Yellow Pages In The Car - What were they thinking?

A client of mine was recently approached by their local gradually-becoming-less-enthusiastic Sensis rep, offering them a NEW advertising medium from Yellow Pages…. Yellow in the Car, an exciting and new form of the Yellow Pages which fits into a glove box…. Not a cupholder or console, apparently; just the glove box.

They were very excited about the prospect of upselling YP (and God knows, they need to), by offering this new directory listing for a very reasonable rate of 10% of the client’s Yellow Pages spend. 

Well, my client spends around $200,000 per annum on YP throughout Australia, so the thought of forking out $20,000 for a listing In The Car was probably not overly appealing.

But it does invite the question; Why would someone use Yellow Pages In The Car over something that is considerably less cumbersome and more dynamic, like, for instance, Sat Nav? Most Sat Navs have business listings, with contact details and addresses and with one push of a button, you can be directed to the business without having to look down at a book and plan the trip.

After a long, somewhat evasive discussion with a Sensis ‘product specialist’, we discovered the following key points:

It is only offered as a supplementary product to existing Yellow Pages suckers…. Er… valuable customers (note the use of ‘valuable’ as opposed to ‘valued’ is quite deliberate on my part). The listings are the same ad that appears in Yellow Pages, scaled down to fit in a 16cm x 20cm book.

The ads do contain map references, and there are maps at the back of the book. What the ad do not do, however, is guide you to the place you need to be, a la Sat Nav.

So, let’s look at a scenario…. You are driving home and your car starts running out of fuel. You need a service station, fast.

Option One – Use Yellow Pages In The Car

You pull over to the side of the road, rummage through your glove box, find the In The Car book, flick through to the index, find the Service Stations page, flick to that page, look up the listings until you find one nearby (if you know the area, then you could determine the closest by their address, but if you don’t know the area, then I guess you need to look up their map references)… you then need to either call them to find out how to get there, or flick to the back of the book and find them on the map, then plan your journey to them, discounting traffic conditions or changed routes since the book was published. Then you sit the book down beside you to refer to as you are driving, glancing down to the passenger seat every time you make a turn, hoping that you can remember exactly where on the map they are. Finally you arrive at your destination (perhaps) and put the book away (unless you then need to find your way back to where you were again) and continue on with your mission. Whew!!!

Option Two – Sat Nav

You pull over to the side of the road, press a button on your SatNav to find a business near you, select the type of business, press the listing closest to you, and drive there with the guidance of the Sat Nav. Then when you depart, press the appropriate button to pick your next destination, and drive off.

Option Three – Call 1234

You use your hands-free to call 1234, give them your location and ask for the nearest Service Station. Get connected to the station and ask for directions, or ask 1234 for directions from where you are. When you arrive, ask the Service Station how to get back to where you need to be

Option Four – Internet Connected Phone

Pull over to the side of the road, connect to the internet on your phone, look up Google Maps, type in Service Stations near you, find the closest one on the map, click on the Get Directions button, follow the instructions, arrive at your destination.

Option Five – Phone a Friend

Call a friend with an internet connection and ask them for directions.

Now, seriously, what on earth was Yellow Pages thinking?? Every other option is much easier (and safer) than using an In The Car book. 

I am yet to find a scenario that would REQUIRE you to use Yellow Pages In The Car over any of the options 2 through 5. Please, Sensis, if you know of one or two people who use the book for a reason other than a doorstop, road rage projectile or toilet paper, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Recession Marketing Tips - Do Not Go Quietly Into That Good Night

A recession has hit us - the only people who won't admit it are those who believe that if they don't mention the 'R' word, it doesn't exist - and whilst many businesses will risk failure, there are steps you can take to minimise the chances of that happening to you.

I had an inquiry recently from a business who was so close to bankruptcy, they wouldn't survive another two months of trading. They had been in business for decades, but the crisis had hit them hard, and their rationale was that they were failing because no-one wanted the types of services they offer (this was a Plumber!) and that most people were holding off on spending until the crisis was over... Absolute Rubbish!

