Google Adwords listings can provide an effective PPC program

PPC Advertising Does Not Depend On Having A Top Ranked Website For Good Results

Yes, we’re accustomed to hearing good things about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If done well, SEO can boost your website to high organic search engine rankings. Of course, a lot of good things must happen over an extended period of time… as you develop informative articles, blog posts, pages and YouTube videos for your site, along with highly optimized keyword strategies. But there’s no guarantee your content marketing will pay off. Google’s famous algorithm is a complex formula that calculates which sites ranks well for a particular page on a particular search query. First page ranking isn’t a sure thing, by any means.

To speak plainly, your site may never achieve satisfactory rankings for reasons that go beyond your business or organization. Have you ever noticed how often you’ll find Wikipedia entries, or in-depth research articles from recognized universities, foundations or scholarly journals on the first search engine results page? Their content ranks well because these organizations are devoted to producing articles that are purely informational. Additionally, such listings can often fill several pages of organic results for many important keyword categories.

So where does that leave you? If you’re aiming to sell a product you may find pay-per-click (PPC)  sponsored listings can benefit your online marketing program in several ways. Here’s a few important points to consider:

• In SEO the search engines control the rankings through secret algorithms, which are always changing.
• You can spend a lot of time trying to break into the first page rankings with years of organic SEO activity.
• Meanwhile your competition is converting online leads into sales!
• With PPC you can immediately start driving toward the final results you’re seeking. In a broad sense you’re taking a more direct path to the final goal.
• PPC advertising does not depend on having a top ranked website for good results. If your Google Adwords listings are well conceived — with a tight adherence to specific adgroups and landing pages — you’ll establish control over your settings and keywords while methodically testing your ad copy.
• The feedback you gain from PPC is much quicker than SEO. You can succeed faster, fail faster, and subject your assumptions to rigorous testing.
• It make sense to be there now using PPC data to optimize your campaigns, including the SEO rankings you’ll be using for the long term.
• You’ll discover what your customers are thinking, what they’re responding to, and what needs to change. Additionally, you will end up with solid data that confirms your sales premise, or refutes it categorically. Either way, you win!

There’s nothing wrong with SEO from our point of view. However, the benefits of a PPC campaign shouldn’t be dismissed without a fair hearing. Our advice: don’t automatically assume that SEO is “free” because you’ll most certainly have to invest precious resources into the effort, especially if you’re expecting to see good results. Instead, be sure to use both approaches — SEO and PPC — for best results.

Good Content Makes It Much Easier To Boost Your Web Presence

Finding the time to build good content is essential for inbound marketing. It’s the cornerstone of visitor engagement and long term ROI. Yet, it requires a firm commitment by top management. I’ve been re-reading “Smart Content Marketing Relies On Efficient Production,” a useful post by Derek Gordon from Search Insider on 4/27/11. Here’s a quote:

Who has time to do all this stuff? By stuff, marketing professionals are referring to the production and distribution of the variety of content that flows from strategies that are built to engage audiences, improve search rank, and yield better bottom line business results.

Efficient production techniques can help you become more successful at building good content

Which is all very nice but one must come up with the goods, right? It won’t just grow on a tree all by itself. You have to write it, produce it, make all the edits and write, write, write some more, thereby producing the videos, articles & posts, photos, webinars, eBooks, podcasts and tweets. And, you need to attract inbound links from others.

Who said it was going to be so easy and facile anyway? (Okay, I’m indulging a little.)

Most of the clients I know, the ones who have never jumped into blogging, are a little wary of the commitment they’ll need to make in pursuit of content marketing. We work with small organizations. Mostly we’re into a business blogging approach when the idea of content marketing is under discussion. But one could also be looking at photography, online videos and/or webinars as the driving force for establishing an inbound marketing program. It really doesn’t matter. The continued production of interesting information, is a relatively new mindset for many organizations. Unless they’re used to a regular diet of corporate communications and ‘PR,’ the notion of actually developing an Editoral Calendar scares the devil out of these firms. Tell them the advantages of building a website in a blogging tool like WordPress, and using it as a Content Management System (CMS), the marketing manager or owner may perk up a little, but you can feel some of the air leaving the room at the same time because the benefit comes at a price.

