Josh Kerbel

Have you ever looked at the keywords and phrases that bring visors to your website, well probably not, because you are busy doing other things, but, if you did, you would see that they typically break down in two groups:

• There are the top 10 or so words or phrases that bring in big chunk of your traffic. These words often relate to your brand, product or promoted image. In marketing lingo these are “brand phrases/keywords”. In the Internet search world, these are called the HEAD of the search.
• All those phrases that individually account for little traffic but when you add them together you get a huge amount of traffic. You may have heard marketing consultants toss around the phrase “category keywords”, well this is what they were gabbing about, key words that are not directly connected with your company, but rather generic words and phrases associated to your industry / market. An Internet search geek would call these the TAIL of the search

If you were to chart the number of visits generated by keywords and phrases, you probably see that approximately 50% to 80% of your traffic might be coming from a group of 10 to 20 HEAD/BRAND keywords while the rests come from thousands of thousands of TAIL/CATEGORY keyword and phrase combinations that you never ever thought about

We will see why this matters in the next post

And by and large, sales people are on the losing end of it.

You know why? Because they typically don’t have any other options. Most companies have such poorly developed lead generating systems that when a salesperson finally gets a qualified prospect they can’t afford for the prospect to walk away, so they end up giving away all their power by doing all the wrong things to turn the prospect into a customer.

Sound like your situation? The average company has such a low amount of respect for their own salespeople, they don’t care if they waste time doing silly things like cold calling random people in the hopes of finding a qualified prospect, so they are definitely not going to be too interested lending a willing ear to some random salesperson calling in the middle of the work day.

Remember that girl in high school guys always asked out, yet she went out with very few? You need to learn how to be that GIRL!

No.  It’s not.  And that is part of the problem with social media.  It gives everyone with a few fingers access to a digital Gutenberg press to blast their thoughts and ideas across the Internet.  Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something.

Social media is not about inundating your friends, clients and contacts about your latest flash of brilliance or telling them all about your cool project over and over and over again

And this is part of the reason I keep shutting off my friends feeds in Facebook and Linked in.  If I wanted a  direct link to your thought or personal promotion of the moment, I’d vulcan mind meld with you more often.

You need to give people a reason to listen to you and chances are that reason isn’t you.

One of the few people I have come across who does this rather well is a recruiter by the name of Harry Joiner.  Yes, he uses his twitter feed to post stuff about jobs he is looking to fill, and yes, he represents a source of money for potential hires (so people have a reason to listen),  but he also sends plenty of messages about issues that impact his target audiences.  People don’t tune him out………on line, he understands the value of an economy of words.

Bottom line, he knows how to get into people’s head space.  He knows who his customers are and knows how to talk to them.

When was the last time you heard that line?  How about when your last boyfriend or girlfriend dumped YOU on your sorry ass over a bottle of cheap wine at a 2nd rate Italian restaurant?

Guess what, they were lying………it was YOU.  Whatever you were doing, however you were behaving, just something wasn’t there.  You weren’t meeting the other person’s needs on some level.  No biggie, it’s happened to the best of us.  Well, except ME.  But this isn’t about ME, its about YOU

Marketing is exactly the opposite, it’s all about the ME.   Your prospects are practically yelling:

“ME ME ME ME”

“What have you done for ME lately”

“What about Me”

“Solve MY problems!!!”

And unlike a boyfriend or girlfriend who just tells YOU that YOU aren’t meeting THEIR needs, in business YOU have to CHASE AFTER THEM and prove to them how YOU are all about the THEM.  How YOU understand THEIR problems, THEIR needs and THEIR situation.  Basically YOU have to do the exact opposite of when someone YOU were dating dumps YOU, YOU have to resist the urge to stand up and walk away.  YOU have to convince THEM to comeback to YOU but make sure that they think it was THEIR idea to do so.

That,  my friends is the art of lead generation on the internet………..

Coming up tomorrow……….we will take a look and information capture on the web!

I should be clear about one thing here……………this isn’t a disaster for the house hunters.  There are plenty of ways for them to find a house.  It’s a disaster for the real estate agents in Toronto who aren’t taking advantage of all the qualified prospects the Internet can deliver to them.

