 Many
businesses have a business plan and a marketing
plan that goes with it but many have failed to
include an internet marketing, or online marketing
plan. Jon believes the reason is simply because
they don’t know where to start, nor do
they understand how things have changed. In this
segment we will talk about why an Online Marketing
Plan is so important and how to make decisions,
especially if you are on a limited budget as
to where and how to spend your marketing dollars
and energy. Interview
Recorded Live: January
26, 2007
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Pay Per Click Advertising as an Internet Marketing Strategy |
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Jon Leland of ComBridges explains why many businesses that have a
marketing strategy have failed to include internet
marketing, specifically organic search engine
marketing and pay-per-click advertising in their
plans. Developing a Search Engine Marketing Strategy
is a critical component of a successful marketing
plan.
How clients adopt the different internet marketing
methods depends on their budget. Some companies
have a set budget but there are certainly others
that want marketers to convince them that the
return on investment is real. However, such clients
are now in minority. Jon gives an example of
a friend who runs a local business. She used
to spend a lot of money on the yellow pages.
Today, she’s doing so well with internet
marketing that she has cancelled her yellow pages
advertising. People are recognizing the importance
of search engine marketing and are relying on
it more and more. However, there still are a
lot of small businesses that don’t even
have websites. Certainly many that have start-up
websites haven’t made the leap into search
engine marketing. Jon is a strong believer in
the internet and he strongly suggests that if
possible, you should employ multiple internet
marketing strategies.
Briefly, there are different ways to evaluate
organic search advertising. One of them is on
a ‘cost per lead’ basis because,
over a period of time, you’re really looking
at the cost to acquire a new customer. In order
to acquire a new customer, depending on your
business, you have to acquire “x” number
of leads. Then, you evaluate what percentage
of those leads you can convert into customers.
So with time, as you develop a strong organic
position, your cost per lead goes down. This
takes time because you’re building your
position in Google’s database. So, it’s
a longer term strategy that ultimately yields
a lower cost per lead.
One of the beauties of pay-per-click advertising
is that there’s more immediate gratification.
You could set up a Google AdWords campaign for
a client and be delivering traffic to their site
in a matter of a few days. Once you open an account
and start spending money, the traffic begins.
Then it becomes a numbers game in terms of how
much you are paying per click.
One of the things people fail to do is adequate
tracking. Be sure to build keyword tracking into
your budget so that you can analyze the return
on your investment and identify which keywords
are working better for you. But, equally important
is the quality of the website. If you buy a set
of inexpensive keywords for 10 cents a click
and end up spending $100, you’ll bring
1000 visitors to your website. So out of the
1000 visitors to your website as a result of
keywords that you’ve identified, you will
be able to see how many you can convert into
customers. This is a function of the content
of the web site, website design and the attractiveness
of your proposition.
As a result, allow enough time in your marketing
plan for the optimization. It does take time
and approvals, which do not happen overnight.
On the other hand, with pay-per-click, running
a quick promotion can be done much faster. One
of the most common mistakes people make (which
is common to both forms of advertising but is
especially common in pay-per-click advertising)
is that they drive all traffic directly to their
home page. They haven’t crafted individual
landing pages for individual ad groups or groups
of keyword phrases that have a specific focus.
If you want your ad to be relevant to the keyword
that’s being searched, you must create
a relevant landing page specifically for that
traffic.
If the content of the website is well-crafted
and relevant to a particular topic, the search
engines are likely to pick it up and as a result,
bloggers or the niche fragments will pick it
up as well. Simply invest time in writing good
articles, relevant blog posts and email newsletters.
Viral marketing requires quality content and
there’s no alternative.
Keyword research is critical, even before naming
a company. Search engines represent a database
of intentions. Meaning, when someone searches for
an ‘Alaskan Cruise’ in a search engine,
essentially they are declaring their intention
or their desire to take an Alaskan cruise. Keyword
phrases are the connections between your business
and traffic. It’s all about finding the right
keyword phrases. We’re identifying the language
that the world is using when they ask for you.
Keyword research uncovers information that is not
always apparent to the small business owner. Then
you sort the phrases by those that are being searched
the most and are being used by the most competitive
pages. This is the starting point.
Segment 1: Organic Search Engine Marketing,
Pay-per-Click Advertising and Viral Word-of-Mouth
as Successful Internet Marketing Strategies
Segment 3: Viral Marketing with Video, Blogs, and Press Releases
Segment 4: Using YouTube and Google Video as Online Marketing Tools
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