Efficient production is extremely important in this regard. You need to go forward with efficiency right off, or you may not get very far. Derek Gordon talks about an interview done by a Bloomberg reporter who asked if he could record the session on his Flip HD video camera. By doing this the reporter said he could edit a brief ‘newscast’ for the video channel:

• then use the transcript to write up the story;
• then use the audio for a podcast:
• then use a few still photos captured from the video for the Title screens;
• and for online display ads to be used on Bloomberg’s web properties.

The formula would seem easy enough: record the session in a no frills manner using a Flip HD camcorder (on a tripod with external microphone works best), return to your office and start slicing, editing and producing the elements into plug & play system that publishes directly to your website and social network.

There is a very satisfying simplicity to this content strategy. The primary road block to this model may be more psychological than physical or budgetary. But of course there’s a learning curve and a commitment curve as well.

You will need to establish a Web Hub to be constructed from your website and blog, your social framework which may use popular tools such as  FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google + and varied bookmarking sites, etc. But once you have established your online presence based on these elements, you will have most everything you may need to capture useful streams of compelling information.

I can feel it starting to happen with the customer at this point. A dawn of recognition. The look of awareness and interest starting to grow.

You have likely been there yourself in your meetings. What do you do to help your boss, or colleague, start taking the next few steps toward the most focus set of goals?

Up To 55% More Visitors To Your Website

Here’s some news: you can receive 55% more visitors by adding a company blog to your website. But it will take some work to realize the benefits. As reported by Compucast, according to a recent study by HubSpot of 1,531 customers (mostly small- and medium-sized businesses) showed those with blogs received 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links, and 43% more indexed pages. (795 businesses blogged; 736 did not.)

By creating engaging content, coupled with proper navigation, good usability and copy, you can drive increased visibility in search engines. We like to call this “Natural SEO” (Search Engine Optimization) because that’s what it is. A beneficial process that occurs from writing interesting content and creating a sustained online dialog with customers, colleagues, friends, prospects and industry professionals. Additionally, you’re building inbound links when you let site visitors reply to your pages or posts. It’s something search engines are programmed to find online.

Explore The Benefits of Using WordPress As A Content Management System (CMS)

In a site powered by WordPress, you receive an attractive, modern site that’s easy to manage: simple enough for beginners; powerful enough for experienced users. Here’s a brief list of potential features:

• Personal administration page
• Ability to add pages, articles, press releases, photos, videos, PDFs
• Multiple user accounts
• Ability to accommodate visitor comments
• Search engine ready: just add content. The system builds useful page URL’s automatically
• Well designed ‘look & feel’ to reflect your Brand

Not Ready For Blogging?

That’s okay. You can still take advantage of powerful Web 2.0 features. By adding new pages to your company website with interesting news, services or products, you’ll get a boost in site traffic. Allow visitor comments and you’ll gain even more. We enjoy building websites that incorporate a content management system (CMS) so our customers can update their own content whenever they wish.

There may be significantly more opportunity than you think in creating informative blog posts, thereby establishing a voice within your industry or market. Take care to do it properly. With a little planning upfront you can create an inbound marketing program that develops strong leads to sales performance.

Please comment below with your thoughts on the subject of business blogging and the benefits of “Natural SEO” for your Internet marketing program.

Your Website Can Do More, Cost Less and Pull In Better Traffic

Many site owners fail to realize their website is just the beginning of a larger process. Though they may understand usability, keyword optimization and branding. Often, there’s much that can be done to bring real excitement and fresh results. If you’re passionate about serving your customers and proving what you can do for for them, you’ll enjoy having a website, or company blog, that pulls more qualified inbound leads and customer traffic. Transforming static pages into a compelling inbound program — with blog posts, web video, social media, carefully tested landing pages, new conversion steps and more — requires the ability to look at your product with fresh eyes.

Start re-thinking your website. Ask, “how can we add more compelling content on a regular basis?” Now, you’re getting closer to the real challenge. A website that’s easily updated. A website that pulls in more leads. A website:

• That you can update
• That grows over time with useful news and information
• That offers every opportunity to demonstrate your responsiveness
• That’s very search engine friendly
• That “works for you.”

