10 NEW WAYS TO USE PPC TO DRIVE SALES

Using good old sales promotion techniques reveals new ways to improve the way you use Google Adwords

Everyone knows that PPC can drive sales and much attention is paid to paying the right amount for the searched for phrases and then getting the optimum ranking. Especially now that online spend has overtaken traditional media. Yet now might actually be the time to start looking at it as a media and not be as constrained in to doing the same as everyone else. By looking creatively at this as simply a form of advertising then it is easy to see that  two key elements of marketing have been shortchanged in the simplistic pursuit of price and position.

They are BRANDING and PROMOTION.

In starting to think what message are you delivering  you can start to think to encourage the click through there and then. For the capability in Google and all PPC campaigns which is most overlooked in terms of message is that of IMMEDIACY. No other media offers the facility to decide upon and offer and allow you to have it on offer right away!

So how to drive sales with immediacy in mind? It is really quite simple – just make an offer! Make it immediate and call for action now. So all of these ideas come from  the old Sales Promoters Almanac…. Think of each of them in the context of your brand and product and what you can and should offer in the context of the constraints of the Adwords  struture.

No 1 Only 10 products left… Order today to get the best price

Driving response through implied shortage will bring out the true potential buyer

No 2 Hurry only 48 hours to go

Time running out is a constant theme is all of our lives so why not harness it creativley to drive buyers to your site rather than another

No 3 Save £10 today

Everyone wnats a saving so offer it as a reward for simply taking action. By the way just like ‘tomorrow never comes’ then ‘today is always today’ !

No 4 Buy one get one free … if you apply today

Here again is an offer yet now introducing the most powerful word in marketing FREE but in its BOGOF form costs less to you the marketer. For FREE can be sued ijn so many ways..

No 5 Free Audit, Service or Survey

Simply offer and introdcution to your service as an incetive to vsist your site. In fact it may well be an offer you are already making on your site that you are now to use in the PPC campaign

No 6 Free Gift

This can be offered simply for visting the site with registration or with a purchase. You could consider making it a mystery gift using perhaps those leftover premiums from last years promotions to be revealed only when on the landing page!

Yet there is another very powerful word in the marketing lexicon we have yet to use – WINFor with today’s loose interpreatation of the Betting & Gaming Law in the UK means basically….

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY  BUT ONLY ONE ENTRY A DAY

So win in a free draw can be useed to encourage a site visit. And WIN can be used in many ways as a simple prize fund with only a site visit required with nothing to buy just take a look and of cousre you can choose the prize fund to suit you…

No 7  Win a holiday

No 8  Win £100

From many years of  running draws and competitions I can tell you that whilst we all in the end would prefer the cash likelihood to enter is higher with a tangible prize.

No 9  Win a saving

The saving could be on a product or extra points in the loyalty scheme or a voucher /money-off coupon

No 10  The first 100 vsitors get a free…

Give the market the impression that you ar a busy site and encourage traffic at the same time.

Over to you

Now you have the diea of using PROMOTIONAL TECHNIQUES as part of your PPC campaigsn and BRINGING OUT THE OFFERS ALREADY ON THE SITE you will be easily able to devsie your own offers realting to your BRAND, product or service. Howver now you will do so safe in the knowledge that you are gaining a competitive advantage over your competitors and Google makes it immediate!

Well I didi say that these ideas come from the Old Sales Promoters Almanac so in trues sales promotion style her is an EXTRA idea…

No 11 Impacful Landing Page

OK no so much an idea as a means of implementing I grant you but as a landing page may well be much easier to produce / change that the site istself and it will increase promotional impact I commend it to you. And in the hope that you might consider using Sales Promotion more actively on line!

I indebted to my friends at Sleeping Giant Media who understand more about PPC than anyone I know for input

Does your brand stand out for what it stands for?

The rise and rise of on line spend and the counterbalancing decline in offline ‘traditional’ media creates as much of a dilemma as it does an opportunity.So many things are changing can you be sure…that your brand stands out for what it stands for?

The IAB says that in the first half of 2009 UK internet advertising accounted for 24% of ALL ad spending ( up from 18.7 % in 2008) whilst TV was 22%  Press – 18.5% and Direct Mail -  11.5%. This is the first time digital ad spend has overtaken the other channels anywhere in the world. And off that online spend paid for search (PPC) accounts for 60%.

Now this is being driven by a number of factors accountability, apparent ease and accessibility to the process and that ever growing usage of online by a broadband enhanced populous.

Just look at the chart to see how much it has grown across the country and through all strata of the population.

