Savvy Marketing Tips - March 2010
Hello <<First Name>>
Welcome to this issue of 'Savvy Marketing Tips'. Gosh, we can't believe it's March already. Although we don't like wishing time away, we're hoping that the weather might finally improve soon and it's nice to see some early spring sunshine at long last!
Each month we bring you easy to implement tools and tips for your small business, so you can take advantage of the many brilliant low-cost ways of marketing via the internet. We hope you will find our newsletter a welcome and useful addition to your inbox. If you do, please tell others about us so we can reach more people!
This month we're covering a new topic in Savvy Marketing Tips - getting started with pay per click campaigns and the basics to get you up and running in no time.
Finally, our fr*e talk on 23 March is getting booked up very fast, so if you'd like to attend, please let us know as soon as possible. See details below.
Best wishes,
the Savvy Marketers
Getting Started with Pay per Click Advertising
We've not covered Pay per Click Advertising (or PPC) in Savvy Marketing Tips before, so we thought the best place to start is looking at what you need to do to set up a new PPC campaign.
There are 2 main PPC advertising providers: Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter. Yahoo also have their own Search Marketing offering, but since Yahoo is going through a lot of changes this year, we'll just stick to Google and Microsoft.
1. Don’t be Phased
Firstly and foremost, don’t be phased by the management interface that the pay per click campaigns provide. Google Adwords & Microsoft adCenter have all made their technology relatively easy to navigate and are very similar to each other. For really basic campaigns and for those of you who don’t want to get too involved in complicated campaigns, Google Adwords offer a starter program, which is very easy to use. If your campaign grows or you want more advanced settings, you can go on to transfer to their standard program.
2. What are you Advertising?
This may sound obvious, but the next step in the process is to work out exactly what you’re going to advertise. You’re going to need to structure your campaign so it’s probably easier to put pen to paper first. Decide which products or services you want to advertise, then group them into common themes. A good example of this is from a campaign I’ve done for one of my clients who sells home accessories. It also ties up quite nicely with the categories of the website. Each of the product areas was categorised into ‘dining accessories’, ‘kitchen accessories’, ‘bathroom accessories’, ‘garden accessories’ etc. You can do this with your products and services if there are common themes. Then categorise your products /services further. For example ‘dining accessories’ could be broken down into ‘glassware’, ‘dinner services’, ‘table linen’ etc. Then include all the possible keywords that relate to these sub-categories. When you set up your campaign, you’ll be using ‘campaigns’ and ‘ad groups’ (for Google Adwords and similar for Microsoft), so use your categories and sub categories in the same way.
3. Research your Keywords
After working out your categories & sub categories (if appropriate), then you need to do some keyword research. All of the main advertisers' interfaces provide a search tool, but I prefer Google Adwords keyword research tool. The most important thing to remember is not to sponsor keywords that are too general. If you do, you’ll probably find that these keywords will generate few clicks and either be expensive to sponsor, or your ad will be so far down the list that hardly anyone will ever see it! Be as specific and targeted as you can to keep costs down and to generate clicks from targeted customers.
4. Who are you Targeting?
You can’t be too exacting as to who you’re targeting with search advertising but the main advertising platforms give you location targeting and Microsoft’s adCenter also allows you to target demographically, i.e. gender and age, to Microsoft Passport users (those with Hotmail or MSN Web Messenger accounts). Google Adwords allows you to target as many countries as you want, and also at regional and town level, although this is done by computer IP address rather than physical address so you may find that someone who lives in Glasgow has an ISP based in London, so they look like they're located in London.
5. How much do you want to Spend?
Next, you need to work out how much you can actually afford to spend on clicks per month. Your budget probably depends on what you’re promoting and what kind of return you could expect from the campaign. If you’re in the financial services sector then you’ll need deep pockets as sponsoring anything to do with loans, mortgages & pensions is highly competitive and very expensive. Better news for those of you who are in other sectors, but still many service sectors are expensive, such as sales training, or products such as mobile phones, digital cameras etc. Google Adwords will give you an estimate as to how much you may need to spend each day to show your ads continually, but often their estimate can be quite high. Once you’ve decided on your budget for the month, divide this figure by 30 to work out your daily budget. Once you reach this daily budget in clicks, your ads will stop until the next day, so you don’t need to worry about it being used up at once. Your budget is not set in stone by any means, so you can change your mind whenever you want! You’ll need to allocate a daily budget to each ‘campaign’ that you set up, so if you have several campaigns in your account, divide your budget between them.
