Storytelling is one of the most powerful methods of connecting to your clients without overtly selling to them. A good story can not only sell your products and services, but make your customer feel like they are doing a greater good.

Take fair trade products for example. You could tell a story of a poor farmer forced into selling their crops at inhumane prices. Then how your company found this hard-working farmer and finally paid them a fair wage. Not only that, but you might even be providing modern equipment and training on healthy farming.

A good story includes conflict and resolution. It connects your business with your customers in a primal way that humans have been using since the dawn of time.

And you have a story. Maybe you don’t even realize it yet – everyone has a story though. Nobody gets to owning a successful business without some conflict and struggle. It’s just a matter of communicating that story in a way that makes it relate with your audience.

Creating Your Own Story

Think about all that you’ve been through. What challenges have you overcome? Who encouraged you along the way? What good have you done in your life? Which mistakes have you made?

These are your conflicts. And every good story has conflict in it.

Perhaps its that poor farmer that you saved from losing everything? Maybe it’s a personal challenge you had to overcome? No matter what, it’s an experience that is uniquely yours. And that is inherently interesting to other human beings.

Connecting Your Story to Your Prospects

Now you have to take your unique experience and boil it down to the common human conflict. That could be a lot of things… Achieving success, helping the less fortunate, establishing relationships, etc…

Then build your story around that conflict. You’ll begin to connect with other like-minded people.

Using a story in your marketing is like sparking conversation in the checkout line. Your commonality connects you to each other with one common goal. Unlike the brief conversation in the checkout line, the action inspired by the story cements a deeper relationship. That’s the benefit of using a story.

Your Stories Resolution

Every good story has a conflict resolution.

It’s not enough to tell people about your conflict. You also have to tell people how you solved this problem. And give them hope that they too, can solve their own similar problem. Hope gives someone a reason to listen. And if someone is listening, they are paying attention.

For example, a cookbook geared towards helping parents to get their children eat their greens could tell a story about how the author got her child to eat vegetables.

The key is solving the problem. Of course, your business, company, product, or service should be that solution!

Using Your Clients Stories About You

Not only is it good to tell your own story… But sometimes a 3rd party story is much more powerful. That’s why testimonials and reviews work so well. Encourage your clients to share these with you.

At a Google conference I attended, Nector Economakis (Google Agency Lead) stated that 86% of people research their purchases online first. That’s a lot of people researching you. How often have you let a review or testimonial influence your decision?

Getting reviews is similar to the boyfriend/girlfriend effect. Once you have one you suddenly become more desirable. More importantly, businesses create a connection with the consumer and people are more likely to buy from a company with which they already identify.

Where Can You Use Storytelling

You can use storytelling to deliver any message and enhance your company’s image. You can implement storytelling on your website, in case studies, emails, social media and any other type of marketing you use to get customers through the door.

Marketing your business with a good story can help your business succeed swiftly. It creates instant recognition and connects with the listener. For small businesses or large ones, the storytelling method has been working for decades. Make sure your business takes advantage of this powerful marketing tool.

How have stories, reviews, and testimonials helped to shape your business? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

In broad terms, there’s essentially 2 different types of sales: Simple and Complex.

Simple Sale – These types of sales are often low risk, routine, widely available, and commodity items. Things that involve a fairly short sales cycle to attain; quick purchases. Some examples of a simple sale are: groceries, hygiene products, restaurant food, and essentially anything you could get at Walmart.

Complex Sale – These types of sales involve multiple steps to purchase and multiple stakeholders in the transaction. Products and services that involve a long sales cycle and extra information is required for delivery. Often these sales are riskier (for the buyer) because they come with a higher price tag. Some examples of a complex sale are: website design, manufacturing machinery, real estate, and anything that requires a level of customization.

Of course, that’s over-simplifying a little bit. Your actual sales may land somewhere in the range between simple and complex. However, no matter which way your sales lean, there are certain marketing strategies you will want to avoid and others you’ll want to use.

