A new, increasingly paperless era of marketing is upon us.
For many companies, the days of print advertising and phone directories have faded, but not without replacements.
Today’s online advertising methods offer promises of reaching wide audiences, boosting sales, tracking customer details and building credibility.
“We can build a lot of credibility, we can track a lot of information to find out how people are coming to (a site),” said Matt Peterson, principal at Vancouver-based Make it a Great Day. His firm helps financial companies with web marketing.
“In the retail clients’ shoes, if I see an ad for a company I’m not going to jump up and call the number on the screen or on the radio, but if I get a referral from a friend for an adviser, you bet I’m going to check out their website,” Peterson said.
To help business owners learn the ins and outs of online advertising, the VBJ asked Peterson and other local experts to discuss today’s web marketing tools, techniques and effectiveness.
Search engine optimization
At the top of any web marketing expert’s advice list is a process called search engine optimization.
Proper SEO is a somewhat involved process that means a business owner, website administrator or outsourced expert will optimize the phrasing of text on each page of a website to appear in higher spots on search engines’ result lists.
Google is usually the main target in SEO, with 71 percent of the market share. Yahoo holds 8 percent and MSN has 4 percent, said Doug Williams, principal of Vancouver-based web marketing firm Doug Williams and Assoc.
“Search engine optimization is the real hot topic,” Williams said. “In times when the whole economy is in turmoil, you get the best return on investment with SEO.”
Repetitive combinations of key phrases that relate to a business can lead to a higher ranking on a search engine results list. The higher a website is on a search results list, the more visitors it is likely to get, which in theory, leads to more customers or sales.
“If you’re not on those first two pages (of results), you’re invisible,” said Michael Parker, who leads the SEO team at Vancouver-based Gravitate Design Studio.
But turning the ideals of SEO into reality can be time-consuming and expensive.
“Most small business owners are do-it-yourself people,” Parker said. “You could set (your SEO) up in an hour, but you could set it up incorrectly and spend money you don’t need to.”
For business owners who can’t afford outside help, attempting SEO in-house can still be beneficial if time is available.
“The advantage of doing it yourself is you learn a lot about marketing,” Parker said. “It’s experiential education, but you come out more savvy.”
Pay-per-click
In theory, SEO is the cheapest way to make it to the top of search results. But for companies that want further exposure, pay-per-click advertisements are available on search results pages geared toward specific search phrases.
For example, a Google search for “Halloween candy” returns about 1.2 million results. The sites on that list, in theory, are the most relevant or most popular for Halloween candy shoppers (or the best-optimized for searches).
But on the side of each page of search results is a list of sponsored links. Each advertiser bids for its place on the list, sometimes beating the company below it by just a penny, Parker said.
Most search engines utilize pay-per-click ads, but Williams said Google’s are most effective.
“They make money if they have very accurate search results and lots of visitors, and visitors will come if there are very accurate search results,” Williams said.
As a testament to its services, Gravitate only uses Google-targeted web strategies in its marketing.
For some key words, the company has paid $3,000 per month for a top spot on Google’s sponsored links list, generating 3,000 clicks. Parker estimates the link appeared on 100,000 Google searches, leading to 200 completed contact forms on Gravitate’s website. Of those, about 10 usually become projects, bringing in a total of $70,000 in revenue.
“That’s from a $3,000 (monthly) investment or $300 per project,” Parker said.
For each click that a sponsored link gets, the advertiser pays Google a certain amount – generally higher amounts for more general phrases, such as “discount” or “quality.”
Sponsored links for more specific key words are often cheaper and can lead to more sales, Williams said, because they target consumers that want exactly what a company offers.
“Let’s assume you have a car with a carburetor issue,” Williams said. “If I searched for ‘auto parts’ I’m going to come up with very general search results. But if I type in ‘2002 Forester carburetor’ with my engine size, I’m probably going to come up with exactly what I’m looking for…When people are looking to buy, they get very specific” in their searches.
Pay-per-click ads can be useful if they actually lead to sales. But if they lead to useless clicks, Parker said, they can be costly.
To avoid unnecessary clicks, Parker recommends putting product prices in advertisements.
And for websites selling products, it’s often better to be third or fourth on a sponsored links list rather than first because shoppers are likely to check prices on several sites before making a purchase, Parker said.
Banner and display ads
Display ads and banner ads might be today’s closest online option for mimicking print ads.
“Display ads on high-traffic websites get results,” Williams said. “It’s good branding if you advertise where your customers are.”
