet a fish or deftly brunoise a shallot is super cool.

Written by Charles Benisch Marketing Exec. and CEO of Benisch eMarketing charles@benisch-emarketing.com

Finding Purpose Beyond the Hysteria of Social Media Marketing

Companies looking to build their brands and generate leads are turning to social media marketing at a remarkable rate. Everybody, and every company, seems to have a Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn account, and a blog. They pay an employee or outsource to some self-proclaimed “Social Media Guru,” and they post weekly, daily, and in some cases every few hours in the desperate attempt to find Fans and Followers. And at the end of the day, with posts in the thousands, and followers in the teens and twenties, these misguided companies find themselves shouting to an empty and uninvolved audience: generating few quality leads and failing to significantly expand their online visibility. Don’t get me wrong, social media definitely has its place in the online marketing landscape. It is a powerful tool that, when appropriately applied, has an unbridled ability to build communication between businesses and their clients, customers, and consumers. There are many restaurants out there that happily – and successfully – promote their nightly specials in these online social forums, and there are many social service providers whose coffers (and communities) benefit greatly from an aware audience. But when venturing out into the wild and over-competitive world of Likes, Tweets, +s, Connects, Follows, Reads, Shares, and whatever onomatopoeia or verb comes next, companies should first, limit their over-night expectations, and then follow a bottom-up, researched, and comprehensive online marketing model. The social media market’s primary benefit to companies just joining the party is its SEO opportunities. Google, Yahoo, and the major search engines out there currently consider back links from popular social media sites as important as back links from more traditional online media venues. Developing optimized content for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs can markedly help your business’ website climb up the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). The next benefit afforded by social media marketing is its ability to market directly to targeted and active audiences. Unless a company already enjoys a large and engaged Likes list on Facebook, their posts on important company news will not likely develop many quality leads. By bringing this same information to another venue, a popular blog in their niche, for instance, the company can generate significantly more quality leads, drive more traffic to their site, and build their social media audience. Finding the right blog to share in requires research and dedication, not fortune. Simply creating and populating a social media page and building its presence does not necessarily build its effectiveness. Your business’ social media strategy should be consistent with an overall internet marketing effort based upon thoroughly researched keyword strategies, website optimization, email campaigns and the like. Without these dedicated efforts, your posts might be plenty, but their power to build your business will likely remain flat.

Article Researched and Written by Charles Benisch
Benisch eMarketing
charles@benisch-emarketing.com