Changing Your Marketing Strategy Based on Your Sales Type

There’s a slew of different marketing strategies and techniques out there. It can be overwhelming and difficult to know when to use the various options.

Discounts, information, branding, contests, advertising, direct, indirect, cold calling, coupons, freebies, and value-added products/services are just a few of the many options you have to get people into your sales cycle. Your strategy on each of these depends on the type of sale you’re trying to make.

Marketing Strategies for Simple Sales

When it’s a simple sale, you can utilize some of the more overt marketing tactics. Contests, discounts, and coupons for example. Showing someone that if they try your product they’ll get an immediate cash reduction or savings might just be enough to push them to purchase. The markets attention span on simple sales tend to be fairly short. Commercials showing people enjoying your products, and other branding around your product, is useful. You can also employ direct sales messaging that asks for a person to buy.

For a simple sale, your primary goal should be to increase your market reach (number of people who know about you). The more people using your product the more likely you’ll establish a presence in their mind. That’s how you’ll capture repeat customers.

Stay at the forefront of your market by expertly managing your price point and quality.

Marketing Strategies for Complex Sales

When it’s a complex sale, you can utilize some of the more nurturing marketing tactics. Think about ways to benefit your reputation and authority in your industry. Content marketing, information distribution, and value-added products/services are examples of this. You’ll want to provide a logical and compelling argument for your product/service. Try not to hype things up - it can be off-putting and cheapen your brand.

For a complex sale, your primary goal should be to increase your market intensity (depth of influence on each individual). The more loyal and supportive people are of your service, the more likely they’ll see you as authoritative and credible (and help you sell to others).

Be careful of offering discounts and coupons with a complex sale. It’s too easy to get trapped in forever discounting your services. Usually the sale is complex because you have to spend significant time and effort delivering your service. Don’t sell yourself short! Rather, build your companies reputation. If people see you as “the best” in your industry, your pricing won’t matter as much. They’ll just need to have you because they trust you can deliver the service better than anyone else.

Pick the Right Marketing Strategy for the Right Type of Sale

Take some time to consider your sales cycle. How many steps are there to a successful sale? It is helpful to write it down, and figure out each stage someone needs to commit to you. Every time someone needs to give you money, information, or approval is another stage in your sales cycle. Then begin figuring out the best marketing approach for each stage.

How do you approach your marketing? Do you consider your product or service to be a simple or complex sale? I’d like to hear your own thoughts. Please leave a comment below.

“Ding!” came the sound from my smartphone indicating I had just received a new email.

Taking a look, I saw a simple question from a client that required a less-than-simple response. “Is getting a mobile website for my business a good idea?”

You might be thinking, that IS a simple question to answer. Normally, the response would be a resounding “Yes!” But for this small startup, with limited budget, the answer wasn’t so obvious.

It was then that I realized there are a few scenarios where a mobile website should be delayed. Yes, the web is accessed as much by mobile devices as it is PCs (see Gartner Research Article). And yes, 43% of people who have a bad mobile experience with your website will never return to your website again (see Compuware Research Article).

But mobile websites require money to build. And proper technology and coding in place to do it well. Let’s not forget, you need a website with visitors to see any benefit from mobile. So when should you get a mobile website for your business?

Mobile-Friendly Website vs. Responsive Website

Let’s set the stage. It’s important to know a few things before we can properly answer the big question of “when should you get a mobile website.”

There’s 2 distinct types of mobile websites out there today:

• Mobile-Friendly Website – These are separate websites, built and coded specifically for display on smartphones. You must maintain it separately from your PC friendly website. And usually they require a script of some sort to detect and forward mobile devices from your main website.
• Responsive Website – This is coding your existing website in a way that it will display differently based on the screen size of the device viewing it. Meaning that a smaller screen (such as an iPhone or tablet) would see a website that is displayed differently than a computer with a large screen (like your PC). Thus, it is a single website with multiple ways it can display.

