Have Google Adwords Let You Down?
May 9, 2008
Have you been beating your head against the wall, trying to make Adwords work for you?
Google Adwords is for chumps…or at least for people without an eye on the advertising ROI.
Google Adwords used to be easy… easy to use and easy to make work. But things have changed and not for the getter. Winning with Google Adwords today is hard. If you’re winning with Adwords, then you’re in the minority.
The reality is that it’s REALLY hard to make Google Adwords work for the average small business owner, especially the one whose business isn’t internet related.
For example, I have a web development client who spent THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of dollars over the past year running Google Adwords. She has hired consultants to help direct her Adwords campaigns, one of whom set her up to spend $1500 in one month without so much as a single new lead, let alone a customer as a result.
When she turned to me in frustration, I did an analysis of the number of people searching for her “ideal” keywords. The research clearly showed that there just aren’t enough of her target customers searching for her solution via the internet.
It’s not a matter of tightly targeting her customers… she’s done that.
It’s not a matter of her customers not NEEDING her product… they do.
It’s not a matter of the quality of her marketing materials… when she speaks in person and promotes her product, customers flock to the website and the orders POUR in.
The problem is that her tightly targeted target market just don’t know her product exists. If they don’t know it exists, then we can’t expect them to go searching for it on the web. We need to find a way to let them know it’s available.
We need to look to other avenues to promote her product.
I’ve begged her try traditional media to promote her product, but it’s way too much “work”. The fact is, Adwords is easy and familiar. Direct mail marketing on the other hand is “new” and therefore “hard”.
The basics of direct mail marketing are amazingly similar to the principles behind running a successful Adwords campaign. The difference is Adwords is reaching the “active” user… the user who knows he/she has a problem and is heading to the internet for a solution.
However, there is another type of customer… the type who knows he/she has a problem and has no idea where to start. This “passive” user needs to be reached via “active” media… such as direct mail, radio or television.
Meanwhile, I have another client who hired me for marketing consultation. He read my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results and wanted one on one help.
We first defined who his audience was and why they would hire him. We then created a tightly targeted message specifically for his audience. We invested in producing a television commercial to deliver that message and then started running his tightly targeted message on a cable network which squarely targets his ideal target client.
So far this year, my client has spent less on production + ad time than my Adwords using client spent on just adwords alone. Oh, and the client running television saw his website traffic figures grow to 5X their pre-ad traffic figures PLUS he’s seen new clients as a result.
The 2nd client got measurable SUPERIOR results for less money thanks to the smart use of traditional media.
Yet another one of my clients built her business on Adwords… but that was four years ago. She called today to ask my advice about traditional media. Her latest Adwords invoice was sky high and while her click through rates were dropping at an equally dramatic rate. Meanwhile she’s noticed that more and more “local” people are finding her. That’s probably thanks to her prominently displayed address on her web site. Her keywords plus her location = top SERPS in natural search for a long tail keyword.
So that got her thinking… what if there were a better way? What if she could reach people who hadn’t begun to search for her solutions via the web. After all, 5 out of 6 people in the world aren’t even ON the internet!
My formula for success with traditional media is as follows: Make sure the call to action is to visit the website. That way, you can watch the logs to see if the message is making an impact. If it is and the phone isn’t ringing, then you know to tweak the web copy. If visitors aren’t showing up at the website, then it’s time to tweak the traditional media message.
The same it true with Google Adwords. However, instead of paying for your message to be delivered to a broad television or radio audience, you’re paying for your message to be “hand” delivered one at a time to individual customers.
Sure, there are still some campaigns that can be run for a “reasonable” sum. However, if you’ve noticed all the banner ads on blogs lately… there’s a lot of discouragement amongst Google Adwords faithful and they’re turning to other avenues to present their marketing message. If your audience is internet users, then that’s your other option. On the other hand, if your audience is geographically local, then give your local media a stab at delivering your marketing message.
Job Site “The Ladders” Ad Does Tongue in Cheek Well
March 24, 2008
In an earlier post Moveable Type’s Nasty Swing at Wordpress I offered the following advice: Tongue Must Be Firmly Inserted in Cheek Before Delivering Playful Marketing Blows to Your Competitor.
Later in the week, I noticed this ad for the job site “The Ladders” “When you let everyone play, nobody wins”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31ZevWuxrNE[/youtube]
I am by no means a career consultant nor do I follow career sites… but in my wanderings around the blogosphere I have seen posts which directly state that Monster.com is solely responsible for “ruining” online job searches. The ad above is delivering a nice, playful “jab” at Monster… but never mentions Monster by name.
