Monthly Archives: May 2011

Marketing takes many different forms but at the core, you have to talk to people. You have to intrigue them and make them need to know more. Pay per Click advertising is a method of Search Engine Marketing that can have immediate results. But to maximize the conversion of those text ads, it’s all up to figures of speech. Here are 7 tips for writing great ad copy:

1 “Top Secret”

Using the word “Secret” can greatly increase a viewers desire to click on your ad. People will click your ad expecting to learn some critical, undisclosed, hard to find information. If you can find juicy enough bits of information to disclose, you can greatly improve your conversion rate too.

2 “dot dot dot”

This is one of my Favorites… When you use “…” at the end of your ad it implies that theres more to the sentence, more information to glean. This works very well with the Secret tip too. You can be sure searchers are looking for accurate trustworthy information. Placing the “…” and the end of your title or content, increases the desire to click and find out what more there is to your claim.

3 “I want it Yesterday”

You know that most search engine users are trying to find what they want as soon as possible. Who wants to dig around till page three to get their answer? Playing with keywords to imply instant gratification is an old but powerful marketing tool. Use: “Today”, “Now”, “Before it’s too late”, etc.

4 “Specific Benefits”

This is another “old” or “classic tip” that you’ve seen often enough to make it obvious. Telling the viewer specific benefits can set you apart from your competitors. For example: “Lower Interest Rates!” or “Lose 10 lb a Week!” gives the viewer specifics about your offer that can pique interest.

5 “Stretch the Truth”

Remove common words, such as “a, an, in, on, it, of, etc.” Lose every word that does not absolutely need to be in the ad. Do some research into what your competitors are claiming and make sure your ad sounds more appealing. Make every word count. Exaggerating a bit won’t hurt, just don’t inflate the truth enough to damage your integrity.

6 “Download keyword”

There is great power in the “Download” keyword. Adding the Download keyword in your description or headline gives people the idea that they can get something very fast and free. Granted the download is what they want, it will generate trust and reliability for your brand. Virtual goods are a great product for internet marketing. The desired product is just a click away!

7 “Sandbox”

Testing your ads is critical to find out how effective your copy is. Try writing similar ads with small differences and runing them side by side. Write multiple ads and test them extensively. Track the click-through rate, conversion rate, etc to accurately gauge the Return-On-Investment of each ad. Tweak accordingly, lather, rinse, and repeat. May the best ad win!

Writing and testing ads can be great fun. You’re figuring out how to talk directly to specific parts of the consumer psyche. It is definitely a skill that you will get better at in time. Keep writing, testing, and persevering. And the next time one of your ads performs beyond your expectations, you won’t have to ask yourself: “Was it something I said?”

Do you often log into your email account, find 20+ emails, and have no idea where they came from? You are assuredly on email lists you didn’t sign up for. I am sure the offer of 17 ‘free’ bottles of Viagra is a good pick for someone… But you did not ask for it! Not only is the practice rude, but it is quite illegal, always make sure any emails sent out are to those that are opted in for offers, and that the emails have a link to opt out option for future offers.

The next step, before we ever send emails out, is to check if they are relevant. The best way to do this is to send it to everyone in the office and have them open it later in the day. Does the subject line make you and your co-workers want to open it or drag it to the trash?

Another reason why we send our test batch of emails to everyone in the office is to double check that it makes it into in-boxes! When you add fancy pictures and attachments to your email the chances of your email going to spam folders greatly increases! Also users are hesitant to open emails with attachments, this is the best way to pass a virus along. My suggestion is use a website URL to send them to your fancy attachments.

Another way to avoid the spam filters is to watch your language. Spam hot buttons such as ‘free offer’ and ‘making money’ must be avoided. Use your creative mind to rephrase your email. Make certain you are asking for “primary” or “real” email addresses on your landing pages, or website. This will get a higher amount of primary addresses just with these simple text additions.

Last two important factors: Tracking and timing. You must track what percent of your messages are actually being read. By doing so you will be able to point out what email you wrote had the most appeal to your list. Lastly is timing, know what time of day you send the list out, and what time of day your users open their mail. Try to send close to the time they open!

Good Luck Out There

The key concept to successful lead generation is to understand that your leads are actual people. If you use methods to get the most “data” you can, you are practicing poor lead generation and you are probably wasting a lot of money.

What do I mean by this? Simply put, you must recognize people are actually filling out your forms and looking for a service in return. You must guide your user through and give them a good experience in order to get higher conversions, below are some examples I think can help you out:

Try to put yourself in your users shoes

.  Have you ever had an need and you used Google or yahoo to fill the need? Odds are you have used one of the search engines to find a service you needed immediately.  The next time you use a search engine to find something PAY ATTENTION TO DETAIL: The ad, the landing page and how your personal information is taken. Spend one day just focusing on your user experience when you are generating the lead. Your goal is to tweak your page/ ad so your have a better user experience, this will increase conversions!

Alter your pitch to your different visitors

.  We all know we have different users who seek our services, but are you creating multiple ads and pages catered to the uniqueness of you users? We have different ads and different pages for the same service in order to boost our conversion rates.  Users find things better, more relevant and more helpful and that leads to higher conversion. For example if you run credit repair campaigns have a page targeted on credit repairs impact on home buying, and have another page targeted on car buying. It might take a little more work, but you are sure to see higher conversions!!