Technically, there’s a 3rd type that lands somewhere in between the above 2 options. This type usually still uses scripts to detect mobile devices (rather than reading screen size) and then displays a different set of code WITHOUT forwarding the viewer to a new website. Essentially using the same web page to display 2 different versions of the website. It seems like a good option, but my guess is there might be some SEO drawbacks (purely an unverified guess, for the record).

Bottom-line is that a Responsive Website is superior in nearly all circumstances. You can see my reasoning for this in a previous article Weighing the Pros and Cons of Responsive Website Design. Ideally, you can get yourself a responsive website.

Unfortunately, it’s not always obvious what type of mobile capable website a vendor is trying to sell you. Simply because a responsive website IS mobile-friendly. And frankly, the word mobile-friendly communicates what you’re getting much clearer than the word “responsive.” So be sure to clarify what you’re getting!

When to Get a Mobile Website?

Ok, getting back to the main point here: “when should you get a mobile website?”

Answer this quick survey to determine if you’re ready for a mobile website:

• Do you have $400 – $1000 in your website budget (budget more for bigger websites)?
• Is your website coded to modern coding standards (new within the past 2 years)?
• Are you receiving at least 250 visitors per month to your website?
• Is your website already being viewed by mobile browsers?
• Do you often post links/articles on social media or via email messages (two mediums commonly browsed with mobile devices)?

If you answered yes to at least 4 of the above, then it’s time to go mobile!

For those of you on old websites with no budget for a full website redesign right now… Go for the Mobile-Friendly Website until you have the budget to create a Responsive Website. It’s perhaps not the ideal solution, but it is practical.

Mobile Website Case Studies

Coming back to that client who emailed me earlier. Why did I suggest they delay for now? Well, there were several steps that hadn’t been done yet. We needed to build more traffic… Not too mention measure that traffic in the first place. They didn’t even have basic web tracking software installed! Finally, their budget expectations were not realistic.

Another client, Simon Says Roses, ended up with a Mobile-Friendly Website rather than a Responsive Website. This is mostly because of their massive website (over 100,000 pages to go through), outdated coding, and their budget. In this case, the Mobile-Friendly Website fit the bill perfectly. And they are now taking online orders via mobile browsers!

Finally, Royal Oak Dental, needed a brand new website built. Their plan was to build for mobile right from the start. It was easy to accommodate a Responsive Website design for them – in fact, it added very little to their overall website cost.

Having a Mobile Capable Website is (Almost) Always Better than NOT Having One

Bottom-line is that it should be a priority for your business to get a mobile capable website. Whether you’re ready now or require a few more elements in place. You should set the goal and start committing a budget towards going mobile. Research suggests you’ll reach more customers and provide them with a more positive experience.

(Speaking of which, I am currently building a responsive version of this website!)

What are your thoughts? Please leave a comment below.

Have you ever landed on a website that attacked you with buzz words and empty sales blather? How did this puffery make you feel?

You probably did not feel like whipping out your wallet. More than likely, it had you reaching for your browsers back button.

Then there are those times when you land on a website, and it just guides you through all the right information. It makes you feel comfortable about your potential purchase because you know what you’re getting.

Chances are that this website got an important copywriting principle right: clarity. Instead of cramming a haughty sales message or screaming at you to buy, they probably just provided clear and concise information. Information you needed to feel comfortable about your purchase.

Dr. Flint McClaughlin of Marketing Experiments characterizes this by saying:

Clarity trumps persuasion.

Things that Get in the Way of Being Clear

The moment you feel like you have to trick someone into buying from you… Is the moment you’ve just realized that you’re explaining your product/service wrong. Persuasive methods, hypnotic techniques, and power words are just fluff. In fact, it’s probably insulting to your typical buyer.

Then there is the jargon. This is one of the more common enemies of clarity. It’s so easy to accidentally slip in language or words specific to your industry. Of course, the opposite of this is talking down to people. Just avoid exaggerated sentences, fluff words, and industry specific language (unless, of course, you are certain your buyer will understand their meaning). Also you don’t need to be super-formal. Use language that is conversational with your reader.

