Client’s Collaboration with Sales Renewal Leads to New Strategies, Brand, Site, Marketing Programs and … a Blue Ribbon

It is generally rare for two different companies, let alone a client and its vendor, to work together so thoroughly, on so many levels, that the resulting whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

However, thanks to Sales Renewal’s revolutionary JointSourcing Solution (a unique hybrid combining elements of joint venturing with elements of outsourcing, in which shared risks and rewards align Sales Renewal’s economic incentives with those of its clients), such synergies are the norm.

If you’ve been wondering how JointSourcing and its three, Blueprint, Build and Sell steps actually works in practice, in the real world, this latest installment of our JointSourcing in Action Case Studies series is for you.

This issue provides a detailed, step-by-step view of how Sales Renewal partnered with our client MATsolutions to overcome their business, marketing and sales challenges to produce a marketing & sales system neither company could have developed as quickly or efficiently on its own. One result of the collaboration: MATsolutions receiving the prestigious Blue Ribbon Small Business of the Year for 2014 award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

As Steve Wedler, VP Sales and Marketing, MATsolutions has said:

“Over the last year with Sales Renewal’s critical assistance, we’ve rebranded the company, launched a new e-commerce site and introduced marketing programs and supporting technologies that truly distinguish MATsolutions from its competitors. Having two highly dedicated and bright teams responsible for this transformation has allowed us to deliver something far superior than either team alone could have. This award is a great acknowledgement of the advances we have made.”

Read the JointSourcing in Action case study.

How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 29 – Skin in the Game

Quick Tip Tuesday: 8 Tips for the DIY Search Advertiser, Part 1

TIP LEVEL: Intermediate

Running your own PPC campaign is hard. Even if you have a clear understanding of how keywords, ad groups, campaigns and landing pages all work together, finding the best campaign structure, keywords, ad groups and landing pages can be a full time job. But, it’s not impossible. Google AdWords and Bing Ad Center are set up to be self-serve and intended for the layperson, so if you are tempted by the apparent simplicity of PPC, here are some tips to help you take your campaign to the next level.

How’s your campaign doing?

Review your campaign regularly. We don’t mean several times a day (although that couldn’t hurt!), but at least once a week.

Monitor your website traffic. If your ads bring relevant, converting traffic to your website, then you know your campaign is doing well. But depending on your budget or the volume of traffic for your business, it may take a while to start seeing that traffic and feedback.

Monitor QS and CTR. In the meantime, there are two numbers you’ll want to keep your eye on.

• Quality score (QS) is a fairly complicated, keyword-centered measurement of how well your ads, keywords and landing pages work together. “Having a high Quality Score means that [Google’s] systems think your ad and landing page are relevant and useful to someone looking at your ad.”* Google provides individual keyword QS in the Keyword tab. On a scale of 1 – 10, with 1 being low. (If you don’t see the keyword Qual. score column, in the Keyword data table, go to Columns, Customize columns, Attributes, Qual. score to add it.) Raising individual keyword quality scores takes time and constant attention, as until you have enough impressions in your own campaign, QS is based on the word’s historic performance on Google.com.
• Clickthrough rate (CTR) is a simpler indication of how your campaign is doing. You can look at this for Campaigns, Ad Groups and Ads. If you see a CTR over 1%-3%, then you’re on the right track. Anything below that means you’ve got some work to do (see “manage your keywords” below).

Manage your keywords for better performing campaigns.

Pause non-performing keywords. Keywords with no clicks, or low clicks (check the CTR) should first be paused so they don’t affect your campaign. Once you’ve paused them, you can try to research why they are not performing and then take action. Among the many reasons are the fact that they’re in the wrong ad group (create a new ad group for that keyword and its associated words) or not relevant to your landing page (update your landing page or direct that keyword to a more relevant page).

EXTRA: What about keywords with low search volume? You do not have to pause keywords with a “low search volume” status. It turns out that low search volume keywords won’t have any impact on your quality scores – they’re really just an indication that at the time, your ad may see a very low number of impressions. But having “low search volume” keywords won’t have any other negative impact on your account.

Use Keyword Match types. It’s fine to use broad match, but including exact and phrase match for just about every keyword ensures a balanced mix of traffic from the highly targeted to very broad.

Always include Negative keywords. By choosing negative search terms that are similar to your keywords but that indicate that people are looking for a different product or service, you’ll reduce your costs by eliminating irrelevant clicks and also help maintain that all-important Quality Score. For example, if your business sells signs, adding “sign in” as a Negative keyword will prevent your ad from showing to people looking for “how to sign in to Facebook” or some other website.

Use the Keyword Details feature regularly. Find out exactly which terms triggered your ads. Go to Keywords > Details > Search Terms > All. See some that are generating clicks? Use the “Add as a Keyword” option to include these words in your campaign. Conversely, if you find terms that are generating clicks but that are not relevant to your business, use the “Add as a Negative Keyword” option.

Create ads that people will click on.