Use other lead buyers to buy leads you cant use

Monetize your leads, This is the key to high conversion rates. If you generate debt leads, but you get a lot of clients you cannot sell such as people looking for loans or grants. Do not write this off as a bad lead. However have an outlet to sell this lead, contact a company who needs these leads, even if you can only supply them one or two a week they will buy them! This will greatly improve your conversion rate!

At the end of the day, our role as ‘lead generators’ must evolve.  Optimization is just not enough.  As lead generators, we need to view ourselves more as manufacturers.  We take a raw good (internet traffic) and we shape it, chisel it and add to it until a final product is created: a lead.  The better we can supply our buyers the more valuable our brand becomes.

Team building skills are critical at Bimo and for any group aiming to accomplish amazing things. Teams can do what individuals can’t on their own. Focusing multiple contributions and then meeting universal goals is an exhilarating experience in synergy. This beautiful feeling will strengthen the bonds between team members and make the team even more effective in the future. It’s all about the relationships and collaborations between all members gelling them into one efficient and powerful organism. There are two critical factors in building a high performance team.

Diversity

The first factor in team effectiveness is the diversity of skills and personalities. You may find your polar teammate, and marvel at how you compensate for each other’s weaknesses. Different personality types balance and complement each other. However, different personalities, instead of complementing and balancing each other, may build up conflicts. Or even worse, some people may begin fighting for authority and dominance in certain areas of expertise. No two people have the exact same skills. Share and Diversify!

Relationships are built on trust. The first things the team needs is trust between all members. Trust in each others abilities. Trust that your all striving towards the same goal. Trust that everyone will do their best and their part towards accomplishing those goals. It is important to get the right people, the right skills together. Teams are only as strong as their weakest member. Once that unity is accomplished, (easy, right?) you can mete out responsibilities.

Here, the diversity of the team is most important. Responsibilities should be allocated to who can handle them best. There should be no stepping on toes, no overloading individuals. Each member should have a critical piece of the puzzle that they can masterfully achieve. They should be able to communicate with any other members for assistance or to help out. There should be commitment and consensus on the means of achieving those goals. Together. Individuals cannot just follow their personal opinions and move in conflicting directions. Your diversity is to be a great asset, not a liability.

Direction

The other critical element of team work success is that all the team efforts are directed towards the same clear goals, the team goals. This relies heavily on good communication in the team and the harmony in member relationships. There is no room for bad apples on good teams. If they have issues with other team members and are constantly in conflict, cut them. They can cost you the whole project, the whole team, the whole company. It should be easy enough to identify the wild cards. If a team member is struggling, support them. But if you have an agent of chaos in your midst, nothing good will come of it.

You can have disagreements on your team, but you cannot have dissent. Here’s where a team leader or mediator comes in handy. Note I said handy, not necessary. As long as someone (hopefully multiple someones) is motivated by the big picture, they can keep others on track. Having the master plan drawn out where everyone can reference it is vital. All the components and responsible parties are visible (we use TONS of whiteboards) and keep everyone focused on your goals. Also, just checking them off or erasing them as they are completed can be a motivator.

Many a great team has a great leader who is able to deal with team work issues. Getting organized can be as simple as appointing project managers. They ensure that their project or part of the project runs smoothly and on schedule. They communicate progress to the team and results. But every member of a great team fulfills these team needs. Your team should have meetings, to focus the group and gauge progress. Keep the meetings short and to the point. Realign the team in the direction it needs to go in. Motivate and keep it moving!

Google search is still the king.

While Facebook and Twitter may have the media’s attention, search still outdoes them both when it comes to driving traffic and being discovered by potential new customers.

SEM is the marketing process of to improving websites’ visibility through search engine results. Because of the importance of search traffic to online business, there is an entire industry dedicated to SEM.
While I could write dozens of articles on the skill of search engine marketing and SEO but I’m going to focus on some of the key issues and best practices for optimizing your site for search.

Defining SEM

Before we dig into search engine marketing, it’s essential to note that not everybody agrees on the definition!! This has caused confusion among search experts for years.
Basically, SEM is an general term that incorporates SEO, paid search, contextual advertisements, and paid inclusions. All of these tools strengthen your efforts to get your site to the front page of Google.

Think of SEM as a tool box, and SEO is one of the tools inside the box.

Making Your Website SEM-Optimized

Defining SEM is fine, but what can you do to apply the tools to your website?

I’ve come up with some tasks that can quickly boost your website for SEM:

+ Learn the basics of SEO; before you set out to build money making SEM programs you need to catch up on what search engine optimization is.

+ Google for a rank checker site and get a quick assessment of where your website is optimized for SEM and where it is not. (e.g. meta tags, keywords in your title tags, etc.)

+ Do your research: choose software with good SEM features and a plug-in system so you can enhance it. For example, WordPress has a great plug-in for optimizing your website. If you run an ecommerce website, Wikipedia has good shopping cart software.

+ Another major component of search engine marketing is PPC, or Pay Per Click advertising. By putting your ads in search engines, you can drive traffic to your website. Even if you have good SEO and organic search you need a PPC Program.

+ Lastly you need inbound links! The truth of the matter is that inbound links are still the top way to boost your rankings in search results, so partnering with other websites, asking for links or create good content people will link to.

Stay Determined My Friends, You Can Rank with a Good Plan