Trying to teach people everything about what you do is also not what we’re getting at here. Stick to the benefits people will get as a result of using your expertise or product. It’s important to be relevant to your buyer.

Finally, as a rule of thumb, try to avoid clever phrases and puns. It’s not that these never work, it’s just that they rarely work. So chances are slim you’ll come up with an effective turn-phrase. Additionally, puns really should only be used in certain rare circumstances (eg: when you’re trying to interrupt and gain someone’s attention – and even then, not always!). Here’s the guideline: if it doesn’t add to the depth of knowledge about your product/service, then don’t say it. Clarity is about reducing the signal-to-noise ratio.

Being Clear in Your Sales Copy

Truth is, your buyers are intelligent. And they are human. You’ll get so much further with them if you just have a conversation. Talk with them, not at them.

Think about what a person in the buying phase would need to know about your product/service. What problem are they trying to solve? Which benefits are they hoping to gain? Who are they comparing you to?

Here’s a few things that contribute to clarity:

• Understanding – Do the words make sense and follow a logical thought-sequence?
• Trust – Is the information provided credible, properly cited, and supported by other people?
• Information – Did you provide enough information to make the buyer fully informed?
• Focus – Is your message consistent, concise, and written towards a single goal?
• Relevance – Does your buyer care about what you’re saying?
• Presentation – Is the information organized and easy to skim for important details? Bullets, graphics, font-sizes, bolded text, etc… are good ways to emphasize the critical info.

Sometimes people like to withhold information from the buyer. Maybe it’s an embarrassing flaw, a strategy to evoke curiosity, or just something you think is unimportant. You don’t need to tout your short-comings, but you do need to give the person a realistic idea of your product/service before they’ll buy. It’s better to err on the side of too much information than not enough.

Let me be clear about withholding information though because it is a valid strategy for drawing people further down your sales cycle. Some products have a short sales cycle and you don’t need to use this type of strategy (buying a box of cereal for example). However, large purchases and complex services require a lot more client interaction (for example, you may not provide pricing information on an expensive service until you’ve determined what the buyer wants). In these cases, you’ll need to consider which information to provide at each stage of your sales cycle.

Bottom-line is that you should aim to provide a little too much information, than too little.

Good News! You Don’t Need to have Extensive Copywriting Experience to be Clear

Every day, you’re living with your products and services. You’ve probably explained what you do a million times to family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances. Which actually makes you uniquely qualified to be the one who clearly articulates what you offer. Nobody knows your company better than you!

The nice thing about clarity is that you don’t need to know every professional copywriters tricks of the trade. As long as you stick to simply explaining the value of your products/services, you’ll be in good shape.

If you have the resources, then you can hire that copywriter to refine and improve your content. If you don’t, just strive for clarity. It will go a long way.

What does clarity mean to you? Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Email marketing is the practice of sending emails out to people to solicit, remind, share, or notify of your products, services, promotions, advice, or other business related information.

This super-fast guide will run through the essentials of getting started with email marketing for your business. Along the way, I’ll provide some interesting statistics that even a seasoned email marketing professional should find useful.

You need to understand 2 important things before we jump in here:

1. Email marketing is a deep and rich Internet marketing practice. There’s so much more to it than I can possibly tell you about in this one article.
2. Everyone is different. The statistics vary widely by industry and individual companies. The statistics are to provide examples of the overall average. Your actual statistics, tests, and understandings will vary (sometimes contradict).

Choosing an Email Marketing Service Provider

First step to email marketing is to find a good email marketing service provider. I recommend:

• MailChimp
• iContact

These both have good user interfaces, email templates to get you started, and statistical tracking. MailChimp even has a free option for those of you just getting started.

I do not recommend (mostly due to the difficulty integrating a lead form with their system):

• Constant Contact
• GoDaddy

Others that are out there, that I haven’t tried yet: Benchmark, Pinpointe, Campaigner, Get Response, Jango Mail.

Building An Email List

Next you’ll need to build an email list. This is actually a pretty tough thing to do… So don’t get too discouraged if it takes time to build a good one.

