One of the occurrences that strikes me as really unusual is the number of small business owners who either:- Don't utilize any form of online marketing at all
- The ones that are utilizing PPC campaigns but are managing them themselves
Hopefully you will recognize that he former is not recommended as marketing and business is like a bucket of water full of holes. No matter how much water is in the bucket as sure as eggs are eggs at some point the bucket if you don't keep it topped up is going to be emptied. You may think that this does t apply to your business but juts think about it. All customers drift away at some point over a companies life, they may stop trading themselves, they may relocate, they may get poached by another business or you may do something to upset them but at some point you will find your bucket empty or fairly shallow.
So this leads us nicely onto PPC or Pay per Click marketing. This is a really great strategy to get traffic to nearly any business and the great thing is that it works like magic and is nearly instantaneous. The markets it does not work well for are the lower value product items as the downside of PPC marketing is that as the P stands for is PAY. This does not mean that the cost is extortionate but it is representative of the competition in your market. So if you're selling something which has a lower price point or profit margin you may be better suited with a different marketing strategy.
PPC traffic like that which is supplied by Google Adwords is great for business with a competitive portfolio of products which have a decent level of profitability. This is because to gain traffic from a PPC campaign your PPC ad will need to be clicked by a customer. In order for this to occur the ad will need to stand out from your competition and it should also need to appear at the top of the search listings as these adverts get the majority of the PPC clicks.
This is where my point 2 comes into play, in my opinion writing and presenting a Pay Per Click ad requires the following skills:
- Creative ad copy writing skills - increases adverts clicks
- Web design skills to create an effective landing page - increases website conversions (sales)
- Bid management skills - ensures the campaign adverts are displayed in the best positions and sites
- Choosing the correct keywords to bid on - improved by the use of specialist keyword software
- Campaign management skills - increases the campaign profitability
So if you are running PPC ads in your business congratulations you've made the first step in automating the traffic generation and profit for your business. The second step should be to now outsource this as realistically how many of your staff fit the profile of skills to achieve the above campaign optimizations.
If your campaigns are not optimized this means they are costing you money as they are not as efficient as they should be. As with any thing in your business these need to be optimized to save you money.
PPC consultants although they charge a management fee; due to their extensive market knowledge and wider skills in Pay Per Click should increase your ROI (return on investment) from the same market spend. By making your Adwords campaigns more efficient, reducing wasted clicks and increasing website conversions you should find that the cost is absorbed easily within the increased level of sales activity. Click here to discover more on Google Adwords Campaign Management Services and to receive a free PPC campaign overview or if you have not yet started marketing online with PPC get a new free Pay Per Click campaign outline created for your business.