They were failing because they were so scared of spending anything at all, they had tightened their belts to such a degree that they were not being found ANYWHERE! No Yellow Pages, no TV, no radio, no magazines or newspapers and no online presence of any kind. What makes it worse is that they had such a negative attitude (and probably rightly so, considering the circumstances) that any customers who DID want to do business with them were put off by the negativity.

This is not a rare event... I hear from many businesses every month who have no marketing strategy at all, simply because they have NO BUDGET to work with. So, what can they do, when it would seem on the face of it that, if they spent thousands on marketing, they would hit the wall that much faster and so much harder than if they did nothing? Could they recover in the 11th hour and survive the financial crisis?

Here's the solution. It's not rocket science. It's common sense.

'When there’s blood in the streets, buy real estate'.

So what has this got to do with marketing? Simple. In a crisis, many businesses panic and react by reigning in their spend, instead of finding the most effective advertising mediums and exploiting them to their maximum potential. They tighten their belts to such a degree that ANY chance they had of generating the revenue that would otherwise keep them afloat is lost to the businesses that snatch up those valuable parcels of marketing ‘real estate’. What is true in the real estate industry is true in online marketing – when everyone else panics and dumps their exposure to the outside world, that’s when you need to step in and become ‘Front of Mind’.

I often regale such panicky businesses with the story of a long-term client of mine who, when he heard about the panic in the US, started putting money aside for a rainy day. He took money out of various activities that were not generating much of a return and sat back and waited.

When the crisis hit Australia, instead of using those funds to provide minimal shelter for his company’s financial future, he invested it in an aggressive marketing strategy, saturating the market with his company branding.

That company became the ‘Front of Mind’ choice for prospective customers, because they were one of the only businesses in their industry to be found every single time someone searched for the products or services they offer. Their competitors had backed off, leaving the company to advertise to prospects in almost a monopoly environment.

Needless to say, in the toughest months that Australia has seen for decades, they had a 40% growth in revenue.

For those businesses that use the logic that they would only hit the wall harder and faster, here’s some food for thought – if you are going to hit the wall, it’s better to go out fighting than to just fade away. Fight for your market position… don’t give your competitors any quarter! Do not go gentle in to that good night (to quote Dylan Thomas)… rage, rage, against the dying of the light!

This post was written as general advice only, and does not take into account your unique circumstances. It is highly recommended that you seek independent, professional advice before acting on anything in this article.

Yellow Pages vs Google

Is YellowPages™ Dead?

Possibly not, but it is certainly gasping for breath and flapping around like a fish out of water.

In the 'old days', Yellow Pages was the leading advertising resource for small to medium enterprises, enjoying the lion's share of the market. Then came Google... within the space of a couple of years, Google started having a massive impact on the effectiveness of YP when 1) the number of internet users increased exponentially, and 2) they discovered it was far easier to search online than to flick through a book which only contained businesses that could afford the hefty upfront advertising costs.

As Google's popularity increased, advertisers started to realise that the internet was no longer a fad, and drifted towards search engines as a cost-effective and targetted way to advertise.

Yellow Pages started spinning into a downward spiral, despite their best attempts at convincing advertisers that it just ain't so. Using a highly respected market researcher and some clever statistical manipulation, YP has been trying to convince advertisers that it is still a force to be reckoned with, relying heavily on the popularity of Ninemsn - which has less than 10% of the Australian search engine market-share - to make up a large percentage of their data. Advertisers, however, are a cunning lot and saw through the smokescreen. Yellow Pages announced growth of around 8% last financial year, but this growth is directly proportional to the increase in up front advertising costs to business (minus the advertisers they have already lost). So, is Yellow Pages in such bad shape?

According to Alexa, a company that monitors global internet trends, absolutely. Yellow Pages Online has seen an incredible decline in the last few years, enough that if it were happening to you or me, we would be abandoning ship. The charts on the left, from Alexa, show the decrease over a 3 year timeframe. Meanwhile, the last chart shows the growth of Google, and Google's market share compared to Yellow Pages.