Here are some good ways to build a list:

1. Website lead form (and other online lead forms)
2. Promotions and Contests
3. Draws/Tradeshows

Here are some bad ways to build a list (don’t do these!):

1. Collecting business cards from networking events and dumping their email onto your list
2. Scraping websites for email addresses
3. Any other non-permission based method

Another way to build your list is by purchasing one. This method can be controversial from an ethical stand point. Most of the time this is not a good thing to do. Lists need to have people who will find your email relevant and who expect to be emailed your offers. Studies have shown that there is a high unsubscribe rate to purchased lists (according to MailChimp data).

List building is an on-going task. You should not stop if you wish to keep growing your business.

Email List Segmentation

Once you have a list going, you should use “Segmentation.” That just means you’ll create sub-lists of your subscribers based on a wide-range of criteria (such as demographics, areas of interest, position in your sales funnel, etc…). The purpose is so that you can tailor the email content towards that segment of your subscribers. The more relevant and interesting you can make your email, the more people will purchase from you.

According to MailChimp, segmentation can improve open and click-thru by 14% on average. Sometimes more, depending on how well you do it.

Autoresponders

Autoresponders are also a great feature that you should use. An autoresponder allows you to send automatic emails based on the time elapsed since someone subscribed to your email list.

For example, you can immediately send them a greeting. Then every few days send another email to remind them that you are there and what you offer.

It’s good to offer free stuff, discounts, and/or provide them with useful information (useful is defined as relevant and exclusive – to the receiver).

Did you know that 40-50% of online leads are not followed up on? That’s a shame because it’s just lost potential clients (and income). You are 7 times more likely to qualify the lead if you contact them within 1hr. These stats are from the Harvard Business Review (source linked below). On average, it takes 7 touches to make a sale.

Autoresponders help REDUCE the amount of manual sales work you have to do. But they are NOT a replacement for face-to-face or calling a person.

Composing the Perfect Email

It takes practice and some solid copywriting to compose a great email. You’ll need an enticing subject line, good content with a strong call to action, and a page to receive anyone who clicks through on your emails. Here’s some guidelines:

• Subject lines sell/encourage receiver to OPEN the email and read it. They do NOT sell a product or ask the user to do anything before opening the email. Just tell people what they get for investing their time reading your email.
• Focus your email message to one simple and clear message of value (to the receiver). Connect your call to action with your message of value.
• The call to action, located in the content of the email, sells/encourages the CLICK or REPLY.
• The landing page (the web page a person will “land” on if they click a link in your email) sells the actual product/service and attempts to push the viewer into the final stage of this transaction.

Just remember… Baby steps and micro-yesses. Keep content value-centric, not action-centric. For example, Get 40% off by Responding to this Email (GOOD) vs. Respond to this Email and Get 40% Off (BAD). Whatever comes first is the main subject of your call to action. So make it about what the person gets instead of what you want.

Email Design

Regarding the design of your emails: simple is better. It has been proven that emails with fewer links and fewer images get a higher click through rate (MailChimp). So restrain yourself to 1 or 2 links and 1 or 2 small images. The more direct and focused you are with your emails the better off you’ll be.

Also, responsive design is an option for your emails (may require a web developer to set up a template for you). Responsive design means that your email will display nicely on most devices such as PC’s, tablets, and smartphones.

Other Random Statistics

Finally, some random stats for you from MailChimp data:

• Average across all industries is about: 30% open rate. 4% click-thru, and 0.2% unsubscribe (estimates)
• Hotmail & AOL addresses tend to be the most valuable for eCommerce businesses
• Best open days are Thursday, then Wednesday, then Tuesday. Significant open rate dips on Weekend. Best open times are 2-5pm. However, I have heard plenty of conflicting research on this so take it with a grain of salt.
• People are most engaged with your emails when they have recently subscribed to your list. Engagement drops the longer they are on your list.
• Use placeholders when you can. For example, insert receivers first name, last name, address, etc… whenever you can. This increases opens and clicks!

