ForumsAdvertising, Sales and Marketing

When you say "..Google adwords also didn't help.." ; does that mean you didn't get any clicks ; or was it just unprofitable?

How many keywords did you use ?

How many adgroups ? kind of match type ( broad,phrase, exact )

Did you have a specific landing page with an special offer ?

Did you use the search network or the content network?any specific countries or states ? any specific time of day?

I know this looks like more questions than answers; sorry for that :); it's just that almost any adwords campaign can be made profitable if structured right. Let me know if I can be of more assistance

cheers

Michael

I fully understand - One of the things my company does is managing adword campaigns for our clients.

I just joined here - so I am not really sure if it's appropiate or not for me to point out that you are more than welcome to contact me - if you so desire. If it is not appropiate I'd like to apologize and feel free to ignore this message.

Adwords specific : the main elements you have to deal with for a succesful campaign are generally :

• Keyword grouping ( only put very realted keywords in one adgroup - we seldom have more than 3 )
• Quality score ( basically does the content on your landing page match the keyword you are targeting )
• Ad relevancy ( how well does the ad text match your landing page )
• Click through rate management ( the higher the click through - the lower the cost is going to be )
• Bid pricing ( generally if you start higher - better click through - lower cost - you then can gradually decrease the bids )

Other keys to success :

• Split Testing Your Ads ( always have 2 alternative running at the same time - contantly eliminate the lower cklick trough rate one and try to beat the " winner "

• Conversion Tracking ( you have to have a way to track and define " conversions" ; i.e. a phone call could be a conversion ( desired action ) that really depends on the market - i.e. real estate agents are thrilled to get an inquiery over the phone or via email, beacuse they understand that their sales cycle is rather long , whereas a ecomerce store probbaly wouldn't settle for anything less thana sale to have it counted as a conversion.

hope that all makes sense

Cheers

Michael

Aside from being a soon-to-be small business owner, I work for one the largest global ad agencies - Omnicom Group. And have also worked for other major agencies (Young & Rubicam, DDB Needham, and others). So I feel compelled to respond to your advertising woes. First let me say that you are not alone. You hit the nail on the head by citing the economy as a major factor. Most of my agency's clients (from SMB size organizations, right up to enterprise level) are seeing the same drop off in lead generation and, consequently, revenue.

Now, when most companies formulate their marketing efforts, there is always a focus on lead generation. And why not? Business slows down, so we automatically look for ways to attract new customers, right? Well, this approach is often the wrong one. In pursuit of new business and generating leads, businesses often overlook their most viable market... Their current customer base. In these poor economic times with marketing dollars at a premium, businesses must focus their efforts on putting their marketing dollars where they will be most effective. Remember, your past customers are already the most qualified buyers in your sales cycle. You already have them, so focusing your marketing efforts to keep them and generate repeat business is a solid approach. This is what we refer to in the ad industry as "nurturing". And within the ad industry, we are seeing a big shift from advertising and marketing efforts that focus on lead generation, towards this customer nurture approach. Standard marketing doctrine dictates that it costs 2.5x more money to attract a new customer than it does to keep a current one. With this in mind, it is easy to see why this approach has become so popular. From a practical standpoint, customer nurture activities can take the form well constructed email blasts, online resource centers, direct marketing tactics, etc. For the purposes of keeping this post from getting grotesquely long, I'll leave it at that. But if you would like to hear about specific case studies and practices that we employ for other companies, feel free to email me and I would be happy to share them with you pro-bono.

As far as your current marketing activities, I don't know enough about them to give you any solid feedback. But assuming that your messaging, media, and timing are correct, and that you can comfortably afford to maintain it, then I would say keep doing what you're doing! Remember, that during this economic slump, many of your competitors are cutting back their advertising dollars. This is the best time to increase your share of voice and take a piece of your competitor's pie.

Someone was shorting the market this year by golly.
Plus by sifting through the old customer list one is able to enhance customer service and perhaps even gain some insight to who is hurting financially and who is capitalizing, this could easily lead to the discovery of some sort of trend that may lead to fresh advertising ideas.

What biz are u starting?