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The first words a person sees or hears in your ad, article, brochure, direct mail piece or web page are hugely important.
This is the point where you get the person's interest. Or not.
This is the second huge barrier you have to overcome to achieve effective marketing (the first is getting noticed at all). If you get the person's interest, they are going to read or listen to the next line. If you don't, they are gone.
You know this from your own experience. The average American is exposed to over 3,000 marketing messages per day. How many of them do you pay attention to? A handful at most I'm sure.
And which ones are they? The ones that say something to indicate this is or might be of interest or importance TO YOU.
Here are some types of headlines:
1. Benefit Headline -- “What's in it for me? What benefit or advantage will I get by responding to your ad?”
“Earn Extra Money At Home... In Your Spare Time”
“Reduce Fat”
“Protect Your Property”
“Get Better Gas Mileage”
Overall, benefit headlines are the best.
2. News Headline -- This gives news about a new product or announces a sale or the latest model, etc.
"At last! Our ‘2002 Models Are Here!"
"Announcing ... A Car Battery That Lasts A Lifetime!"
"New UFO Evidence! -- Abductees Take Their Case To Court"
3. Storytelling Headline -- This can intrigue people because it promises to lead them into a story. Stories are interesting.
“How I Went From Bankruptcy To Financial Security In Less Than Two Years.”
This headline also has an implied benefit: financial security.
4. Advice Headline -- The heading of this report is an advice headline. It gives tips or advice. Another example:
“7 Tips For Lowering Your Fuel Bill.”
(Also has a benefit).
5. Curiosity Headline --
“Do You Make These Mistakes With Your Employees?”
Curiosity article titles with numbers in them work especially well:
"Top 10 Ways To Increase Brain-Power."
6. Testimonial Headline -- These can be very powerful. They have the added credibility of a third-party endorsement.
“I earned $40,000 in six months using your wealth-building techniques!”
How do you learn to write headlines or opening lines? Study what others are doing. Also there are many books on the subject.
Be wary of older articles and books: This is the sort of thing that changes over time. Not 100%, as some things are timeless. But look at ads from the 1950's and you'll see what I mean.
Also this is very dependent on culture and language. A good headline in the U.S. might be a complete bust in Venezuela.
Try out different headlines and see what actually works for you. You might be amazed how even a one word change in a headline can improve your response.
It is often (but not always) true that when people buy something - whether as consumers or for business - that they are doing so to solve a problem.
With some types of products and services this is more true than others. It is almost always true in health care. It probably isn't true in toy sales, but maybe a mother is buying a toy to get her child to shut up - in which case "our toy will occupy your 3 to 5 year old for hours" could be a great selling point.
If you have a product or service that is basically a solution to a problem, then starting out by selling the problem works in more than one way:
First of all, it at once selects out someone who has that problem. That leads to headlines like
Homeowners! Over your head in debt?
You don't leave it at that but work your copy and imagery to make the reader / visitor / viewer / listener painfully aware of the problem.
Last year 500,000 US homeowners declared bankruptcy. This year those numbers are predicted to skyrocket to over 2 million!
Are you constantly upset by debt collection phone calls?
Possibly they've been trying to ignore their problem. You don't want to let them do that. Once you've adequately brought home the depth of their difficulty, you've got them more ready to listen to a solution:
We can provide cash for the equity in your home in less than 36 hours. Call today!
Of course this is an obvious example, but you'd be surprised at the variety of products and services this works for. It's worth considering when planning your marketing strategy.
The bigger ticket the item, the more it takes to sell it.
That would seem obvious, but it is a point frequently missed. The reverse is also true. You better not get into a lengthy explanation in marketing a $5 item! People will take one look at it and either buy or not.
With very expensive items, you'd better plan on a very extensive website, one which answers every possible question and objection, provides full data on every possible feature and benefit, and provides tons of confidence builders (video testimonials are great in that kind of situation). Sales aids should be equally extensive.
You also in that situation need to provide multiple methods of contact and make contact very easy.
Finally, you need to provide a gradient to purchase, such as newsletter signups, introductory trials, and so on. Give them a reason (one that is valid FOR THEM) to provide their contact information.
Let's say you've found a trade show, convention or meeting at which a large number of your potential buyers are going to show up.