Data Sources

Here’s a few links that I’ve pulled my statistics from:

• Harvard Business Review on following up on your leads
• MailChimp Email Stats: 1) MailChimp Research & 2) MailChimp Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry

Conclusion

As I mentioned earlier, email marketing is a deep and rich Internet marketing practice. There’s a lot to learn. A lot more than I was able to cover here. However, I hope that this guide was helpful for you and provided you with enough information to make the changes you need.

If you’d like to really get your email marketing campaign going with some professional support, contact devEdge Internet Marketing by calling 250-516-4327 or using the sign-up form on this page. We’ll help you get an effective email marketing campaign.

Have any tips of your own? What have you found to be critical email marketing information? Please leave your comments in the discussion below!

Responsive web design is quite the trend right now. Responsive web design is when a website automatically adjusts how it displays based on the screen size of the device viewing the website. Which makes it perfect for taking one single website, and making it display on desktops, tablets, and mobile phones (in landscape or portrait mode).

According to a survey done by Pew Internet about 85% of Americans own a cell phone (that’s around 264,853,129 people!). Of those people, 56% use the mobile device to access the Internet (that’s around 148,317,752 people).

The trend and popularity is well deserved. Responsive web design is a significant evolution in website design.

But is responsive website design all it’s hyped up to be? Let’s take a look at the pro’s and con’s of responsive web design.

The Pro’s of Responsive Web Design

Everyday, more and more tablets and mobile devices go online. People are browsing the Internet from a wide-variety of screen sizes and dimensions. Your website will be no exception. However, everyday people are becoming less and less patient with websites that don’t function properly from their mobile device.

Here are a few pro’s of mobile web design:

• Makes your website easily accessible by all Internet browsers
• Provides a consistent experience across all devices
• Only one single website is maintained (cost reduction)
• After the initial setup, the website remains responsive even when new content is added
• It utilizes the most modern and up to date web programming standards
• Some SEO improvements might be seen

Essentially, the biggest benefit of responsive web design is that you’ll never be turning anyone away. Meaning you’ll have greater opportunity to engage and attract new customers.

The Con’s of Responsive Web Design

Nothing is perfect. There are a few things to consider before diving into responsive web design. Here are a few of the con’s to responsive web design:

• It takes longer to initially setup and will certainly add to development costs
• Video, 3rd party code, banners, and ad slots can sometimes pose special challenges
• Testing changes to the website gets very complex
• People adding new content will have to stick to stricter protocols

The largest downfall of responsive design is just considering all of the options every time something new is added to the website. It can lead to unknown development costs down the road.

Conclusion

Overall, responsive web design is a great solution to the influx of mobile browsers. Mobile browsers are here to stay. It’s just a matter of when your business is able to tackle this change. There is an associated cost with going down the road of responsive website design. There’s also an associated cost of losing customers and clients because they couldn’t engage with you the way they wanted.

When you’re ready to start building a responsive website, consider devEdge Internet Marketing for developing your mobile website. Fill out the form on this page and we’ll discuss your needs.

Do you already have a responsive website? What pro’s and con’s did you experience in developing your website?

No.

It’s one word you get used to hearing as a business owner or sales rep. It’s the one word you try to avoid. Don’t take it personal though; you’ll hear it more often than “yes.” The silver-lining is that it only takes one good yes to change everything.

Fear of hearing the word “no” is not an excuse to miss following up on your sales leads. On average, only 40-50% of sales leads are even contacted by the business receiving the lead. That number probably dwindles when the lead source is from your website. It’s almost as if we are so suspicious of spam that we don’t trust anything that comes through online sources. Big mistake.

The crux of the matter is that you just don’t know until you follow up. Why wouldn’t you at least find out if you’ve got a winner within that sales lead? You might be surprised at what you find.

Being Timely with Your Follow-Up

You are 7x more likely to get a conversion if you contact an inbound sales lead within 1 hour. This is according to a Harvard Business Review survey conducted. Obviously, the quicker you can get on the phone (if you have their phone number) or email, the better.

