Reach Potential Customers While They They Are Searching
The most powerful benefit of search marketing is remarkably simple: the link for your website gets displayed to your potential customers at the moment they are actively searching online. When there are fewer potential customers in your market due to a slower economy, it becomes even more important for the link to your website to be on the first page of search results.
Opportunities When Your Competitors Don’t Plan
Generally, a reduction in the number of potential customers in the market tends to increase the competition and costs to reach the remaining customers. However, during difficult economic times, some businesses that have not budgeted properly make the mistake of cutting their marketing and advertising. This, to some degree, can help offset the higher bid rates for sponsored links that would otherwise occur. Also, when your competitors stop promoting, it gives you the opportunity to gain market share and be well positioned for the time when better times return.
Measurable Results vs. Cost to be Cut
The second most useful feature of search marketing during tough times is the fact that the returns on your investment can be directly measured. If you sell your products or services online and receive credit card payments, we can track your cost per order down to the keyword level. If your business relies on leads for sales or appointments, dividing the number of click based leads or incoming phone leads into your monthly search marketing budget gives a direct way to determine your returns. This approach allows you recognize search marketing as an investment with measurable returns, not a cost to be cut.
New Customers and Valuable Data for Your Business
If you are considering search marketing for the first time, PPC ads (a.k.a. sponsored links) provide sales and leads quickly. In addition to new customers, you get valuable data that can be used to optimize your website content or guide your business in other useful and practical ways. For example, for a local service business, if you are considering serving a larger geographical area, we can use geotargeting to determine how much interest there is in that area before you spend on the expansion. Similarly, a B to B business that is considering a new product or service can write a white paper on it, put it on their website, and use PPC ads to gauge the interest in it before committing more resources.
We look forward to your comments or questions on this topic.