Interesting Marketing Articles
October 7, 2009
Despite my already mentioned disdain for a lot of agency blogs – there are a lot of brilliant folks out there that are sharing lots of great information. I tend to scan this information, bookmark it, and occasionally come back to it during brief spurts of downtime. I draw on it and provide info to Academy members, but rarely just link out from my blog.
It is also a lot easier just to link you out to folks that are much better than me at sharing this info :)
Here are some good articles to check out:
Turning non-customers into customers (SEO specific, but still good theory for anyone)
SEO for Public Relations – Good info on how SEO and PR interconnect
PPC Copywriting for Quality Clickthroughs – Vital for PPC Conversion Rates
I could seriously go on all day – but you’ll have to join the Academy to get more.
Affordable Direct Mail Printing Services
September 21, 2009
People go on and on about online – and that’s fine. I do it too. 5 years ago, online marketing was killing direct mail in terms of ROI. These days – as Google Adwords get more expensive, and printing services get cheaper, direct mail is making a comeback!
There’s a lot to be said for the effectiveness of mailing a postcard to potential customers. In fact, for many smaller businesses, this can be a LOT more effective than online advertising.
I strongly suggest you give it a try – the offer on the right hand side of this page lets you get 100 free postcards to test out – how can you beat that?!?!
Where can I find the time?
April 9, 2009
One common question I field from business owners is – “Where do I find the time to do all this stuff?”
That’s a fair question, because, as a business owner, you have a lot of things going on. First and foremost, you’re likely having to service your customers – you may be cleaning their air ducts, returning a package, or tailoring their suit. There’s not a lot of time to agonize over search engine rankings while you’re doing this.
Unfortunately, you also don’t have time to ignore online marketing – and especially search engine marketing. Why? Because your competitors sure aren’t ignorning it.
You have a couple options when it comes to managing your own online marketing – there are some tools out there that can make it a lot easier:
- PPC Management Software – There are several good options out here, all running in the $300-$500/month category. You may need a little help getting started, but you’ll be able to quickly manage your PPC campaign after a few months of getting used to it.
- SEO “Systems” – I may be being unfair here, but as a resident expert on SEO, I’m telling you there isn’t a system out there worth anything. Save your money.
- Off-shore outsourcing – This can be cost effective, as some companies will work with you for less than $300/month. However, every time I’ve done it, the results have been less than optimal (at best), to ridiculously bad (at worst).
- 7xo Media – Hey, I wouldn’t be fair to myself or your business if I didn’t plug 7xo here. You can get affordable, expert, top-quality service and results – all put into a no contract, no obligation system that makes sense for your business. From $150/month to $15,000/month – we’ve done it all!
Email me if you’d like more info on what we can do. We’ll start with a free analysis of your business, and talk about a plan that is custom built for your business.
Online Marketing Cost
April 9, 2009
Especially in tough economic times, the cost of online marketing can be quite a concern for business owners. If you’re a small business owner, this can be especially troubling. How can you justify a $5000 pay per click budget, when you’re having trouble making payroll?
The short answer to that is, if your online marketing isn’t showing a direct contribution to your bottom line, you can’t. However, the ABSOLUTE BEST THING about online marketing, especially pay per click marketing, is that you can track it down to the dollar.
Let’s take my favorite example, a local family owned plumbing service – we’ll call them “John Smith and Sons Plumbing.” Well, ole John doesn’t know much about PPC, and blew through $1000 in a couple months, and decided to get stop advertising.
Instead, he is spending $500 on Yellow Page ads, and another $2000 a month on some remnant radio time. He’s doing ok, but he’s not really sure how many of the calls he’s getting come from his website, much less how many come in as a result of his Yellow Page or radio ads.
He’s throwing $2,500 into a void.
The neat thing about John’s business is, he doesn’t need leads, email opt-ins, or someone to purchase online – John needs PHONE CALLS.
Did you know there are CHEAP services out there that let pay per click managers like me track phone calls, down to the keyword? Instead of throwing money into ads you can’t track – why wouldn’t you want to put an ad in front of people searching for “local plumbers?”
I can tell you right now – I can deliver phone calls to your service business for less than $20/call (that includes my profit margins) – do you think your business could turn a profit on those kind of numbers? (email me if you want more info)
Let’s make some assumptions in John’s case….he’ll turn 35% of those callers into customers, at an average revenue of $300/customer, at a $175 profit margin/job. So, if he gets 125 calls from his $2500 ($20/call), he’s going to get 44 new customers (35%). At $175/customer, that’s $7700 in profits. Remove the marketing spend ($2,500), and you’re left with $5,200 in pure profit.
Let’s go one step further and say John retains about 30% of his business for future jobs. Those people hire him back at the same profit margin, approximately once per year. Since I talked him in to setting up a monthly email newsletter, there is no cost associated in closing these guys again. So, for every 44 customers, he gets about 14 repeat customers the next year. For 12 months, that turns in to 168 repeat customers.
So, in year one, John spent $30,000 online, and netted $62,400 in profits after it’s all said and done. (that’s not revenue, that’s profit). Because of his repeat business, in the next year, he netted another $29,400.
You can imagine what happens year after year, right? There may be ups and downs, but since we have a controlled, trackable source of business for John, he’s not struggling right now. In fact, he’s doing better than ever, all because of the things we’ve shown him.