Furthermore, you can afford it, it is scheduled at a time when you can attend and you have or can get adequate help to man the show.
By the way, any new marketing is experimental. You don't know till you've given it an adequate try if it will work for you. So don't try a new marketing scheme with your last dollar or one which just HAS to work or else.
So, what's next? What's the first thing you MUST do at a trade show to make a success of it?
You have to stop people.
The typical show has so many exhibitors that there is no way a visitor can adequately inspect and evaluate every one as to whether they are selling something of interest. In fact, after a while, many visitors don't even try. They walk the aisles on auto-pilot, waiting for something to grab their attention.
So your booth display and what you do with it has as its first target, to grab eyeballs.
Sheer size and superior location of a booth certainly help, but that can be expensive. Motion can be effective (as with moving parts of a display or with video). Tricks such as free popcorn (the odor attracts people from everywhere) and beautiful women often work.
The most basic (and usually least expensive and easiest) way to attract attention is with dramatic, different and colorful displays.
An effective display doesn't necessarily even cost more than a lousy one. But you do have to start out knowing that is what you are going for. It helps if you have an idea what other exhibitors are doing.
In evaulating a potential design you have to imagine yourself in the shoes of a prospector buyer at the show, and ask yourself if that display would make you stop and look closer? If it does, you've accomplished the first step of the formula to successful marketing.
There's a formula well known in marketing. It applies to ads, websites, trade shows - most any form of marketing if it is to be successful.
AIDCA.
It stands for
A: Attract Attention
I: create Interest
D: build Desire for what you are offering
C: Conviction -- be convincing & believable
A: Ask for Action
How do you apply this? Following is a brief rundown of each of these five points:
You attract attention with the location and appearance of your item. I like to talk about "grabbing eyeballs." Another word for this is "impingement." Someone has to notice you're talking to them.
Interest is created usually with the headline or first words a person sees or hears. It selects out from all those who are exposed to your item, those who are potential buyers because you are selling what they need or want. "Homeowners! Are you over your head in debt?" is likely to get someone to read on if that is their situation.
You build desire by describing the benefits, by appealing to emotion with "sizzle" or appeals to status or image. It's as much the imagery as the copy.
People are skeptical. Everything in your marketing has to be directed at building trust. Customer testimonials are basic to this, but even the look, the way you word a piece and how it is delivered can contribute.
Describe the features which add up to the benefits you are touting, anything to support what you are saying and make your offer more believable. Also address and overcome each key objection that the reader could come up.
Finally, ask for action. “Don't Delay! Call today for your free examination!” If you don't ask for the order, the response, the call, or whatever, you'll get a lot fewer. Tell people what you want them to do.
Well, I realized I have exactly zero articles in the blog about trade show marketing.
Since trade show marketing is one of our specialties (specialities to our British friends), time to remedy.
First of all, why do trade shows (and conventions, association meetings and the like)?
There is no other venue where such a concentration of potential buyers can be found in one place at one time.
Of course, that does make some assumptions:
The first being that the nature of the trade show or meeting is such that the people who come to it ARE potential buyers.
So the first requirement of trade show marketing is that you have accurately isolated who your potential buyers are and found a show that attracts a high concentration of such.
Exhibiting at trade shows is expensive. It can be VERY expensive. So to not waste your money, ensure you are exposing your products or services to the right people.
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There's an old saying in sales and marketing, "sell the sizzle, not the steak."
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You're selling time shares in Hawaiian condos. Talk about the features, pricing, etc., or the practical benefits, you are selling the steak.
Talking about romantic hideaways in paradise sells the sizzle.
In consumer marketing, and even to a degree in business-to-business marketing, the sizzle sells. That doesn't mean you ignore the features and benefits.
But look at any auto commercial and you'll see a heavy emphasis on sizzle - and how many autos would sell without that?
Look for the romance, beauty or drama in your product and promote that with your marketing copy and imagery.
| You're standing in line at the checkout counter in the grocery store, and spy that rack of batteries. You know that some of your favorite gadgets are going to quit running because their batteries are running low. So you grab a pack of batteries and add it to your collection of groceries. It was a quick, impulse sale.
