The Big Wave Blog

In the search marketing business, we run into some serious felons everyday… I am talking first-degree murder over here.

Now that I have your attention, let me describe for you the seriousness of the crimes we have witnessed in our line of work: real-life examples of what people end up doing to their sweet little PPC campaigns.

Premature Blow to the Head

Anyone who has seen videos of baby seals being clubbed to death knows what I am talking about. This breed of killer pulls the plug on their campaign while it is still in the infant stage. This is a serious problem in our industry - we’ve seen it many times, and heard the same stories from our fellow search marketers. Clients are mercilessly clubbing their baby campaigns before they have had a chance to mature and provide ROI.

Nobody should expect to see an established ROI before 3 months. It’s not the year 2000 - hundreds of people who do exactly what you do are now competing for clicks. Closing your wallet in the first few weeks guarantees failure and a messy demise for your paid search program.

Lack of Faith and Understanding

This group of PPC campaign killers refuses to understand or believe in their PPC results. Because they are not seeing a 100:1 ROI, they think PPC is a waste of their precious marketing dollars.

These are the same people who will happily spend thousands of dollars on print and old media, for which there is no measure of ROI. PPC requires faith and the willingness to understand how the medium works. May this group of people find and keep the faith in paid search.

Starvation

This group of killers stops a great PPC campaign from ever taking off, as they never fund it the right way. Google gives some very good estimates on what your daily budget should be. It’s okay to trust those numbers sometimes, as this is data right from the horses’ mouth!

I have predicted the death of several campaigns based on lack of spending by the owners. Sadly, those campaigns never had a chance. Bringing a knife to a gunfight is a sad way to go.

Neglect

This crime is committed by people who are incapable of making any decision in a timely manner, Very often, they are guilty of killing a campaign by wasting too much time in the data deathtrap - endlessly analyzing and discussing, never acting. They kill the campaign one meeting at a time. While they are busy high-fiving the purchase of yet another full-page magazine ad in some local/ national publication, their paid search campaign never gets any attention.

PPC campaigns need direction and input from business owners, and agreement on a strategy. PPC is like chess; it needs a master strategist to consider the options and continually make choices. It’s not a team sport!

Prevent the Next Crime From Happening

If you have read this far, you must now keep a lookout for these killers, as they might be someone you know.  How about this new slogan: “Friends don’t let friends kill their PPC campaigns.”

I’ll end with the worst/funniest excuse I have ever heard for a campaign being shut off: “My wife won’t let me spend any more money on PPC!” Please, don’t let your boss, ad agency, IT dept, accountant, or even your wife talk you into a dumb mistake. If your PPC campaign is working, let it live!

How to Be Your Own Pitchman

The man who perfected the art of speaking in ALL CAPS as he shouted his way into America’s homes via late night TV infomercials, the one who’s voice haunted our nightmares but compelled us to open our wallets and start dialing that 1-800 number, died unexpectedly at the age of 50. Billy Mays turned products like OxiClean, Kaboom, Mighty Mendit and Orange Glo into household names. He was the master of selling small ticket items with mass appeal, and, whether you loved him, hated him, were amused or annoyed by him, his ability to sell cannot be denied. Let’s take a look at some marketing lessons we can all learn from the late, great TV pitchman, Billy Mays.

Have Passion for Your Product

Whatever Billy Mays had in his hand in any given infomercial, his enthusiasm for the product was obvious (to everyone within shouting distance). But there was, as he has said, more to his selling than just his yelling. Billy Mays really believed in his products, and if you don’t believe in what you are selling, then who will? He would get hundreds of offers for products to pitch, but only chose a select few, and here were some of his criteria:

1) Does the product solve a problem / Does it make one’s life easier?

The first thing that Billy Mays looked for in a potential product to pitch was whether or not it actually worked. Seems obvious, but how many of us have bought products that ended up not working the way that we had expected? If longevity in business is one of your goals, your product (or service) absolutely has to work the way that you say it will work. You also should have something special that is unlike anything else that is currently available, and one that addresses a common need. Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention, and Billy Mays knew how to turn a good idea into a must-have product. He would say he could “turn a design into a goldmine”.

2) Is the product demonstrable?