Building websites using WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS) benefits you because:

• WordPress is the world’s leading blog software
• It is one of the fastest growing platforms for building business websites
• Major Search Engines love blogs
• Using a CMS allows you to think about your content in a more fluid style
• Your site can help you attain more: Energy, Excitement, Opportunity, Sales.

There’s always more to say on the subject of blogging, especially for business. What do you say to your management team? How do you get them to commit to a company blog that drives new traffic and results?

It’s not too big a stretch to think of keywords as fueling a successful website. Keywords are the live coals that feed the online fire. Most search marketers preach the gospel of keywords, and for good reason. Where would we be without a proper keyword strategy to provide some energy?

“To Fuel…”

1. Something consumed to produce energy, especially:

a. A material such as wood, coal, gas, or oil burned to produce heat or power.

b. Fissionable material used in a nuclear reactor.

See http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fuel

Yet there’s more isn’t there? Not to take away from keywords, they’re certainly important.  But, the point can be too simplistic if you don’t think more broadly about why and how keywords should be used. This week, I saw this post by Derek Gordon on MediaPost.Com: Why Content Strategy Matters In Search Marketing. Here’s a useful quote:

What isn’t discussed enough, at least from my perspective, is the need to go beyond keyword lists and strategies to get a long-term, thoughtful content strategy.

In my experience, clients tend to resist the idea of providing a continuous and sustained flow of new and insightful content on their website or blog. Down deep they think it’s too much work. They may try to go along with the idea for a while, yet end up objecting when they realize they have evolved from running a business to becoming a publisher. Inside news, tips and ideas to entice and engage site visitors? Ah, maybe not. That can mean months of original content driven by hours of employee time. It’s a lot easier to think about keywords and not get too emotional about all that writing, research, videos, photos… all that stuff you’ve got to contend with in building an effective web presence.

Yet, the Internet has transformed marketing in a compelling demonstrable way. You can’t argue with success. So here’s another way to think of it…

“You can’t have really good SEO without really good content (in all it’s forms)…” (ibid).

I like this a lot and shall plan to use it more. Good SEO, strong keywords, and good content, are one. Try this with your boss or manager when he starts cutting back on the content commitment. Tell him the SEO strategy can start to unravel if it’s just about keywords. When you get right down to it, he’s not going to fool anyone, especially the more celebrated search engines, without content. You can play with keyword phrases; do the meta tags and meta descriptions, but you won’t gain traction until you put up some good, engaging, readable, interesting posts, videos, white papers, eBooks or amusing games.

What do you say when the commitment to publishing excellent content softens up? Does the energy level go down? Is the tank a little bit empty? Do you need a little more… fuel?

You can’t just string the keywords into a daisy chain and wear them. No matter how becoming they might be. Content is what you do with those keywords.

Please share your thoughts. Do you see the same tendency to justify strategic keywords and phrases with less time devoted to substance? Do you have any easy answers for clients who hesitate on committing to content?

Thanks to all who read and comment.

Best wishes…

Consider The Long Tail When Thinking About Strategy (image from Wired Magazine).

As you think about developing a unified strategy for Internet marketing, you may find many points of creative fusion between your traditional advertising program and the emerging possibilities online. When you study unique characteristics, such as the Long Tail, you’ll encounter many transformative new ideas that may completely reshape your assumptions about business. As you get underway please remember:

1. Simply building a website won’t grow your business;
2. You’ll need an effective strategy to be successful online;
3. In fact, your current website may represent only the first step in a larger online program.

Many marketers fail to realize their website is just the beginning of a larger process. The overall purpose and depth of content on your domain may suggest a compelling new strategy. It’s important to have a sense of where the latent energy of your site may be going: to substantiate your credentials? Tell a product story? Generate leads? Or, direct sales?

Marketers Often Become “Stuck” On Strategy

Most people think creativity has more to do with art, music and literature and less to do with business, science and engineering. But that’s not the case!

• Creativity is the act of producing new ideas, approaches and actions;
• Innovation is the process of generating and applying ideas in a specific manner and context;
• Both definitions apply for your business, especially if you’re planning to leverage Web 2.0 applications;
• The Web is all about innovation!

Here’s where it gets interesting, and potentially exciting, especially if you think outside the box. Today, new competitors are rapidly emerging as traditional marketing practices evolve into new online propositions. To ride the waves in today’s economy we need to engage in lateral thinking and divergent thought. Today it is possible to do things we could only dream a few short years ago.

