What is Google Adwords and How can Small Businesses use it?

What is Google Adwords?

Virtualnet (2014) describes Google Adwords as the system that Google has developed to assist you in marketing your products or services in the Google Search Engine, and its affiliate sites, via the use of a placed text ad that appears when people search for phrases related to your offering, this appears as a 'sponsored link'. The system in which they use is a 'pay per click' system, therefore you can manage where your ad appears through bidding for a series of phrases, but you only pay the amount you have bid for it someone clicks on your ad as a result of a web search.

Wordstream (2007) Google's total earnings for advertising was $32.2 billion. This is 97% of Google's total revenue. From the auction, the top words bid for are:

1.      Insurance

2.      Loans

3.      Mortgage

4.      Attorney

Mashable (2013) shows that Google earns 33% of Online Ad Revenue. This can be seen in the image below against its competitors. 

How does it work?

Wordstream (2007) explains that when someone searches for something on Google, Google looks at the Adwords advertisers pool and determines whether there will be an auction. If one or more advertisers are bidding on keywords that Google deems relevant to the search query, an auction is triggered.

Advertisers identify keywords they want to bid on, how much they want to spend, and create groupings of these keywords that are paired with ads. Google then enters the keywords from your account it deems most relevant into the auction with the maximum bid you've specified as well as the associated ad. These auctions are run billions of times each month. 

Benefits and Drawbacks of using Google Adwords

Google (2014) highlight some of the Benefits of using Google Adwords:

1.      Reach people at the precise moment they're searching for what you offer.

·      Your ad is displayed to people who are already searching for the kinds of products and services you offer. So those people are more likely to take action.

·      You can choose where your ad appears, on which specific websites and in which geographical areas.

·      The Google Display Network (GDN) alone reaches 80% of Internet users in the US.

2.      Control your budget

·      With cost-per-click (CPC) bidding, you're charged only when someone clicks your ad, not when your ad appears. There are a variety of bidding options you can choose from.

·      You decide how much you want to spend each month.

·      There is no minimum spending commitment.

3.      See exactly what's working in your ad, and build on it

·      View a report of how your ad is doing, you can see how many new customers connect to your business from your ad and where they're coming from.

·   Use Adwords tools to edit and improve your ad, and increase the number of potential customers who contact your business.

Jones (2012) indentifies some of the disadvantages of using Google Adwords:

o   Every click through to the company website is a charge to the company, even of the consumer didn't purchase from the site. Dependant on the nature of the business, your visitors can be varied from your competitors to researchers.

o   Failure to make payments to Adwords can immediately remove your presence from Google.

o   No competitor data comparison is shared by Google Adwords. Google does not disclose the performance of other companies as part of its insurance policy.

o   Advertising strategies on Google Adwords still have to be well planned to get an effective response from customers.

o   You shouldn't solely rely on Google Adwords to promote your company, other methods such as email or word of mouth should be used inline.

o   At the minimum, the copy space for Adwords is 70 characters only so choose your words carefully for maximum effect.

How can Small Businesses use Google Adwords?

Wordstream (2013) explain that promoting products and services while trying to complete with large companies like Amazon is a daunting task for small businesses. Big brands may have an advantage when it comes to PPC, but even with a small budget, you can get impressions and clicks on Google with a smart account structure and the right targeting options.

Some top tips when creating your Google Adwords account:

§  Keep it simple - You don't need a huge account to be successful. Start small and progressively grow your account.

§  Tracking your Adwords progress - It is highly recommended that you set up Google Analytics with your website for in-depth analysis.

§  Don't Overreach - Incorrectly targeting your ads, whether its location, device or network targeting or the match types you choose for your keywords. It will waste money.

§  Don't overpay - set a consistent Adwords budget - being the top advertisement on a page isn't likely to happen, especially if you don't have a large budget.

Simply Business (2014) has created a Small Business Guide to using Google Adwords, these are displayed in the images below. 

Guerini et al (2010) did an experiment allowing them to use thousands of subjects for a few dollars in a few hours, by tweaking and using existing commercial tools for advertising on the web. It proved Google Adwords to be very accurate, flexible and fast; exceeding their expectations.