Written by Charles Benisch Marketing Exec. and CEO of Benisch eMarketing charles@benisch-emarketing.com FireBag® Thermal Activated Shut-off Device for Propane, Natural & Butane Gas To prevent unrestricted release of gas during fires, many European countries require residential natural gas lines be equipped with automatic thermal shut-off devices. In the U.S., Massachusetts requires an automatic thermal gas shut-off device be installed before the gas meter. To determine if U.S. fires would have been better contained with automatic gas shut-offs, TECO Americas surveyed first responders in Texas, California and Pennsylvania to learn from their experiences. Reports of unrestricted release of gas during fires were reported, similar to this experience of a Pennsylvanian fire fighter. He recalled a fire that originated in a basement. Although the fire department arrived to the scene of the fire quickly, the fire fighters encountered difficulty in locating the basement door. This slight delay gave the fire extra seconds to burn before the gas was terminated at the curb. During this time, the fire burnt through a hot-water heater line and became gas-fed. When the basement door was finally found, a blue-ish flame was already coming up the stairs. The time that the fire fighters had lost while searching for the basement door was not much, but by enabling the fire to reach a gas source, the house suffered significantly more damage. Had a thermally activated gas shut-off device been installed, the outcome could have been very different. “Examining fires such as this one reported from Pennsylvania helps us to understand the importance of thermal automatic shut-offs,” reports Wally Armstrong, a principal of the Liberty Group, a supplier to gas utilities. In their survey of first responders, TECO Americas received many similar reports. Departments in all states surveyed reported incidents where fires were inflamed after reaching gas lines. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), U.S. fire departments face 2,110 home fires each year where natural gas is the first material ignited, and 1,170 home fires a year where LP-gas is involved with the start of a fire. Most home gas fires originate in the kitchen at the stove or gas range. U.S. homeowners assume that they have the protection of automatic thermal gas shut-offs. When they learn that a simple and inexpensive automatic thermal gas shut-down is available, they are shocked to learn gas appliances are not required to have this protection, and feel they are exposed to unnecessary risk. The National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) is a system established by the National Fire Data Center of the United States Fire Administration (USFA) to document and develop uniform data reporting when gathering and analyzing information on fires across the U.S. The NFIRS is the world’s largest national annual database of fire incident information, collecting information from over 11,000 fire departments throughout 49 states and the District of Columbia. According to the NFIRS database, there have been 36,577 fires in the U.S. where gas was the material first ignited resulting in an uncontrolled or self-perpetuating fire in the five year period between 2005-2009. Massachusetts leads in the U.S. for safety regarding automatic thermally active shut-off devices for natural gas. The Massachusetts plumbers and gasfitters recently approved the FireBag® for thermal activated gas shutoffs, as required by the state’s MA CMR 248 regulation. In addition to the Massachusetts approval, the FireBag® is certified for international and thermal gas shutoff standards, including: DIN 3586 thermo activated safety device for gas applications European UNI EN 1775 Standard for indoor gas installations European Directive 90/396/CEE certification for durability in mechanical or thermal stress German DVGW TRGI 86/96 Standard for thermo activated locking systems on gas heaters, water heaters & domestic gas fittings German Standard Muster-Feuerverordnung (FeuVo v. 02/95 – edition 09/97) for thermo activated devices Italian UNI 7129 Ed 2001 Standard for fire protection and gas supply line components For More Information More information on the FireBag® Thermal Activated Gas Shutoff device can be found at: FireBag® Product Page FireBag® for the Home: Information on Home Use FireBag® for Industry: Information on Industrial Use Datasheet View a Downloadable PDF Cross Section: View a Cross Section of the FireBag® Animation: View the FireBag® Animation Demo: View the FireBag® Installation Demonstration FireBag® Installation Manual Write: Assured Automation, 19 Walnut Avenue, Clark, NJ 07066 Tel: 800-899-0553 or 732-381-2255 Fax: 732-381-2328 Email: info@assuredautomation.com or billf@aa-fs.com Article Researched and Written by Charles Benisch Benisch eMarketing charles@benisch-emarketing.com Metering and Monitoring Water Consumption Across America’s Golf Courses Golf courses, municipalities, even families trying to ration their water consumption rely on inexpensive and durable water meters, like the TM Series Digital Flow Meter sold by Assured Automation. Water meters provide a quantitative analysis of water consumption reduction efforts, and by calculating irrigation volumes, they enable golf course superintendents to effectively manage water consumption and avoid costly municipal fines. When asked about the advantages that water meters provide golf course superintendents, Jim Schumacher, founder of the Golf Preservation Foundation and Aqua Turf International — an industry leading international irrigation consulting firm, says “the first step in water conservation is to accurately monitor water usage. Once accurate data is available on the daily use, this [data] can then be compared against the real requirements [of a course], then a proper evaluation can be made.” Greg Lyman, Director of Environmental Programs at the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), states simply that the GCSAA “considers water meters part of the solution. You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Water management efforts are being implemented at golf courses across the country to deal with the growing economic, environmental, and humanitarian effects of excessive water consumption. According to the Center for Irrigation Technology, the US uses approximately 476 billion gallons of water each year to irrigate its golf courses. In a world where water represents a finite and vital resource, these consumption rates pose dangerous consequences. A United Nations Environmental Program report in 2007 estimated that by 2025, there will be 1.8 billion people across the world who live in “conditions of absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the planet will be subject to water stress”. The United Nations reports it will require 2.5 billion gallons of water each day to sustain the world’s 4.7 billion people. Today, the cumulative amount of water used to irrigate the world’s golf courses is just that: 2.5 billion gallons every day1. And the cost of water is on the rise. Everywhere. With