Be found – Search engine marketing

Search Engine Marketing

We have deliberately titled this section "Search Engine Marketing" and not Pay Per Click (PPC) or Google Adwords, as there is far more to this than just building successful Google Ad-words campaigns.

Our methodology

• Step 1 - We work with you to identify the objectives of the activity, are you wanting to make sales, develop brand recognition or meet a specific sales margin. It's important that we learn about you, your market and your main competitors. Based on this we can advise on the best channels to research and which activities are likely to be the most effective.

• Step 2 - We draft a "Seed Keyword" list to start our research from. Using a collection of public tools and tolls we have developed ourselves we research thousands of keywords on Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search platforms and score them using our special algorithm. From this we can select keywords based on local search volumes, likely cost per click and current competition.

• Step 3 - We build compelling campaigns, using a combination of industry best practice and advanced (ethical) coding techniques. Campaigns can be targeted by city, time of day, country or even just as single websites like amazon.com.

• Step 4 - Working with your web team we build dedicated landing pages for your ads. Tailoring your landing content reduces your average cost per click (CPC) and should place the visitor near the action or purchase point. It also needs to have sufficient reference information in order to support the purchasing decision.

• Step 5 - Measurement is vital. Not just the inputs and output but also every stage in- between. Using this we can build up a picture of how "clickers" are moving through our campaign and make adjustments and decisions based on real data and not supposition.

• Step 6 - Campaign tuning takes your measured data and compares it with the business goals we set in Step 1. We can adjust bidding strategies, keywords, Campaign structure and the landing content to get closer to the business goals.

Getting you started
We have heard stories of agencies charging astronomical fees for setting up test campaigns when it is often not necessary to test market. We offer simple and pragmatic advice on which platforms to consider (Google, Yahoo, Facebook etc) and how to create an account and build your first SEM campaigns. We can cover anything from a completely managed campaign with a dedicated campaign management team down to just advice and mentoring when you feel you need it...

Developing your existing campaigns
Having a "fresh pair of eyes" look over your campaigns, can often identify very quickly where improvements can be made or if a something is just not worth investing in. This is easy if you have the experience of working with dozens of campaigns across different segments of the market. But often very difficult if you are working in the isolation of a single product in a single territory. Questions to ask are: 'Is this as good as it can be?' or 'Am I paying way more than my competitors for the same results?'

Looking for new opportunities
SEM offers you the unique ability to offer many different prepositions for the same product simultaneously. What's more it delivers very fast feedback on what searches and purchasers find attractive.
Is it price, a specific feature or just the fact you have it for next day delivery? All of this can be fed back into your off-line activities to improve their effectiveness.

Understanding the competition
Looking at what's working for the competition and how much they are paying - can give you an insight into their fitness for business and their effectiveness.
Track this over time and you can develop strategies to avoid them where you are weak and dominate them where you have the competitive advantage.

Summary
Whatever your marketing requirements, Spice can deliver the results for a lot less than you might think, allowing for a clear return on your marketing investment.