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Or you're shopping in the mall, and you walk by a kiosk that has the most fascinating costume watches on display. On impulse you walk over, try one or two on, and out comes your purse and you now are the proud owner of an eye-catching accessory item – one that may or may not tell the time all that well, but sure looks cool.
Does this apply to the Internet as well?
It certainly does.
But If an item in an online store is going to work as an impulse sale, it is going to be on one of two bases:
1. It is an "upsell" or add-on - some item a person can add to their shopping cart when they are buying something else. An online flower shop will have balloons and stuffed animals, for example.
2. It is so cute and interesting that it goes "viral" and articles, blog postings, TV talk shows and the like send traffic to the site just to buy that item. The Hillary Clinton nutcracker is a good example.
In either case only a lower priced item is going to get impulse sales, usually under $20 before tax and shipping.
If you have or are thinking of opening an online store, it is worth considering if you have or can add such items to your inventory. They can be a huge addition to your bottom line as by their very nature they are high profit margin.
Marketing them has its own rules. You don't spend a lot of time explaining features and benefits. Use high impact imagery (and possibly audio) and make it really easy to complete the purchase.
People often buy on emotion and justify it with logic. That really comes to the fore with "image sales." Some products are easier to sell when you emphasize their image, the status or glamor of owning them.
A man may explain the reason he bought a new, expensive Mercedes as "You know these things are really built with precision. They're quality cars that will last for a lot of miles… blah, blah."
But we all know he REALLY bought it because owning a Mercedes means you're well-off.
People who buy a Rolls Royce don't care about its various features and benefits. They are interested in the image of class, wealth, status, etc. that goes along with the $400,000 price tag
The whole woman's fashion industry runs that way, explaining why someone will pay $1000 for a Prada handbag.
Prada is so snooty it is almost impossible to buy something in their online store. You have to read their conditions of sale, attest to being over 21, if you make a mistake you get dumped back to the beginning.
You would never market most products that way. They could care less! It just contributes to their image.
The moral of the story is, if you are going to market something, take the trouble to REALLY find out why people are going to buy it.
Then market accordingly.
A website, or any marketing, has to reach your potential customers - make them wake up and take notice.
Not put them to sleep.
How do you do that?
One of the main ways - it applies mainly to consumer sales - is with FEATURES and BENEFITS.
If you're selling a fancy cell phone to a certain public, are you really selling them high-tech gadgetry? Or are you selling benefits such as convenience, ease-of-use, time saved, etc.? People – especially consumers - buy benefits ("What's in it for me?").
They're not really buying the feature that the phone can store up to 750 phone numbers. What they're buying is convenience.
Stored phone numbers save time when dialing. So convenience and time saved are the benefits to the customer. That is what they get out of this purchase.
Your website should always turn product or services features into benefits.
Like this:
"Because this phone has a speaker-phone, voice calling and stores up to 750 numbers, you can call anyone and everyone hands-free."
You tell them the features to give the benefits credibility, but it is the benefits that you are really selling.
Features have to do with products. Benefits relate to people.
Features involve logic. Benefits involve emotions.
So, don't put your customers to sleep by chanting off a laundry list of product features. Instead, create want and desire by emphasizing people benefits.
The premier use of most websites is as a sales tool.
In short, the FIRST use of the majority of websites is not as a lead generator. It is there to reinforce interest but to function as a sort of online catalog, gallery or brochure to assist Sales in closing a prospective buyer.
This immediately tells you what to put on a site: Everything you find yourself repeatedly telling or showing sales prospects.
If you do this you will automatically have an effective website. First of all, it will answer unasked questions from people you haven't even heard of - thereby increasing the likelihood they will call you.
Secondly, you'll save enormous amounts of time on the sales cycle because when they do talk to you, they'll already know a lot of the answers. And if not - if they haven't visited your site yet - you can send them to the site or walk them through the site as a part of the sales cycle.
Logos are one of the most misunderstood elements of marketing. People expect more of them than they can ever hope to do.
Let's see if we can shine a little light on the subject.
Though it comes from the Greek word for "word", it doesn't necesssarily include any words or letters. It's just a symbol meant to represent a company, product line or product, idea or process.
A logo:
1. Should be easily recognizable even at a distance.
2. Needs to be distinct from and can't be confused with competition logos.
3. Should be memorable.
4. It needs to be suitable to the company, product line or product it is supposed to represent.
5. It should give a desired impression or reinforce it.
That is all a logo does or can do.