Admittedly, advertising in Yellow Pages is useful for some businesses types, such as tradespeople and those who deal with an older generation of customers. But, as with any form of advertising, if it doesn't work then vote with your dollars and try other mediums.

by Justin Hollow
Director, Hollowpoint Pty Ltd

Adwords Campaign Management Basics

1. Account structure

It is far better to run one campaign where possible (unless you have a specific need to only spend a certain amount per day on each type of business, have multiple businesses, want to split your campaigns geographically or want to run only one campaign in the content or search partner network). I will use the example of someone selling bikes, cars, and trucks. You can then split your keywords and ads up into Ad Groups (groups of keywords and ads that are closely associated with each other)

Campaign One
- Ad group Bikes
- Ad group Cars
- Ad group Trucks

This allows you to 'group' together keywords and produce ads which very closely match those keywords. For example, if you were selling bikes, cars and trucks, you would have 3 separate ad groups, with keywords related only to that ad group, more or less as follows:

Campaign One

- Ad Group Bikeskeywords: bikes, motorbikes, motorcycles, motor bikes, motor cycles
- Ad Text: Doug's Bike Sale - Come and see Doug's Bikes for the best deals on motor cycles. http://www.dougsbikes.com.au/


2. Ads

Then we can start creating new ads that specifically target people looking for bikes, making ads more user-friendly and appropriate, thus more likely to be clicked on. We can run multiple ads for the same keywords. We can create many ads, and have them either a) rotate/show up evenly or b) have the best performing ads show up the most often.

We will create two ads here:

Dougs Bike Sale
Come and see Doug's Motorcycles
for the best deals on Motor Bikes
www.dougsbikes.com.au

Doug's Bikes
For all your motorcycling needs
All in one easy to find location
www.dougsbikes.com.au

We can do this in order to test which ad a) is the cheapest to run because it has the best quality score (a testament to how well it matches the search criteria) and b) is the most clicked on, or has the best conversion rate. An ad that repeats the search term is going to have a better quality score than one that does not. Remember though that the key to an effective ad is to exactly match what someone is searching for, and deliver content relevant to the ad.
So, we now have an ad group, some keywords and some ads. Let's refine the keywords a bit.

3. Keywords

The problem Doug has is that because the search terms are 'broad match', they will trigger for anything that contains those terms. If someone were to search for 'kid falls off his bike movie', his ads would appear, because they trigger for the term Bike. So, there are two ways we can stop that from happening.

1. Use negative keywords - keywords which, if used in a search, stop your ad from showing, such as 'kids, push, pushbike, tricycle' and so on, and
2. Use phrase or exact match - match types which means that, in the case of phrase match, the search must contain a particular phrase in order to show up in searches. That phrase might be 'motor bike' or 'motor cycle'. If someone types 'cycle' without the 'motor', the ad will not appear.

4. The Keyword Tool

We now need to look at the search volume of those keywords. It is no point targetting specific keywords if there is not enough traffic to support it. We can use the keyword tool in adwords to look at the search volume for all associated keywords, plus the competition level (how many advertisers there are for a given search) then determine if those search terms are relevant for your business. For Doug, the search volume may look like this:

Keyword/Phrase Competition (no. advertisers) Volume (no of searches per month on avg.)

bikes very high 10,000
motorbikes medium 5,000
motorcycles very high 15,000
motor cycles medium 13,000

We can now see that the search term 'motorcycles' receives the most searches, but the competition is very high, so it makes sense to go after the term 'motor cycles' (with the space) because the search volume is also high, but the competition is lower, thus potentially cheaper to advertise. This tool is invaluable in setting up your campaign and should be used often, as search volumes change over time.

5. Bidding Strategy

Presuming that the campaign uses a bidding strategy of 'maximum cost per click', meaning that you bid for position by entering the maximum that you are willing to pay for a click on any given keyword search, then it is important to understand that this is an auction system, with a small but significant difference - quality score. Quality score is determined by Google, and the formula is not made public. They use a mathematical equation to determine if your ad can enter the bidding at a lower cost per click than a competitor. If your ad matches your keywords, and matches your website, then you probably will have a good quality score. So, the next thing is setting a max cost per click (how much you are prepared to pay to appear in the sponsored links). This is far too detailed to go into here, but you will need to consider a few things:

1. Do I need to appear in a certain position? For example, positions 1-3
2. How much am I prepared to pay to have one person visit my website?
3. What are my competitors prepared to pay?

