Convert them today, retain them tomorrow

In the world of online marketing, we thought it was about time to discuss some key metrics, as metrics are the tools we should be using to refine and drive your marketing process.

We discussed in our last post the importance of strategic marketing, and how the knowledge of technology alone doesn’t cut it. This is our short list of metrics we believe “keep it strategic.”

Conversions

A conversion is simply a way of measuring that your marketing efforts are effective. Conversion code is placed at the bottom of the page you want a user to see, and you can track them from the source activity to the action you wanted them to take on the site. For example, if you wanted someone to sign up for a newsletter, you’d put the code on the “thank you for submitting your info” page, so you can differ from people who actually signed up, versus people who just viewed the sign up page. It is absolutely essential to track conversions. Why? It’s the way to track your marketing ROI. You can see what your best performing activities are, shift budget to better performing activities, and realize potential.

I also spoke briefly about conversions in one of my recent posts: Strategic Marketing: It’s Not Just Making it Look Pretty!. However, I want to offer some examples of how you can create conversions on your website.

• Visit to a key page on your website: In this conversion type, you want to drive a visitor to go to a key page. Maybe this page contains information about a product and you are hoping to provide information on a regular basis, so that, the user comes back to your site to take action again and again and eventually bookmarks your page/site.
• Event registration: This type of conversion requires a visitor to sign up for an event. Keep in mind, an event can be an online event such as a webinar. Regardless of what the event is you still require registration information from the registrant. This builds your in-house database which you can repurpose for other marketing efforts such as direct mail and email marketing. Additionally, you’re gaining valuable insight into the interests of your site visitors/prospectes. Those that attend the event can further be marketed to with the potential of a sales conversion being much higher as they’ve already showed extensive interest.
• Completion of an online form: This is probably the most popular type of conversion. You’ll see examples of this as “contact us’ form, forms required to download white papers, brochures, request more information/quotes, etc. Again, the visitor willingly provides information which helps build your in-house database.
• Online purchase: If you’re selling products directly from your website, this conversion is the holy grail! A good understanding of how the user gets to the purchase page, why they got there, and how we can get them back there again is essential. Also, thinking about up-sell opportunities is very important at this stage. You can gauge all of this through conversion tracking.

When designing (or redesigning) your website, think about the actions you want your visitors to take and funnel them to take those actions. Implement tracking analytics and studying your website’s performance as told by your visitor’s actions and movement around your site. Adjust and refine to increase conversions.

Going forward, make a conscious effort to understand:

• What you want your website visitors to do (Convert!)
• Make it appealing and easy for a visitor to convert
• Track, adjust and refine!

In our next post, we’ll discuss the idea of website traffic – understanding where it comes from, how we understand it, and how we can use it to our benefit.

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Strategic Marketing: It’s Not Just Making it Look Pretty!

Pay-Per-Click: Work or Waste?

So I just came from a sales call and the prospect is a very successful business man who runs a very successful business. He’s tried his hand at online marketing, namely Google Adwords pay-per-click (PPC) and was “soured.” He claimed the leads coming from these two campaigns weren’t converting and the ROI just wasn’t there. I truly believed him. But I was there to change his mind. Don’t get my wrong. I don’t want to sell anyone anything that isn’t right for them but I am a PPC evangelist and to answer my own question, IT DOES WORK!!!! It works well……………if it’s done right!

Everyone from Verizon/Idearc to Yellow Book to ATT are getting into the Google Adwords space (because their products are dying and they have no choice) but I’ve found none of them do it “right.” I’ve also found that very few (okay, I haven’t found one yet) business owners who try their hand at it or have their nephew run it for them do it “right” either. Thus, their budget is quickly exhausted by unqualified clicks. Don’t mistake “clicks” for leads! They’re not the same.

So what does “done right” mean? Here are a few key measurements that I use to deliver a positive ROI to my PPC clients. 1) Track conversions. Conversions are not leads they are actual people who clicked through and took some sort of action (filled out a form, called, requested a quote). 2) Set positions. Your ad shouldn’t appear in a position below #3 on the first search page. 3) Quality score. Drive your traffic to pages on your site that are highly relative to your keywords. 4) Dayparts. With limited PPC budgets, use phone numbers in ads to reduce clicks (this is the only form of marketing where impressions are FREE). Also, turn campaigns on and off to fit the times/days/week/months of your sales cycle as well as when most of your audience is online. 5) Geotarget. I constantly see ads for companies that are in California that clearly don’t service my area. WASTE OF MONEY! 6) Trim the fat. Your keyword list will shrink over time. Eliminate keywords that are not converting and have limited overall traffic. Focus your budget on keywords that convert. This will increase the frequency of your ads and fuel what’s working. In the end, all of these steps will optimize your budget, increase qualified leads and return a positive ROI.

Yes! PPC does work - when done “right!”

Have you run a campaign that was a bust? Let me hear about it. How about those of you out there seeing positive return? What’s the highest return rate you’re seeing?

SEO vs PPC

Ahhh, the old search engine optimization (SEO) vs. pay-per-click (PPC) debate! Love this one. Let’s put it this way, if you’re a marketer and you’re telling people that pay-per-click (PPC) you have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s clear you have no idea how PPC works or the benefits of it and if you claim that it’s "expensive" that just solidifies my point.