The McDonalds's stylized "M" logo is simple, recognizable from a distance (by color and shape) and associated with McDonald's worldwide by literally billions of people. No one seeing that logo is going to think they are at Burger King.
A person who has eaten at McDonald's seeing that logo, knows at once that McDonald's is being referred to. He also knows what he can expect - inexpensive fast food hamburgers, fries and other items. An American, seeing that symbol in Sweden, China or Kuala Lumpur, has a pretty good idea what he is going to get. With minor variations. They use more ketchup on the burgers in Sweden, and beer is amongst the drinks available.
The Nike "swoosh" is a good example of a logo that communicates a certain impression - a sense of motion and grace.
What can't a logo do?
No one is going to know what your company or product is like, know what it does, know that it is cheaper or better or prettier than the competition's. They are not going to know it is what they need -- unless they have previous familiarity with what the symbol stands for!
No one is going to rush down to the store to buy a product because they like the logo or because the logo causes some kind of subliminal effect on them.
Logos are valuable, and any company should have a good logo. Just don't try and make them do more work than they are capable of.
They are liable to go on strike.
One of the issues that comes up repeatedly is, what if we move or re-do our website?
If you change the name, or you change the page structure, either way pages that were there before will be missing.
That can affect your site's effectiveness two ways:
1. People clicking on links from other websites, from bookmarks or from search results where indexes haven't updated yet, could find themselves with "404 errors" (page not found) or routed to the site's home page, depending on how your site is set up.
2. The search engine rankings could potentially drop.
Luckily, these are well-known issues with established solutions.
You want to use what is called "301 redirects." With these, you can redirect browsers AND the search engines where you want them go.
You can do this for the whole site and for specific pages as well.
Google in particular has stated that if you use a 301 redirect, you'll pretty much preserve the page rankings and search engine rankings the old pages or site had. And we've verififed that with our own experience moving or rebuilding sites.
Email broadcasting is wonderful - a nearly free way of getting a message directly into the hands (so-to-speak) of the potential buyer.
But the mere fact that you send out an email doesn't mean it arrives. This is something different about email broadcasting, because when you send out individual emails, or send something by US mail, or Fedex, of course you expect it to arrive!
Any (rare) instance of "the Internet ate my email" or a letter got lost in transit is cause for concern.
That is NOT the case with broadcast email, where spam filters at every step of the way potentially can block your email.
Read on for the full story....
There's a key term for this: "Deliverability" - the percentage of emails sent in a broadcast which actually arrive.
How bad can this get? We've seen a company do a broadcast of 40,000 emails and have only a few hundred of them arrive at the intended email address - a deliverability of only about 1%. That's pretty extreme but deliverability rates of 50% aren't unusual and 80% is considered very acceptable.
Also low deliverability rates are a self-perpetuating problem as ISPs (Internet Service Providers) will recognize email senders with bad deliverability and categorize them as spammers on that basis alone.
What are the key factors that affect deliverability and what can you do about them?Of course if it is a bad email address it isn't going to arrive, so part of it is keeping your email mail lists cleaned up.
This is best done using software that automatically recognizes and updates your mailing list accordingly. With a small list you can do it manually but no one ever seems to get around to it if there is too much manual work involved.
The bigger issue is where your emails are considered spam and so blocked. It can be your ISP blocking the outgoing email, it can be the receiving ISP at the other end, or it can be the email client (such as Outlook) on the receiving computer which blocks it.
There is no 100% answer to this, as different ISPs and email clients have different rules for evaluating email to decide if it is spam. But there are lots of "no-no's" which will pretty well guarantee your email being blocked.
A simple solution many people use is a subscription service such as iContact or Constant Contact. However, you don't get a fully professional looking email that is completely under your control that way. And as we have elsewhere noted, you can only use these subscription services with 100% opt-in lists. The alternative is to get professional help in doing your email broadcasting.
I still think there's a lot of truth in it, truth that is very applicable to the current economic scene.
Certainly for many the current situation is a crisis!
But for those with guts and the wits to see them, opportunities are - and will be - plentiful.