If you get a lead, following up is probably the highest priority task for you to do right now. A 10-minute conversation can turn into hundreds, thousands, or millions of dollars in business for you.

Fulfilling on Your Promises

Often, we’ll promise something in exchange for someone providing their contact information. This shapes the expectations of the person contacting your business. Did you promise to send them a newsletter, free information, a report or guide, or trial download? Whatever marketing channel a lead flows to you through, you’ve got to meet their expectations. Right away, hold up your end of the bargain.

Listening Closely

Once you’ve got your lead on the phone have a script ready. This will help you ease into the phone conversation. But don’t stick so closely to it that you forget to listen to their needs. They’ll often tell you exactly how you can sell to them. Listen to their questions, needs, and pain-points. Then respond appropriately. A good honest and open conversation is your best sales tool.

Automating Responses and Nuturing Your Leads

It’s important to know that there are automated tools available for staying in touch with your leads. On average it takes 7 touches before you’ll make a sale. These “touches” can be a newsletter, an email, a phone call, a hand shake, or just about anything that connects you two.

Don’t be afraid to utilize email marketing software. It is a great way to insure nobody falls through the cracks too badly. You can configure these programs to automatically email a series of sales letters to your leads. It’s also handy to easily send bulk email out to the people who’ve agreed to receive your email. Just be careful that you don’t abuse the ability to email. It is not a complete replacement for human-to-human relationship building.

Test the frequency of your emails. If you get a lot of spam notices or unsubscribes, you’ve gone too far. A good email marketing software program will provide you with metrics and statistics.

No More Wasted Leads – And No More Wasted Money

Business growth is at your fingertips. It’s costly enough to get a business lead in through the door. Take charge and contact those leads in a timely manner. Give your leads what they want and listen to their story. You’ll improve your sales quickly. And for those leads that don’t jump in right away, utilize the many email marketing tools available.

How has your organization nurtured sales leads? Do you feel like you need to follow-up on all leads?

There’s no question. Keywords are a critical part of any SEO strategy. They tie the people searching for your products/services to your business. But getting the most profitable traffic is more than just scoring high with the name of your business, product, service, or features.

Getting the right SEO keyword mix is how you’ll successfully draw the most profitable traffic to your website.

Most often, the first keywords that come to mind are about what the business does. For example, if you’re a carpenter then you know you want to rank well for “carpenters” and “contractors.” This is only half the battle though. There’s more types of keywords than the ones that describe what you do and what you are. Keywords that help you ascertain the intent and constrictions of the person searching.

Here are the 3 categories of keywords you’ll want to consider while creating your SEO keyword strategy:

1. Subject keywords – These are words about what you actually do.
2. Qualifier keywords – These are words that describe the searchers intent.
3. Geographic keywords – These are regional/geographic restrictions.

People tend to search in sentences. In any good sentence, there is always a subject (what the sentence is about) and a predicate (information about the subject). Likewise, a search will most often have a subject and a predicate (or what we’re calling a qualifier here). Geography is important simply for local and regional searches.

Subject, Qualifier, and Geographic Keyword Examples

A few examples:

Home builders in Victoria, BC

“Home builders” = subject, “in” = qualifier, and “Victoria, BC” = geographic.

carpentry contractors for commercial offices

“carpentry contractors” = subject, and “for commercial offices” = qualifier.

Buy nails South Vancouver Island

“nails” = subject, “Buy” = qualifier, and “South Vancouver Island” = geographic.

Qualifier Keywords Often Overlooked

It’s pretty common to overlook the qualifier keywords. They are worth adding into your SEO keyword mix though. You will start capturing a searchers intent, not only the thing. You may not want your eCommerce store’s front page to rank well for qualifier keywords that imply a person is only researching. But if they had the intent to buy, you’d definitely want that person to visit!

We’ve discussed 3 different categories of keywords to consider in your SEO strategy. By using various keywords you can capture a searchers intent, bringing a higher quality visit to your website.