From my research I would recommend Google Adwords to Small Business owner. It will inevitably advertise their products for them as long as they manage it correctly. Ensure you stick to your budget when bidding for words, it is easy to get caught up in an auction and bid against giant companies such as Amazon.

References

Google (2014) 'Advertising on Google Adwords: An Overviw' [Online] <https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1704410?hl=en> [Accessed 23rd May 2014]

Guerini. M, Strapparava. C. & Stock, O. (2010) 'Evaluation Metrics for Persuasive NLP with Google AdWords' [Online] <http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2010/pdf/209_Paper.pdf> [Accessed 23rd May 2014]

Jones, G (2012) 'Advantages and Disadvantages of using Google Adword' [Online] <http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/2012/articles/internet-marketing-articles/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-google-adwords.html> [Accessed 23rd May 2014]

Mashable (2013) 'Google earns 33% of Online Ad Revenue' [Online] <http://mashable.com/2013/08/28/online-ad-revenues/> [Accessed 23rd May 2014]

Simply Business (2014) 'Google Adwords: The Small Business Guide' [Online] <http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/microsites/google-adwords/> [Accessed 23rd May 2014]

Virtualnet (2014) 'What is Google Adwords?' [Online] <http://www.virtualnet.co.uk/what-is-google-adwords/> [Accessed 23rd May 2014]

Wordstream (2007) 'What is Google Adwords?' [Online] <http://www.wordstream.com/articles/what-is-google-adwords> [Accessed 23rd May 2014]

Wordstream (2013) 'Small Business Strategy Guide to Google Adwords' [Online] <http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/07/15/adwords-small-business-strategy-guide> [Accessed 23rd May 2014]

Small Business Guide to Email Marketing

What is Email Marketing?

Stream Send (2013) claims Email Marketing occurs when a company sends a commercial message to a group of people by use of electronic mail. Most commonly through advertisements, requests for business, or sales. Any email communication is considered email marketing if it helps to build customer loyalty, trust in a product or company or brand recognition. It is an efficient way to stay connected with your customers while also promoting your business.

Email marketing enriches business communications, targets specific key markets, and is both cost-effective and environmentally friendly. 

About Email Marketing

Copy Blogger (2014) wants people to believe that email marketing isn't dead. With a strong content marketing approach, email is more powerful than ever thanks to social media as it moves the conversation about your business to a more personal environment.

Email provides you the most direct line of communication for conversion to sales. It is also cost effective with an ROI of around 4,300% (according to the Direct Marketing Association), email practically pays for itself. It is what organisations use when they want to move from “conversation to commerce.” Good email content deepens your relationship with your audience through making sure they have opened the email, read the message and delivering quality. (Copy Blogger, 2014)

How can Small Businesses adopt an Email Marketing Campaign?

There are several examples of email marketing campaigns:

1.      Welcome Emails - Thank new customers for opting into your subscription. They can give valuable information about your company and also request key information about your new client, helping you put the person in the correct categories for future marketing efforts.

2.      Sending out announcements on products or services

3.      Newsletters regarding your company, products or services

4.      Coupons for future purchasing

5.      Offers

(Stream Send, 2013)

Every email you send out should have company information on the bottom, giving potential clients a chance to learn more about your company as well as ‘opt-in’ to get future emails. Incentive programs that give members a ‘promo code’ to collect discounts on purchases also allow you to monitor the effectiveness of your campaign as well as what your contacts are interested in.

With the help of email marketing software, email marketing is an effective way to not only reach your target markets but also to stay connected with your purchasing base. Through efficient use of email marketing, you can retain current clients while also targeting new markets. (Stream Send, 2013)

According to Marketo Blog (2014) enlisting the help of technology can actually make your emails seem a lot more personal, even when sending emails to huge lists of people.

Courtney McAra, who wrote the blog explains firstly how even if people are subscribed to your email list, doesn't mean they're actually reading them. Therefore it is essential to look at the overall behaviour. Are they opening emails daily? Are they clicking on the links? If customers aren't engaged, maybe it would be useful to ask why and allow them to select their own subscription preferences.  Companies who have tailored emailing systems allow the flexibility of allowing their customers choose what they receive. By notifying individuals on products based on previous purchases and viewings, it increases the likelihood of them making a purchase. Retailers should be using their technology to make their marketing feel more human, relevant and personal. 