Write ads that set your business apart on landing pages. Relevance is PPC 101 – keywords organized by relevant ad groups with those keywords appearing in ads and need to consider the human part of the equation, and make your ads stand out from all the others.

Take a quick review of your competitors’ ads – do they mention a price, sale or discount? A delivery method? While you might want to consider including similar information, be sure to write text that sets your ads apart. Here’s a great place to use your competitive differentiator (your guarantee, your free shipping, etc.). Also be sure to have a strong call to action – what do you want the visitors to do once they see your ad?

EXTRAS:

• Always create a mobile version of each ad. Create a copy of your ad and on the edit screen select Mobile. You’ll even see a preview of how it will look on a Smartphone.
• Save a space for a period. For a nicer looking Top ad, put a period at the end of the first line of text. This trick combines the ad title and first line of text with a hyphen when your ad is displayed in the Top. For example:
  

This post is the first of several in which we share what we’ve learned from years of managing AdWords accounts. Stay tuned for Site extensions, A/B testing, Low-performing keywords, Conversion tracking, Manual bidding and more.

How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 42 – Automation Not Autopilot

How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 30 – Keep your eyes on the ball

How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 32

How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 30

JointSourcing in Action #1: Sales Renewal Wins Battle Against Google Adwords On Behalf Of Client

It began when analysts at Sales Renewal noticed the poor return on investment one of the firm’s clients was receiving on their Google Adwords search ad campaigns.

In response, Sales Renewal asked the ad agency it had subcontracted on behalf of the client to investigate. As is typical of such specialized firms, their view was narrowly focused on their area of expertise, and on traditional advertising metrics like CPC (cost per click) and CTR (click-through rates). Those measures seemed to show the campaigns were performing well.

Unable to pinpoint the source of the problem, but nevertheless wary of what they saw, Sales Renewal immediately recommended canceling the previously planned ad spend increase. Later, Sales Renewal decided that the campaign’s poor ROI-even if the reason why was still a mystery-required cutting the client’s Google Adwords budget in half (something no ad agency would volunteer to do, as their compensation is tied directly to the ad spend). As Sales Renewal pressed Google Adwords for a remedy, the search giant’s early denials and demurrals eventually led to a $200 credit offer, provided the client would drop all future claims.

Convinced there was a larger problem, however, Sales Renewal rejected the settlement offer and kept digging, ultimately pinpointing a complicated technical glitch deep in the ad tracking system. Because of this, for every ad landing page a visitor actually saw, Google Adwords was charging for 5.78 click-throughs!

“If you had enough time and technical expertise, this is how you would do it.”

Faced with Sales Renewal’s detailed and accurate analysis, Google Adwords yielded and provided a credit that fully funded the client’s Adwords advertising campaigns for six months.

There were three elements to Sales Renewal’s success with Google: perspective, expertise & tools and motivation.

• As a General Contractor, Sales Renewal is focused on the big picture and how all the pieces work together, not just performance within a narrow silo like advertising.
• SR also had the expertise and tools required to monitor return on investment, dig into problems and convince Google over several months its technical evidence was sound.
• Probably most important, however: thanks to its innovative JointSourcing Solution that shares risk and reward and aligns the economic interests of Sales Renewal with its clients, Sales Renewal is as motivated as its clients to cost effectively grow their sales.

As Keith Loris, CEO of Sales Renewal Corp., often tells our clients, “If you had enough time and technical expertise, this is how you would do it.”

How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 29

A Powerful, Cost Effective Way to Market Locally: A Business Sign

Many online sources of business advice have online myopia: they seem to believe that marketing didn’t exist before Google or that the only way to market a business today is through the Web.

At the risk of sounding like the old guy who yells at the kids to get off of his lawn, “hogwash” I say.

In fact, one of the most powerful, cost effective forms of local advertising is as old as business itself: the business sign. I know it might be surprising to think of the sign on your building or store as advertising, but if you think about the key elements of advertising–branding, impressions, ability to bring traffic through the door–they all apply to signage.

And while the cost of a great sign that can really put your business on the map, help you stand out and be easily remembered might seem high at first, business signs last an eternity in comparison to most online ads (10 years, if you obtain it from a high quality manufacturer). This means that from a cost-per-impression perspective, business signs can be dirt cheap.

Sales Renewal knows this first hand because one of our clients, Metro Sign & Awning, is one of the biggest sign designers in New England and we created a free Signage ROI Calculator for them that compares business signs to other forms of advertising. Here’s the comparison that results when some pretty typical numbers are input:

Seems to blow all the other forms of advertising away doesn’t it?

Our point here isn’t to sell you a new sign (though contact us if you’re interested because we’re sure Metro Sign will be happy to help you), but to remind you that marketing happened before the Internet was invented by Al Gore, and that some of the old ideas and methods are still relevant–maybe even more so–today. This underlines the importance of always looking widely for solutions and not to simply follow the herd or rely on today’s “hottest” fad.

Because sometimes, if you’re looking to do more cost-effective local marketing, the answer can be right outside your front door.