Yet many still  adhere to the ‘menu across the top –  fill every space’ format for their web site and a time when we  are being shown that in reality online TV is here with BBC iPlayer making the unmissable unmissable ( I just love the slogan as near perfect as you can be). Indeed this very weekend the ENGLAND v UKRAINE football match is ONLY available on line.

So time to really evaluate what your web site is! No longer should it be what you do when you have done everything else!

In fact it is time to really re-appraise all of marketing activity

So two major questions are raised how to plan and what happens to the brand. Let’s look at them individually in a little more detail.  (This is a big subject that I will return to, I’m sure.)

No 1 What is the optimum mix of spending to be most cost effective?

This fast evolution of  fast  online speeds coupled with faster  computers means brilliant images, greater capacity and quick access.

So time to see everything as starting digitally because now in effect it does anyway and that the web site now becomes Marketing Central and that everything emanates from it. The web site  must now become MARKETING CENTRAL. Then time to re-evaluate you marketing messages, target customers and appropriate media. Only by fully understanding this will you be able to plan YOUR marketing most effectively. A simple example search advertising only works well when the thing being searched for is known, axiomatic you might say but problematic if you want to launch a new product.

No 2 How do I maintain my Brand and it’s effectiveness on line?

All the attributes of a brand with its appearance and logo but more importantly the values that support and build it come under pressure on line. Google is the only brand it allows on its search pages and then it constrains even further by making all adds conform to the

same number of digits.

Whilst web developers everywhere insist on basically the same type faces and using old fashioned static  logos design for print ( although if you would believe Kellogg each one is handwritten but then you would have to ask at least Ford and Coke too!

I highlight these as world famous iconic brands with so much behind them yet each in their own way recognise that the brand itself needs substantiating and supporting.  Just how much do you understand your brand, what it stands for… what is actually behind the logo itself? Because the logo maybe all that will be there to differentiate and substantiate your offering. Even then it will be reduced to its smallest form – the icon.

So it is time to look more closely and thoroughly at your brand;-

As the more it appears on line the more its will be starved of all the things it needs to grow. Reduced to series of images and logical copy the brand is in danger of just becoming simply a symbol in and off  itself.

So what does your brand stand for? Make sure you know and that your customers know. Then work harder, much harder….

Making your brand stand out for what it stands for….

The customer always wins in the end….

I like a pint. Mind you I mean a proper pint. None of your same tasting over advertised heavliy branded yet ersatz lagers. I mean a real ale -conditioned in the cask no less.It has just been announced  that sales of  cask conditioned ales sales have risen year on year for the first time for many a year. This growth has been fuelled by a growth in micro breweries ( there  are now over 700 of them )  serving their local area and beyond, encouraged all the while by a die hard group of customers organised through CAMRA. Of course there are some national/ regional brands like Fullers London Pride, Courage Best , Timothy Taylor Landlord and Sharps Doombar. Only a couple of which have received a modicum of media support, both of which are on the take… ‘pride’ or ‘courage’!

The big 4 breweries, driven by the simplified demands of the highly geared national pub groups, with the notable exception of  Witherspoons,  have marketed to the hilt their lager ranges.  Yet it is real ale that is growing  even whilst many  pubs are closing. Is this a triumph of PRODUCT over BRAND?

Yes is the answer but it is also, and more so, the triumph of the CUSTOMER.

For at the heart and the start of MARKETING is recognising what the customer wants and giving it to them.

So customer satisfaction should always drive the brand not distribution savings and reductive retailer demands.

Look more closely and you will find that the local breweries themselves are almost playing around with branding through strange and ever strange names ( dogbolter springs to mind) as well as quirky font bages.  Fulfilling some of the needs of brands RECOGNITION  and DIFFERENTIATION. Whilst not being able to afford other mainstream marketing activity other methods are being used remarkably well.

Take for instance my local brewer Rebellion in Marlow… they operate a club which allows members to bring 3 guests 4 times a year to drink free.

SAMPLING, RECOMMENDATION and WORD OF MOUTH to satisfy the most stringent marketer as well as they use the events to drive home quality by giving tours and presentations too.

So top quality marketing and a great night out for many increasingly LOYAL CUSTOMERS.   I am sure that all the words in capital letters would have appeared in the planning for any of the national brands yet by combining great prodcuts with local marketing and the basic elements of branding it is the micro breweries that are winning.

But the big breweries could so easly raise their game with the power of the internet. For instance to drive sampling and sessions. Just ask Pizza Hut and Zizzis! Full restaurants thanks to  ever changing on line vouchers.

We all need reminding that marketing starts and ends with the customer.

So let’s be happy to celebate a victory for customers all round. Oh your round? I’d like a pint!