1. If you check out wootwine.com you’ll be looking at a special sale, for one day only. “Woot” is a domain that specializes in daily deals, one item only, at a very discounted price. We learned of them in a recent issue of Inc. Magazine. They build their customer relationships via Twitter. What’s interesting to us is the simplicity of the business model, one sale each day on one select item, a strategy that would be nearly impossible in the traditional retail world.
2. Kogi Korean BBQ, a company with just a little over one year of operations, serves Korean style meat in Mexican-style flatbread (an innovative idea!) in Los Angeles. Kogi designed its delivery system using Twitter to inform customers where their delivery truck is headed during the course of the day, so impassioned customers can enjoy their Korean fast food fix (see kogibbq.com).
3. Ms. Brigitte Dale won Yahoo!‘s Best Internet Personality 2008 for her quirky video blog posts. What’s she selling? Her creative talent of course. Though it may be difficult to envision her approach for business, these charming online videos feature sharp scripts, self-produced on a shoe string with surprising sophistication. Here’s a recent post on YouTube.

Practical Questions Must Be Encountered

Successful strategy is often built from tactical advantages (note our Online Marketing Awareness Map). Whether to build slowly with a focus on Content Marketing or more quickly with Internet Advertising, may depend on whose asking the question.

I. An e-commerce site dealing in branded items sold at discount might focus on:

• Area 1: Websites;
• Area 2: Online Advertising;
• Area 6: Landing Pages, Analytics & Conversion.

II. Whereas a manufacturer or B2B services firm might focus on:

• Direct mail and inside sales;
• Area 3: Content Marketing or Blogging;
• Area 5: Online Video;
• Area 6: Landing Pages, Analytics & Conversion

Start With Small Steps

It helps if you have a strategy. It can make a huge difference. But if you don’t have one (or, it’s just too confusing) you’ll benefit by taking smaller steps. It is hard to go wrong with good landing pages and well designed content featuring important keyword groups and site analytics. Pilot programs make sense. Add a company blog to the mix, or perhaps a Google Adwords campaign. Adwords can work quickly, which is one reason why sponsored search listings are so popular.

Yet, a hasty campaign cobbled together with little planning is unlikely to work very well, unless you’re very lucky. False starts can be demoralizing and damaging due to the possibility of a poor Quality Score from Google, which can take months to overcome. Better to work deliberately and strategically, even with a small beginning. Content marketing, especially from blogging, is designed to build up carefully over time.

Once again, let me suggest an important reminder: We’re striving to keep things simple (not simplistic) to help you in framing your initial approach. What’s right for you will depend on your product and the unique vision you may have for your business or enterprise.

Be Thorough In Developing Keywords

Marketers engaged in their first encounter with online advertising are often surprised at the amount of time they need to develop effective keywords and Adgroups. Using Google’s Keyword Generator can help you create hundreds of keywords. But don’t fall into the trap of letting the software do your thinking for you. Instead, as a first step, take the time to really think about your customers. Stand back, look at them as real people and don’t pigeon hole them. Ask how they might type a search query to find your product or service. Doing this in a candid manner makes you relate to them personally. This is a simple step that can help your website, online advertising or content marketing as well. It is also a great marketing practice for strategic planning in any medium.

There‚ is no end to the possibilities one can use in making the transition to online marketing. This may be a great time to reexamine your business and restart your marketing in a more innovative direction. We can take you through a few current campaigns we’ve done in helping our clients create a smooth transition to online marketing:

• Dorion-Gray Retirement Planning, Inc.
• Numerical Precision, Inc.
• RaueInsider.com

Thank you for taking the time to explore this “outside the box” online marketing series.  If you have any questions on how to get started, contact us, or leave a comment below.

Additionally, please take a moment to share any interesting strategies that you see online!

In this third part of our series we cover an important topic. Based on recent pieces we’ve seen online, or in magazines, many private business leaders are frustrated with the complexity of digital marketing and it’s new applications, online tools and strategies. While many of today’s consumers blithely transition to the Next Thing,* a host of marketing managers and corporate VP’s find themselves camped on the threshold of important changes.

