Clark Marketing

5 Steps to Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Perfection

When Do You Need a New Web Site?

Boosting Sales with Twitter

Successfully Fusing Email and Blog Marketing

1 5 Steps to Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Perfection

While most advertising channels have seen a decline in revenue as a result of the present economic climate, online ad spends remain strong. From January to June 2009, the UK became the first major economy to see online advertising overtake television advertising (eMarketer). The greatest growth, by far, has been in paid search.

Also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing, paid search is the process of attracting visitors using ads on the major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and others. When used properly, PPC marketing can instantly put your company in front of prospects who are already looking for your products or services. So, how can you get paid search working for you?

Perfecting Your PPC Marketing Plans
PPC marketing is the fastest and most measurable form of advertising, enabling advertisers to track consumer activity from individual ads right through to conversion. Providing analytics at this level is one of the reasons why it is so popular.

Search marketing is also one of the most direct ways of driving traffic to your website. Opening an account and setting up your first campaign can be done in minutes. However, it can also be very expensive and ineffective if it is not done correctly.

The following 5 step process will help make the most of any PPC marketing budget.

1. Identify Your Objectives
Start with the end in mind. More sales, data capture or product, specific offers, establishing your objectives from the start will enable you to keep a clear focus as you proceed.

2. Know Your Target Audience
Whether it's acquiring new customers or winning repeat shoppers, knowing your target audience is a critical part of the research phase of any PPC campaign. Resources can quickly be wasted if ineffective or overly expensive keywords are selected.

Knowing your target audience will help you identify their needs and interests and allow you to focus your ad groups and ad copy. Additionally, you can use campaign tools to target your ads geographically, if necessary.

3. Create a Hook
What will attract your intended audience? What will help make your ad more enticing to him or her than competing ads? Consider offering a free white paper, research report, e-newsletter subscription, or other discounted special offer.

Making reference to an offer from your ad will also act as an effective filtering process – delivering you more targeted traffic and making the most of your campaign budget.

4. Prepare for Conversion
While simply sending PPC traffic to your home page is quick and easy, it's not the most effective way to direct your campaign. Instead, give some thought to how the focus of your ads can be continued through to your landing page and conversion process.

The theme from your chosen search term and ad copy should continue on your website – giving your visitors no doubt they are in the right place.

5. Know What to Measure
Putting the tools in place that allow you to measure the effectiveness of each ad group and the success rate of different ad versions will enable you to allocate your budget confidently.

When done right, PPC marketing is a great way to increase your web traffic, sales and online visibility. If you need help setting up or managing an effective PPC campaign, call us on 020 7183 7111.

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2 When Do You Need a New Web Site?

It's commonly accepted today that if you run a business, you need a website. One of the first things new customers do before picking up the phone to call any business is to search for more information about the company via the web. If your website is sending the right message, it will make a great first impression for you – even before you meet your client.

With this in mind, what is your website saying to your prospective customers? To answer this question, the key is viewing your site through the eyes of someone visiting it for the first time. To make an objective appraisal, consider the following.

20 Questions to Help Assess Your Website
Ultimately, when updating your website, your most important consideration should be to focus on the results you want. Ideally, you want more visitors, leads and customers. With this goal in mind, each change you implement will be focused on improving those results.

When assessing the effectiveness of your existing website, ask yourself the following questions.

It's fair to say not all of the answers to these questions require a complete website re-design – but if, after carefully reviewing your website, you find that a lot of changes are necessary, it can sometimes be easier to start again from scratch.

However, before you start any re-development, identify your strengths (great content, keywords you rank for, inbound links to individual pages, conversion tools, etc.) and make sure measures are put in place to carry them across to your new website. If you need help improving your website, call us on 020 7183 7111.

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3 Boosting Sales with Twitter

Twitter is one of the most powerful social media marketing websites today. While it may still accommodate a lot of pointless babble, this real-time short messaging service continues to go from strength to strength as a viable alternative for connecting with people online.

Twitter is a free micro-blogging service that enables users to send and read messages known as tweets. Twitter, primarily used by consumers, has been attracting an increasing number of businesses who see it as one of the fastest ways to "connect" with customers. So, can you really improve sales using Twitter?

Top Twitter Business Techniques
As an increasingly popular social network, Twitter is growing daily and presently ranks one of the 20 most popular websites worldwide by Alexa's web traffic analysis. Whether you're a celebrity, politician, corporate giant or a one-man-band, Twitter can help you improve brand awareness and acquire loyal customers.

