Interesting day today. I received a call from a reporter from OrthoNewsline who wanted to discuss using search campaigns in the Dental business. Really. No joke.
During the interview I said something that really reminded me about a recent National Journal article called McCain Buys His Way to Top of Google and a second one called Online Campaign Ads Come Into Their Own. What I said was that search marketing and in particular Google, is the great equalizer when it comes to advertising spend. So instead of being outspent by a large advertiser, Google provides you with advertising tools so you can operate like the big spender without the actual money. And, if you know what you doing you can actually out market the big spender without the dollars.
That's in direct opposite to that first National Journal article that said McCain buys his way to the top. We didn't do that; we did it by using tools, having dollars, and measuring results. This quote from McCain eCampaign Director and personal friend of mine Mike Palmer puts it straight "We obviously have limited resources in this campaign as compared to Barack Obama, so we have to spend in the most effective way," said e-campaign director Michael Palmer. "We found that form of advertising, where you are getting people who are already looking for something, is a very cost-effective way of getting those people to our site and getting them to do the things we want them to do."
Why is Google the great equalizer? Because you can't buy your way to the top and a smaller budgeted advertiser can be very competitive if they do the following:
- Think through your campaign and develop well thought out groups of keywords
- Build relevant and creative text ads for each group of words
- Send those text ad clicks into very relevant landing pages with clear calls to action
- Use available tools and your own creativity to build the keyword list; use Google Trends to capture the hot searches and Google Insight to see how people search.
- Add post-click tracking tags to the actions on your site that you want to track
- Set your budget based on objective
- Use ad scheduling, geo-targeting, ad optimization, and other search tools Google provides for free
- Opt into Content if you can; use the site targeting and demo targeting
- Optimize based on your results
- Use click to play video ads to showcase your own commercials and if you pay per click on those remember they watch the ad for free
I have so many other tips and history that if you want more detail click here. This is why Google is the great equalizer and that no advertiser, Dentist or Presidential Candidate should ever run marketing campaigns without putting significant dollars towards Google. You don't have to buy your way to the top, you just have to out market your opponent on the way to the top.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
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