The Crux of the Problem
If you are not getting as many customers as you were before the economic downturn you may need to do something different.  If you sell cars, for example, there may only be ten people in your area purchasing automobiles this month when there were a hundred this month last year.  This is a problem but the answer is simple.  Instead of giving up you should go after the ten people who are buying.

Reasonable Expectations
Of course the effort and cost of getting these ten customers must yield you a reasonable profit.  This means you must first determine how much a customer is worth, and should know within a reasonable doubt that your effort will at least cost less than this.  Contact me and I will show you how to do this.  For the purpose of this article we will assume we are reasonably certain that the effort is worthwhile.

The Four Steps Revealed
Just about everyone uses the web.  We all know about search engines and e-mail marketing, and many more are familiar with terms such as social media and viral marketing.  Many, however, do not fully understand how powerful this internet tool can be.  As powerful as television, radio, newspapers, yellow pages, and the US mail is, they lack interactivity. 

The one major difference between old and new media is interactivity.  Television, for example, is not yet able to allow consumers to search for what they need; nor does it support an environment where businesses can tailor a response to the consumers.  This follow-up makes the difference in how much control you have in delivering the sale.  This is the essence of what the internet offers and is revealed in the following four steps:

1. Paid Search—at this point some of you are probably saying “is this all? I have been doing this for years.”  To this I have two responses, speed and precise targeting.  There is no better method to quickly and precisely a) target who you want, b) immediately get them to study your offer, and c) begin a back and forth dialog where the goal is to sell your product or service. Unlike other online marketing options, with paid search you can get quantifiable results in hours instead of months.

2. Search Engine Optimization—Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most inexpensive methods for maintaining a constant flow of online customers and prospects.  One mistake that is made by many search engine marketers is to target the wrong search terms.  Notice in my solution hierarchy that I included paid search first.  This is because you used what was learned from the paid search to determine how you should plan and execute your search engine marketing strategy.  Where a paid search campaign can be producing results in hours an SEO effort may take month.

3. Search Retargeting—many may not be as familiar with search retargeting as they are with paid search and search engine optimization.  Paid search and search engine optimization is the first step to a search retargeting effort.  Once prospects show interest in the product or service offered, as indicated by their click through to the site, the site visitor is profiled and the marketing message is evolved.  They are then re-engaged with the improved marketing message until they become customers.  The actual re-engagement occurs on targeted network sites that the prospect visits over the next 30 days.  The re-engagement is an effective method of keeping your offer in front of people who have previously shown an interest.

4. Opt-in E-mail Marketing—Opt-ed in e-mail marketing should not be confused with spam.  Where spam is unsolicited e-mails, opt-ed in e-mails are ones that the recipients has specifically said they want to receive.  As with search retargeting, the prospect has previously indicated interest.  This occurred as a result of their contact through paid search or search engine optimization. Based upon their interest, buying habits, demographics, and a multitude of other attributes, periodic e-mails are sent with the goal of increasing sales.  Once the list is in place the cost of a long-term e-mail marketing campaign is extremely economical.

At each step in the process customers are acquired but it is not the goal for one method to stand on its own.  If a prospect does not become a customer right away they are re-engaged a second, third, or forth time.  The long term goal is to minimize the cost associated with the acquisition of a customer. Moving from an aggressive paid search campaign to a low cost search engine optimization strategy is a means to this end.  Once the SEO effort has met the established goals, the paid search campaign is turned down but is still used to fill the gap for the SEO search terms that are not performing as well.  Finally, e-mail marketing is also used for re-engagement.  The prospect has given you their permission to send them e-mails. You leverage this by presenting them with the right combination of price and offer to turn them into customers.   E-mail is also used on existing customers to increase repeat sales.

Get Started Now!
No matter what the economic outlook, if you have a viable product or service, you can go to the head of the line for the acquisition of customers.  There may be a drop in the number of people buying your product or service.  You simple have to get to the people who are still buying.

As previously mentioned, the first step is to determine if an effort like this will yield you a reasonable profit.   All the tools are available and waiting for you.   It’s up to you to take the first step to make sure they are leveraged on your behalf.  

Contact Steve at 816-587-8880 x102 or at steve.thompson@siteedgeagency.com .

Technorati Tags: Paid Search, PPC, Analytics, Campaign Tracking,  google content network, google site targeting

Currently a keyword’s Quality Score is determined by a number of factors, including the term’s click-through rate (CTR), relevance and historical performance, among others. AdWords Quality Scores influence the amount an advertiser has to pay to run the ad, as well as the position the ad will appear in.