When a consumer doesn’t have an item right in front of them to see, touch and hold, it’s not easy to create that sense of ownership that often makes people take the next step and buy. This is a major issue when you’re selling products or services on the Internet (or on TV). Billy was able to get around this hurdle by generating excitement through his enthusiasm, and eliciting that “wow” factor with his outrageous and memorable product demonstrations. Whatever your product or service might be, you have to be able to SHOW potential buyers what it can do for them and how it will make their lives easier. Whatever you need to add to your website that will allow people to visualize your capabilities (photos, testimonials, links to previous work, etc.) will also help you to get past this hurdle.

3) Does the product have mass appeal?

Again, this one seems pretty obvious. People have to like your product in order to want to buy it.

But what if someone is on the fence? When it came to marketing calls to action, Billy Mays pulled out all of the bad clichés:

• But Wait - There’s More!
• Call Now!
• Triple Offer, Buy One, Get Two Free!

These make us laugh, sure. But calls to action can include incentives to buy. People love special offers, and there will be an emotional response and a sense of urgency, especially when there is a time limit or expiration date attached to your incentive. Strategies like these are proven to turn the indecisive into buyers. Does your website have a special offer, an incentive to buy/book? If not, perhaps you should consider adding one.

A final bit of simple but powerful advice from Billy Mays: sell good products that people really love. Regardless of the jokes and kidding about Billy’s in-your-face style, I don’t doubt that is what he felt that he did in his short time here on earth. Here is a good interview filmed by Fortune Magazine earlier this year, and may Billy Mays rest in peace:

The Big Wave Blog - boldly going where no internet marketing blog has gone before…

I recently traveled as high as any car can go, at Khardung La in the northernmost region of India. Of course, I made sure The Big Wave Blog made an appearance there. I’m not sure if the 4-5 brave tourists or the Indian army officers had any interest in our blog, but a little extra publicity never hurt any online venture!

The trek was inspiring and the view was awesome, reminding me in a tangible way that if you’re willing to take a risk and put in some extra effort, you can reach the top.

I am a strong believer in doing your homework before taking action. Impulse marketing decisions not only have a slim chance of success, but they almost always have a negative effect on your brand, plus they are a waste of precious marketing dollars.

PPC is one of the best discovery tools of the online marketing trade. If used properly, it is the smart bomb in your arsenal of marketing tools. Here are some points to consider.

PPC answers the tough questions.

Every business needs to constantly reevaluate and refine their marketing efforts in today’s online marketing space. We all need up-to-date answers to questions like: Do I need a new website? Do I need to focus on a particular geographical segment? Am I currently getting revenue from the people I think should be spending with me… etc.  A well-managed PPC campaign can be used to answer these questions based on actual numbers, instead of the whims and fancies of a marketing or management team.

PPC can provide answers fast.

On average, 3-6 months of data from a well-managed campaign can provide a business with some hard facts about which areas of their website are working and where the website has failed to connect with the target market. For any client that comes to us for a overhaul of their marketing strategy, I strongly recommend starting with PPC before blindly investing in website changes. Even if you have an existing PPC program, sometimes a new PPC campaign that focuses on different niche markets can bring in additional revenue and valuable information. In fact, sometimes a better-run, creative PPC campaign is all you need to reach the right audience and complement your SEO efforts. However, even if this isn’t enough, at least you get specifics on exactly what you need to do to improve your website and marketing program.

You can test new strategies at minimal cost.

Of all the online marketing channels, PPC provides the best reading you can get from Google. Think about it: you are paying them money to rank for certain keywords, a mutually beneficial relationship that provides revenue for Google and targeted traffic plus a goldmine of data for you. Instead of wondering how it would be to rank #1 for your top competitive keywords on Google, you get an actual taste of it. Most important, you can see how your website performs with the traffic that comes in from highly competitive keywords. This information allows you to focus on the areas of your website where you lose revenue. There is no other way to take your old or new website on such a realistic test drive and collect usable data along the way.

So, if a search marketing agency is pushing their extensive 5-year, 100,000-mile contract, ask them for a test ride before you sign up with them. Marketing plans based on faith, gut feelings and shiny collateral are almost guaranteed to fail. Do your homework, then invest wisely in a successful strategy.