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I wonder if Obama will continue to run PPC ads to get support for his programs?

Hey Barack, Now that your President elect we haven’t seen you on Twitter…

Where You At?!?

Shortly after his speech Tuesday night it happened. I started seeing a bunch of tweets about people getting an email from Barack Obama. This illustrates how big of a shift Obama’s campaign was from those driven by traditional consumer media. So whet does Obama spending $8 Million in October on PPC have to do with the outlook for Small Business marketing. How does this marketing strategy, that won Barack Obama the Presidency, translate into the Entrepreneurial marketplace?

 

Barack Obama’s New Media Campaign did a few things extremely well.

 

1. Build a list, the most basic of Internet marketing techniques. They used multiple sources to do it, and he made sure to use it.
2. Have a presence on all of the social media sites. Diversify your traffic sources.
3. It’s all about ROI. Obama’s campaign had no problem generating a $5 donation from a $2 paid click from Google.
4. Have a clear call to action. Barack Obama told his email list subscribers what he wanted them to do.
5. Give a Bonus! Barack Obama’s campaign offered subscribers to the text message list a special advance warning of the announcement of his Vice Presidential choice.

 

These are some of the core principals taught in every get rich quick scheme info-products that the “Gurus” of Internet marketing are hawking. They are good principals. Barack Obama’s New Media campaign carried them out flawlessly, and the amount of money contributed from small donors shows the power of numbers of the Internet. This can easily be applied to any Online Advertising campaign.

Are You still Yellow about Google Local?

It happened again yesterday…

…It appeared in my driveway, inches from the curb and the rushing water from the continued storms. I wondered how many died for it to be brought to me? How many trees were being destroyed to make something little cumbersome yellow different typical? Of course I am talking about the yellow hole that sucks the life out of small businesses, intimidating them into believing that if you aren’t yellow you should be afraid not to be, because your competition is.

Seriously, when was the last time you went into your phone book to look something up? It was to find a restaurant coupon wasn’t it? Unless you are looking to have a furnace from the 1970’s serviced there really seems to be no need to consult the book forged from fear of a competitive disadvantage.

Here is the alternative:

Instead of paying thousands of dollars for an unknown number of people to view your ad spend your efforts on having an awesome Google Local listing instead. With Google Local you can set up the listing for free. There are a lot of features that can allow you to have a great web presence without even having a web site. Then spend the money you would have spent on the yellow ad on taking out your ten best customers for a great dinner. Just ask them that in return they leave a review of your business on your local listing. The testimonial will be worth way more than the dinner, and you can also pick your customers brains for what they think you can do to improve. And sell nothing. remember the dinners purpose, get the testimonials. If you are really savy, bring a video camera and take short clips of customers raving about you, then connect the videos on YouTube and your listing.

If your business hasn’t seen a provable conversion from the yellow intimidator don’t keep throwing money at it because that is what you think is part of doing business. Instead spend the money on your customers or employees and your returns will greatly outperform the big book of one line text ads.

Where were you at in 2001

First, Congrats to Google for their 10th birthday!

A lot has changes on the landscape of Google’s results page since 2001, from the logo to the results the difference is striking. Back in 2001 I hadn’t become engrossed in the Internet like I am today. Robert Gniadecki, a world leading cancer researcher, was still the dominant result for a search of my last name.

So where were you at in 2001 on Google?  This look back is a really cool toy to play with and reminisce. Take a look and see where you were at, and be amazed at how far Google has come.

AdWords can take it to the Street

One of the biggest competitive advantages that Google’s AdWords platform has over the competitors is

the ability to really fine tune geo targeting.  Lets face it, Chicago is a huge city, with a massive number of residents and neighborhoods. Many businesses thrive, only serving a small geographic area within this large city, or DMA.

With AdWords it is possible to very finely tune the geographic targeting of a campaign, allowing local advertisers to enter into the PPC market with confidence that the traffic they pay for is not in an area they do not serve.

Knowing exactly where ads are going to appear lets advertisers not only target the areas they wish to, but it also allows very specific copy to be written. By knowing exactly where the target audience is advertisers can utilize local terms in ad copy to give the local searcher the best information.