Our Online Marketing Awareness Map

How to make the right decisions with so many new choices? We’ll admit there’s no single easy answer to that question. But then, marketing has never been easy. Web 2.0 is often called the participatory Web, a place where blogs, social networking sites and media sharing sites have transformed the world of marketing.

Our own efforts in this regard are straightforward. We developed an Online Marketing Awareness Map as an early step in creating a visual tool for discussion. It has since led to a laptop presentation, and to this particular series of Infusion Blog posts (please see Part I and Part II if you haven’t already read them).

Your Website Is The Base Station For Your Online Marketing Program

Websites

Our map begins (see illustration) with the top circle, labeled Websites. Today we field fewer questions about websites (we’ve all seen our share). Yet many clients do not fully realize their website is just the beginning of their online marketing program. Yes, it must be supplied with good content, usability, optimization and branding. It is indeed the base station for an entire online marketing program. Yet, it’s also a latent form of energy. For most business websites there’s much to be done in bringing real excitement, traffic and new results. Often the goal is to transform a static asset into a compelling and effective online marketing program. Think of  your business site as the first step. It’s important to have a sense of where that latent energy may be going: to substantiate your credentials, or tell a product story, or generate direct e-commerce sales. The purpose and overall depth of content on your domain may suggest a follow up strategy for online marketing.

Online Advertising

Moving clockwise to Online Advertising, our next circle. Again, few of us are strangers to this. By online advertising we refer to web based ads such as banners, tiles, widget ads or sponsored listings on Google (organic listings are discussed in Content Marketing). For banners, tiles and other units we’re looking at a Push Strategy similar to offline advertising, where you pay for exposure based on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM). Sponsored listings emulate the search characteristics of organic listings in everything but price, since you must pay for them, typically using a Pay Per Click (PPC) model. Online advertising in all its forms… requires a direct monetary investment. Dollars for traffic!

Dollars for Traffic!

For many marketers this is as far as they go: build a website and buy online ads linked to specified landing pages. An ecommerce site with branded items or specialty merchandise, coupled with good prices can do this pretty well, especially if they have read their niche properly.

Content Marketing - Builds traffic, credibility and reputation.

Our next category is Content Marketing. We see Content Marketing as long content designed to display thought leadership with high “favorables” on search engines. This means well developed websites, blogs, or sites in combination with blogs. With a blog you add fresh content and a new page to your domain with every post. Attract visitors with comments and your blog is building inbound links, another natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefit. Blogs build traffic, credibility and reputation — nice things to have for one’s professional life or brand.

A good approach to blogging may require originality, or an Outside the Box approach to a niche topic. But it doesn’t have to be creative per se. Start by solving a problem your audience cares about. Find a voice. Build trust, confidence, desire. Be engaging. And, don’t oversell. In effect, you may want to begin by commenting on something that others in your industry have expressed or said. When you begin blogging, you’ll want to read other blogs and make appropriate comments. Join the discussion. Just don’t be too obvious about selling or becoming a shill for your product. Think of yourself as attending a business reception. Show a sincere interest in something someone else has said or written, that’s a good way to obtain natural reciprocity in a return visits to your blog.

Blogs humanize a brand, which is a very special thing. Who is blogging these days? A huge number of organizations and people involved in virtually every business and profession, from software development, training and freelancers, to product manufacturers, distributors, wineries, galleries and travel destinations, etc.

As with everything else, you’ll want to open yourself and your business to further innovation. Think of it as a creative fusion between the offline marketing you may be accustomed to and the new digital marketing you’re seeking to engage.

This discussion of the Online Marketing Awareness Map continues in Part IV.

Stay tuned.

Best wishes…

Greg Johnson

We’re continuing our discussion of digital marketing strategy and why many marketers should look at their business with fresh eyes. In this post, we will briefly review two illustrations, then look into how Web 2.0 might affect your future marketing decisions.

Traditional Sales Funnel - Push Strategy

In the Traditional Sales Funnel the marketer targets a “universe” of people through demographic and psychological profiling and sends out branded messages in conventional advertising campaigns, public relations, direct response, sales promotion, trade shows and other tactics. In simple terms this is known as a Push Strategy. The marketer is pushing his message through to a targeted population, hoping to inform, persuade, remind and influence their purchasing behavior.

