Google AdWords For The Small Business Owner

How To Engineer A Google AdWords Campaign:

Every marketing campaign has different goals and objectives, or at least they should.  Google AdWords can be an effective marketing tool if used correctly.  Running a campaign on Google AdWords isn’t much different than a print campaign.  Typically there are one of two objectives in a print campaign, build image or response call-to-action.  We look at Google Adwords for the local business the same way.

Long Term Google AdWords:

For the more image awareness impression based AdWords campaign it should be looked upon like the tortoise, a long race.  The first campaign is focused on longevity and impressions, so you’ll want to do some key word research and select maybe a dozen keywords.  Select an amount per day that if you were to hit that amount 20 days out of the month it would be within your budget.  If you’re going to budget $150 for the month then $7 per day might do.  When selecting the geographical area, don’t cast too wide of a net, keep it close.

The ad should reflect more of what you stand for and offer position.  With so many national companies purchasing Google AdWords to market to our local areas the advantage that you have it that you are local.  Make sure that in one of the three lines available to you that you make a local reference.

Call-To-Action Google AdWords Campaign:

For a more call to action shorter sales spurt, you’ll want to at least double the daily amount of your long term budget and run it for 7days for a 4 day sale.  You’re going to want to maximize keywords; depending on your business category using 75 to 200 keywords is not uncommon for this type of GoogleAdWords campaign.  You’ll want to increase your reach, so not only would you include your county, but you’ll probably want to include the two nearest counties as well, after all it is a sale.  This will cast the broadest net, but still be able to produce results and with not much of an investment and the all-important ROI.

The ad needs to include save X%, a lost leader, financing, the typical hooks you would see in a call to action ad.  For most sales you’re sacrificing margins for volume, so you want to entice hits so you can get the amount of invoices to make up for the possible loss on your average ticket.

Google AdWords and SEO:

A Google AdWords campaign can go hand in hand with working on your SEO.  If you’re a local business that is trying to improve your SEO launching a Google AdWords campaign will kick start traffic to your website.  It will also give you a great understanding on what terms people are searching for and will help you improve the keywords that you are using in your website content.

Google AdWords Strategy:

Have a Strategy.  Have it complement your SEO.  If you perform well on searches are you defeating the purpose by having a pay per click ad where you’re already appearing at the top of the page?  What days are you running.  I know they say a click is a click but where people are at and their mind set when they do click is important, can they act?  Do you include your competition as keywords… Think of all the angles and have a plan.

Summary:

Google AdWords can be an effective marketing tool in your belt.  It can be effective to drive a tremendous amount of traffic to your website, much more than a banner ad can do.  It’s effective as you’re hitting people who are interested in what you do or sell, as they are searching for what you do but don’t have their mind made up on who to buy it from.

Set your budgets.  While Google AdWords can be a solid marketing tool it can be very COSTLY if you DO NOT set the correct budgets and time frames, don’t make the mistake of over looking those features.

Like with most marketing platforms the results will depend on how effective the execution is.  If you have any questions about how your business can execute a Google Adwords campaign feel free to contact us, we’d love to hear from you.

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• 4 Google AdWords “Strategies” doomed to fail (cleverzebo.com)
• How to NOT Lose Money with AdWords (bizsugar.com)