The spot also does a GREAT job of creating a powerful visual for anyone considering searching online for a j-o-b.
Oh, and bravo to the smart marketing professionals at The Ladders for posting this video at You Tube so I can share the actual spot with you here, on my blog.
Branding as advertising defined
February 18, 2008
First, the basics…. let’s play the "define branding" game. Let’s start with the source….the ones who successfully "captured" the domain name. according to Brand.com,
"Brand is the proprietary visual, emotional, rational, and cultural image that you associate with a company or a product."
HUH? A bit esoteric for my tastes…. See, it wasn’t all that long ago that the term "branding" was used to describe scarring an animal to denote ownership. Oh how times have changed.
Branding is now the hot BUZZ word to describe, in essence, marketing or advertising messages that work at conveying what you do in your business to the casual observer. It’s the magic bullet, the mystical trick, THE WAY TO WIN at this whole marketing game.
The traditional thinking goes that if you effectively "brand" your messages, that consumers will be better able to recognize your ads as belonging to you and will then be more likely to do business with you.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there is value to creating easily recognizable cohesive advertising campaigns. However, creating cohesive advertising campaigns filled with creative and compelling content is only the TIP of the "branding" iceberg.
Allow me to reveal the other 98% of the branding iceberg to you…..
Branding is not something you choose to do to your business. It’s something that your CUSTOMERS do to you.
Just as the unsuspecting calf is branded by searing metal pressed into it’s flesh, so is your business branded by your customers.
That’s right. Branding is not an "inside out" process, though it is a process that begins deep within your company. Instead, branding is the process through which you imprint what it is your company is about upon the minds of your target audience.
Because branding is an ongoing activity, it occurs constantly. Every interaction between your business and your customer (or potential customer) is building your brand, whether you like it or not. With that perspective on branding, it’s easy to see that the task at hand is to control your customer’s perceptions of your company as much as is possible.
With this perspective, you may suddenly realize that the surely angst ridden teen who is running your cash register after school is helping to building your brand. Nancy, in accounts receivable is also building your brand as are your technicians who go out into the field.
Every time someone you employ has contact with other people, they are in fact helping to build your brand. If this doesn’t frighten you, nothing will.
The "experts" want you to believe that branding is something you can buy. Can you blame them? It’s much easier to say, "Run your ads here and be sure to use use the right colors and font faces in those ads," than to look beyond the ads at the business behind the ads.
Advertisements, even well branded ones, are simply invitations to your business. Invitations to strangers asking them to do business with you. Implementing a methodical identity program (a.k.a. branding program) will allow you to determine exactly how you want to portray your company or product to the outside world. However, what happens once those customers do business with you will, in the end, determine your company’s "brand."
In the end, your brand is merely the way you are perceived by your customers. Branding is merely identifying the image you want to portray to outsiders. Your goal should be to make certain that brand accurately reflects what your business does. Once you’ve done that, then you can determine what promises you should make for your business to deliver.
Composing compelling content appropriate for the season….
January 2, 2008
Just a few weeks ago, every marketing message was centered around the holidays which are celebrated around the time of the Winter Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere). Now, those images have shifted from snow and reindeer to hard bodies sweating in the gym. Oh what a difference a few days can make! If you want your January message to "stand out", then go ahead and feature the fat bearded guy dressed in red. Your message will definitely "stick out" but the term "sore thumb" also comes to mind.
Early January is ripe for playing to the "making resolutions" types of ad… and Nike has a great "no excuses" spot running featuring UW-Whitewater Wheelchair Basketball Player Matt Scott
where he recites the many "excuses" we average humans make about why we don’t exercise.
While the message is timeless, it plays EXCEPTIONALLY well at this time of year.
Back in May , I posted an article on my "main" business web site on how blogging is like exercise. This morning when I logged on, I found a flurry of trackbacks to the article. The message is the same as it was back in May… but now the post is being found because people are searching for how blogging is like exercise and they’re finding that post.
While that kind of "sleeper post" is possible on a blog, it’s not possible when you’re utilizing other media. Had that been a traditional advertisement (running in radio, television, newspaper, billboards, magazines, etc.) it would have been "here today, gone tomorrow." There is no such thing as a sleeper advertisement.
Would the Nike "No Excuses" spot featuring Matt Scott be powerful if run in May? Of course it would be, but it grabs even more attention being run the first week of January.
Using niche marketing in real estate
June 22, 2007
Great post over at Canadian Real Estate Online about the power of carefully wording your ads to attract the RIGHT kind of clients.