However, this doesn't mean to say you simply join Twitter in order to solely promote your products. While increasing sales may be your long-term goal, adopting a direct one-way sales approach will soon turn people off. Remember, social media marketing is all about dialogues, not monologues.

Creating a Dialogue
The best way to build a large following on Twitter is to offer helpful, friendly and genuine information – without expecting anything in return. Here are some content ideas to help build a positive reputation for your company on Twitter:

• Provide content about events related to your industry.
• Use Twitter search to find conversations to participate in.
• Re-tweet other users' good comments.
• Thank those who re-tweet your comments.
• Ask questions and invite comments on industry-related topics.
• Add links to great resources on other websites.
• Share some of your personality (without being mundane).
• Make reference to new content on your own website.
• Respond personally and promptly when someone sends you a message.
• Compliment great web content.
• Tweet your support for a charity event.

Once you have a good foundation of followers in place, you can then move on to using Twitter to help promote your products. Consider the following techniques.

• Make limited-time offers available exclusively on Twitter to reward those who follow your business.
• Re-tweet testimonials from satisfied customers.
• Share "pick of the week" products.
• Announce arrival of newly-released products.
• Tweet special coupon codes.
• Link to new product reviews on your website.
• Make reference to videos showing off products you sell.
• Promote special company anniversary give-aways.
• Refer to media coverage that relates to your products.
• Tweet about competitions running from your website.

As you take advantage of the opportunities to create some traffic to your website using Twitter, remember to take care that your content doesn't become too sales-oriented. Genuine participation should always be your first priority.

Finally, be consistent. Twitter is a fantastic source for real-time, short-form information, in a myriad of industries – including yours. If you need help with your social media marketing activities, call us on 020 7183 7111.

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4 Successfully Fusing Email and Blog Marketing

Corporate blogging has become a particularly effective marketing tool for developing and maintaining valued customer relationships and is increasingly proving an excellent way to attract new web traffic from search engines. A proficient business blog can also be used to engage existing customers beyond a one-off purchase.

A well designed and implemented blog can act as a hub for your search marketing, social media marketing and, maybe not as obviously, for your email marketing initiatives. So what techniques should you adopt to ensure a coordinated approach to your promotional activities?

How Blog and Email Marketing Compliment Each Other
Writing a business blog is fast becoming an essential tool in an online marketing arsenal. Today, the benefits of publishing an active blog are widely enjoyed by major corporations and small enterprises alike. Some of these benefits include:

• Extending your company brand.
• An adaptable platform that allows ongoing dialogue with your customers.
• Encouraging customers to engage with you about key issues.
• Allowing you to demonstrate and promote your expertise.
• Providing a catalogue of relevant content to attract qualified search engine traffic.
• Enabling you to incorporate social media activities into your online marketing.

Combine your blog with some best practice email marketing techniques, and you have a potent marketing mix. The following are some ideas that will help you successfully combine your blog with your email marketing campaigns.

1. Promote Your Newsletter with Your Blog
A well published blog is a great way to attract new visitors. Some will come by way of search engines that refer your content in search results. Better still; some web traffic will come by way of direct links from related blogs or authority web sites that reference your articles.

Either way, this is free, targeted web traffic, which are there to be converted. Positioning a straightforward newsletter subscription form prominently on your blog will provide an easy way for visitors to stay in touch beyond their initial visit.

2. Strike While the Iron is Hot
If someone has left feedback or a testimonial message in response to your article, send them an email thanking them and pointing them in the direction of your latest promotion - research shows that buyers are highly motivated immediately after instigating correspondence.

3. Cross-Platform Content Sharing
Once you begin content sharing, you will never again be stuck for email newsletter content. Summaries and links to your latest and greatest blog posts make excellent content for your next newsletter. This strategy works the other way around too - use a segment of your blog template to feature existing promotions from your most recent email campaign.

Not only will this strategy save time with content creation, it will also help maintain message consistency and bring greater emphasis to your promotions.

4. Request Feedback and Invite Testimonials
Use a combination of your blog and email campaigns to encourage your website visitors to engage with you by leaving comments and provide product reviews. A coordinated approach to feedback and testimonials will not only increase your reach, but also enable you to successfully "join the social media conversation."

In conclusion, a consistent approach to your marketing correspondence will help drive home your most important messages and establish you firmly as an expert in your field. If you need help setting up a successful business blog, call us on 020 7183 7111.

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