A note from Philip Shaw, founder and managing director of CleverClicks:
I remember back in 2006, stumbling across an article about a pool-table retailer who had tripled his sales through Google. No expensive TV, radio, print, Yellow Pages. Just Google!
Now that got me thinking. Just appear in the search engines and get loads of new business coming to you? No hard selling and no ATL advertising?
That led me to my first search engine marketing conference in the US: the 2006 ‘Search Engine Strategies New York’. Three full days of learning about how a search engine can transform a business. It was at that conference in 2006 that I realised search engine marketing would change traditional marketing forever. It was the future for all businesses, especially mine.
Conferences
We are learning obsessed. Not only is constant learning they key to being successful in digital marketing, but we believe it’s what gives our team a serious edge.
The penny had dropped. BIG time. And so CleverClicks was born.
There were no internet marketing degrees back then, so instead I registered for every industry conference and training course I could. Official sessions were valuable, the unofficial ones even more so. That meant travelling. A lot. The US became my second home (and I quickly got used to bad coffee).
To this day I’m still addicted to the amazing speed of Google AdWords – which is, without doubt, the greatest direct marketing machine of all time!
How else can you reach ONLY those people who are actively searching for your product or service? Whether those people are just around the corner, across the country, or on the other side of the world!
It’s not like TV, radio, print and billboards, where you broadcast your ad to everyone and hope some are prospects, where you’re fully committed once your ad’s in the wild, and where you pay regardless of the level of interest.
With Google AdWords, you show your ad ONLY to prospective customers, you can change the ad quickly and easily (at no cost), AND you pay only when they express some interest.
Just as importantly, you can measure your success to the cent. You can spend $1 and know, categorically, that you’re making $3, or $5 or even $25 in return.
Yep, we have published case studies with Google for clients who have made a return of 25:1!
And then there’s the “free” traffic in Google’s organic search results...
Okay okay, the secret’s out: it’s not free.
If you’ve ever banged your head against the desk in frustration, or cursed the internet gods for not ranking organically for your desired keywords, you’ll know how much effort, time and/or cold hard cash is required.
It is most definitely NOT FREE TRAFFIC.
However, you don’t have to be spending wads of cash to be ranking like a boss. Plus, once you’re getting found in Google, each click or visit (and potential lead) costs you nothing!
The downside to SEO is that it is a medium-term strategy (unlike PPC) and you have less control over when and how Google shows your website.
But this is all countered by the fact that, in this day and age, your entire target market is online, looking for a business like yours. SEO gives you the power to connect with them and ensure they find you (and not your competitor).
So whether you’re considering SEO or PPC or a strategic mix of the two, if you want to get new customers into your business, we should talk.