References

Copy Blogger (2014) 'Email Marketing: How to Push Send and Grow your Business ' [Online] <http://www.copyblogger.com/email-marketing/> [Accessed 10th May 2014]

Marketo Blog (2014) 'Why technology makes your Email Marketing MORE personal, not less ' [Online] <http://blog.marketo.com/2014/05/why-technology-makes-your-email-marketing-more-personal-not-less.html> [Accessed 10th May 2014]

Stream Send (2013) 'Email News and Strategy' [Online] <http://www.streamsend.com/what_is_email_marketing.htm> [Accessed 10th May 2014]

Key Data to measure your Email Marketing Campaign

What is Email Marketing?

Email Marketing Reports (2012) defines Email Marketing as the use of email in marketing communications. The term covers every email you send to a customer or potential customer. It is used to refer to:

·         Sending direct promotional emails to acquire new customers and persuade existing customers to purchase again.

·         Sending emails designed to encourage customer loyalty and enhance the customer relationship.

·         Placing your marketing messages or advertisements in emails sent by other people.

Entrepreneur (2012) state that Email Marketing can help businesses keep in touch with customers and prospects. However there is a huge difference between simply adding people to your contact lists and running a savvy campaign that drives traffic to your company website and generating sales. 

Things to Measure

Hubspot (2011) claims that to assess your email marketing performance, you must conduct ongoing trend analysis of several key metrics. Organisations use their Email Service Provider (ESP) to gain information on the success of their campaigns.

Pamela Vaughan blogged the most important email metrics to measure and how they can be used to improve performance.

1.      Bounce Rate

This is the percentage of total emails sent that could not be delivered to the recipient's inbox. This metric is used to uncover problems with your email list. There are two types of 'bounces' - Hard and Soft.  A Hard bounce is the result in an invalid, closed or non-existent email address. These should be removed from your email list as internet service providers (ISPs) use bounce rates as one of the key factors to determine an email sender's reputation, therefore make your organisation look like a spammer. A Soft bounce is one where there is a temporary problem, for example the recipients inbox is full or there is a problem with the server.

2.      Delivery Rate

This is the percentage of emails that are delivered to recipients' inboxes. This determines the success of an email campaign. Organisations should look for a delivery rate of 95% or higher. If a particular campaign has a lower than average delivery rate, it is worth examining the subject line and content of that message as some elements may have been flagged as spam by corporate firewalls or major ISPs, causing more messages than usual to be blocked.

3.      List - Growth Rate

This is a measurement of how fast your email list is growing. It is important as your email marketing program needs to be continually refreshed with new names. Many of the email addresses on your list will overtime stop being used, therefore you need to keep adding new ones to the list to make up for this.

4.      Click - Through Rate (CTR)

This is the proportion of the audience who clicked on one of the links contained in the email message. Monitoring this is a cornerstone of email marketing analytics, because the CTR indicates whether the message was relevant and the offer was compelling enough to encourage the recipient to take action.

5.      Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate

This is the percentage of recipients who clicked on the 'share' button to post email content on a social network or clicked 'forward' to one of their contacts. Sharing rates are another indicator of the value and relevance of your email message. Email offers that get shared or forwarded can be your best performing campaign as you have  drastically increased the reach of that message through social networks. It is useful to discover which types of articles and offers tend to get shared most and use this knowledge when planning future campaigns.  

6.      Conversion Rate

This is the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link within an email and completed a desired action, for example, purchasing a product. This is the ultimate measure of an email campaigns effectiveness. The higher your conversion rate, the more relevant and compelling the offer was for your audience. They are however, dependent on factors beyond the original email message, such as the quality of your landing page. Measuring conversion rate requires integration between your email platform and your web analytics through creating unique tracking URLs for your email links.

Examples

Consumers jump for joy when they actually do get an email that is helpful, interesting, or innovative. Hubspot (2012) show various examples of successful email marketing. Two are explained below.

UncommonGoods lets their customers sell for them. This campaign leverages the power of social proof. Not only doess this email provide recommendations for those struggling to come up with a gift, but it also highlights what other customers say about them. According to Hubspot (2012), 8 in 10 people's purchasing decisions are influenced by user-generated content of complete stranger. 