As an example, the top 4 in the search for 'motor bikes' shows:

Position 1 - Fred Nurk's Motorbike Shop
Position 2 - Bill Buckleys Bike Bazar
Position 3 - Steves Cycle Repairs
Position 4 - Doug's Bikes

If Doug is paying $1 per click at the moment for Position 4, but he is receiving only a fraction of the click-thru's, he may want to increase his position. He raises his cost per click to $1.50, and gets into position 3, where he finds his click-thru rate is much higher (but so is his cost per click). It isn't using up his daily budget (we will tackle budget last) so he increases it to $1.60... and stays in position 3. He can guestimate that Bill Buckley is paying at least $1.60 max cpc (cost per click) so he increases his to $2.50... and achieves position 2! Now his click thru rate is a fraction higher. He decides he wants position 1, so increases his bid to $4, but Fred Nurk is still in this position. Doug realises that any more than $4 cost per click, and he would need a VERY high conversion rate of clicks to sales to ensure the ad makes money for him, so he elects to stay in position 2.

This is one of the most important things... that as a business you need to have an idea what a customer is worth to you, thus you need to know how many customers you would get if you received a certain number of visits to your website. If you sold a product worth $1,000, with a margin of $200, then you need to ensure your advertising is not going to chew up all of your profits. If you wanted to allocate 10% at most into customer acquisition, then if it takes 10 website visitors to equal 1 sale (on average) then 10 clicks must be cheaper than $20 in advertising. That means that 1 click must be less than $2 cost per click. So we now have an idea of the MOST you should bid for any given position. Doug has elected to pay more than that, because for him it is also about branding (being Front of Mind), and in order to be recognised, he must consistently be in a high position. So he apportions part of the cost per click to direct sales, and a portion to branding, thus meaning that he is paying a premium to ensure that he is remembered and thought of when people think motor bikes.

There is also which network to appear in to consider...

1. Google Search - this shows your ads in google. the most effective method by far
2. Content Network - this shows your ads on other people's websites who run ads and get paid by google to do so - much lower cost and also click thru rate
3. Search Partners - we don't use this at all...

So how much spend is enough?

6. Budget

There are so many schools of thought when it comes to budgets (some people will put their budget right up to get the most possible clicks, some people have a tight budget they have to stick to, most people are somewhere in between) but there is one fundamental truth - the number of searches being done in any given day for a given keyword are finite. It is no point having a budget of $1000 per day with a max cpc of $2, if there are only 100 searches being done in a given day. It is also pointless setting a budget of $10 per day with a max cpc of $1 if there are, say, 100,000 searches per day, as you would just not show up enough to be noticed at all. There is a balance, and it takes time, experience and patience to find this balance. A good rule of thumb though is to look at your click thru rate (the number of clicks you receive compared to the number of impressions it takes to get those clicks) and factor in the search volume. If there are 1000 searches per day, and you know your click-thru rate is 5%, then you know you could get around 200 clicks per day. You would then know that if the average cost per click is $2, you could spend around $400 per day as a maximum to show up most of the time. These figures will vary, but the key is to know your past performance and use this information to make the most of your account. Finally, you will need the ability to measure performance of your Adwords account, other referral sources and also the performance of the website itself. We recommend signing up for a Google Analytics account. We will cover analytics in another blog post.

Beginner's Guide to Websites

What is a website?

A website is a collection of web pages, joined by links between the pages, just as a group of pages in a book is joined by a Table of Contents. Websites can have any number of pages, from one page (commonly called a ‘home page’) to literally hundreds of thousands of pages. A website generally has one overall ‘theme’ or ‘template’ that gives the site it’s look and feel, then it usually has pages that contain different pieces of information, with titles that denote what the visitor would expect to find if they visited a particular page. For example, a website might have a page that contains a business's contact details. So, the web designer creates a ‘link’ to that page on all of the other pages, and titles the link ‘contact us’ so that when the visitor sees the link, they know that if they click on that link, they can expect to be taken to a page that contains contact details for the business.

