Making Pay Per Click Pay

This article is aimed at the small business owner that has heard of Pay Per Click and wonders if it is suitable for them. I will not be using any technical terms and will try to help you understand the principles and what to watch out for.

What is Pay Per Click Advertising?

Pay Per Click (PPC) can be a very powerful and quick method to get visitors to your website.  If you do a search on Google you will often see “sponsored links” - these are generated by the Google version of PPC called Adwords. These “sponsored links” can also be seen on other sites that allow Google to display adverts.

How does it work?

You bid a maximum amount that you are willing to pay to have someone click on your link (25p for example) - this is called the Cost Per Click (CPC)  and the list of words or (more helpfully) phrases that you would like the advert to appear on when someone searches for that phrase.

Eash time someone searches for the phrase (or something close to the phrase depending on the settings on your advert) it is displayed – at this point it has not cost you anything.  However as soon as someone clicks on your advert it costs you the amount of money that you have bid.

How do I know what phrases to bid on?

If you are using an agency to run your campaign they may talk to you about your site and then come up with the list of phrases – alternatively there is a Google Adwords tool-kit which you can use to enter word or phrases and see what Google suggests.  This tool tellsyou the approximate number of searches made in a month and the average CPC, this can vary dramatically for example looking at the tool today for a random phrase (related to a previous blog post) shows that the following average CPCs for phrases that are related to “science of selling” :-

• Science of selling : monthly searches in the UK = 3,600 : Average CPC = £1.89
• The science of selling : monthly searches in the UK : zero : Average CPC £0.04
• Selling techniques : monthly searches in the UK : 3,600: Average CPC = £1.23
• Selling training : monthly searches in the UK : 1,600 : Average CPC = £2.28

How much will it cost me?

Each CPC campaign can have a fixed monthly (or daily) budget so that you can say for example that you are willing to spend £30, £50, £150 or any other figure.  You should however remember that once your budget has run out the advert will stop being shown so if you budgeted maybe £5 per day, using the example CPCs above you might end up with between 2 and 4 clicks per day.

How do I know it is working?

The best way to measure if the PPC campaign is working is that you get more sales than you were getting before it started.  You should however, realise that as with all marketing activities it can take a couple of months or longer to fine tune the campaign (you may need to tweak the wording of the advert or even the page that people land on when they click the advert [ the landing page] to improve the results).

There are tools you can use if you want detailed statistics on what happens when people get to your site via a PPC advert, these include many paid for versions of software but a lot of businesses find that Google Analytics works just as well for them – this is free and just requires about 5 or 6 lines of code to be added to every page on your website.

The Science of Selling

As a small  business you need to sell, whether it is your products, services or information. Why is is that some people are much better at this that others?

There has been some research done on the science and psychology of selling and it seems that there are 6 main principles that you can use to improve the results of your marketing and sales. Read through these six ideas and see whether your recognise yourself and whether you can apply them to your marketing and sales techniques.

• Reciprocation People feel as if they are indebted to those who have already done something for them or given them a gift.  A good example of that are the charity envelopes that come through the post with a pen in them – you didn’t ask the charity for a pen but many people feel that they “owe” the charity and send a donation.

  You can apply the same principle in business, maybe offer a free report or a free sample – use this to establish the “indebtedness” and then subtly cash in on that feeling.

• Commitment and ConstancyPeople like to do what they have said they will do and having made a decision they like to stick to it.
  Aim your marketing and sales at gradually increasing the committent by your customer – don’t go all out for the sale on the first meeting.  If you tread carefully you will find that many people get to a point where they feel committed to buying from you and will then do so.
• Social ProofPeople will do thing such as buying your products or services if they feel that other people like them are doing so.  It makes it easier to justify the purchase (“Fred Bloggs down the road uses this company”, or” all the large companies in my sector are using this service”) and people feel more comfortable with that.

  It is this idea that makes testimonials such a powerful weapon – however make sure that any testimonials are real or you could get into serious trouble not only with propective customers but also with the law.

• Liking People buy from people they like – this is a simple fact that is so often overlooked.  This idea is simple to put into practice – just be nice to your customers and prospects.  The author tends to remember the simple quote “Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns.”, even if he is not sure who said it.
• Authority Deep down many people respect authority so if possible try to get endorsements from the leaders in your area.  The list can include business leaders,scientists, academics, politicians (if they have a good reputation), doctors or even sportsmen and women.  Do you remember the advert here in the UK for patio awnings, garage doors and shutters,  and how safe they were that was fronted by the ex Assistant Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police John Stalker ?
• Scarcity This one is one that  you will see often in advertising and marketing.  Persuade people that what you are offering is scare or rare.  You can, if true, use phrases such as “limited edition”, “only xx left”, “sale must end Sunday” and so on.
   
  This idea feeds the human need to have something that others cannot have.

Now that you have read the six ideas above, think about how many apply to you (or have applied in the past).  Then think about how you can apply them to your marketing, even if you don’t use all of them all the time.

And, yes, this article is given to  you as a gift, other people are reading it and applying the ideas, but this page may not stay on the Internet for ever

The image on this page is courtesy of Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How to Write a Press Release

How do you go about writing a quality press release that will grab the attention of the media and your audience? Here are five simple tips to help you succeed :-

• Pick a “Newsworthy” Angle.
  Remember that press releases are not an advertisement for you – if you want an advert in a paper or magazine you will have to pay for it.
  Do not try to sell your product or service. Do not use “hype” in press releases (we sell the best widgets), although if you are the biggest producer of widgets and have signed a big contract mention this fact.
  Instead give the media what they want and they will give you what you want which is space in their magazine, paper or website.
• What do the media want ?
  This is very simple, all they want is a story that is backed up by facts!
  Just provide  the Who, What, When, Where and How in a story format.
  Who used your products and or services , what do they use, when and where have they used them and how have they used the product or service.
  Show examples of ways that people have used your products and services to their benefit. If you can include some emotions in your story all the better.  Ask yourself “Would this be something that I might read in a newspaper?”
• Start well
  The headline and the first sentence of the first paragraph are the absolute most important part of the press release. Many journalists get 100′s of press releases a day and will spend seconds looking at each one. If you don’t catch their interest here within those seconds  you will end up in the bin with all the others.
  The best way to do this is to use your most hard hitting information FIRST rather than build to a climax. This may be opposite to what you would normally do but it does work!
  Once you have grabbed the journalists attention the rest of the pres release can give the details that support your story or theme (the facts mentioned above).
• Aim your press release at the media.
  Remember your press release is being read by a journalist, editor or reporter, not necessarily a client. It’s not your job to sell them your product or service, it’s your job to give them an interesting story or piece of news that they will be happy to share and announce to their audience.
• Tell the media who to contact
  Don’t forget to add details at the bottom telling the journalist who to contact for more information – give them an email address and a phone number – if the editor is looking for something to fill some space in his
  paper or magazine and the press deadline is getting close he may want to pick up the phone to ask more questions and if it’s a choice between two press releases and only one has a contact number guess which one is going to be used.

You may wonder why you should bother with a press release, well consider the implications of one journalist or editor seeing it and publishing it in his paper / magazine.  Just one feature or a mention in a popular or targeted business publication and you could have your company seeing many new enquiries hopefully leading to new sales and extra profits.

One further bit of advice I would give is to target the press releases carefully (there is very little point in sending out a blanket press release to all the magazines and papers you can think off, send it to the ones that are relevant to your products or services)  and send them regularly, but only when there is something to announce.