Recently Ask.com included geographic targeting in their advertising platform. Unfortunately, it mimics all the other second tier PPC platforms in that the finest tuning an advertiser can do is to a DMA. If the second tier platforms want to compete with Google they must also give advertisers what we want…          … more ability to fine tune and target.

Virtual Location in Paid Search Marketing

Of the many factors of virtual location placement in paid search advertising platforms continues to be one of the most popular ways for tightly niched and small businesses to gain the attention of prospects. The numbers are obvious every time ComScore releases them, Google is squarely sitting on top of search. So for many businesses, Google is the obvious choice for getting your feet wet in paid search marketing.

However, many small businesses or regional players stop there, intimidated by the additional setup time required to even duplicate the same basic structure and keywords over multiple platforms. Some solve this problem by relying on a program in which they are able to manage campaigns across multiple platforms in one interface. I have found that these programs generally are not as robust as the actual ad platforms interface, resulting in less control over ads served. It is better to take the time to set up each campaign correctly and appropriately in each platform than to loose features provided by a platform in order to make bidding modifications easier, or automatic.

When it comes to location, one is just never enough. With Google nearing 60% of the search traffic, where is the other 40% going? Still more than 20% are going to Yahoo, with just over 9% using MSN, and near 5% for AOL and Ask respectively. That is 39% of the 40% accounted for. With this type of concentration, search marketers can use initial Google performance data to optimize campaigns as they are set up across the hand-full of players in the search placement sandbox. The users of each engine are also have distinct differences. By seeing how the differences in users effects campaigns across different search engines we are able to optimize budgets and placements to be sure clients’ virtual location align with their locational strategy and branding.

Locations in Cyberspace – Geographic Targeting for Paid Search

One of the first, and most important question every company asks themselves when they are marketing is “where am I targeting?” Once this question is answered, targeting of paid search can be set to coincide with required geographic areas.

But it’s never that easy, is it. Different Paid placement platforms have different geographic serving systems, and each needs to be carefully considered long before campaigns are setup.

While organizing account structure the number of different types of geographic can influence how campaigns are organized and setup. For example, what are the legal requirements of the business for the purposes of advertising? An Insurance Agent or Financial Planner must be licensed in a State to advertise in that state. One must be sure that geographic targeting is setup correctly so that any legal guidelines are obeyed. Another way that geographic targeting can effect organization of a campaign is by the level of competition. For example, if a company has many locations, both near high population density high competition urban areas and low population density low competition rural areas, these areas could be targeted separately by identical campaigns to maximize reach, placement, and budget.

Many factors can influence the decision of how to geographically target campaigns in each ad platform. It is important to know what the geographic factors are, and how they can be optimized before setting up campaigns.

Location. Location. Location.

Almost any business owner you speak with will tell you the key to success is location. However, in the age of the information superhighway what exactly does this mean? Are they referring to their physical location, how it meets the demands of customers, suppliers, transportation, utility access, traffic count, ease of entry… the list of the Economic Geographic factors can be extensive, or are they referring to where prospects become customers? Is location still a driving force for business? Not only is location crucial to the success of any business, so is location and location.

Location 1: Physical location

Where your business is located physically and how to optimize your location is analyzed using the economic and geographic metrics I listed above. Many factors go into the decision of which location best serves your business, whether your focus is shipping logistics or consumer access. It may be necessary for a retail outlet to be on a busy easy to access corner, just as it is important for a manufacturer to be near suppliers and transportation infrastructure.

Location 2: Virtual location

Where your business is located virtually is quickly gaining importance in the battle to draw in new customers, and keep current ones. Every business’ virtual location begins with an address on the world wide web. However, just as with physical locations, virtual locations are not just your website. Other factors included in virtual location are linkbacks, trackbacks, listing sites, Google maps, social networks (eg. Linkedin & Meetup), forums, e-zines, and anything else that is logged by the search engines (eg. Twitter, a mass IM social application).

Location 3: Brand location

Where your business is located in the mind of your customer is what brings everything together, turning prospects into clients. Brand strategy needs to integrated and implemented across the first two locations and everything your business is involved in to maximize effectiveness and allow your business to communicate what customer it best serves, and what hill you have planted your flag on.

Location is as important as ever for business. Whether brand, virtual or physical, your location choices will drive your business. Every step must be based in tested research to make sure you are in the best position to maximize your business’ opportunities.

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