A website has 3 major components – a web address (for example,www.yoursite.com),so that visitors can access it, a design so that it appeals to whomever the target audience is, and content (which can be text, images, media and so forth). A website may also have other features like a shopping cart where customers can place orders for products, a form so that visitors can send the owner their contact details, and even complex databases that allow visitors to customize the site to the way they like things to appear or to display the information they want to see, or have searched for.

A website can typically be broken down into two main categories – Static and Dynamic. Static websites usually don’t change very often. Content usually stays the same, and the look and feel of the website doesn’t change over time. Occasionally the website owner may want to update the information contained on the website, so he or she usually contacts their designer to make the necessary alterations.

Dynamic websites, on the other hand, can have content which changes based on time of the day, what a visitor chooses to look at, what the site owner decides to put on the website at any given time, and what products the visitor is searching for. The advantages of a dynamic website is that you can keep the visitor interested for longer, and you can display information that is the most sought after by the visitor. The downside is generally cost – Dynamic websites are usually a lot more expensive than what a static site would cost.

Why do I need a website?

Businesses have many reasons for wanting a website, including:
• Wanting to attract new business by accessing a larger marketplace
• Wanting to save time and money by allowing potential customers to window shop without having to physically attend their premises
• Selling their products and services online, thus reducing the cost of a sale
• Promoting a particular product, event or special, which can’t be promoted in other forms of media because other forms of media cannot be changed (such as print media).
• Because they are aware that their target market use the internet to shop, find information or just browse

There are almost as many reasons as there are websites. Research has shown that retail sales in Australia that were made by purchasing online with Visa Cards totalled $900 million last year. With over 16 million people going ‘online’ in Australia alone, it’s not surprising that many retailers want to make the most out of this highly valuable sales tool.

What is involved in setting up a website?

Firstly, you need a domain name. A domain name translates a number that identifies where the website is stored into a name that people can remember. A website may be stored on a computer that is identified as 283.389.222.289, but a visitor couldn’t possibly remember that, so the business leases a domain name – they may choose something like goldwidgets.com if they just happen to sell gold widgets. So then, 283.389.222.289 = goldwidgets.com and when someone types in goldwidgets.com , their computer says ‘Ahh… you mean 283.389.222.289’ and takes them to the correct website.

There are a range of domain ‘extensions’ to choose from, but the most popular in Australia is .com.au. This means that the website is a commercial website (.com) in Australia (.au). The website owner may not want to state they are in Australia, so he or she may just choose a domain ending in .com which is very popular in the United States.

Once a business has a domain name, they need a design. A design could be as simple as the colour of the text and the background, or as complex as animated images, logos and themes that visitors associate with that business or industry. Design is generally undertaken by a graphic designer or website designer.

Once you have a design that you are happy with, you can then have your pages made up. This involves the business supplying the designer with either specific or general information, and the designer organizing this information into web pages.

Generally speaking, you pay for each page that is created, whereas the design costs are usually calculated by time or a flat rate.

After the pages have been created and any additional components are added (lets keep it simple and not talk about that just yet), then a website needs to be stored somewhere, otherwise no one can access it. It is NOT a good idea to try and store a website on your computer, as you need for other people to access it. This is not secure, and besides, it takes a large amount of resources (such as computer power and telephone lines) to allow many people access to your website at the same time. So, most businesses have hosting for their websites. These are computers located in secure facilities that have many websites on them. Their connections are fast and they can store much more information than a standard home computer. They are also managed, so the business owner doesn’t need to fix any problems that may occur. The computer that stores the information has an identification number that helps other computers find the website. This is called an IP address. We covered this earlier.

Once the hosting has been set up, and the website uploaded (this is usually done by the designer), then you need to ‘point the domain name to the IP address’. There is a registry of different IP addresses and their corresponding domain names. It is necessary to make changes to the domain name’s registration details so that the registry knows where the information is being held for that particular domain’s website. It is actually more complicated than that, but let’s keep it simple.

