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.
Niche Marketing 2.0 takes marketing from “push” to “pull”
November 9, 2007
Mariana Wagner is a realtor in Colorado Springs with an incredible eye for marketing, specifically marketing 2.0. In her post, "Shall I be trendy?" she writes:
How does Web 2.0 fit into your life? : I know plenty of agents who run screaming from anything remotely “new fangled” like that pesky “internet”. Okay. Fine. I know that (just like their fashion sense and Glamour Shots) they are stuck in the day where door knocking and cold calling reined king. Well, they can HAVE their gold embroidery blouses and PUSH their advertising into everyone’s lap. I would rather answer the phone call of a new client that has researched me, like what I say and do and wants to do business with me, than cold call a “lead” that doesn’t know me from Adam.
Remember the old days, when marketing meant standing on a corner in a costume handing out single page flyers? Ten years ago, people thought the internet would function in the same way. Put up a web site and people will automatically walk by and passively accept the information as they go on their merry way. Time and experience have shown on thing for certain: The web doesn’t work like that.
Web 2.0 is the result of people wanting more INTERACTION. When you’re looking for a realtor, you need to know more than just what appears on the "single page flyer" handed out by the guy in the hot dog suit. Marian writes on her Active Rain blog entry "Secret Life of Gen X’er"
I don’t mind advertising and marketing efforts. I just don’t like charades. Why do you think my generation loves the “making of” and “behind the scenes” stuff so much? We are sick of what’s being offered- it’s all the same. Call me cynical, but I would rather know WHY it is being offered, made, etc. Give me the “meat” of what you are offering- no flowers, no sleek marketing ploys, no fine print (I will read it…). Give me what I want and I will respect that more than fancy-pantsy Hello Kitty lip gloss flavored postcards and webpages.
Customers like her are much more likely to read your blog for WEEKS before contacting you, checking you out to see if you’re "for real". For consumers like Mariana, if you fill your blog entries with hard sell tactics pushing your product hard sell style… well, I think it’s obvious how that will be received.
My mantra has always been "see your business through your customer’s eyes". "PUSH" marketing is also seen as "THE HARD SELL". If you’re just thinking about you and your business, then it’s going to come across as "HARD SELL." If, on the other hand, you’re thinking of your potential CUSTOMER/CLIENT, then you begin to move to "PULL" marketing. Whether you call it "SOFT SELL" or "consultative selling"…. there’s one thing for certain… most consumers today prefer the latter to the former.
Web 1.0 was more suited towards HARD SELL while Web 2.0 is PERFECT for pull marketing. However, pull marketing is virtually impossible without first targeting your audience. After all, Web 2.0 is all about INTERACTION.
Proof you don’t have to think small when you target a niche market
November 1, 2007
When you think of a "niche" market, you tend to think "small". After all, targeting a niche market is really the process of breaking down or segmenting a larger group of individuals. A niche market is really just a tightly targeted market… and it’s possible to be targeting a niche market even if the size of that market is over 50 MILLION strong!
Take for example the new start up Disaboom.com. a new web site that has chosen to target the potentially lucrative market of people with disabilities. Disaboom is offering a diverse set of offerings ranging from social networking and dating to medical advice, career advice and product reviews.
According to an article in the New York Times:
People with mobility challenges are active consumers. A 2005 Harris Interactive study commissioned by Open Doors found that 69 percent of adults with disabilities — more than 21 million people — had traveled for either business or pleasure at least once in the preceding two years. In that same period, more than half had stayed in hotels, while 31 percent had booked at least one flight and 20 percent had rented a car. More than 75 percent of people with disabilities dine out at least once a week.
Needless to say, targeting savvy advertisers are lining up for an opportunity to deliver their message to this tightly targeted audience. Creating ads featuring people with disabilities is nothing new. Advertisers who have already featured people with disabilities in their advertising include such heavy hitters as McDonald’s, Verizon Wireless, Sears and Target. However, until now reaching this segment of the population is difficult.
Again, from the NY Times article:
“We’re a very difficult group to reach,” said Eric Lipp, founder of the Open Doors Organization, a nonprofit group that consults with companies about the disability market. “People in the marketing world will say, ‘I can reach out to them,’ and I’m just telling you it’s not easy. We’re just spread out over all kinds of walks of life — from different races to different religions to different income levels and education.”
For advertisers like Bioness and MagicWheels, Disaboom is the perfect place to deliver their message. However, it’s not just the companies who create products for this market who are lining up to become a part of this community. Mainstream companies like Ford are also on board.