If you are just join us, you might want to read Part I and II of this series to get up to speed on our little analysis of the PPC ads use or rather mis-use by the Toronto residential real estate industry

Supposed that as a real estate agent running a small PPC campaign across a selection of 10 targeted keyword with well designed landing pages, you could have yourself a nice robust marketing machine that collects prospects for you.  How long would you have to spend cold calling to get one qualified prospect?  How large a personal referral network would you need to get one new qualified prospect a day.

Now, on to some of the landing pages.  Let’s keep in mind that the point of these landing pages is not to show case your expertise or your listings, but to get prospects into your sales funnel and determine if they are worth investing time in.  Looking at it from a mechanical point of view, a prospect who actually sends you their contact information via your web page has already gone through 3 stages of qualification.  They searched for a specific keyword term, they clicked on your ad and they registered in your database………maybe you would like them gift wrapped?

Landing page 1: http://ontario-realestate.ca/toronto/ – FAIL

Landing page 2: http://www.toronto-real-estate-online.com/ – FAIL

Landing page 3: http://www.livingintoronto.ca/ – almost good…………the bait that they are using in exchange for your contact info could be of little better value, but a pretty good shot.  The form field capture being above the fold is a huge plus.

Landing page 4: http://www.torontohomesnow.com/Toronto -FAIL

Landing page 5: http://www.connect2agent.com/multicity/Toronto – DOUBLE FAIL

Landing page 6 : http://www.hometrader.ca/CategoryResale.aspx – Fail

Landing page 7 : http://www.housebymouse.info/hbm/ml/canada/multi_toronto_0.html - WINNER - uses the same bait as landing page #3, but does it much much better.  Layout is exactly what you want.  Very little to distract the user from registering

Landing page 8 http://www.kaceeyteam.ca/featured-homes – Good God No………..but at least you can follow them on Facebook

Well, it looks like 1 or 2 agents got some good advice on their campaigns, the other………..not so much.  Pity…….I hope for their sakes that these campaign mishaps are the result of them doing it themselves.  I would hate to think someone took money for some of these fiascoes.

A house is one of the largest of the largest purchases that you will ever make.  Even experienced buyers are going to have questions and concerns…..

There is always an information void to be filled.  The person who successfully fills this void has a good shot at building a trusting relationship with a prospect.

So lets see how real estate agents in Toronto take advantage of this potential opportunity.

We will also take this one step further and look under the hood and see how much players in Toronto’s real estate market are paying for clicks.

First, let’s think of some robust search terms that should indicate I am a motivated buyer.  In fact, let’s take this one step further and have Google show us what terms people are searching for in regards to residential real estate in Toronto

Here is what Google’s Keyword tool is showing me for the phrase – Toronto residential real estate listings.  We are also only going to focus on phrase and exact type matches and the estimated cost of getting a Top3 position.  A word to the wise, you do not always want a TOP3 position, but we are just trying to demonstrate the opportunity that Toronto real estate agents are missing here:

If you have never seen the Keyword tool, essentially it tells how how many searches were done for each phrase or keyword and how much you would have to bid (and be willing to pay if someone clicks on your ad) in order for your ad to display on the first page of google results.  If you aren’t a Google keyword geek, then that is all you really need to knowNext up………….what these numbers actually mean.

but the process  stays the same………..unless of course you have a habit of yelling “BUY BUY BUY” the second you get face to face with your customer – more on this later

For what ever reason, people seem to think that the Internet has changed the steps that a customer goes through before they buy a particular product or service.

It really hasn’t.

The customer still needs to establish a want or need, do some research on alternative methods of satisfying the want or need, compare the alternatives and then make a decision.  Of course we could get into semantics about the particulars of each step, but from a 30,000 foot level, this is how people behave.

What has changed is the method by which the consumer goes through this process.

Think back to 40 years ago and imagine you are buying a house, selecting a private school for your kids, or buying life insurance.

Step 1 – Find someone who sells what you are looking for.  You could ask a friend for referral, open the phone book or maybe walk down the street and see if there is any advertising promoting the above referenced services.

Step 2 – Repeat Step 1 a few times so you have a few different alternatives.  You usually don’t buy the first house you see without having another to compare it to.  You wouldn’t send your daughter to an all boys private school if the first school you found was an all boys school. And you may not buy from the first insurance salesman you find if it turns out they only sell whole life when you need term.

