Pay Per Click Advertising (Google Adwords)
In today’s online world, internet marketing has become the new king of media. The Yellow Pages have gone the way of the milk man and elevator operator, because technology has changed the way we buy goods and services today. Search engines like Google and Bing are the Yellow Pages of today, and you can say Facebook is the new ‘word of mouth’ advertising. So it’s no wonder today’s successful businesses have a strong, if not dominant online presence.
So if successful businesses have a strong online presence, why do so many small business owners refuse to generate online leads using PPC (pay per click) advertising? From my experience talking with small business owners about Google Adwords, there’s two main reasons:
- They tried it once and lost their shirt paying for clicks that didn’t translate into new business
- They are terrified by the thought of having to pay when a stranger somewhere clicks on their ad
In both cases it’s very difficult to convince these business owners that there’s a way to generate qualified leads using Adwords, because the fear of loss is engrained in their head. But the truth is they’re losing market share to their competitor who knows how to make PPC advertising work for them.
Pay per click advertising is very effective when you; a) understand the principles of direct marketing, and b) send visitors to a landing page that is relevant to the promise you made on the ad, with a mechanism in place to get them to take whatever action is you want them to take.