As you’ll note in the illustration, nestled nicely under the target universe is funnel which represents the collective efforts of the company’s sales department. Essentially, the marketer is looking to generate “precipitation” from their advertising in the form of sales leads, retail traffic, bounce back cards and other prospect behavior. The company seeks to control the funnel as their sales people work to convert their prospects into customers.

Internet Sales Funnel - Pull Strategy

Now in contrast to this, let’s take a look at an Internet Sales Funnel, which is considerably different from the traditional one. Here the entire world sits atop the World Wide Web. Although there is a certain amount of Reach and Frequency based advertising in this model,* the primary focus is different than conventional advertising.

By virtue of the sheer mass of Internet activity, for business, education, shopping, and entertainment, etc., a natural funneling takes place based on the stuff people are doing online.  This funneling phenomenon occurs every minute of each day. Someone searches for a digital camera, or advice on photography, or photographic supplies, or a professional photographer. Each user finding appropriate sites and information without any third party controlling of their quest for information.

The marketer doesn’t control this funnel. Instead of pushing a message through to a targeted online audience, the marketer engages a Pull Through Strategy to capture a share of traffic from people who are looking for their service or product in real time on the Web. Translation: every day people are looking for you. They have begun their shopping online. They’re already funneled into millions of discrete points of interest. Your task is to pull your fair share of this traffic by being in the right online place at the right time with a profitable click through rate.

How To Be Found Online?

How to be Found Online?

That’s the big question for most online marketers. Here’s a short list of the most often used techniques:

1. Online advertising: includes display ads or sponsored listings on websites & search engines. Basically you are exchanging dollars for traffic, based on Cost Per Thousand (CPM) impressions or Pay Per Click (PPC).
2. Content marketing: through blogs, social media, wikis, media sharing, email newsletters, webinars, etc. You are investing your time and resources in building great content and optimizing your web presence, so it becomes much easier to attract more visitors and traffic. Technically speaking, organic results from search engines is free.
3. Traditional marketing activities such as advertising, direct mail and public relations.

Spending money to generate traffic from online advertising is done in two distinct ways: A) through a somewhat traditional model of reach and frequency exposure** from banner ads; or, B) through sponsored listings sold as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisements.

The second method of online discovery is through Content Marketing. Here we open the world of Web 2.0 and start thinking about blogs, social media, wikis, media sharing sites, email newsletters and webinars. Essentially, we’re seeking to engage in spirited Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices by creating a site, blog, wiki or social networking that results in higher organic search rankings, or viral marketing exposure. Link building, online conversations and social bookmarking are continuous efforts which the marketer might choose for this strategy.

Our third method, Traditional Marketing, won’t be covered in this series—except as it may help us make a particular point or reference. The thrust of our effort is focused on Web 2.0, content marketing and social media.

Outside The Box Thinking Can Help

Most users engaged in serious online advertising or content marketing are surprised at the amount of time they need to develop effective keyword phrases. Using the Google Adwords Keyword Generator can help you create hundreds of keyword phrases. But don’t let the software do your thinking for you. Instead, take the time to consider your customers. Stand back from them, think of them as people (don’t pigeon hole them) and ask what they might type into a search query if they wanted to find your product or services. Doing this forces you to relate to them more personally. For many companies this is truly outside the box, because it makes them engage the psychology of their customers.

Stay tuned. There’s more to come on innovative thinking.

Best wishes…

Greg Johnson

It is hard to find anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the transformational power of the Internet.

A vast majority of people use the Web for shopping, research, work and recreation. Consumers make it their first stop in finding prices, features, and major benefits. By the time they actually enter a store, they’re much further along in the buying process. In the B2B world it has become increasingly important as well. Not to mention the online branding and relationship building aspects of marketing (which I’ll save for another post).

The main point: people use search engines and websites, including the blogosphere and social media, to uncover new things they want, or wish to learn more about. On a recent trip with my wife to Best Buy for a new camera the salesman had a sheet on Internet pricing ready at hand. He was helpful and eager to answer questions, but he kept himself in reserve while letting us direct our own attention and interest.

For a business, the important thing to remember is this: it’s not enough to be online. You must also… be found online.