“I didn’t have to think real long and hard about it,” said Kathy LaPointe, mobility motoring manager at the Ford Motor Company, about the automaker’s decision to advertise prominently on the site. Click-throughs from the ads to Ford’s Web site “have performed well above the benchmark,” Ms. LaPointe said. “This has been a huge success for us so far.”
By the way, if you visit the site, you’ll notice that this site really does have it’s target market in mind. In the upper right hand corner is the ability to change the size of the display text. The content also displays the provider’s in depth understanding of their target market. By knowing their market, Disaboom is delivering tightly targeted content to a tightly targeted audience.
Keywords and copy…. essential elements of niche marketing
October 16, 2007
In his post, "Advanced Keyword Research — The power of understanding your visitors”, Hamlet Batista takes the reader step by step through the process of researching keywords for your target audience. It’s a great article with some great tools. Be sure to check out (and bookmark) the full article. In his post, the first step is, of course, to identify your target audience or visitors.
Over and over again, marketing experts EVERYWHERE beg and plead with business owners to begin with their target audience in mind. A much touted key to success is to write copy with the end user in mind instead of writing copy for the search engines. After all, heavy traffic without conversions to sales is not the key to a profitable online experience. But writing with the end user in mind eventually leads us back to targeting a niche market.
An interesting thing happens when you start thinking of your target audience… you begin to include elements in your copy that reduce customer anxiety.
Gee, go figure. People need to establish a relationship (aka TRUST) with you before they hand over their credit card information!
I’ve written an entire book (Beyond the Niche) to help business owners to walk a mile in their customers’ shoes before they write a word of marketing copy. If you’re making a Minor Sale… then trust isn’t as big of an issue for you to overcome with your potential customers. However, if you’re making a MAJOR SALE... then the rules of the game change dramatically.
A significant problem with tightly targeting your audience
August 24, 2007
I’ve often sung the praises of tightly targeting your niche market as a way to create effective and compelling marketing messages. However, I must point out that I am making a HUGE assumption with this advice: I’m assuming you’re offering a quality product or service.
In "Yet another way to piss off your customers" I tell the story of my friend who purchased a product that was exquisitely marketed but poorly produced. Her wrath at being "taken" has spurred her to make it her current mission to discredit the product to everyone she meets. While I am not a potential customer for the product in question (it is tightly targeted towards single women), her unsolicited review to me would dissuade me from purchasing it.
While I am not included in the target audience, MANY of my friend’s other acquaintances are single women who ARE potential prospects for this product though. While the internet is indeed a BIG market, I can not for the life of me understand why anyone would make a promise in their marketing materials that they had no intention of delivering.
Satisfied customers are not exactly the BEST source of business because, when they’re satisfied they tend to tell 2 or 3 people about their good experience. On the other hand, customers who feel they’ve been abused are likely to tell 16 people about their horrible experience…. and that doesn’t factor in the "internet" effect… where those 16 friends may choose to share this one horror story.
There’s no way to make EVERYONE happy especially in business. However, when you’re tightly targeting a market it’s best to not make promises you have no intention of keeping. Doing so tends to anger your customers…. who know other potential customers or worse yet… are active bloggers with a huge audience.
Niche Marketing Defined
August 15, 2007
Niche marketing is a favorite topic on the internet. It’s a highly competitive keyword for good reason. Word is out that defining your target market as narrowly as possible is an essential KEY to marketing success.
Over two decades ago, Joan Elias, the founder of the regional advertising agency Business Development, took me in (actually, she hired me… but in hindsight I view it as ‘taking me in") and taught me the key to developing successful marketing messages. She taught me that the KEY to successful advertising was to tightly target your audience and create a marketing message that "broke through" the clutter. While other, less tightly targeted, messages were being "filtered" by the human brain, the tightly targeted messages we were creating were making an impact on listener’s/viewer’s behavior. What a happy day it was for our clients when the actually began to see a positive impact on the bottom line as a result of our tightly targeted marketing messages!
Enter the internet and, over time, the value of Niche Marketing has been discovered. It didn’t take long for web site developers and SEO experts to discover that by tightly targeting their marketing message they increased the effectiveness of their web message. The reason was simple: Log files don’t lie. It’s one thing to run an ad on television and have it not produce results. It’s easy to delude yourself and explain away the dismal failure. It’s quite another thing to look at your log files and see that 100,000 people visited a web site and did NOTHING! OUCH!
As a result, many web developers have embraced the Niche Marketing concept… however sometimes the explanations get too simple. For example Webene says:
To be absolutely positive about what isn’t a niche market product, go to any big box store. If they carry it, it is not a niche product. For the most part, niche markets are too small for big companies to bother.