Step 3 – After speaking with the sales representatives, you would sit down and consider alternatives.  Ask you spouse, your friends, your co-workers, your mistress, anyone you thought might have a valid opinion.

Step 4 – You make your decision.

Now flash forward to present day.  How do you go about this process?

Well, there is probably a good chance you would start on the Internet, which is perfectly fine.

But the buying process remains the same for the customer – 99% of the time, they are not jumping at the first offer they see.  They do research, they talk to people, they evaluate and then they buy………just like you.

BUY BUY BUY

So imagine a situation where you are meeting with a sales representative for the first time and the first thing that comes out of the rep’s mouth is BUY BUY BUY.  Every question you ask is met with the same response – BUY BUY BUY.  You are looking for some basic product information, get a sense of how the company can help solve a particular problem you have and all they can say is BUY BUY BUY.

Now, that would be weird, because everyone knows that you need to foster a bit of a relationship and a bit of trust before a customer parts with their money.  It’s only natural.  An especially on a first sales meeting because often the prospect is looking to fill a basic information void they have.

But for some reason, when people get in to marketing on-line, they forget this.  They set up a few PPC ads, link them to some generic web page and you know what you get…………a situation where the company is yelling BUY BUY BUY at the prospect.  The prospects’ questions and concerns are of no value to the company, because otherwise, they would have developed a better way to listen to them.

On top of this, the merchant is oblivious to the best part of selling over the internet……you can develop automated systems to educate a prospect about your product to see if it fits with their situation.  You can use a number of processes to build trust with the prospect………in fact you can use the internet to automatically deal with the most laborious tasks that the average salesperson deals with………..prospecting……..so that by the time a salesperson finally meets a prospect, the prospect is much further along the sales process and has the expectation that the company can help solve their problem.

OR……you could keep yelling BUY BUY BUY at your prospects and have your sales people constantly spending time doing a manual task, like delivering basic product information, that could easily be automated

A perfect example of this is for this search: corporate training solution las vegas

If you take a look at the Raytheon ad, they dont really discuss any benefits of their product offering………but they must be #1 for a reason

When you get to the landing page, you see the typical mistakes (no information capture)  and no way for the customer to easy communicate their needs to the company, but the company is telling you how great they are at” aligning performance among employees, customers and partners” and you say to yourself……..”I just wanted to teach my employees about our new sales process”

Have you ever tired using direct marketing to ask your customers about their needs?  I bet it will work.

Just stop yelling at your customers!!!

If a PPC ad isn’t worth doing well, its not worth doing at all

…..almost.  OK, what the heck, these guys @ Pluck are about as close to having a proper lead generating campaign in place as we have seen in the sector.  So it seems that Pluck is the winner of this lead generation derby………….

PPC traffic is driven to this page -

The top half

…and the bottom half.

And low and behold, it has some form field captures to capture some prospect information in return for a free report on the six pillars of social networking.  Prospects can now be funnel through the system to be better qualified.  If you down load the report, Pluck may think you are worth talking to about your problem and how they can solve it.  If you don’t sign up, they won’t devote any expensive manpower to you.

The lights are on and someone is finally home!

While the copy could be a little less self serving and there are a few too many links on the page to distract the user from completing the assigned task of filling in the information form, it is light years ahead of what we have seen from other social media consultants we looked at today

My advice to them would to be hold off on establishing your operating history until you have engaged the reader by addressing his or her  problems.

But at least they get it.  They seem to know what to do with someone’s attention once they have it.

Finally!

Click on the numerals to read Parts I, II, III, IV & V of this Question of the Day

Here is another perfect example of advertisers attempting to cram brand advertising into the direct advertising model.

Say you happen to be a mom in Miami whose 13 year old son just came home with an F in math.  What is your first instinct beyond taking away their cellphone and PS3?  Maybe the kid needs some extra help or else he is never going to be able to support you in your old age.

So you do a fairly specific Google search – Miami Math Tutoring.

And what pay per click ads  does the magic Google machine pull up?  These (I’ve done some cropping of the organic search results as that isn’t focus here):

and these:

Let’s take a look at the ads, and remember why someone might be looking for tutoring services?

Do any of these ads actually address why a kid, you kid could be failing math?

