Solving Web Marketing Problems
Inevitably first results of a new web campaign can be
disappointing. Few businesses make a complete success at the
first attempt. Even those who are happy with results can
probably improve further.
This is when pay per click campaigns can be most valuable.
The immediate reaction may be to cut the advertising that is not
working, to conclude that that form of promotion does not work for
your product. However I strongly believe that now virtually
every business can sell on the web, the question to be answered is:
how profitably?
Before you rush off to spend more money on other strategies, you
should very carefully analyse your existing results and measure the
effect of alterations of strategy or product. Pay per click
advertising clearly costs money - and is getting more expensive as
more people use it. However it is still by far the cheapest
test bed for checking the individual stages of your sales process in
the real world. And, if there is a weakness in your strategy,
that weakness is likely to affect performance of any other promotion
strategy as well.
One of the most basic acronyms in marketing is AIDA, the stages
of the sale process, which the PPC process directly reflects:
A - Generate Awareness - advertise to the
searcher
I - Promote Interest - persuade them to visit your
site
D - increase Desire - show them the benefits of
your product
A - Leading to Action i.e. a Sale - persuade them
to buy, or at least enquire
I start with a rule of thumb that says each stage ought to
generate at least a 10% response, if not it needs further analysis
to see what improvements can be made. This means your click
through rate (CTR%) should be at least 10% of your ad impressions,
10% of your visitors should then generate leads or enquiries and 10%
of those should eventually purchase. That means only 1% of
your site visitors will end up as customers so it is not setting the
bar very high.
The first stage of attracting visitors depends on your choice of
keywords and the adverts you create to apply to them.
Attracting visitors who are not interested in your product is a
waste of money, but you will never avoid some wastage because words
have such wide meanings in different situations.
Success in generating real interest depends on the design of your
website, the landing page and the strength of your sales story. Most
B2B sites need to generate leads because they do not expect
immediate online sales; but the visitor is only going to contact you
if he is sufficiently interested in the information he has already
seen.
Finally converting the lead into a sale depends on the follow-up
process and, of course, on the competitiveness of the product
offered.
So the PPC campaign gives you a measurable insight into the main
stages of your marketing strategy. Analysing reasons for the
results and developing alternatives is essential before any
significant spend on other promotions. No other channel will
allow you to experiment with real potential customers so cheaply.
Talk to you next month
Stephen Orr |
