Josh Kerbel

He ran out to the lot and climbed into his rig
And drove off without tightening down
It was a terrible thing
To see what remained of the rig that poor Danny was in
- Truck Stop Girl – Little Feat

So say you’ve gone, smashed up your ride and now you need to get some repair work done…..in Tulsa……….cuz dat be where ya live!

Considering you don’t know much about collision repair since you are Doctor of Veterinary medicine and you are pretty sure you can’t fix your car like you can a sick horse,  after the tow truck driver drops you off at home, you perambulate (that means walk) over to the computer and do a quick search for repair shops for collision repair shops in Tulsa…maybe like this………”collision repair tulsa oklahoma”

Now, let’s take a step back for a minute to really get ourselves into the head space of someone who just trashed their car.   In addition to being a big ticket, this is also an non-routine transaction for most people (unless you drive NASCAR on the weekends), so there are going to be lots of questions (costs, insurance, warranty, reliability, resale etc) and trust issues on the part of prospects.  That means it’s an excellent opportunity for companies in the collision repair space to use the Internet to develop some trust by answering some of these questions and get some customer contact information in the process.

If you happen to run a collision shop, think of all the questions you answer with each new customer.  I am willing to bet my last Fram Oil Filter that 70% of customers ask the same questions over and over and over again.  I am also willing to wager that once you answer these questions properly, you find the customers start to trust you a bit……..so let’s see if we can save you some time while pulling in new prospects to your shop.

So looking at the PPC ads, do you see any that might even indicate to prospects that you can help them answer their pre purchase questions (otherwise known as research).  Here are the ads?  Do any make you want to respond.  Remember the Internet is a direct response medium.  Your goal is to get people to respond to you.  To raise their hands and say “Dude, I just trashed my car!!!!”

Well, since we aren’t sitting in a classroom at the moment and no one has developed reliable ESP technology yet (I would probably be in jail already for thought crimes if they had).  How do you tell if someone has raised their hand (I’m actually sitting here naked with both my hands up, but you can’t see).  So how do you do this?……..

…………….

Give up?

You do it by getting someone to give you an email address.  This requires a somewhat inspiring PPC ad.  Look at those ads above?  Do any of them look inspiring?  Do any of them say “Ya, man I know you smashed up your ride.  Here is what you need to know before you get it fixed.”

In fact, if I was writing these ads, here is what I would write:

This ad would then link to a landing page where I would offer the free guide book in exchange for contact information.   This guide book would answer all the typical questions that you usually answer during your first meeting with the client.  This builds trust and saves you time because you have voluntarily educated the prospect before hand.   I would then follow up with the person via email with helpful tips and phone call to find out about the accident.  Obviously, this is a quick conversion set up.  Most people don’t let their cars sit broken for too long, but you get the idea.

So let’s see how our shops in the Tulsa market handle the post click process.  Do any of them attempt to actively capture prospects?  (click to blow up the image)

I’ve thrown the landing pages in to one big collage, but as you can see none of them bother to use their websites to build a relationship….they all just scream……….BUY BUY BUY while people who look at the website just say BYE BYE BYE…. not a single one of them attempts to build a relationship with prospects.  They all just brag about their work, or how long they have been in business.

They all completely ignore the fact that most people have questions that need answering and on the Internet, the best way to turn prospects into customers is by answering questions, not by having your name posted on zillion useless directory sites.

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.

Kinda like this.

This is an email asking me if I want to put some advertising on a site that I run.

No big deal, right?

Wrong!!!!

Read the email.   It’s not worth the electrons it was written with.  I actually feel bad for the client who is paying for this work.  You know why?

Its boiler plate garbage.

How can I tell?

Well, first of all there is no addressee on the email, so they didn’t bother to research who to actually talk to about this query.

Second of all, they are asking to put a paid ad on one of my e-commerce sites.  Had they taken 4 1/2 minutes to look at the URL, they would clearly be able to tell that I would not put an ad on that site.  It’s a branded e-commerce site, not a content site.  Why should they know this?  Because it is their business to know how to differentiate between the two.

I wonder how much time and money they wasted sending out these emails………….

Spam email courtesy…..More Digital………….where we know how to waste More client  Money.

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.

…..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

More of the same with these three characters

Brandmovers, Archrival (Dude, you sent me to your Facebook page………..ACK!!!)  & Eric Harr (Your landing page makes it sound like I should know you already?  Do I?)

Just a total lack of thought went into building these PPC campaigns.  The landing pages are show absolutely no thought in how to generate a return on investment as none of them deploy any robust strategy to harvest leads.  In fact, all they want to do is tell YOU about THEM.  You are not the solution to my social media problems, your skill set maybe.  How about giving me a little taste of you skills in action………

Direct marketing is not about you……..it’s about your customer.  And before you start telling your customer about how wonderful YOU are, you had better figure out a way to build some rapport before I start parting with my money.

How to fix this……….

Try a real landing page and go from there………..

Holy shit………someone should let good people at Constant Contact know that their landing page was hacked

Look:

……oh wait, it’s supposed to look like this.

I see, your page designers  forgot to take their meds before going to work on this page……I guess that would explain all the distracting information on the page.

So, if we removed 99% of the links on the page, removed the self serving copy about some recent acquisition of SquirrelNut, Nutmail, Wingnut,  NutNut or what ever silly company they just bought, put up a form field capture between the user and the “Getting Started With Social Media” download, you would have a well designed landing page.

Instead some designer vomited all over the page and didn’t even bother to exchange one item of value (the download) for another, the user’s contact information.  Constant Contact is practically giving away money here as the PDF download really does target the social media neophyte and answers a good number of questions.  They just need to use this asset properly to build another asset……………the database!!!