the exception of 2005, the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, in Boston, MA, raised water rates on companies and residents every single year since 2002. Residents of San Diego, CA have seen their water rates increase 67% over the last three years2. In 2010, Houston TX raised rates nearly 30%3 New York City has increased water rates by an astounding 134% since 20024. Over the last five years, the municipal costs of water have jumped by an average of 27% across the US. These increases in water costs can seriously threaten the economic viability of a golf course. In 2010, the city council in Lake Havasu City, AZ approved an effluent water rate increase that raised the cost of golf course irrigation from $52 to $144 per acre/foot5, 6. By 2014, golf courses in Lake Havasu City will pay roughly $330 per acre/foot. This means that the water costs for golf courses in Lake Havasu City will jump over 630% in four years. Already, the Environmental Institute for Golf estimates that the average 18-hole golf course facility in the United States Southwest faces water costs exceeding $107,800 annually7. Municipal fines over water consumption limits are another financial threat currently faced by golf courses. In New Jersey, the NJ Water Supply Management Act limits the water consumption of many golf courses to 100,000 gallons per day (N.J.S.A. 58:1A-1). Violators caught exceeding the allowable 100,000 gallons per day face fines up to $50,000. Examples of fines levied by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection include: Eagle Ridge Golf Course of Lakewood NJ settled for $25,000 for exceeding the allowable un-permitted 100,000 gallon daily. Shore Oaks Golf Club, in Farmingdale NJ, settled for $50,000 over claims that Shore Oak’s irrigation exceeded the daily 100,000 gallon limit without proper permits. Westlake Golf and Country Club, in Jackson NJ, settled for $15,000 for excessive water usage8. The list goes on. The financial, social, and environmental stresses of water consumption are all factors that highlight the importance of water consumption monitoring, particularly in environments that demand significant irrigation like golf courses. Jim Skorulski, the senior agronomist of the United States Golf Association (USGA), says that water consumption: “is of large concern with golf course managers. We, [the USGA] advocate judicious use of water to conserve the vital resource, control operating costs and to produce firm and fast playing conditions. More golf courses are completing irrigation audits of existing systems to improve their efficiency or justify the need to replace and modernize the irrigation system. Many golf course superintendents also utilize TDR moisture meters and moisture sensors to better track soil moisture content to improve the irrigation system and guide the hand-watering practices.” Efficient sprinkler systems, TDR moisture meters, the selection of grasses on a course, the height at which the grass is maintained, the amount of shading the grass receives from trees, and the rate at which the soil is aerated are all factors that can lead to significant decreases in a golf course’s water consumption. But the only way to monitor these decreases, the only way to audit and verify the effectiveness of a superintendent’s strategies, the only way to monitor the daily, weekly, or monthly levels of water consumption is through the implementation of water meters. For more information regarding water meters, visit http://assuredautomation.com/TM/index.php. Water Meter Installation Best Practices In order to properly install Assured Automation TM digital water meters for irrigation at golf courses or nurseries, first flush the water lines upstream of the meter. Doing so will remove any buildup in the water lines and will protect your new meter as it is installed. Then place the meter into the line with the meter face easily viewable for inspection. It is necessary to attach the meter with the arrow pointed in the direction of the water flow. A bypass line should be installed as well. For the bypass, we suggest installing Assured Automation’s PTP Series 3-way PVC ball valves upstream and downstream from the water meter. The bypass serves multiple purposes: 1. Protects the flow meter from damage 2. Allows for meter maintenance and replacement without disruption of service Bypass Lines Protect Flow Meters When water flow is started from a cold start through the water meter, it is possible that too much air will be in the line, causing the meter’s turbine to over-spin and then burn out the meter’s bearing. A bypass line allows the upstream section of the line to fill with water, minimizing the amount of air in the line and protecting the meter. Once the downstream line fills with water, the flow can be diverted from the bypass and sent through the water meter. Bypass Lines Enable Meter Maintenance By installing a 3-way valve upstream and downstream from the water meter, the meter can also be isolated for maintenance or replacements. Recommended Distance Between Meter and 3-Way Ball Valves The distance between the meter and the upstream 3-way valve should be 10 times the pipe’s internal diameter to keep consistent pressure in the line. For example, if the pipe diameter is 2″, the 3-way valves should be placed 20″ from the upstream end of the meter. For the downstream end of the meter, place the 3-way ball valve at a distance of 5 times the internal diameter of the pipe. The Assured Automation digital water meter can be installed in-line either horizontally or vertically or at the end of the hose adjacent to the nozzle. Installation to metal connections is not recommended for the TM Series flow meters. TM Series meters are available with either a computer for local electronic display, or a conditioned signal output module to provide a digital signal to customer interfacing equipment. TM Series meters with computer display measure in gallons or liters. Verify that the water meter is in place and ready for use before turning the water flow back on. Once this has been verified, slowly open the valves that were turned off prior to installation. Turning these valves open too quickly can flow into the water meter too quickly and damage the unit. Verify that water is flowing through the unit and perform a leak check to ensure that the water meter has been properly sealed. Once you have checked for leaks, open all valves. End Notes 1http://www.waterinfo.org/resources/water-facts 2http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/jan/24/city-debates-antoerh-water-rate-increase/ 3http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7071597.html 4http://www.vosizneias.com/86768/2011/07/04/new-york-ny-water-rates-increased-by-134-since-bloomberg-took-office 5Acre/foot is a measurement used by water purveyors that gauges the amount of water needed to provide one foot of water across an acre of land 6http://www.havasunews.com/articles/2011/03/19/news/doc4d84291eaecaa062631554.txt 7http://www.eifg.org/programs/baselinesurvey.asp 8http://www.state.nj.us/dep/newsrel/releases/02_0091.htm