Sadly, those days have disappeared
and eye care marketers (yes, if you are
the one in charge of marketing for
your business, you are a marketer) are
now in charge of finding ways to actually market their business to potential
customers. The struggle is trying
to find a way to reach these customers
wherever they are. It used to be the
big yellow book that sat beside the
phone. The problem is – no one even
owns a home phone anymore. Your
customers are on the go, distracted
and hard to reach. Introducing Paid
Search Campaigns – your solution to
finding quality leads for your eye care
business.
Google launched their
advertising platform in
2000 and it has now become their primary source
of revenue. AdWords has
several solutions available
within their platform, but
the most common is
pay-per-click advertising,
where your investment is
only spent when a qualified
customer clicks on your ad
is then taken to your website, where they can learn
more about your optical
store, optometry practice or ophthalmology clinic. Similar platforms
exist on competitive search engines
such as Yahoo and BING.
Paid Search Campaigns run as an
auction, where you compete against
other businesses for clicks based on a
few main factors. One of these factors
is your willingness to spend on each
click. You as a marketer will dictate
the maximum cost-per-click you’re
willing to spend, which keyword phrases and the geography in which you want
your ads to appear in. These factors
ensures that your marketing investment is being spent wisely.
Let’s illustrate an example:
A potential customer visits a search
engine in search of a new pair of Maui
Jim sunglasses. They type into the
search bar Find Maui Jim Sunglasses
in Denver. Your business happens to
sell Maui Jim but unfortunately your
website doesn’t organically rank for
this keyword phrase. Through the
campaign platform, you have told the
search engine that you would like to
place an ad when this customer types
in Maui Jim Sunglasses and if they
are searching for them in Denver.
This customer is now shown your ad
but this transaction has cost you
nothing so far. Not until this customer
actually clicks on your ad and is taken
to the Maui Jim page of your website
(where your store location is
found, or perhaps a link to buy them
online is presented) are you charged
anything. You’ve also told the search
engine the maximum you’re willing
to spend for this click, which means
you’ve been able to control your advertising spend to the dollar. You’ve
also ensured that your advertising
dollars are being spent on quality
leads to your business.
Most paid search campaign platforms
are setup as self-serve platforms and
provide great online tutorials on how
to get started. If you have the time
and desire to manage your campaigns
yourself, you should start immediately.
Every minute you’re not investing in
this marketing, someone else is taking advantage of the opportunity that
is available. If you are unsure or find
you lack the time to properly
manage these campaigns yourself,
you’ll want to look to hire a digital
marketing agency that specializes in
managing these campaigns. Management fees are all setup differently
between agencies but expect to pay
a minimum charge of a few hundred
dollars to a percentage of
what you spend on clicks
each month.
Your investment towards
the actual clicks each
month should depend on
your business. Is your
goal to book new appointments? If so, you should
look at the opportunity
cost that exists if you don’t
fill the appointment and
work backwards from
there. If you are looking
to sell product, consider
your margin and unmoved
inventory and put together a budget
based on moving that product. Give
yourself a large enough budget that
you can actually witness a difference
in your cash register. Most platforms
like Google also offer an entire suite
of reporting software that will tell
you how many customers your
investment actually generated you.
Kevin Wilhelm is the President of Marketing4ECPs – a digital agency focused on
providing marketing solutions for eye care
professionals. To learn more about our digital marketing program, visit our website
at www.Marketing4ECPs.com.