Are there any other types of keywords you like to throw into your keyword mix? How do you go about finding your best keywords? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

Our clients are the best. devEdge Internet Marketing has been working hard with several of them recently to launch brand new websites. We are pleased to announce the successful launch of:

• Kimura Shukokai Karate – Western Canada
• Peak Business Solutions

Both websites feature a number of website optimization elements. You’re invited to visit their websites, look around, and review the services they offer.

Kimura Shukokai Karate – Western Canada

A true family-oriented business. They provide training in Kimura Shukokai Karate to all ages.

Special features included a photo gallery, direct response pathway, credibility factors implemented, and usability. Website created upon the WordPress platform, allowing the organization to take control of the editing, creation, and modification of their website content.

Peak Business Solutions

A leading provider of SAGE custom CRM and Accouting software in Victoria, BC. They are brilliant in their field, and have solutions for organizations of all sizes.

Special features included social media integration, direct response pathway, credibility factors implemented, blog capability, and additional custom tools + coding for their various business needs.

If you’ve ever started your own Google AdWords campaign, you know that within a few days you’ll get a call from Google themselves. The Google representative will likely offer to manage your AdWords campaign for you. They’ll tell you that they’ll optimize it and they’ll help set it up. Best of all, it won’t cost you anything.

Sounds good right?

Well… Maybe. The throwdown match is about to begin! Let’s take a closer look at whether you should let Google manage your AdWords campaign. Oh, and this applies for Bing Ads too.

What’s in it for Your Business?

The fact that Google will perform this management service for free is a pretty powerful draw. You’ll get the services of (what we can only assume is) a professional AdWords manager. They’ll put in some work to set up your campaign and target a few keywords you suggest. They’ll set it up according to your budget and they’ll probably even keep an occasional eye on the account.

What’s in it for Google?

This is the question you really should be asking yourself: “What’s in it for Google?” Any time anyone offers something for free, you can bet it isn’t. Follow the money.

Basically, Google gets your advertising dollars. And they want to pull as much money out of you as they can.

How this Dynamic Plays Out

Here’s where things start to go wrong. The primary objective of Google is to increase it’s AdWords sales as much as possible. It’s not to help your business perform the best it can in AdWords. Your motivations don’t really align.

Now, don’t get me wrong. They’re pretty close. Obviously, if Google doesn’t manage your account performance “well enough” you’re going to stop using their service. But, in the end, they’re not trying to optimize your account performance. They’re trying to optimize your account spending.

Hiring an Independent AdWords Manager

Independent AdWords managers are motivated differently. They will be looking out for your campaign performance first within the budget you’ve given them. This is because your performance is more important to them than your spending. An experienced independent AdWords campaign manager is hired by you to look out for your best interests.

Additionally, there’s a lot of thought and time that goes into setting up a successful AdWords campaign. It’s a lot of subtle (and sometimes major) adjustments to find the best places to spend your PPC advertising budget. You’ll want someone who is attentive to your account and continuously improves your situation. A good AdWords account manager will even help push you to improve your landing pages and linked content. In other words, they want to improve your lead generation or sales… Not just your click through rate.

Even more, a good AdWords manager will help you properly understand the data you are collecting in your account. Did you know you can learn a lot about your potential customers by looking at their search preferences and AdWords metrics? This is information available to you, but could be very hard to interpret if you don’t spend a lot of time in AdWords.

Google Representative vs. Independent AdWords Manager

Of course, the downside of hiring independent is that you will have to budget for their management fee. However, I would suggest that in the long run it is more cost effective to use an independent AdWords manager. The independent AdWords manager can make improvements to your account that will ultimately lead to more business for you. They’ll get more out of your ad spend than the Google representative. Simply because they’re motivated to work for you.

Disagree? What do you think? Independent or Google Rep? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

PS – In full disclosure, PPC and AdWords campaign management is something devEdge Internet Marketing performs for our clients. We have an excellent track record and would be happy to talk more with you about it.