Um… I have to disagree with the statement … "If they {a big box retailer} carry it, it is not a niche product." because there are certainly a number of ‘niche market’ items being carried by big box retailers. However, while big box retailers may be carrying niche market items, they truly can NOT compete when it comes to knowledge and expert advice.
For example, Walmart, Dick’s Sporting Goods and the Sports Authority all carry soccer gear. They even carry a limited selection of cleats, soccer shin guards…even a few soccer training items.
However, if you want expert advice on soccer equipment … I don’t recommend going to any "big box" retailer or even to a "category killer"…. instead you need to visit your local soccer store. While you might be able to pick up a pair of cleats at a big box retailer, you’ll never get the personal attention of an EXPERT there. Instead, you need to visit the local specialists store…. the one which is targeting soccer players as their niche market.
When we lived in Indiana, it was the Soccer House in Fort Wayne, while here in Port Saint Lucie, Florida the local specialists store is called PK’s Soccer. In either case, whether you wanted expert advice in which cleat to purchase or you simply wanted to know when league sign ups began, the only place to go was to visit the local specialist’s store. It’s where the serious players went for equipment not to mention their coaches and league officials.
So while you may find a few "niche marketing" items at a big box retailer, what you won’t find is the SERVICE… the additional advice which is only available from someone who eats/drinks/sleeps the niche market.
While it’s true that most niche markets are too small for the big box retailers to target, more often than not you’ll find the big box retailers taking a half - hearted swipe at competing in the niche market. They’ll carry an item or two, but they don’t have the depth and breadth of product, not to mention the skilled staff, to truly compete in the niche.
Transforming your business by tightly targeting your Niche…
July 10, 2007
Yesterday Comcast decided to shut down my business for the afternoon, so I loaded the kids into the Dodge Grand Caravan and we headed to the movies. We went to see the summer blockbuster Transformers. In the movie, I was transported to a place where the men in the military are brave, dedicated and a model of precision/efficiency [yeah!] and GM products are the cutting edge of cool.
WARNING: Possible Movie Spoilers ahead.
The Transformers movie features a Mustang and a Camaro doing battle. According to Auto Blog:
A bright orange Chevy Camaro Concept that’s more than meets the eye will play the good-natured Transformer named Bumblebee, which has traditionally been portrayed by the Volkswagen Beetle. Meanwhile, a Decepticon named Brawl that reportedly "jacks-up poor Bumblebee" is being played by the Ford Mustang.
In essence, the entire movie serves as a 2 hour commercial for the Chevy Camaro. Bumblebee begins as a 1974 Chevrolet Camaro and transforms into the new 2008 concept Camaro.
Excuse me, Brawl was a Ford Mustang? It didn’t even register. My lust was entirely focused upon that sexy Camaro concept car. (Despite my "advanced" age and role as a parental unit, I do remember what it was like to drive a sexy car…. even though parent hood has banished me to mini-van land for a decade or two.)
Combine the movie’s targeted demographic with the target audience for this car, and you’ve got the essence of niche marketing 2.0. Transformers serves as a 144 minute commercial for GM products… where the good guys are GM… the bad guys are Ford and that’s got to be good news for BOTH automakers.
Frequently cited key to success
June 11, 2007
Choosing a niche or target market is a frequently cited key to web site success. Whether it’s a blog or a traditional web site, if you want to effectively reach your audience, the process begins by DEFINING that audience.
Over at Building a Super Blog Collis Ta’eed takes you behind the scenes of a super successful blog launch. The number one tip: Choosing the right niche.
One great word of advice from Collis is this: Choose a market that is underserved. In other words, identify a need that isn’t currently being met, then meet that need.
That’s really the key to success.
Niche Marketing 2.0
June 6, 2007
According to Advertising Age Today’s Niche Marketing Is All About Narrow, Not Small.
It’s been a LONG time since I thought of defining a target or niche market as focusing on something small. I guess that’s because I was taught by a true visionary who snapped me up right out of college and set me on the path of true marketing enlightenment. Her tenure in the trenches of selling radio advertising prior to opening her own agency meant she was extremely well versed in the finer points of targeting your marketing message.
According to the article:
So rather than equating niche with "small," think "narrow." As in narrowly targeting a group whose self interest/self concept is so clear that a marketer can offer something ultrarelevant and vastly different from alternatives. Then the scarcity principle allows the marketer to charge a premium, reaping higher margins.
When you truly begin focusing on a niche market, you create an offering for which there are few alternatives. You become a specialist and suddenly the generalists, no matter what their size, look like pretenders to the throne.