It is well known that recessions are a good time to start a company. Why? The competition is likely to be struggling. And potential buyers will be open to new solutions that better serve their (now changed) needs.
IF you intend to thrive and survive - if you would rather be on the "opportunity" side of things - then marketing is going to be an important element of it.
If you are just planning on laying down and hoping for the best, well then, don't call me.
Logos, like many things, have their fads and trends.
What looked modern and cool in the 1950's looks old-fashioned and stilted now.
So logos tend to evolve over time. Some great examples:
Hollywood Studio Logos
Technology Logos
Automobile Logos
Is your logo out-of-date? Take a look at it with "new eyes" as though you'd never seen it before.
What kind of impression do you get of the company whose logo that is? If it isn't appropriate, it's time to take action.
People often think the best use of their marketing dollar is to go after new markets.
Most of the time you are better off trying for a bigger share or better ROI (Return on Investment) from your top, most productive, best market segment (type of customer), or best-selling product or products.
There's actually a simple mathematical formula involved. A larger share of a bigger pie gives more of an increase than an equally larger share of a smaller pie.
And if you are talking a new market, you often have no idea how big that pie is - or how to get your hands on it. Why experiment when greener pastures are right around the corner? The grass is often greenest on your side of the fence (I can mix metaphors with the best of them).
How long a website's been around is a factor in search engine rankings. This is known as "the sandbox effect." The idea is Google sticks your website out of the way ("in a sandbox") until it has been around long enough for it to look like you're for real.
It isn't just on-or-off, all or nothing. Google will index your website (have it show up in searches) almost immediately. But without any other changes, your rankings will still tend to rise over time. This is very evident in the first few months but we've seen clear evidence that a site that has been around for many years is likely to rank higher than one that has only been around for a year or two.
That doesn't mean you can't rapidly show up high in rankings:
Just to be contrary, we've had clients tell us that they received phone calls from searchers who found their site while we were still in the process of building it! (As we create sites, we often put up some of the pages where only the respective clients knows where they are so they can see how things are progressing, give their input and so on.)
In other words, the site wasn't even finished, yet it was already showing up for a specific search query, resulting directly in online orders for the client. True!
Sandbox or no sandbox, if your site is rich in the type of content people are looking for, and it's properly optimized, you are going to show up. Especially if you aren't trying to compete head on for the same keywords that a million other sites are using. Finding and testing the right keywords for YOUR site is part of good SEO work.
But, the sandbox effect is real, and one of the reasons we often recommend for new sites a combination of organic SEO and click-ad campaigns.
By the way, if a site isn't new, but is being moved or rebuilt, there are ways to ensure you don't lose the credibility (and links and rankings) you've gained over time.
Some testimonials are better than others. All testimonials are good.
In the interest of improving the quality and effectiveness of testimonials in marketing, the following is the "good to best" list:
1. Anonymous, made up testimonial.
2. Testimonial you wrote for a customer, based on his actual experience, then okayed by him.
3. Anonymous testimonial actually written by a customer / client / patient.
4. Testimonial signed with initials, just first name (slightly better), or first name and last initial (slightly better yet).
5. Testimonial signed with full name.
6. Testimonial with name and location "Mrs Joan Smith, Florence, AL" or name and company name.
7. Testimonial on letterhead.
8. Audio (recorded) testimonial.
9. Video testimonial - scripted.
10. Video testimonial - unscripted and unedited.
11. Video testimonial - with scripted prompting questions and unscripted answers, edited.
Video testimonials are THE BEST. They can be fantastically effective because there is no gainsaying them (you know they are real). And thanks to YouTube, almost everyone is used to clicking on the little arrow and viewing them online.
There's one higher level than this which is actual live interaction with a happy customer, such as through a webinar (online seminar).
Amazingly, I discovered I've never written a post specifically about testimonials.
I guess it is time to let the secret out.
One of the biggest reasons for marketing failure is so "Doh!" it should be called the "Homer Simpson Marketing Error."
That is not using testimonials effectively or even not using them at all.
You wouldn't believe (maybe you would) how often someone comes to me to get a website or brochure redesigned and it either has NO testimonials or few testimonials.
Why are testimonials important?
You can SAY you're an expert. You can tell your prospect that your customers are always happy and love you. You can carefully explain how many people have gotten rich, beautiful or famous off your products.