Maybe your son sits at the back of the class, can’t see the board and all he needs is a pair of glasses?  Maybe he has hearing problems?  Maybe he is dyslexic? Maybe he is gifted and bored by the subject? Maybe he sits next to the cutest girl in the class and spends the entire class talking to her?  Maybe the math teacher wears low cut shirt that distract from the subject matter……..I’m going to extremes here to make a point

Or before you run out and hire a tutor, you might want to find out how a tutor can help.

None of these ads try to address this information void or even explain the benefits of tutoring.

Collectively, they attempt to sell on price (offering a discount), talk about their expertise, location or mention their services.  These thing all go towards brand.  They don’t really address your problem (and your son’s) that underlie your need for a tutoring service.

The landing pages for these ads also deserve an F, with Huntington Learning not even bothering to attempt to capture information…………YOU ARE PAYING FOR A TOP POSITION!!!

This is lead generation folks.  That means you want leads.  And you want to encourage people to become leads.  So don’t throw up a PPC ad with a phone number.  You want them to become part of your marketing program.  If all you are doing is throwing up a phone number, you are investing in a PPC advertising program for one shot at a customer…….ONE SHOT………you don’t have much of a hope for a return on your investment.  You need to build a database of interested contacts.

This mother may not call you for her 13 year old son, who in the end, just needed some glasses, but if you in some way, shape or form developed some trust with her, you may get a call from her when it turns out that her 17 year old can’t get that sports scholarship to university because he can’t do basic math.

Just a thought.  For 99% of companies, direct ads are about solving problems.  Not building brand.

In case you missed Part II of this series, I was dissecting a PPC ad from a company that promotes lead generation services.

so let’s see how good these companies are at generating leads.

Behind door #1 we have Five9.com with this wonderful landing page

Shall we have a look…………

So this is what you see when you land on this page on my lap top?

This doesn’t really look like its attempting to generate many leads does it?

Think about your experience as a user when you hit this page.

Now think about what the company’s goal is with this page?

I am assuming that they are attempting to sell their predictive dialer technology (ack!!! more cold calling!).  But how are they engaging the reader, especially if there is no place to start collecting user information and start building a database of prospective users.

Sure, I could be interested in calculating my ROI with their technology, but once I click on the image, then I am taken to a second page to capture my demographic information.  The problem with this is two fold:

1.) You are asking users to make a second click;
2.) You are manipulating the user into coughing up their info.  From the link on the first page, it looks like you are going to get some basic information about ROI for the product, not being sent to an information capture page.

This page builds up the user’s anticipation that they are about to see the impact of the technology on their business and then the user is asked to input his demographic information before being taken to the demonstration.

Asking users for information in exchange for information is fine.  What is important is the order in which you do things.

I am assuming that this company has done some testing to determine that they get better results by using a multipage registration process rather than just having the user register on the first page that they land on.   But it makes you wonder how many useful leads this page generates for the company.

Let’s take a look at the bottom of this page.

How many links is too many?

Another issue with this landing page in general is its lack of focus.  The user is given way to many links to click on the landing page (there are at least 20) that would interfere with the process of funneling the user to give up their contact information.  You are practically begging your customer to start surfing around your site rather than entering the sales qualification process

Additionally, this page presents 5 related, but seperate offers to the user on the same page in attempt to see if they can be slotted in to the firm’s sales funnel.

Again…….this is just too much activity on the page.  Each one of these offers should be on a seperate landing page.

Making It Better

How can this page be made better

1. Focus…….One Page One Offer.  Even if you have multiple offerings that all lead to the same end game, put them on different landing pages and attempt to use different keywords.  Different people buy in different ways, some may want a live example, some may want some written litterature, some may want a phone call, sorry, Free Consultation………..

2. Page Design – Get rid of all extra links.  Think about what the point of this page it.  It is to find someone who shows a bit of interest in what you sell.  At least enough to fill in some contact information.  That’s all.  You don’t need random surfers.

3. Get the information capture on the first page.  People have short attention spans.  You need to get what you want out of them fast.  Use your offering as bait for an information exchange, but do it properly.  Much like in mathematics, the order of operations matter.

I’d probably expect more from a company that was attempting to sell me on their lead generating products.