The before and after of the Quality Score changes are:

• Previously, advertisers would see a rating of “poor,” “OK,” or “great.” However in the coming weeks, that will shift to a 10-point system, with one signaling an ad of the poorest quality, and 10 the highest quality. 

“Before, you didn’t have much visibility into the score itself. You couldn’t tell whether you were at the top or bottom end of the ‘OK’ or ‘great’ scale, and you couldn’t really see how any changes you made would affect it. With this granular scale, you can make a change and move from 6 to 7, for example, and see that your efforts were successful. You can also better assess the greatest areas for improvement.”  1

• The second change is that the Quality Score will be assessed on a per-query basis, as opposed to being tied to the keyword indefinitely. 

“This way, AdWords will use the most accurate, specific, and up-to-date performance information when determining whether an ad should be displayed. Your ads will be more likely to show when they’re relevant and less likely to show when they’re not.  In addition, ads that were previously marked “inactive for search” because they didn’t meet the blanket Quality Score requirements may actually be placed in rotation for relevant queries.”  1

• Lastly, keywords will no longer be tied to a minimum bid. Instead, advertisers will see the minimum amount they would need to have their ad appear on the first page of results.

“According to the Inside AdWords blog, this change was tied directly to advertiser feedback.” “We learned that knowing your minimum bid wasn’t always helpful in getting the ad placement you wanted,” the company stated on the blog. “So we hope that first page bids will give you better guidance on how to achieve your advertising goals.” 1

We will be watching the effect of these changes on the campaigns we have under management.  The 10 point system may first appear to be helpful but we still don’t have enough specific information to know how to move from say a 7 to an 8 or 9.

The move to a per-query basis may be good; or may not.  Currently if you achieved a “Great” you would be there for a while.  It will be difficult to judge a moving target if the algorithm changes the ranking too often.  There is nothing to lead me to believe this will happen but we will be watching.

The minimum bid tied to first page results has me the most concerned.  How will the amateur search marketers respond to this?  If everyone starts fighting for the first page we will greatly increase the likelihood of bidding wars where everyone loses.

All we can do at this point is wait and see.  Once we have the proper intel we will adjust accordingly.

1  Tameka Kee, Media Post Online Media Daily 
 

1. Tailor Your Campaigns to Each Franchisee.  To properly implement an online marketing campaign for your franchisees you need a) a landing page for each product or service, b) hundreds, perhaps thousands of properly researched search terms, and c) dozens of ads that are designed to tie these terms to a specific landing page. This needs to be done for each franchisee fifty, one hundred, or a thousand times.   I’ve often seen a 50% improvement in performance just by tailoring a campaign.
2. Show the Ads Only in Areas that the Franchisee Can Serve.  Franchisees often lose money on online advertising.  The main culprit– paying to show an ad outside of the service area.  Considerable time and money can be lost when a franchisee is forced to interface with prospects they have little to no chance of converting to customers.  All this increases the Franchisee’s Customer Acquisition Costs which may lead to an erroneous conclusion that online marketing does not work.
3. Route the Prospect to the Web Page of Franchisee in their Area. Just as the campaign needs to be specific to the franchisee—the page the prospect is sent to must be specific to the franchisee.  When a prospect arrives at your site from the organic or “free” listings, it’s okay to send them to your home page that contains your “Store Locator” tool.  Prospects who click on paid search ads tend to be more impatient.  Here’s where using a combination of the search engine’s local targeting options and a localized landing page can really lift conversions.
4. Manage each Individual Franchisee’s Campaign.  In addition to setting up franchisee level campaigns, changes to bids, ad copy, landing pages, offers and keywords should occur at the local level.  Why?  Here’s where online is no different than offline.  Offers, prices, products, services etc that sell really well in New York City may not resonate with consumers in Boise.  In addition the competition for customers may vary greatly from one market to the next.  This is hard work, but if you really want to see stellar campaign results, it’s a must do.
5. Separate Out Selling Franchises From Securing Business for the Franchisee.  Franchisors want to sell more franchisees, which is a good thing.  Franchisees want more customers, which is also a good thing.  Although both are good, they are very different.  A direct response campaign should have a singular focus.  Promoting too many things at once only distracts and confuses the prospective customer.  If the keyword that brought the prospect to your site is “Math Help,” the page they land on should be all about proving how you’re the best option for helping them with math and nothing else.  I’ve even seen a case where a franchise was driving all search traffic to the main page of the site, which in addition to selling franchises, also encouraged visitors to enter complaints about a franchisee!  Remember, your competition is only one click of the Back Button away.

