If your website isn’t your #1 lead source, it should be.  Sponsored search (pay-per-click) is fundamental to every online marketing effort.  For three reasons:

1. It’s immediate.  You can be page one Google on day one.
2. It’s contextual.  It puts your ad in front of people WHEN THEY ARE LOOKING FOR WHAT YOU SELL.
3. You can’t have an efficient SEO campaign without learning from a sponsored campaign, FIRST, which terms convert well.

I am uniquely qualified to make internet search marketing your #1 lead source:

I have 25+ years of experience in direct response marketing and 10 years experience managing sponsored search campaigns.  Most can offer the latter, few offer both.  And bottom line, sponsored search and converting visitors into leads are direct response marketing in its purest form.

I focus BOTH on getting people to your site AND on converting them once they’re there.  Do your homework, most people don’t do both.

I am different than most who offer this service because I’m willing to teach you.

I have a proven track record. I generate approximately 12,000 unique visitors, 350 leads and $1.5 million in sales EVERY MONTH, combined, for the clients whose sponsored search campaigns I’m managing.  Not all of that comes from sponsored search, some comes from organic traffic.  But it all comes from the websites I manage.

I am a Google Adwords Professional, of which there are less than 400 in the United States.

I can create and manage a sponsored search marketing campaign for you, or I can teach you how.

I manage your campaign for you:

I do it all.

Strategies for keywords, bids, Ad Groups.

I write and the ads.

I optimize the landing pages.

Then, I manage and optimize the campaign weekly.

Fee: $1,250 a month for a three-month start-up period, $650 per month for each month following this initial phase (you pay Google for click-throughs direct).  This gives me time to iterate enough times to get through the testing phase and into the optimization phase, both on your Adwords campaign and landing pages.

I teach you how:

We meet via net meeting once a week for 30 minutes.  I start where you are, whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or advanced.  Plan on three months of weekly meetings if you’re a beginner.

You’ll learn Google Adwords and Google Analytics to drive traffic to your site.  You’ll learn landing page optimization because you need to convert people into leads once they’re there. You need to learn BOTH.

You’ll learn my work flow, one step at a time, from identifying your strong and weak keywords and adjusting bids and ads accordingly, to updating landing pages and managing Ad Groups to maximize your Google Quality Score.

Fee: $1,250 a month for a three-month start-up period, $650 per month for each month following this initial phase (you pay Google for click-throughs direct).

Email Hamilton.

The best marketing for small business is internet search marketing.

I present a complete discussion below.  Here is the short version for the reason why it’s the best marketing for small business:

Most people include the internet in their search for what you sell.  The great thing about the internet, the thing most responsible for its unprecedented growth as a marketing medium: TIMING.  That is, internet search marketing lets you put your ad in front of people when they’re searching for what you sell.  My blog post on the power of timing.

The fastest, least expensive path from where you are now to generating traffic for your site is a sponsored search marketing campaign (also called pay-per-click).  This brings qualified people to your site (half the battle) WHEN they are looking for what you sell.  The other half of the battle is converting visitors into leads.  Obviously, you need both.

More

There are two basic parts to good internet search marketing:

1. Generating traffic to your site
2. Converting that traffic into leads (getting visitors to take some action once they’re there)

There are two basic ways to generate website traffic: organic search, sometimes called SEO (search engine optimization); and sponsored search, sometimes called PPC (pay-per-click) or SEM (search engine marketing).

Generating Website Traffic Via Sponsored Search

(or Pay-Per-Click)

I’m going to only talk about sponsored search here because this is where I start all my clients.  It is the fastest, least expensive path to the first page of a Google search.  As a result, you can get your message in front of people when they want to either educate themselves about what you sell, or buy it.  Either way, that’s a pretty good deal.  Spend your first marketing dollar on PPC, and your last.  It shouldn’t be the only thing you do, but it’s the most important thing you do.

I pretty regularly hear, “Oh we tried that and it didn’t work” when I first bring up the subject of PPC.  Please, don’t let that make you believe it doesn’t work.  That simply means how you tried it didn’t work.

Being first page on Google on an organic search should be the goal of every marketer working.  But you can’t get there without first being successful at PPC.  It generates traffic immediately.  It is your laboratory to discover which terms pull best, which produce the real prospects and how to create response from people once they are on your site (conversions).

I’m a Qualified Google Adwords Professional (GAP), of which there are only 320 in the U.S.  And while there are MANY people out there who would love to manage your Adwords account, there are not many GAPs out there and even fewer with my direct response marketing background.  Which is precisely what sponsored search is, direct response marketing.

Conversion Marketing

A cool looking website that doesn’t produce leads is like a cool looking brochure that doesn’t convince anybody to do anything.  Neither convert.

This is a hugely important part of your marketing.  Think about this.  If your conversion rate is .5% (a half a percent), for every 5,000 unique visitors to your site you will convert 25 of them into a lead.  If typically 25% of leads turn into customers, you can expect five new customers.

If you want 10 new customers you have to attract twice as many unique visitors.  If your cost per unique visitor is in the two to three dollar range (not uncommon), you need to spend another $10,000 to $15,000 generating traffic.  Or, you need to take your conversion rate from .05% to 1%.

The keys to conversion marketing are:

Understanding the buying cycle and what information people need when

Simplifying around a few key things people want to know

And then testing, relentlessly testing

Why Most Internet Marketing Fails

Most internet marketing fails because the people doing it stop before they’re successful.  So, it isn’t a surprise when people say, “Oh we tried that and it didn’t work” when I first mention PPC.  Either you need to get very good at sponsored search and conversion marketing or fine someone who is.

I can teach you what I know if you have the time and interest.  Or I can do it for you.  Either way you won’t easily find someone with both my experience with sponsored search and conversion marketing AND who has the type of background in direct response marketing.

Give it a try for six months.  A good, thorough, integrated try.  If we can’t make internet marketing work for you in that period of time, either it can’t be done, or we can’t do it together and you should find somebody else.

Make sense?  Send me an email, right now, while you’re thinking about it.  Doing nothing assures the same results next month you had last month.  Doing something, like sending me an email and starting the conversation, means something can change.