Every week, AIC Technologies helps business owners by designing websites for them. But, often these business owners then fail when it comes to developing strategies for driving traffic to their new sites. It’s true that a website can result in extra sales on its own, and this is part of what is called passive marketing. But for small businesses who are not producing regular content on and off site, this is not a viable option.
In reality, for most businesses, a website is a tool that helps them sell better with their existing and future marketing activities. Again, a website does increase a business’s exposure to new customers. But for all but the most underserved markets, this will not sustain a business alone in a predictable fashion.
In marketing terms, what I am alluding to is the need for a sales funnel, in which leads are introduced at the top, and sales are generated at the bottom. The first step of any successful sales funnel is to introduce an adequate volume of leads at the top. Google Adwords is one such method of achieving this in a quick, measurable and predictable fashion.
What is Google AdWords?
AdWords is an active (as opposed to passive) form of driving traffic to your website on a Pay Per Click (PPC) or equivalent basis. This is achieving by paying to place your website in search results at the top of the page. This is of course done on relevant search terms. The benefit being that people that are searching for a product that you offer are either in a research or buy phase of their purchase journey. This is an important differentiation from where you otherwise might allocate your advertising budget. As advertising in a local paper or on Facebook, for example, allows you to reach consumers but not when they have a known intent to purchase. This means that instead of selling them your service, you have to focus on educating them on why they need your product or service to begin with.
Our AdWords Management Service
Google AdWords was something that we wanted to introduce to our clients for some time. However, prior to this service, we did not have an effective pricing structure to offer it on a small scale. Indeed, some clients were and continue to pay AIC Technologies more than $1000 a month to manage their advertising spend on Adwords.
Our basic advertising package is designed to offer clients excellent value and to serve as an introduction to AdWords. Why an introduction? The greater the spend the more complex the management becomes, and so the less effective this package would be.
Pricing for this basic package is $113 to setup, and then $37.50 every 3 months to review performance and adjust accordingly. On top of management fees, clients will also need to decide on an advertising spend.
Is AdWords Right For Your Business?
The amount that I would recommend is going to depend on a variety of factors specific to your business. Indeed, this service may not be right for your business if it’s volume oriented or low margin. An ideal fit would be a business that offers a product or service where the Life Time Value (LTV) of a customer is significant and a relatively high acquisition cost can be justified. But, if this all sounds too technical, we offer a free 20-minute phone consultation to help you decide if the service is right for you.
In essence, the viability of the service goes back to the sales funnel concept, where leads are introduced at the top and sales come out the bottom. This is called the conversation rate.
Using my business as an example, if I send 100 paid hits to my website at a cost of $1 each, and only 2 of those customers convert to customers, then I would have spent $100 to create $3000 in revenue since an average client spend is $1500. In this example, I assume that I have a 2% conversion rate, but the conversation rate depends on a variety of factors and can be as high as 30%. However, the Pay Per Click (PPC) can also vary significantly particularly in highly competitive high-value industries like real estate.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, every business with an online presence should at the very least evaluate Google Adwords as a tool to finding new customers. It’s not going to be right for every business, particularly at a small scale but the opportunity for some businesses is incredible.
This post had its content updated to remain relevant on the 7th of April 2018.