6. Target your Ads
When writing your ad text you need to be as precise as possible. The more precise, the more targeted your clicks will be. Unless you’re a well known brand, it’s not worth including your company name. Use the keywords you’re sponsoring as headlines, e.g Garden Accessories, and with the limited descriptions you get with Google & Microsoft adCenter, you’ll have to be specific. You get 35 characters per line including spaces, so no waffle allowed and include your benefits, even pricing! Don’t just write one ad per campaign or ad group. Try out several different ads to test as some will no doubt perform better than others.
7. Where are you going to send your visitors?
As a final part of setting up your campaign, work out where you’re going to send the visitors from your ad. It’s important that you don’t just send everyone to your home page – if you’re targeting specific products or services then send them to that page of your site. If your visitors are presented with a page featuring exactly what they’re looking for, then they’re more likely to convert into leads & sales. You don’t just have to rely on your existing web pages either – you could create specific landing pages for your campaign, particularly if you have special offers or are promoting products for those arriving specifically from the pay per click campaign. You can be as imaginative as you want. Remember, once you get the traffic to your website, it’s your website’s job to convert those prospects into customers.
This is just the beginning of handling your pay per click campaign. We’ve covered the most basic features to help you get going, and in a future article we’ll look at the more advanced features offered by the advertising platforms. On a final note, before we forget, make sure you have a valid credit card to get the campaign started!
© Savvy Marketers, 2010
Latest Events
FR*E Savvy Marketers 'Lunch & Learn'
On 23 March we'll be talking about '7 Ways to Get More Clients with Social Media Marketing' at Eastleigh Borough Council Offices, Civic Offices, Leigh Road,  Eastleigh, Hampshire SO50 9YN.
Times from 12pm - approximately 2pm
Please email either sam@savvymarketers.co.uk or louise@savvymarketers.co.uk to book your place. Numbers are limited so booking is essential. Find out more on the Savvy Marketers website.
We'd Like to Recommend .....
The Confident Business Networking Home Study System - If you need more clients but find your networking isn’t bringing the results you’d hoped for and, if you’ve nothing more to show for your efforts than a drawer full of business cards, then you need to brush up your skills! Here's a sample of what the system covers:
• 5 simple ways you can get more from your networking today
• 3 insider secrets to help you feel confident when entering a room full of strangers
• The most important thing you MUST do in order to get new business from networking
• How to make a start with networking on the Internet
This Home Study System contains all you need to know about Business Networking so that you can quickly attract more clients with less effort.
* * * * * * *
Step by Step E-Marketing
Do you want to get higher search engine rankings and handle online advertising campaigns without the expense of hiring someone to do it?
Forty First's Step by Step E-Marketing teaches you how to promote your website via weekly telephone calls & emails. This programme is a very cost-effective way of handling your own online marketing campaigns and includes:
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Pay per Click Advertising, such as Google Adwords
- Reviewing Competitors' websites & links
- Helping you develop your website to make it compelling to your visitors
This will increase the visitors and sales to your website, all while you learn the ins and outs of online marketing so that you can manage your own website effectively.
Pssst...Pass It On!
If you know anyone who might be interested in reading 'Savvy Marketing Tips' please feel free to forward this copy to them. Or tell them to visit http://www.savvymarketers.co.uk and get their copy of 'The Ultimate Small Business Guide to Marketing via the Internet'
Savvy Marketing Tips are brought to you by the Savvy Marketers, who are Sam McArthur and Louise Barnes-Johnston. We offer no-fluff, low cost, extremely valuable how-to information about marketing via the internet for the small business owner who has little or no prior experience.
 Follow Savvy Marketers on Twitter
 Join our Facebook Group
 Join our LinkedIn Group
Brickbats or bouquets please to sam@savvymarketers.co.uk
We take your privacy very seriously and will never share your details with anyone else. Please view our privacy policy for more information.
|
Connecting to Facebook
