Internet Marketing In A Recession Five Tips For Times Of Economic Slowdown

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span short-term focused pay per click
class="cap">The (PPC) campaign can help.

dollar is falling, oil is

1. What is a Conversion
up, credit is more difficult to Worth?

get and every time you turn on

Too often companies do not
the TV, or go online you hear         know how much a conversion is
buzz about a pending recession.       worth, or even how to define a
Sales and marketing managers are      conversion. If Internet marketing
scratching their heads wondering      brings you a new customer and
how they will achieve budgeted        that new customer provide $X of
sales figures.                        incremental sales revenue, how
Before you brush up on Brian          much is it worth to acquire that
Tracy personal selling                sales lead? What percentage of
techniques, look to how you are       sales leads convert to customers?
currently managing your existing      How does this compare to other
resources. How are you currently      methods of lead generation?

allocating your marketing budget?

Tip: In times of an economic
What techniques are you using to      slowdown, accountability is
gather lead generation? The scary     essential. It is important to
question... gulp... when you          know how much money a new
gather a lead, do you know where      customer is worth and how much it
it came from? Does your sales         will cost to get that new
team follow up promptly? Do you       customer. If a new customer
let your leads go stall?

provides $500 additional profit

Before you look to readjust        and it cost $200 to get that
your sales figures, let’s look at     customer (cost per lead divided
readjusting your current business     by call to action conversion
practices and through the use of      rate), you would say that was a
cost-effective SEM (search engine     profitable venture.

marketing) examine if a

2. Understand Web User

Behavior.

originated from. The most

What web analytics package are     important part of web analytics
you currently using? When was the     is tracking and analyzing defined
last time you sat down and            “call to action” situations.
reviewed you site’s analytics?        Advances in CRM systems have
Understanding user behavior is        allowed the integration of
critical. This is magnified in a      defining a lead as coming from a
short term sales cycle. What          particular Internet source
“call to actions” does your           (http://Salesforce.com does a
website hope to achieve from a        good job of this integration)

user? How is this measured? For

4. PPC burst as a short term
example, if your call to action strategy.

is filling out a “contact us”

Need a lot of visibility and
form for example, how many            are strapped for time? Pay Per
individual users visited that         Click (PPC) advertising should be
form and what percentage filled       on your list to things to do.
out the form and arrived at a         Sites such as MSN, Yahoo!, Google
“thank you page?”

and http://Business.com offer

Tip: If you are not currently      robust PPC packages that will
using an analytics page, Google       help you target your audience and
offers a free program called          convert on your call to action
Google Analytics. The analytics       requirements.

program is installed by adding a

These campaigns function
few lines of HTML script on your around bidding for a small text
website’s pages.

advertisement to display when a

3. Where are your leads coming user types in a set of keywords.
from?

The concept is each time a user

Crazy as this may sound, many      inputs a keyword phrase into a
companies to this day do not          search engine he is looking to
fully grasp where a lead              conduct business around that

keyword. If a person is               that you might not get through
performing a search for the           telesales, newsletters and
keyword “tax software,” the           tradeshows. A final consideration
implication is he is looking to       for companies looking to engage
potentially purchase a tax            in a PPC campaign, test the
software solution.

usability of your website.

5. Track PPC campaign.

Receiving double the traffic to

Pay Per Click is one of the        your website is no different than
best short term strategies a          becoming twice as efficient. In
company can use. PPC is something     other words, your advertising
that needs to be monitored            dollar will go further when you
regularly by either by an             direct users to pages that are
in-house specialist or                easy to use, provide the
professional agency. The              information they are seeking and
performance of your ads will help     provide you with measurable call
dictate how much you are willing      to action
to pay for a click. Tracking via      results.

web analytics can help ensure you     d>About the
are allocating enough resources       Authorto high performance keywords and      id="authorbio"
not providing too many resources      class="membersnoticewhite">to keywords that are not              href="http://www.keithhanks.com/"
producing a desirable conversion      >Keith Hanks is an Account
rate.

Manager at

How does PPC fit into your         href="http://www.twentysix2.com/"
overall marketing budget and          >Atlanta search engine
strategy? It can become expensive     optimization agency
long term, but as part of a           TwentySix2 Marketing. He has a
balanced solution, PPC can            passion for provide the immediate results         href="http://www.twentysix2.com/s

earch-engine-optimization-seo-ser design
vices.html">Atlanta SEO services.