In the last 10 years, we have seen a dramatic change in the way marketing is being done.   There have been very few times in recent history where we have seen a new marketing medium hit the scene with the same fervor as the internet has.   Possibly the last time I can this there was a comparison, was during the invention and proliferation of the television.  For those marketing executives that have been skeptical as to whether marketing on the internet would ever go main stream, there is not much of a debate in today’s marketplace.

So why would I recommend that virtually every company pursue a solid internet marketing strategy as part of their global marketing plan?   The answer is simple:  Highly scalable results, at a lower cost of acquisition per customer than through other traditional means of marketing.    As well, you can have access to an almost limitless source of customers that meet your demographic and are actively looking to purchase.   Seems too good to be true, but done right, it is absolutely true.

Let’s take a look at the simplest, and possibly the best way to break into internet marketing:  ‘Keyword advertising’.     Regardless of the smallest budget to the largest, there is a place in your marketing plan for keyword advertising.    Have you determined the demographic of your customers and prospective customers?   If you have, can you identify what they might type into the major search engines when looking for the types of products and services that you sell?   If you have answers to those questions, then you are on your way to a beautiful marketing journey. 
Let me add though, that this is oversimplification to some extent.  

For those that may be unfamiliar with the general concept, ‘Keyword Advertising’ entails finding those keywords that your customers may type into a search engine, and the placing a bid of those keywords against your competition for your advertisement to be shown.  When an advertisement is ‘shown’ or on the page that is being presented, then that is considered in internet vernacular as an “impression”.   Generally speaking, your bid is not for an impression, but for someone who receives the impression of your advertisement and actually clicks through to a landing page that you have set up on your website.    Your bid will also help to determine your placement on the page, how many impressions you will have the opportunity to receive a click-through on, and ultimately how many people are driven to your website.   Sounds easy, right?

Keyword advertising, in its general nature, is absolutely quite easy.   As in everything though, there is a method to the madness and tricks to the trade.   The most important trick which may seem painfully obvious to some, is to find keyword combinations that not only meet your demographic, but do so at the lowest cost per click-through to your website.   Keyword advertising can be very effective with a small cost, and extremely ineffective with a tremendous cost.  So you have to know what you are doing, and have your plan well thought out.   Additionally, as with every marketing program, test marketing is imperative!

Take the follow scenarios as examples:

1. Example:  You in a highly competitive business such as being a Mortgage Company.    It would seem easy enough to use the keywords ‘mortgage’ or ‘loan’.   Reasonable first thought.
You will quickly find when you go to bid those particular keywords that your cost for every click to your website will be quite high, since there are so many companies bidding those words.   As well, you always have to wonder if keywords that are so generic will actually meet your demographic closely enough.   I would pose on the contrary, that you will be better off doing some research using readily available tools on the internet, to find more specific keyword groups.   These tools will allow you to look for keyword groups and actually see the average amount of people that type those words in on a monthly basis.
Bottom line, you’ll want to further define your marketing objectives.  What type of mortgage company are you?    What type of loans do you do?   What geographic areas are you licensed in?   Of course, we could go on and on.   The point being, you may be better off with grouped keywords such as “Illinois home loan” or “California Home Equity Loan”, etc.  

2. Example 2 – We consulted recently for a company that fell into an interesting trap with keyword advertising, and did not realize it until they spent a few thousand dollars with no results.   The company I am speaking of did training for BPO’s (Broker Price Opinions) for the real estate industry; a type of valuation.

We came in to do some after the fact forensics to determine what went wrong.   To boil a long story short, and for the sake of expediency, I will keep the example simple.  They effectively used keyword combinations such as “BPO Training”, with an advertisement which met looked as though it met the demographic:  “The Best BPO training at the best price”.   Simple enough.   Unfortunately, without knowing it, they targeted the entirely wrong demographic and virtually every click-through visited the first page and then clicked off.  In the end, the ‘why’ was simple as well.  Although BPO was a strong real estate industry acronym for Broker Price Opinion; it was also a bigger acronym of a broader group for “Business Process Outsourcing”.   Their keyword and ad was effective, but not for their services.

Of course, you have to be careful, and plan well.   As well, you have to roll your initial test marketing  slowly in order to garner its effectiveness before rolling out your full campaign.

Consequently, once you determine the keywords you’ll want to use, have tested them thoroughly, and have rolled out a full campaign, you will still need to do constant follow up.   Re-bidding will be consistently necessary to stay competitive, and to weed out those keyword combinations that do not work as well.

As well, you will be relying heavily on internet analytics to tell you who is visiting your site, and sales reports to tell you what they are purchasing.   We will tackle analytics in another chapter!

One of the best places to start doing your research is using Google’s free keyword tool.   You can find it here:  https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Happy Hunting (for Keywords)!