• Leads come in from print ads
• Leads come in on the phone
• We get prospect info from website forms
• We may be paying a lead resource to send us prospects

There are more, but you get the picture.  Each of our lead source mechanisms has their own way of outputting data, and we must get it all into one cohesive lead/prospect management database.

Then, we need to get it from there to our direct mail merges, mass email marketing, and other outgoing marketing tools.  It’s all a snap with our custom real estate databases in WebOffice.  The industry standard for exchanging data is the “comma delimited” file, ending in “.csv”.  This system takes in and outputs data in this format with just a couple of clicks.  We can:

• Place mailing addresses quickly into a mail merge
• Select our mailing list or email list by the criteria we want, keeping our marketing targeted
• Actually, we can do a very nice mass email right out of our custom database with a couple of clicks and no export necessary
• Bring in data from any of our resources as a .csv import file in just two or three clicks
• Get everything in one place from all our sources, and then send it all out from that single database for our marketing

Watch the short video below to see how easy a mail merge export can be.

As I’m not selling PPC advertising, or even consulting services to set up effective PPC accounts, you can decide if you want to believe what I’m about to say.  “PPC, Pay per click marketing is one of the most effective, focused and measurable advertising venues ever devised!”

While that statement is true in my opinion, there are plenty of dismal failures to go right along with it.  Why?  Well, if a business person can see how sales can be made from their website, then they usually believe that PPC can be the way to get visitors there to buy.  So, they set up a campaign right away.  They buy some keywords and phrases, and they place their ads.

It’s amazing at first, as they begin to get visitors within hours.  The excitement builds, and they see a lot of visitors within the first few days if they worded their ads well and bid high enough for clicks.  As the dollars mount with the clicks, they begin to become concerned, as there aren’t any orders from all of these visits.

Then, after a pretty hefty budget is exhausted the first month, there still aren’t any sales.  They tell themselves that they should have listened to those who told them it is a waste of money to buy clicks, and the account is cancelled forever.  It happens all the time.  So, instead of just telling you that it does happen, let me tell you why.

1. They never should have opened the account and bid for the first click until they had done their research.
2. Their landing pages, the pages where the ads are set to take the visitors, are not set up to be successful and generate business.  Why?
   • The key word or phrase the visitors used to get there isn’t immediately visible on the page, letting them know that they have arrived at the information they wanted.
   • The information they want isn’t on the page.  Unless they entered a phrase like “order a blue widget,” then they probably want some information about blue widgets before they can be convinced to spend some money.  Not having that information quickly available on the landing page will cause them to leave.
   • Worst, you take them to your home page instead of a page created for the ad that brings them to the site.  Using the blue widget example again:  If they did that search, why would you take them to a home page for your company that makes widgets, gadgets, and thig-a-ma-jigs.  Too much of what they don’t want makes it hard for them to locate what they do want.
3. They didn’t research their key phrases, key the ads to each major phrase, and then key the page to the ad and phrase.  It’s a package.  The Internet searcher typing in “blue widgets” may or may not want to purchase today.  The searcher typing in “how blue widgets are made” definitely doesn’t want to buy, but they do want information.  Tie your page content to the search phrase and the ad, and you’ll keep that visitor longer, and perhaps entice them to order.

Notice the title of this post is “Before the First Click.”  This planning needs to be done first, with landing pages created for your major targeted key phrases.  THEN you can bid them and place the ads to get those visitors to the site.  They’ll find what they want, making it far more likely that they’ll convert to a lead or a sale as you desire.

Example: A company that sells “blue widgets” will set up a PPC account with Google, Yahoo, or another service. They’ll write an online ad promoting their product or site, and wait for it to be found. Based on a number of ranking criteria, their ad will show up in a certain position in the paid search results on the search engine results page (SERP). If the searcher clicks on the ad and goes to the site, the advertiser is charged for the click.

How much they are charged will vary based on a number of proprietary factors for some search engines, and for others, it’s the highest bid in first position, and on down the line. So, this is also a competitive marketing tool. Your bid will influence where your ad is placed, however, with Google and Yahoo, the two largest, there are other factors that are considered for ad ranking.

A quality score, as Google calls it, for an ad is constantly being computed. It is a proprietary algorithm, but generally is based on the CTR (Click Through Ratio) for the ad and sometimes the quality of the landing page. Let’s define:

1. Click Through Ratio (CTR) – The number of times visitors click on the ad through to the site divided by the number of times the ad is presented, or “Impressions.”  It’s expressed as a percentage.  Many advertisers are quite happy with CTRs of 5%, while some can only manage tiny percentages for their CTR.
2. Landing Page – The page where the visitor is taken from the ad, where they landed.  It should be highly relevant to their original search, as well as the wording of the ad.  In other words, a page all about “red widgets” would get a lower score if the ad was worded around “blue widgets.”  The search engine wants the visitor to find what they expected.

Here’s a very brief look at how the PPC ads are displayed on Google search results pages, and a couple of comments about the way PPC works:

Today’s consumer, or in your case, client, is one who recognizes that they need your expertise.  If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be on the Internet doing searches on key phrases related to the services you provide.  The vast majority also recognize that there are many of you out there, and they must make a decision as to who to hire to help them with their situation.

A few of them may be captured as customers or clients with a “billboard website.”  That’s a site that has some static pages, each touting your expertise.  One might talk about all of your previous happy clients.  Another might talk about how you solve problems for them because you have years of education and experience.

However, now and in the future, most of these consumers will become the customer or client of a professional who actually illustrated their expertise in ways that convinced the consumer long before they actually needed to make the hiring decision.  This is done with freely-offered information based on their search phrases, and helpful to them in various ways.  It may help them to quantify their problem, or just to recognize that they do indeed need help.

The business will go to those who have provided useful information that clearly displays their knowledge and qualifications.  The fact that they could learn more without sales pressure or consulting costs is why they will gravitate to the professional whose site satisfied their information needs.  That’s why blogging will be the best business-generation tool in your marketing arsenal.

photo credit: zolierdos

Blog for Business

Sit in on any group of professionals, consultants, Realtors or mortgage brokers, and you won’t wait long in a marketing discussion to hear about blogging as a strategy. The question is a whole lot broader than websites, blogging or email marketing.

What they are likely to NOT be discussing is the viewpoint and focus of the customer/client when they search for information on the Internet. Let’s face it, the focus is on what we perceive we need to do to generate business. Sometimes, actually many times, this focus is not on target, as our customers have a different focus. When it comes to the Web, this disparity is huge.

Too many consultants and others in sales, information and training businesses place up “online billboards” to push their qualifications at potential customers. Instead, they should be pulling those customers to them with information they value. That’s what you do with a blog.