Hi Guys, This is a copy of a bulletin released from Click Click Media last week, hope you can find it useful.
Regards
The Click Click Media Team
Top 3 SEM tips every business owner should know!
To the business owner,
We all are starting to see Search Marketing and Online Advertising becoming an essential tool in our overall marketing strategy, with 12.7 million Google sites accessed each month in Australia its not difficult see why advertising online is the obvious choice for many businesses when they start planning to promote their web presence. So what do you need to know before your plan or review your marketing strategies for the New Year?
1. Jargon Busting
Many agencies will sell you on a single solution that their particular company represents, however online marketing has a similarity to traditional forms of marketing where you have to take a ‘whole approach’ based one your immediate and future goals. Here are some common terms and their meanings.
SEM = Search Engine Marketing. Often referred to as ‘Search Marketing’. Put simply this is making sure your customers can find you on the major search engines by referencing your business to relevant and common search terms people will use when looking for someone offering your product or services.
SEO = Search Engine Optimisation. This term refers to growing your organic listings in search engines. This involves tweaking the content on your website and examining competing sites to ensure you company shows up on the top of the organic listings. This process can take up to 12 months and be quite costly however the plus side is excellent continuous exposure to people searching terms relevant to your business.
PPC = Pay Per Click, (also known as CPC, ‘cost per click’). This is a service offered by search engines to put your business above the organic or SEO listings. The results from a PPC campaign are immediate, cost effective and have a very good return on investment. A PPC campaign involves you paying for ‘clicks’ into your website, the cost of these depends on your industry, the quality of your website and your agency’s ability to focus your keywords directly on people searching to make a purchase.
IMPRESSIONS, This refers to how many times a link into your website is displayed on a search engine over any given period.
CTR = Click Through Rate, This is when a customer searching with terms relevant to you actually click on your link displayed on a search engine. This is a benchmark that online advertising agencies use to measure the effectiveness of an advertisement. This should be reported to you directly and marked as a percentage against the number of impressions; this is a good indicator of your agency’s capability to provide precise advertisements with a good call to action.
CAMPAIGN OPTIMISATION, This is a process of reviewing knowledge and information gained by analysing the campaign’s results and making changes based on what has been learnt with the goal of increasing the campaigns performance. This should be initially done daily then monthly. This should involve you directly as your knowledge of your business is invaluable to a campaigns success.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING, This involves engaging your customers and potential customers directly and using their social network to grow your business through personal referrals. It is a great tool to keep your customers informed and talking about you, and as you know personally referred leads have a far greater chance of making a sale. Common social networks are Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin
DISPLAY NETWORK ADVERTISING. This is putting an advertisement on major leisure or entertainment websites that your customer demographic will be visiting regularly. This is a great tool for brand awareness however is suitable to some industries more then others. Display networks usually run on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, meaning you pay a rate per 1000 people that see your advertisement whether they visit your website or not. A good agency will understand that this form of advertising is all in the advertisement itself, it has to be catchy with good graphic design elements to engage the customer who see it.
2. Getting started or reviewing your current campaign.
If you’re getting started with promoting your business online one of the first steps is to create a website for your product or service. There are a lot of different options at this stage and it is easy to get confused with what you are actually going to gain from your investment. A website can vary in complexity as much as it can vary in cost so it is a good idea at this stage to go over a few simple questions. This should also be part of a regular review process when planning what you want to do online in the future and assessing your current plan’s success.
- What are your business goals and how do they relate to your marketing campaigns?
- What makes your business different from your competitors and how do you want that represented in your marketing?
- Do you offer any specials or discounts that aren’t being advertised?
- Who is your target audience and what relationship do they have with your business? How are you communicating with them?
- What areas do your business serve and are how do you want to be represented in different areas?
- What do you want your customers to do when visiting your website? (Make an online purchase, sign up, book an appointment or demo . . . )
- What is your marketing budget and are you currently getting a good return on investment?
Once you have this plan in place and have discussed it with your agency you should know what to expect from your campaign and be provided with a tailored solution that meets your needs and budget. A profitable website and accompanying campaign doesn’t have to cost a fortune, there are solutions that fit any size business and budget.
3. Choosing an agency to work with.
This is a very critical decision that most business owners have to make when starting an online campaign. It can affect the success of your campaign and your ability to control your image in the marketplace. If your online campaigns aren’t working to their full potential it is costing you potential sales, which is an immeasurable loss to your business. There are a few companies out there that tarnish our industry with non-transparent billing, cold call harassment, saying they’re representing Google or similar and selling ‘package deals’ to companies without taking the time to really understand your business. Fortunately most agencies are honest industry professionals. Here are some tips to help you understand what to look for.
· Transparent Billing: Your invoice should show exactly what portion of your bill is directly spent on advertising your business on search engines, a direct cost to your agency, and what the management fee for their services is. Some agencies have been known to not spend the full budget that you may have requested, or designed campaigns to perform poorly so they can pocket the remaining budget you allocated to be spent. Remember your agency only pays the search engine for clicks that come into your website. This should be reflected in your reports, and any budget not used should be used to fund the future campaigns.
· Time spent getting to know you and your business: Your agency should be able to communicate with you about your business and understand your products and services. You should be confident that you can talk to your representative about anything relating to your campaign and they relate to you what is possible in terms that mean value for your business. Package deals don’t work and in the end cost more in wasted time and under-performing campaigns.
· An in depth plan and quotation: You should know exactly what you are paying for down to the last detail and how your agency plans on achieving your online marketing goals.
· Clear precise and regular reporting: Reports should come at discussed intervals with time spent explaining them in detail to you. Your agency should be able to provide in depth detail on anything you would like to know about your campaign and not just clicks into your website. Reporting should be as detailed as you require to learn about your customers, justify your investment and provide beneficial information for future goals.
· Regular optimisation: Your agency should be optimising your campaign at least monthly and getting in contact with you to discuss what has been done. This communication and attention to your campaign ensures it remains successful and constantly improves in performance.
· Certified and mature customer service: The people handling your campaign should have a qualification in the service they are selling and industry experience. Rely on mature experienced business people over call centre school leavers and backpackers to handle what could be your company’s best asset.
Working with an effective online marketing agency can be one of the most rewarding business relationships you have. A good agency can bring opportunities and growth to your company you would have never thought possible.
I hope you have found this document informative and helpful, if you have any additional questions or we can help you with anything relating to your online marketing campaign please contact us anytime.
Yours sincerely,
Phillip Wendell
GENERAL MANAGER | CLICK CLICK MEDIA