Traditional Sales Funnel - Push Strategy

The question you should ask is whether you’re placing enough resources in pursuit of this objective? We’ve all seen Traditional Sales Funnel diagrams (if you’re a marketing pro, you may have it in your PowerPoint files). In the traditional sales funnel the marketer prepares advertising and communications programs in order to drive prospects into the top of their funnel. Although there’s a wide variety of advertising techniques employed, these marketing methods focus on a broad audience, or target universe, in seeking a suitable response rate, say 1% to 3% for example. The sales department then takes control of the effort of turning prospects into customers.

Internet Sales Funnel - Pull Strategy

Now here’s a quick take on the Internet Sales Funnel. As you can see we have a new set of tools to help you get found online. Atop the funnel sits a penumbra of online applications from websites and blogs, to Facebook, Twitter, social book marking sites, to the major search engines. This represents more of a “pull strategy” because we’re attempting to draw the customer into our online footprint. The customer controls this part of the funnel, not sales. Their interest and passions drive the searches, online shopping, and business activity from home, office, Wi-Fi cafe, or mobile device. Your online marketing tools includes your website, blog, search engine results, online reviews, Facebook, Twitter, Del.icio.us, Digg, and other book marking and social networking sites, including your permission based email marketing.

Here’s where content and passion comes in. You don’t just create ads, write checks and stay in your tower. Instead you come down and engage potential customers, fans, friends and critics. Your website is just the first part of it. As you build more content and engage ongoing conversations with your customers and prospects on your blog and within your website, the search engines and blogosphere take note of you, including who you are, what you say and the passion you show for your business and customers. Additionally, your online presence grows. Social media also has an effect on how your site and business blog is found and perceived.

Most importantly: you’re reaching potential customers while they’re actively searching for your product or product category. You no longer have to advertise so broadly. Instead, you can chose to pay per click, or per 1,000 visitors through behavioral, contextual, or geo-targeting. And, you can also share your passion for your business through a more systematic delivery of online content.

I have begun to wonder if the world has gone mad about Google.

Google has a 72% share of the U.S. Search Market and their world-wide share is pretty close to that. Google is my personal search favorite for the same reasons it has become so dominant worldwide. Google displays the most relevant search results. Additionally, it offers a religiously clean and uncluttered interface and a cult-like devotion to preserving the the search experience. These are the strong, historic reasons for its amazing rise.

So, on the one hand the world is bonkers for Google. Yet, on the other hand, maybe we still need a more competitive marketplace? Perhaps Bing will close the gap. Or, maybe Yahoo will edge its way into capturing more of the market. One thing is clear: they will have to do something significant to gain momentum.

Our shop has always been very impressed with Google. It’s very hard to not recommend them. They literally invented the current search marketplace. They’re the innovator, the ones who wrote the proprietary algorithm which evaluates the number and quality of inbound links for every site they index.

Google doesn’t just take money from advertisers and display sponsored listings. They pioneered in ranking paid search advertisers, not just on a CPC basis, but on the click through rate as well. They had the audacity to take the measure of their clients and reward them with a Quality Rating if they offered a high degree of relevancy (there’s that word again) to the user’s search, thereby keeping themselves aligned with the intentions and passions of the user.

Like Watching Tiger Woods Play Golf

Paying attention to Google is a little bit like watching Tiger Woods play golf. You almost hope he slips up and let’s someone else capture a win. But you always come away impressed. Tiger Woods is capable, dominating and likable at the same time. So it is with Google. They had the good sense to be altruistic, to give their employees great perks (such as free haircuts) and to stay rooted in the belief that the user experience was the holy grail of their company.

I’m here to leverage their success on behalf of my clients and my own business. What else would a thinking marketer want? With Google you see how important it is to think about the user mindset (called user intent). When people are using Google they’re not just passively watching. They’re actively engaged in looking for information. They might be ready to transact that moment. Just when you want them at your site. The second thing keeping me in the Google fold is the principle of simplicity. Everything they do is a reminder of the power of simplicity. They came of age during a time of cluttered portals. Google stood apart with its clean white page. Additionally, their call to action was center stage.

The important lesson is to make every call to action equally clear and clean whether it says buy now, or order online. And, keep the design environment clean and uncluttered. Maintain a high degree of usability. That’s always in style. Of course, that Google market share is also a good reason to keep your interest in them at a high level.

Has the world gone mad about Google? Well of course it has.

Now, what are you going to do about it?