PPC, if done right (and that’s the key) can be one of the most effective forms of direct response marketing out there. Think about it. Someone is thinking about buying your product. He/She sits down at the computer and searches relative keywords. Your ad appears (among your competitors). Because your ad has been positioned within the top three spots, its visible to the. They read it and because it is a keyword rich ad with a strong call to action, they click through to your site. Now, that person who sought you out is on your site! Now, your site has to do its job and convert that person into a lead/sale. With conversion code tracking, you track that person from the keyword they searched to find you to the ad they clicked on (because you should be rotating and testing ads with different calls-to-action) to the final lead or sale. Now, if you narrow your keyword list over time based on the words that are coverting into sales and leads and eliminate those just costing you money, how could you not produce a positive ROI?! So, again, if you’re running a PPC campaign the RIGHT WAY, it WILL work!

SEO’ers….while I believe in SEO as a form of marketing as well (when done right), you cannot argue that your form is less expensive and more effective. It’s not! It can be as effective as PPC but we both know the time and money investment it takes so stop kidding yourselves and small businesses and give them the right solution. Not the one that is most comfortable to you! If you don’t offer PPC. Call me. If you do, make sure you’re doing it the RIGHT WAY!

Would love to hear from you SEO’ers! Love a great, professional debate. Everyone wins from it. Let me hear from you!

Pay-per-click ROI

So I’m still on my rant about the correct way to run/manage a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign and I’m finding that the majority of businesses that have a campaign running (either run internally or through a firm) not only don’t understand how the campaign should work but they don’t know what good looks like.

If you view a PPC campaign as a way to just driving traffic (aka: clicks) to your website, you’re probably spending money you don’t need to! If you’re happy with "just driving traffic to your website," then you’ll be satisfied with the big media moguls (Verizon, Idearc, Yellow Book, ATT, etc) out there offering this service and claiming to run an effective campaign for you.

I will say, that the big media moguls running these campaign do charge less in management fees but don’t get too excited. Even though you’ve set a monthly click budget with them, and they’re staying within it, I guarantee they’re not optimizing your campaign to maximize your budget.

What I mean by that is that they’re not tracking "conversions" - which are actual leads and go beyond just tracking clicks. They’re also not analyzing your data in such as way to determine which keywords are not only driving clicks but are actually converting into legitimate leads versus which ones are just costing you money in clicks.

I am classifying most PPC campaigns as DEFCON Alpha because these campaign basics are not being employed and PPC is getting a bad rap as a result. There are the nay-sayers out there - that PPC just costs you money for something that should be free. But let me tell you emphatically. I have over 15 years in strategic marketing experience and this could be the most effective and efficient form of marketing a company runs IF IT’S RUN RIGHT!  (I welcome comments from SEO’ers though)

Review your campaigns. Challenge the agency running it or revisit how you’re running it and remember I’m always available for questions. You can reach me at meg@vhmarketing.com

This is Meg Ferguson from Vision House Marketing, LLC saying "Have an efficient and effective day!"

Google Pay-Per-Click DEFCON Alpha!

If you have run, are running or are thinking about running a Google Adwords pay-per-click (PPC) campaign (or any PPC campaign for that matter), pay close attention! This could save you a lot of money!

I’d take the time to introduce myself but there’s no time. We’re in DEFCON Alpha and a lot of you out there are being affected!

As more and more “traditional media” based companies are getting into the PPC marketing space, I feel the utter frustration from business owners first-hand. I’m frustrated as well! There are just too many companies out there wasting your money! And I feel obligated to challege the PPC wannabes and rid the marketing world of those that are just out to collect your money.

Look, don’t get me wrong. We’re all out to make money and I don’t blame the large companies losing market share to online marketing to try to compete in this space. What I do take issue with is that they are bastardizing what could be one of the most effective and efficient forms of direct marketing out there (despite what natural SEO guys are saying - I’ll get into that debate later). So how do you know what a good Google Adwords PPC campaign looks like? Next time you sit down with a rep trying to sell you on an online PPC marketing campaign, ask them the following:

1. Can you tell me the estimated amount of clicks on a daily and monthly basis on a list of keywords relative to my business within the specific geographical area that I service?

2. Can you tell me the average cost-per-click that I’ll pay on a list of keywords relative to my business?

3. How do you determine what days/times to run my campaign?

4. To what pages on my site do you direct traffic to?

5. How do you measure the success of this campaign?

6. How often to I receive reports?

7. Do you disclose all the keywords, costs, and ads to me?

8. What is your set-up and management fee and how much of my budget is going to clicks?

9. Can you guarantee that when my ad appears, it will appear in the top 1-3 positions?

10. How do you choose the keywords for my campaign?

These are just 10 of MANY questions you should ask but a great start. Any company trying to sell you a PPC campaign should be able to answer every single one of these questions in detail. At no point, should the answer be “we can’t do that!”

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting answers to these questions and explaining what a successful PPC campaign looks like. Check back with me regularly! If you’re a small or medium or even large company running one of these campaigns, you don’t want to miss this!

This is Meg Ferguson from Vision House Marketing, LLC saying “Have an efficient and effective day!”