In this campaign, ModCloth promotes its referral program. Many companies have a referral program, however they do not promote it. ModCloth saw a benefit for this and created a campaign, making sure that even though their engaged customers who are likely to refer customers, need to know they offer referral benefits. Email marketing is ideal for ongoing communications with engaged leads and prospects.

I feel that if you spend time creating a campaign, and put effort into it including researching what your customers want, then it will be a success. These examples shown have come up with a different approach to Email Marketing which is innovative and creative, therefore has paid off, ensuring an increase in their sales.

References

Email Marketing Report (2012) 'What is Email Marketing?' [Online] < http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/intro.htm> [Accessed 17th May 2014]

Entrepreneur (2012) 'The 8-second challenge: Email Marketing for our shrinking attention span' [Online] <http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232266> [Accessed 17th May 2014]

Hubspot (2011) 'Your Complete Guide to Measuring Email Marketing Success' [Online] <http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/29510/Your-Complete-Guide-to-Measuring-Email-Marketing-Success.aspx> [Accessed 17th May 2014]

Hubspot (2012) '10 Simply Awesome Examples of Email Marketing' [Online] <http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/32854/10-Simply-Awesome-Examples-of-Email-Marketing.aspx> [Accessed 17th May 2014]

Premier Farnell and Social Media

Who are Premier Farnell PLC?

The electronics industry emerged in the twentieth century and has now become a global industry worth billions of dollars. Premier Farnell was the 7th largest distributor in the world with Avnet being the largest in 2010. (EETimes, 2010).

Premier Farnell plc is a leader in the high service, multi-channel provision of essential products, information, software and technology solutions to electronic design engineers, maintenance and repair engineers and purchasing professionals globally. (Premier Farnell, 2014)

Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media

The advantages of using social media are:

-        -  Social Media has the power to drive traffic to the company website.

-         -  It helps bring the community together, allowing people from all over the world to come together and express their views.

-         -  It builds loyalty and trust with your customers, as they feel they are not obliged to buy something.

-          = It is a creative way of appealing to your customers, giving them something to talk about

-          = It gives consumers a chance to express their views, meaning that others are more likely to shop with your business from hearing a positive review.

-           

The disadvantages of using social media are:

-         -  Social Media can be more time consuming than businesses expect, if they don’t receive a higher return in tweets or through clicks , then it is not a success.

-         -  Companies need to employ people who are fully trained in Social Media, if not, use external companies who specialize in social media.

-          - They also need to know which channels of social media to focus on.

-        -   Negative feedback can be obtained by anyone and uncontrollable to the business. True opinions are voiced whatever type of feedback it is.

-          - When social media is used in the wrong way it could really affects a business.

Social Media at Farnell

According to Stuart Jones (Global Social Media Manager), Social Media was introduced at Farnell in May2010.

B2C (2011), claim that eight in every ten marketers (78%) currently using social media in their Marketing strategy, however only one fifth (21%) have received any training in social media.

Element14 (2013), states that element14 Community was launched in 2009. It is the first online community specifically for engineers, from electronic design all the way through maintenance and repair. It allows electronic enthusiasts to connect with professional engineers and experts, get accurate information, answers and tools from a wide range of independent sources and manufacturers.

In January 2013, the community site generated an average of over $23.8K per day through referring visitors to their transactional site.

This graph shows element14’s Daily Community Traffic for 2012.

Source: element14 Community Bimonthly Insights

References

B2C. (2011) ‘B2B Social Media: Highlights From New Benchmarking Research’ [Online] <http://www.business2community.com/b2b-perspective/b2b-social-media-highlights-from-new-benchmarking-research-048465> [Accessed 4th May 2014]

EETimes. (2010) 'Top 25 Global distributors' [Online] <http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4199228/2010-top-25-global-distributors-item-1> [Accessed 4th May 2014]

Element14 (2013) ‘About Us’ [Online] <http://www.element14.com/community/static/about?ICID=about_about_menubar> [Accessed 4th May 2014]

Premier Farnell. (2013a) ‘Our Company: Our Business’ [Online] <http://www.premierfarnell.com/our-company/our-businesses> [Accessed 4th May 2014]