Selling display ads to other companies can be a good revenue source if a company’s website has regular visitors and if the ads are relevant to those visitors, Williams said. But if ads are irrelevant or too numerous, they’re likely to get less response. And if they don’t include text, they’re likely to get lower SEO results.
Banner ads usually involve only graphics and tend to generate fewer leads.
None of the experts asked recommended banner ads, citing ineffectiveness, high costs and low SEO results.
Banner ads are usually connected to affiliate marketing, Williams said, meaning advertisers work with one company to place ads on multiple sites. The advertisers pay a flat fee based on the estimated number of clicks an ad might get, whether the clicks happen or not.
“I’ve never been an advocate of banner ads,” Williams said. “(They don’t) have the best results in our experience.”
Lead generation
Rodney Granderson is principal of Granderson Avenue, a Vancouver-based firm that focuses primarily on online generation of sales leads.
In essence, Granderson Avenue casts bait on a myriad of websites, hoping new customers will bite and eventually purchase a product or service from the company paying for advertisement. With just a handful of employees, the firm generates more than 500 leads daily.
Granderson often gets work requests from lead brokers – usually large companies whose clients want new customers for everything from real estate and electrical contracting to video rentals and dating services.
“We’ll put a video on YouTube, maybe a how-to guide to find an electric contractor in Vancouver,” Granderson said. “That video will be tied back to a contractor in Washington and will show up high in a Google search.”
One of Granderson’s YouTube videos for rent-to-own homes recently got 20,000 visitors.
One of the nation’s biggest lead generators is Geico.com, Granderson said. Potential customers visit the site seeking information and are directed to other companies that offer the services they seek.
Granderson’s team also does the work by posting ads and blogs with classified advertising sites, online newspapers and social networking sites.
Granderson Avenue gets paid per ad click, as does the lead broker, but potential customer information goes directly to the client.
He also posts online inquiry forms for customers seeking specific services, such as a quote on auto repair in a certain city. Often the forms don’t mention a company name and surprisingly, Granderson said, that brings in more leads.
“When there’s no name it seems less like an advertisement and more like a way to provide a service,” he said. “It’s all about the content on the site.
SEO TIPS
• Ask yourself, a friend or a client, “If you wanted my company’s product or service, what words would you type into Google?” The answer is often pretty simple.
• Focus on specific, localized key words.
• Google your company, product or service and take a look at the companies at the top of the list. Try to figure out what got them there.
• Avoid splash pages with little text – they’re less likely to appear in search results.
• Include a link from your website in your email signature to help boost hits.
• To help turn visitors into paying customers, make sure your website looks up-to-date and credible. Even if you have a well-optimized site, it won’t bring in new customers if it’s unattractive.
Source: Gravitate Design Studio, Doug Williams and Assoc.
BUILDING CREDIBILITY WITH CURRENT CLIENTS
To serve existing customers, local experts recommend email campaigns, online newsletters and blogs to help build a company’s reputation as an industry expert.
“There’s nothing more effective,” especially for service-based businesses, said Sterling Peak, an account executive for Vancouver-based Gravitate Design Studio.
“Companies underestimate what they know,” she said.
Peak discourages email or blog materials that offer discounts or mention sales up front. They often don’t make it past junk mail filters, she said.
Instead she recommends sharing industry tips, news articles and insights that are likely to hook the reader, and waiting until the end of a message to offer discounts, if any.
“It’s all about sharing information,” she said. “Establishing that rapport with clients is more valuable than anything else.”
She recommends that most companies send out e-news once or twice a month. Companies with blogs are most likely to keep readers if they post two to four times per week, said Doug Williams, a Vancouver-based web marketing consultant.
“An empty blog is worse than no blog,” Peak said.
With either medium, she recommends that messages are brief, relevant and affect readers in personal ways.
“It has to be genuine,” she said. “Everything in it should be like something you’d say at a dinner party.”
Another way to establish credibility online is to host webinars. Sites such as www.GoToMeeting.com and www.Webex.com provide tools that allow an instructor to conduct a seminar by speaking to his or her computer screen. Students can log in to the site to watch live video of the speaker and ask questions.
“It’s a great opportunity to speak to a national audience and get visibility without having to travel,” Peak said.
Matt Peterson, principal at Make it a Great Day, suggests podcasting for similar results. His Vancouver-based firm helps financial advisers with web marketing and offers a service that turns voicemails into podcasts.
“It’s a matter of putting myself in the shoes of my clients,” Peterson said. “It’s a lot easier for them to leave a phone message and have us to do the work to convert it to a podcast and put it on their website.”
Charity Thompson can be reached at cthompson@vbjusa.com.