Nothing that I’ve stated above is rocket science.  But if you have more than a handful of franchisees in your system, it can be a daunting task.  Your choice is to either staff up or hire a qualified agency to run your campaigns.  In either case, if you follow these rules your franchisees will get more customers from the Internet.   

Steve Thompson is co-founder and Managing Director at siteEDGE agency.  Steve has extensive experience in structuring; managing and optimizing online marketing campaigns for small and large (+500 units) franchise systems as well as large companies with a regional or local focus.  To contact Steve, email him at Steve dot Thompson at siteEDGE agency dot com. 

Earlier today Google may have had a gitch that made public some of the variables used to make up the quality score.  This is the buzz anyway.  Eric Landers of Search Engine Journal published in his blog that immediately below each of the sponsored search results (AdWords) were three separate variable names and values.  Eric has screen shots and an opinion on what these may mean.  Since this gitch has since been corrected by Google I wasn’t fortunate enough to have seen this myself to allow me to share my insight.  I will at least point you to Eric’s Blog on this so you can get it directly from him.

Technorati Tags: Paid Search, PPC, Analytics, Campaign Tracking,  google content network, google site targeting

The Google content network comprises millions of websites, news pages, and blogs that partner with Google to display targeted AdWords ads.  Ads to the content network are targeted based on content themes rather than specific keywords as is done on the search network. Unlike a keyword search which is well defined, a content match may not display your ad on the site you had in mind resulting in clicks you prefer not to have.

Identifying the Sites that Don’t Convert

On June 1st last year, Google made available a report that tells you which sites are not converting.  You can run this report at the ad group or the campaign level for a domain or a url.  Once you run the report you can feed the results into the Site Exclusion option in the Tools section.  This will cause the domains or url-s you designate to not show your ad resulting in a better use of your ad dollars.

Further Analysis

This on the surface appeared to be an excellent opportunity for one of our clients to save a few dollars.  After running the report for all the ad groups we learned there was about $1,075 that could have been saved in June if the sites with no conversions had been excluded.  Upon further analysis we determined that some sites did not convert for some ad groups but did convert for others.  Since the Site Exclusion option does not allow exclusions at the ad group level we had to revise our plan to exclude the non performing sites at the campaign level.

Still Not Bad

The initial excitement over the potention savings abated somewhat.  Instead of the $1,075 a month savings that we had anticipated from excluding non performing content network sites, we will save about $521 a month. We have to factor in that this is just one month’s worth of data but it is still encouraging when you consider a year’s savings would equal $6,252.  Is it worth a try or is there still more analysis we should do?

One Additional Thought

The thought that one month’s worth a data is not enough to make a decision stayed on my mind. On one hand we may be paying more than we have to each day.  On the other hand we may be making decisions on incomplete data.  Thinking it through it seems logical to conclude that if a domain or url doesn’t convert then don’t spend money on it.  The only down side would be if it converts later we would miss a conversion.  But what impact would 1 or 2 conversions have when we are talking about 100 conversions a day.

An Aha Moment

Then it occured to me.  Most of the conversions orginate from a few domains or URLs, but the bulk of the conversions come from many domains or URLs.  It is the old numbers game.  In the reports there were thousands of domains and URL-s that had only 1 or 2 conversions for June.  The number of sites that had just 1 or 2 conversions were not the same domains and URL-s that had only 1 or 2 conversions in July. If I had excluded the non converting domains and URL-s that had no conversions in June we would have eliminated 100-s of conversions in July.

My Conclusion

Based upon this data I concluded that sites should not be excluded simply because they don’t have conversions.  Another criterion should be placed on top of this that is simular to the cost per acquisition (CPA) measurement.  With the CPA you assign a dollar amount to what a conversion is worth.  If it is worth $40 is get a new customer,  $40 worth of clicks to get it is acceptable. Simularly if the non converting sites are costing you a few pennies a month to keep them then it may be wise to do so.  If they are beyond a thresshold you determine to be unacceptable, then by all means exclude them.  As with a CPA, some conversions are not worth the price.

Technorati Tags: Paid Search, PPC, Analytics, Campaign Tracking,  google content network, google site targeting

Keep it focused: Force your page to have only one goal. If you are required to have two, then choose one as a priority and emphasize that one. Remove excess baggage like advertisements and navigation bars so that visitors have only two choices: convert or leave.

Give a good second impression: People don’t see the landing page first, they see your PPC or banner ad, e-mail or even search result. Build relevancy between them. Use the same messaging from the first point of contact to your landing page. I try to use the same words or exact title from advertisement to landing page. Keep creative consistent too. One thing that is often overlooked are offers, if you put an offer on your page, put it on your ad and vice versa.

