Are you a small business owner challenged with finding enough qualified leads for your business? Don’t worry, you are not alone! This is one of the top questions we get on a regular basis. It’s the classic catch-22; you have a million things to do to support your business and it would be great to solve the ongoing issue of finding enough people who want to buy your product or service on a regular basis.
This blog article will explain the various paid search advertising tactics that a company can use to start generating leads quicker for their business.
1. Good Paid Search Starts with Great Keyword Research
While there are multiple ways a company can generate leads for their small business online, pay per click remains one of the simplest and quickest ways to generate leads in almost any industry.
A basic
pay per click campaign (PPC) will usually roll out as a highly targeted campaign, by targeting the demographics of the clients you would like to attract. You will start with great keyword research to see how people are actually searching for your product or service online - no guessing here. If you have been running ads for some time, then conducting a periodic audit of search terms is important since how your potential clients are looking for your products and services can change over time. While some companies choose to run these campaigns on their own, a professional firm who has run thousands of campaigns and has specialized knowledge in your industry can help greatly in identifying opportunities you might not otherwise be aware of. This helps ensure your precious ad dollars are not wasted and the ads are properly optimized over time, so you get the best results for your marketing spend.
2. Serve Up Relevant Offers at the Right Time with PPC
Usually your initial PPC ads are in the form of a text ad since they are the simplest ads to generate (especially if you are doing it on your own). From here, multiple ads can be created so you can compare which ads are providing you with the best results. PPC ads for small businesses are most effective when the ad being served up is most relevant to what the buyer is searching for in a search engine. Because PPC allows you to reach the buyer right at the moment they are searching for their item, you have a golden opportunity to provide the buyer exactly what they need, when they need it (i.e. it is 6 PM, and I am hungry and want to order a pizza, what deals are out there?) In this example, a pizza parlor looking to bring in more foot traffic or increase their online orders would use the hook of a coupon or promotional code in their PPC ad that is not only relevant and served up in their local area but is also timed to show up at the dinner hour. Implementing an ad campaign that is set-up to reach a buyer, where they are in their ‘buying cycle’ increases the likelihood of you selling something to that individual.
When there is high search volume around a product or service, PPC is the ideal place to start with lead generation. Not only do you want to ensure your business gets a piece of that high traffic volume, PPC has the targeting capabilities for you to manage your budget accordingly so you can manage your spend but still use it as a more immediate form of lead generation. This is especially important if your digital marketing strategy includes longer term tactics such as search engine optimization, which can take months to start produce results.
3. Expand Your Brand Reach with Display Advertising
Display ads are online advertisements placed on websites that are highly relevant to what you are selling. They may be text, interactive, video or image ads that are shown to people who are most likely to be interested in your product or service. The type of ad format you leverage will depend on the objectives of your ad campaign. An image-based ad is great for expanding your brand awareness and may include the logo of your company, or a picture of the specific product you provide. Whereas, a video ad is highly effective when you need help explaining a more complex product or service. These types of ads are effective when search volume for a specific keyword may not be so high, but you have an idea of what types of websites or places your target audience hangs out online. Display ads are especially important for established brands that need to keep the brand in the forefront. You can get millions of impressions over a short period of time and funnel traffic to your website or landing pages where customers can find out more detailed information about your services or immediately get in contact with you.
4. Bring Potential Customers Back to Your Site with Remarketing
Going hand in hand with display ads is a tactic known as ‘remarketing or retargeting’. We’ve all visited websites that we’ve browsed but didn’t necessarily buy something on. But have you ever been on a website that you have visited that you then started to see ads for as you browsed other sites online? This is what we call remarketing. Using cookies, this highly effective method of exposure gets your ad out in front of your prospective customers time and time again, increasing the likelihood that they will remember they were on your website and prompt them to revisit and purchase from you. Even if they don’t purchase immediately when they first visit your website, the psychology behind this persistent advertising is proven to have more than a
50% success rate of getting customers to purchase from you on a subsequent visit. Remarketing is a great way to grab the low-hanging digital fruit in your marketplace, and is something every company online should have set-up.
5. Use Social to Connect with Your Target Audience More Effectively
Social ads are becoming more and more common as people and companies flock to social media platforms at record speed. Entire communities for special interests groups have sprung up, making it ideal to find like-minded people like never before. For businesses, this represents an ideal opportunity to use the power of consumers for recommendations. Many consumers want a friend or family member to recommend a product or service prior to buying for themselves, and social networks have become the logical place for these discussions.
Likewise, being ‘social’ is all about getting unique insights into your target audience. For example, the Facebook platform has done an incredible job of defining who audiences are by having individuals share their demographic information online, making it the perfect place to advertise if you are a business-to-consumer brand. Through Facebook, you can even input your existing client emails and produce a ‘look alike’ audience - in other words, you can find more prospective clients that look similar to the clients you already have in your database. Because of the personal nature of these social sites, as a brand, you have an excellent opportunity to form relationships with your audience, brand yourself quickly and develop great customer loyalty, who in return, create enthusiastic referrals.
Unlike traditional advertising, the best thing about paid search advertising, regardless of the tactic, is that you can easily measure your return on your marketing dollars! Lead generation has never had so many varied options, with such an ability to hyper-target your desired customers. With great research and a knowledge of the type of client you would like to have, it is possible to get an online lead generation campaign up and running within a few days. For businesses who require an immediate source of leads, pay per click, display ads and social ads are some of the quickest lead generation tactics for you to leverage online.
What other lead generation tactics can you employ to grow your business? Give us a call today!
(785)577-2939