Why should they believe you? There's no one on this planet who hasn't been burned a zillion times by lying liars.
That's why referrals are the best source of new business. People have a much higher trust level when people they know and trust say you're great.
Unfortunately, the amount of referrals you can get is limited by the number of happy customers out there. Hence the necessity of advertising. Unless of course, you are happy to remain small or grow slowly at best.
So what's next best? Believable third-party endorsements! That means awards, independent articles (think restaurant and theater reviews), and TESTIMONIALS.
Does anybody besides me think that we live on a mad, mad, mad, mad world?
The USA, surely one of the freest and best off countries in the world, just finished our presidential elections last month.
Now the job of the President is, I believe, to run the U.S. government - an organization with millions of employees. I would think that the primary qualification for that would be demonstrated managerial competence.
What difference does it make what policies or goals one espouses, if you don't have the ability to make them happen?
I'm not that great a fan of Mitt Romney, but he was the only candidate from either party who was qualified on that basis. And he didn't come close to being the Republican candidate, despite spending many millions of dollars.
Why? Because he is a member of a religion which is less than 200 years old, and therefore a very large percentage of voters would not vote for him. In fact, something like 30% of voters felt it was perfectly okay to say they wouldn't vote for him for that reason.
The "dirty little secret" - really, the 600 pound gorilla in the room of American politics, is that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are CAPABLE of delivering most of what they promise.
And yet, year after year, election after election, despite broken promise after broken promise, Americans continue to vote for candidates based on what they promise - plus such irrelevancies as their religion, race, age, gender and how well they speak. Not to speak of demostrably false rumors.
Does that make sense?
And don't tell me that is proof that America is bad or some such nonsense. It is worse in most other countries.
As told in "Guerilla Marketing" by Jay Conrad Levinson, a survey of 5,000 shoppers was once conducted by a marketing research firm to determine why people shopped where they did.
Here's what the surveyors discovered. The prime reason -- not the only reason but the PRIME reason why people shop where they do and buy what they do from whom they do… boils down to one word: CONFIDENCE.
Customers or clients want to have confidence that what they purchase will perform as claimed and that the store or manufacturer or service provider will stand behind their product or service.
People need to have a certain amount of confidence to even call you up, email you to inquire, or walk into your store. So your marketing has to have as one of its prime goals, building confidence.
There are many ways to accomplish this:
1. "Third-party endorsements" are the most important. That includes testimonials, awards, newspaper and magazine articles, TV and radio interviews.
2. Actually seeing the product or service in action helps greatly.
3. The correct image for your marketing materials is vital. If your website, brochure, ad or other items don't look professional, that's two strikes against you.
4. Anything that demonstrates or asserts your expertise in an area is a confidence builder. That includes degrees and certifications, descriptions of your background and experience
5. Case Studies are great - especially with graphs or charts that demonstrate results.
6. "White papers" - whether by yourselves or others - build credibility as objective evaluations of the scene.
7. Repetition and continuity build confidence. Seeing the same logo over and over, people eventually decide you must be okay because you've been around so long and seem familiar to them.
Whatever else you do, if you don't have the prospect's confidence, you won't get a lead or a sale. So build confidence!
I said in my last post that organic SEO and click ads were the two main ways to show up in searches. There are several others. They all involve getting in someone else's website or directory or listing which then shows up high in search results.
Most of these are of greatest value when selling a local product or service, All can be extremely valuable - or a waste of time and money, depending on what you are selling as well as pricing, competition and other factors.
Here's the list (I'll be blogging on each of these in the days and weeks to come):
1. Local listings.
2. Videos on YouTube and elsewhere.
3. Yellow Pages directories (paid or free).
4. Other kinds of directory listings (paid or free).
5. Mention on hobbiest or fan sites.
6. Mention in chats, forums and blogs.
7. Presence in social networking sites such as MySpace, FaceBook and LinkedIn.
8. Articles on news sites including the websites of newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, as well as web only sites such as The Drudge Report.
Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) are the two main ways to show up in searches.
Pay-Per-Click is also known as Click Ads, CPC or "Cost Per Click", Search Engine Marketing or SEM, or (as Google calls them) AdWords. That's a lot of names for the "sponsored links" you see usually to the top and right when you do a search!