It is obvious that corporate resources were devoted to creating this page.  The least you could do is set it up properly so that it generates a return on investment by building up the firm’s prospect database

Again, a perfect example of a company that should know better confusing brand advertising with direct marketing.

My value added advice…………………

Practically every item on that page could be broken up into its own landing page with specific keyword and PPC ad.  You should be working the hell out of the PDF.

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.

I’m not the only person out there who thinks the Internet is the greatest direct marketing channel ever developed.  I suspect every Google shareholder and employee may think so as well.   Its how they generate all their revenue.

But the question is, does Google make profits because people understand the concept of direct marketing and how to execute direct marketing campaigns properly or do they take advantage of most people’s willingness to blow piles of money in their ignorance of the basics of direct marketing.  I think the jury is still out.

Let me explain.  The whole point of direct marketing is to customize a message specifically for your target market (yes, defining your target market takes some research, but that is not the point here) and then deliver it to them.

You obviously have to create your own message and define your target market, but Google, Bing, Yahoo and other numerous ad networks lets you zero in on your target market through the use of keywords.  They deliver readers, your  job is to skim off the prospects and turn them in to customers.

See this is the difference between Brand vs Direct marketing……….brand advertising emphasizes  a company’s name, its logo, its philosophy, it  really doesn’t get in to specifics (I love when small businesses talk about silly things like branding themselves……………NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR BRAND).  Direct marketing is directed at someone specific with the purpose of eliciting a specific response.  And chances are that someone specific is looking to satisfy a specific want or need.   And the probably don’t care about all the  awards your product has won, your years in business, if you are the top producer in your office.  I could go on, but I think you get the point.

To steal from Freud, you need to talk to your prospect’s Id.  Direct marketing is all about the id.

Yet, you still see:

• Silly PPC ads that try to develop or reinforce a brand image (whether or not its a real brand image or just something that you think exists.)
• PPC ads that really don’t address what the user was searching for.  Who ever set up the ad program was sloppy, lazy or well, just useless.  If your PPC ad does attempt to answer a question in a users head, it is just a waste of money.

If you don’t believe me, let’s do a search, a fairly specific search term that should give a marketer a fair shot at understanding what is going through my mind when I punch in my keywords

- first time home buyer chicago -

Thats pretty specific.  Now let’s see what we bring up on all three search engines

On Google, there are 9 first page ads – only 2 of them – the one from Lowes and Century 21 put forth any real effort to attempt to connect with the mind of a first time home buyer.

Here is the page:

7 of these ads are just a complete waste of time and money.  Either the ad manager is lazy or stupid.

Think about what is going on.  You have a first time home buyer and someone thought it was a good idea to pitch these people on financing when they may not even know the basics of home ownership.

Direct marketing is about providing solutions to problems.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that the Lowes or Century21 landing pages are well designed, because they aren’t but that’s not the point of this discussion.  The point is to look at direct vs brand advertising.

Let’s take a close look at the two good ads

Both the Lowes and Century21 ad offer something to the user right off the bat………..information that may solve their problems.  They aren’t trying to sell you on cheap money or anything else for that matter.  They are attempting to fill an information void as a way of getting you to click through to their landing pages.

That is direct marketing.  It speaks to a certain segment of the market.  In this case, the segment of the market that wants to buy a house for the first time.

Now let’s see what’s doing at Yahoo

Again we see the Lowes ad, but nothing really targeting the first time home buyer in Chicago………..you think maybe a real estate agent would throw an ad up here with a free guide on buying a home.

You would think……..

Bada Boom Bada Bing…………..Nothing………take a look

Except for one or two………..the Rocket Lawyer add promotes a free home purchase worksheet……….maybe something a new home buyer could use.

Thedumbquestion.com ad isn’t too bad either

So how many PPC ads did we see across three major engines?  How many were worth the electrons used to produce them?

Very few people attempted to even craft a message to this target market.  Hell, even misguided attempts at branding were dismal.

A sad show all around, but I think you get the message about Brand vs Direct marketing………..its all about ID!

This time……….let’s take a look at another business service…………recruiting.

Say you are looking to hire a recruiter to build your sales team.  How would you do it?

Well you might do a Google search for – hire a sales recruiter.

That’s how  I would do it

I localized this search to the US.  In fact, let’s get more specific……..Hire a Sales Recruiter in Los Angeles

And Google says………

I cropped the image so we can focus on the PPC ads to  focus on the copy that gets us to the landing pages

The first three PPC ads are absolute garbage.  I need a sales recruiter in Los Angeles.  One of them even asks me if I want to apply for a job.

Let’s look at the 4th ad on the page.  It uses some good language.  It at least attempts to understand the mindset of someone who is looking to hire another person…………how do i avoid making a mistake during the hiring process…hiring the wrong person is always a mistake.

Let’s take a look at the landing page.

Top half of the page that appears in my browser

The Good

- The user gets taken to a special page with a report that attempts to address the problem highlighted in the PPC ad.  It even gives you the option to down load the report.

- The page designer installed some tracking software so page performance can be tracked.

The Bad

- There are still too many links on the page that can distract the user from reading the report on the page.

The Ugly

- I am assuming this company is looking to use the page to generate some sales leads.  The problem with this page is twofold.

The request for contact information is at the bottom of a very long page (see the image)

After reading this “report” the user may be less than motivated to hand over their contact information as they have already gotten their free report.

Layout aside, this page has all the components of a proper lead generation system in place, its just a matter of putting them in the right order.

The Fix

• Move the contact information capture to the top of the page and make the reader exchange their contact information for the special report.  Rework the copy on the page to explain to the user the reason they should surrender their personal info in exchange for this report;
• Remove all the extraneous links.

Thoughts?