Target your biggest (middle) audience: There’s 3 types of visitors. Ones that’ll convert no matter what, ones that might convert and ones that are just looking. You only need to grab that middle audience. A landing page is not meant to please everyone, it is meant to drive conversions, meaning pleasing only those that will convert! For example, putting less information on a page will drive away people who only looking to learn more, but help push along those that are looking to buy.

Stop talking about yourself: Customers come to your page to read about the product, not your entire company history. Talk about yourself to the extent that it will calm visitor’s fears about your legitimacy and quality, else you’ll clutter the page and intimidate the visitor with blobs of text. Third party validation logos (BBB, Hacker Safe) and quotes from happy customers are often enough.

Use a product shot: So a cheetah might be a great symbolic way to show how fast the computers you’re selling are, but really you should be showing your computer. Customers come in and will only spend a few seconds to see if they’re in the right place before hitting back and so you need to communicate what you’re selling fast. Why distract them with symbolic images, when your product is what you want them to buy? If you’re service oriented, then people probably are a good idea, but make sure they directly represent what you’re doing.

For more from Billy go to Billy’s Blog.

Technorati Tags: Landing Page Optimization, Landing Page Testing , PPC, SEO, Paid Search

Here are a few prime snippets from her interview, head on over there to read the whole thing.

The company has worked with a wide range of talent, focusing its campaigns on “delivering more direct sales or leads for [its] clients,” says Thompson, which include large nonprofit clients and Fortune 500 companies as well as middle-market businesses.

“We’re snobs when it comes to running campaigns that can be measured in terms of bottom-line results,” Thompson says.

Which is why campaigns that help decrease client costs — “campaigns where we’ve been able to decrease a client’s advertising costs by 33% while increasing the results by 34%” — are Thompson’s pride and joy.

“I guess it goes back to my financial background,” Thompson adds. “I know we’re delivering real value for the client.”

Great interview Janice!

Has Target missed the mark legally? I won’t comment on that, but what I CAN comment on is that Target’s web developers have missed the mark on a basic (and very easy to execute) best practice. From the W3C Website:

The alt attribute is defined in a set of tags (namely, img, area and optionally for input and applet) to allow you to provide a text equivalent for the object.A text equivalent brings the following benefits to your web site and its visitors in the following common situations:

• nowadays, Web browsers are available in a very wide variety of platforms with very different capacities; some cannot display images at all or only a restricted set of type of images; some can be configured to not load images. If your code has the alt attribute set in its images, most of these browsers will display the description you gave instead of the images
• some of your visitors cannot see images, be they blind, color-blind, low-sighted; the alt attribute is of great help for those people that can rely on it to have a good idea of what’s on your page
• search engine bots belong to the two above categories: if you want your website to be indexed as well as it deserves, use the alt attribute to make sure that they won’t miss important sections of your pages.

Besides allowing for accessibility and standards compliance, ALT tags also offer some benefit from an SEO perspective, providing context for spiders as to what your images represent. The exact SEO value of this is up for debate, and we ARE NOT suggesting stuffing every ALT tag with keywords - however, since it can’t hurt, will likely help, and opens up your site to visually impaired visitors, and is very easy to execute - you have no excuse not to do it!

If your site isn’t standards compliant, and you need some help getting there, feel free to contact us and we’ll help you out!

1. Know your audience–the military today is not the military of 20 years ago.  The US Armed Forces is 20% female, very internet savvy (for many the internet is the preferred means of communication), and are tightly networked.  Make sure your military marketing strategy includes a heavy-duty online component that reaches deeply into the social media networks and promotes word-of-mouth advertising.
2. Don’t over-patronize.  You don’t have to use a waving flag in every creative. 
3. Don’t make uniform mistakes.  If you choose to show someone in uniform, make sure the model is 100% authentic.  If your brand is positioned with someone in fake fatigues, it shows that you don’t really care.
4. Use discounts and special offers to say “Thank You for Your Service” rather than to promote savings.  Military households tend to have above average disposable incomes.
5. Customize your messages, creatives and media buys to reach the sub-groups within the military market (e.g. gamers, golfers, spouses, families, Hispanics, Asians, African Americans).  We have found in working with clients that are marketing to the military, it is more beneficial to create your own custom network than to rely solely upon traditional media buys.  The more microscopic and targeted your message, the better.

So this holiday season while all your competitors are fighting over the masses, why not reach out to the military community.  If you do it the right way, your bottom line will thank you.

Technorati Tags: niche marketing, military marketing