Anyway, these two are key parts of most Internet Marketing campaigns. A smart strategy is often to use both of them in a coordinated action:
1. It takes months, as much as a year to get high organic search engine rankings. You show up right away in click ads.
2. You have to pay a bid amount every time someone clicks on your sponsored link, but organic rankings are free.
3. Click ads can get you rapid feedback on what search terms work for you, ad wording that works, etc. that can then be used to improve your organic SEO.
You see where I'm going here? When you start out with your Internet marketing, you may not know more than a bunch of guesses. You can use click ads not only to generate immediate traffic to your site that is cost effective (because you only pay when someone clicks); but also as a research tool.
You then use what you learn from that to make your organic SEO more effective, faster.
If it works well, you may end up cutting back on or even discontinuing the click ads.
Nice, eh?
I haven't written on this topic in quite a while (2 years actually, I looked it up) and just mentioned it the other day as a way of getting traffic to a website: Publicity.
IF you can create a buzz about you, your product, service or company, whether through press releases or PR capers or sheer luck, a tidal wave of publicity can send a huge amount of traffic to your website.
HOW you do that is another story. One client of ours had a line of talking dolls and pens. He sent samples to TV and radio shows, newspapers and magazines. People thought they were really cool and he got on national TV multiple times, major market radio stations and newspapers that generated as much as 3,000 visitors a day.
Of course the competition for those kind of venues is intense. So to get that kind of attention you better have something really unique and INTERESTING, or you better have great connections.
This can also occur in slow motion - becoming well known in a particular industry or niche, perhaps over a period of years.
Either way, you will often get an additional benefit from having other websites linking to your website. Search engines consider incoming links to a website as a popularity vote for that website. That can improve your search engine rankings and generate more traffic.
Organic or Natural SEO refers to optimization of a website so it comes up high in searches.
That is as opposed to click ads (pay-per-click, AdWords as Google calls them) where you buy "sponsored links" and you can show up as high as you are willing to pay for it.
The advantage of organic SEO is of course, you don't pay every time someone clicks to go to your site.
We are seeing with the economic downturn more interest in organic SEO. That's smart.
It can be a lot of work, it can take months to a year, but it can sure pay off.
Everyone wants to get rich online. The holy grail of the Internet is traffic. If you don't get a lot of visitors to your website, you aren't going to get rich off it.
It can be done. But you have to do it in a way that you can afford, and you have to do it in a way that pays for itself.
The least expensive and most effective ways to do it are usually:
1. "Organic" or "natural" SEO - optimization of your website so you get high search engine rankings.
2. Publicity that creates a buzz on your product, service or company that sends a wave of visitors to your site.
3. In many cases, "click ads" - sponsored links on search engines - are cost effective. And you can control exactly the amount you spend to suit your budget.
4. A lot of traffic can be generated by links and listings from other sites. Depending on what you do, this can be very important, and, links can improve your search engine rankings and bring you more traffic that way as well.
Don't have a good website.
It's that easy!
We like to talk about the marketing chain. That's all the series of smaller or larger actions from a prospective customer never having heard of you, all the way through to being a regular client, customer or patient.
The percentage of customers you end up with at the end is a compilation of the percentage you DON'T lose at each step of the way.
A good website lies somewhere in the middle of that chain.
What is the job of a website? If you think of the degree of interest of someone who has heard of you, as like a flame, perhaps it is just the tiniest of sparks. To get a sale that spark has to be fanned into a great burning flame.
Sure, some percentage will take one look at you and reach for their wallets.
What about all the rest?
These days, a huge percentage of them will go online to find out more about you.
If you don't have a website, or as is more common now, you don't have an EFFECTIVE website, that spark dies.
If the website is a well-constructed marketing tool, that spark is nurtured and in a goodly percentage of cases, bursts into flame. You get the call, the inquiry, the sale.
We have documented an effective website as almost doubling a company's new business - with no other changes in their marketing.
A good website increases the effectiveness of all of your other marketing, promotion and publicity activities, even word-of-mouth.
And, because it is essentially a one-time expense (other than the small monthly hosting fee and any maintenance costs), that makes it the cheapest marketing there is.
Byrd's Law #32: Going Cheap on Your Website Can be Very Expensive.
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