In this case, the investor had a property near a university but didn’t want to attract university students as potential renters. By carefully crafting their message, they were able to "weed out" students before they picked up the phone. The end result: the investor found EXACTLY the type of renter desired for the property. The upscale professionals have been ideal renters for the past two years….making it a win win situation for everyone involved.
Small focused marketing steps can make all the difference in the world.
The same is true in other business ventures as well!
Carefully crafting your message to it appeals to the right audience is essential to creating marketing success. This is an excellent illustration of how, by choosing carefully that the property manager was able to avoid attracting college students to a unit near a university is truly niche marketing in action!
Creating Compelling Creative
May 14, 2007
The first rule of creating compelling creative is to grab your target audience’s attention.
Saturday, as I was sifting through my mail, there was an oversized post card with an image of the Motorola Razor cell phone dominating the front of the piece. I glanced, and since I didn’t want or need a phone and quickly tossed the piece into the garbage. Once lodged in the garbage can, the image of the phone was obscured and only the logo was displayed…. it was a piece from Gold’s Gym.
The thing is, I am considering joining a gym but I’m NOT in the market for a new cell phone, especially one that is as "old school" as the Razor they featured. The decision to toss the piece would have to have been measured in nanoseconds. I’ve got to wonder how many other people tossed the piece into the circular file without reading further… people like me who are considering joining a gym but who aren’t in the market for a new cell phone. It has been said that consumers today are much better at filtering.
Years of scanning through spam subject titles has honed our abilities as humans to quickly determine whether a message is right for us or not.
Even more reason to tightly target your audience and create your messages with that audience’s wants and needs in mind.
When Compelling Goes Horribly Awry…ATHF
April 4, 2007
I’ve talked about how creating clever and compelling content frequently means walking a fine line between the positive and the negative. Just as the opposite of love is not hate, but rather apathy, the opposite of positive compelling creative is NOT negative creative.
Take for example, the not so recent Terrorists Marketing Tactics Campaign launched by Cartoon Network to promote their upcoming movie for Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The campaign certainly took the awareness of the upcoming release to new heights, garnering top mention on almost every media source in North America when they placed small LED circuit boxes featuring a character from the show giving the middle finger. (Which this character is prone to doing on the show.)
The marketing ploy turned full fledged incident brought Boston bomb squads running, closing roadways and bridges, tying up the city of Boston for most of the day in question. Not only was legendary Boston traffic snarled, but it’s been reported that the Pentagon was alerted and the U.S. Northern Command was monitoring the situation from its headquarters in Colorado Springs.
The question we always ask at my house when something like this happens is this: “Does this make me want to see the movie (or purchase the product in question)?”
Because my home is populated with pubescent males and a pubsescent female, I know it’s a real turd if NO ONE in the house answers the question above positively… and no one could in this case.
By the way, the story’s a bit old now, but I’m amused by one online account that reported the event with this spin:
“A great family-oriented brand has been damaged in an incalculable way, and significant monetary damage could follow via compensatory damages, fines and legal fees.”
Um… obviously the author has never WATCHED even a single episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. My 12 year old is NOT allowed to watch a single episode. The characters on the animated show are routinely maimed and disfigured. Actually, to promote the film in a way that DOESN’T conjure up imaginary threats to national security would probably be out of character with the genre.
By the way, Cartoon Network promoted the film the other night by playing the ENTIRE movie, in it’s entirety, during their regularly scheduled programming. The movie played constantly in a TINY box on the screen. At inopportune moments, the movie would take up the full screen and then would revert back to it’s tiny portion of the small screen.
Clearly Clever and Compelling Content
April 3, 2007
It’s a fine line that separates clearly clever creative content from content that is offensive and abusive.
Content that is clearly clever and creative easily rises above the cacophony that is modern media and creates a positive wave upon which a company can proudly ride to shore….and content that crosses that line frequently finds it too rises above the cacophony.
The reason the line is so fine…is because when you are creating clever and compelling content, you’re walking the edge.
When you look at messages that “went viral” you’ll usually find one of these four elements at work:
- It’s odd… very odd. Never underestimate the value of “weird” in making an impact.
Case in point… spongemonkeys and Quizno subs:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oRwkPY04qc[/youtube] - It’s only funny until someone gets hurt… then it’s freaking hilarious!
Painful things either happening to OTHER people or SEEMING to happen to other people seems to be a crucial element in creating compelling content:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-RbjFleoQs[/youtube] - A little Bling Bling to catch the ladies’ eye…. impressive displays of courage, wealth, physical prowess or intelligence (or lack thereof) never fail to impress:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNlmfqv9YWU[/youtube] - Current Events…. create content that speaks to the condition known as “here and now”…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo[/youtube]
