In my past efforts, as a search engine marketing provider, I was often just trying to get warm bodies to the site I was promoting. Well, perhaps I was being a bit broad in my vision.

For those who are confused by the terms of digital marketing, SEM or Search Engine Marketing is the process of bidding for keywords to inject your advertising message into the search results of search engine users who are actively seeking information on the keywords you are advertising to.

Search Engine Marketing Gets Your Message To The Top of the Results

SEM can be a truly powerful tool for promoting your business, but is it enough to just get people to your site? Does it not make much more sense to drive a targeted and motivated audience and position tools on your site to capture that lead, for future contact? Of course it does, and that is what I want to discuss with you today. I will start by describing my prior efforts with SEM and finish by explaining why my new strategy works much, much better.

In the past I wanted visitors. Without visitors I could not allow the powerful marketing tool, which is the website, to do its job and entice those visitors to become clients or customers. I would bid on extremely broad terms, keep the bids really low and and use the information within the website to funnel those visitors into the sales stream. The problem I had, and did not even realize, was the cost of conversion. I knew conversion was low, I just did not realize how horribly expensive it was. Allow me to post two (2) examples and see which you would choose.

EXAMPLE 1: I am selling Christmas tree ornaments using broad terms to get ‘warm bodies’ to the site. I would use keywords such as ‘Christmas’, ‘holidays’, ‘ornaments’ and ‘decorations’. Let’s assume I get an average cost per click of $.15 (fifteen cents) and get 2500 visitors, I will have spent $375.

EXAMPLE 2: I am still selling the ornaments, but I am targeting a much narrower audience and I have created a separate landing page with a marketing message directed specifically towards the keyword the visitor used to get to me. I will have bid on keywords such as ‘custom Christmas ornaments’, ‘hand made ornaments’ and ‘unique Christmas decorations’. My keywords are much more refined, and therefore are more expensive. I get an average cost per click of $1.15 and get 325 visitors. I have spent $373 in this scenario.

My campaign cost was nearly identical, but in scenario #2 I get less than 15% of the clicks I got in scenario #1. Which example would you choose?

Let’s look a little deeper into our results, before we say ‘final answer’. In example #1 I got 2500 visitors to a general landing page (in some cases even just the site home page) which advertised my message to the visitor. It cost me $.15 to get each visitor, so what did I get for my money. I had 15 new newsletter subscribers and 2 new paying customers. My newsletter conversion was .6% (just over 1/2 percent). Each newsletter subscriber cost me $25 ($375 / 15). Of those subscribers, only 2 ended up purchasing. Each new customer cost me $187.50 ($375 / 2). If I am not making more than $187.50 profit on each new sale my only hope for a profitable campaign will rest upon having captured 15 new email contacts for my newsletter.

Now let’s move on to example #2. I created a separate landing page for each keyword. Each landing page drove for a newsletter subscription by giving away some valuable information for each sign up. I also marketed directly to the keyword, making my message much more targeted and relevant. Of my 325 visitors I would have gotten an average 10% newsletter subscribers, or 32 new email contacts costing me approximately $10 each. I will also have gotten approximately 3% (9) new purchases, costing me $36.11 each.

In example #2 not only did I double my new contacts, for future sales opportunities, but I also reduced my cost per new sale to a manageable amount offering me the chance to make my campaign profitable.

The moral of the story is this: do the extra work, up front, and create a more well rounded campaign. Create customized messages for each keyword, or at least funnel like keywords to a common landing page. Create some unique and valuable content you can give away in exchange for a newsletter subscription. Last, but not least, avoid common keywords which waste clicks on general searches which are not really looking for your products or services.

If you are interested in having me and my organization help you build a successful digital marketing plan call us, The Cobi Group, at (704) 249-3825 or use the contact form to email me directly.

The scenarios and examples on this page are for representational purposes only and do not imply a guarantee of results. Each situation is unique and results will vary.