After all this has been done, your website is online! Other people around the world can see your website! BUT, can they find it without knowing the web address (domain name) ? Luckily, there are ways to make this happen without sending the entire population of the world a business card or brochure.

How do people find me?

If you don’t advertise your web address (domain name) in print, or on tv, radio, a newspaper or other form of media, then your visitors just won’t know where to look. You can tell people where your website is by getting listed in search engines, other business’ websites, in topical directories, in forums, or even in blogs (web logs – one of the latest crazes to sweep the internet). The most popular way to be found though is through getting listed in Search Engines.
A search engine is a massive database that stores information on websites. This information can be accessed by a visitor to the search engine typing in what they are looking for. An example might be a visitor who is looking for a pair of shoes in Brisbane. They might type in ‘shoes brisbane’ or ‘high heel shoes in brisbane’ or something similar. Then the search engine goes through it’s massive database and displays a list of sites that might be appropriate. I should emphasise ‘might be appropriate’ as the results are not always accurate. It is up to the business to word their text on their website well enough that a search engine can read it and determine how suitable it is against what the visitor has searched for.

A search engine will generally display a list of websites that contains basic information on each site, such as the domain name, the title of the site, and usually a paragraph or less of text from the site. The search engine will also create a link to the site so that a visitor can click on the link and be taken to the website.

Because of the vast amount of websites on the internet, and the number of searches performed every second of every hour of every day, search engines can’t possibly keep up with so much traffic, so what they do is this – they cheat by ‘caching’ results. Ahead of time, they search literally millions of websites, and determine what the website relates to. They ‘spider’ the site and look for keywords – words that relate to what the website is all about. Once they have ‘spidered’ a website, the search engine takes note of the web address, page titles and some of the content, along with the keywords, and places it all in a database, so that when someone searches using certain keywords, the only thing the search engine needs to do is display every site that contains those keywords that are already in the database. Unfortunately it can take 6-8 weeks to get a site ‘spidered’ and the details entered into the database – the ‘spider’ is an automated piece of software, but with millions upon millions of websites, it really has it’s work cut out!
Search engines also rank the pages by their relevance to the search terms. An example might be if there are two websites, each selling shoes, but one is located in Brisbane and the other on the Sunshine Coast. If a visitor searches for ‘shoes in brisbane’ the website in Brisbane is more likely to come up first in the list. BUT, this is not always the case, as the job of a Search Engine Optimisation company is to get their clients listing higher than other websites, and they know all the little tricks that help make that happen.

There are other ways to be found on the internet, such as paying to appear on other people’s websites, listing in directories, and even, and this is a very popular method to use, paying a search engine to display an ad, rather than just rely on where that search engine will place you in their normal listings.

This type of advertising is known as Cost Per Click, or Pay Per Click, or Sponsored Links, and is a reasonably low cost way of being found easily. Search Engines such as Google will display ads (called Adwords) at the top and down the right hand side of any page with search results in it. The Adwords are triggered by whatever keywords the website owner thinks will benefit them. If they sell shoes, then the most obvious is ‘shoes’ but then they might want to have derivatives of this, and also location. So, when a search engine visitor types ‘shoes in brisbane’ into a search engine, as well as displaying the normal results, Google will display brief ads from businesses that have paid to be on that page. The reason why it is such a low cost way to advertise is that the business doesn’t actually pay to have the adword displayed – they only pay if someone actually clicks on their ad and visits their website! The ad could be displayed 1,000 times before someone clicks on it, and the business only pays for that one click. They could, theoretically, pay as little as $0.01 to be seen 1,000 times if one person clicks on the ad. Hence the term Cost or Pay Per Click. This system can be set up by a web designer who takes a portion of the advertising budget, or charges a fixed rate. The business owner can determine what they are willing to pay at the most for a click to their website, and how much they are willing to spend per day. A maximum cost per click of $1 and a daily budget of $10 would mean that at the worst, the business would receive 10 visitors for $10. However, it can happen that there are not many advertisers who want that keyword, so, working on a bidding system, whoever bids the highest gets best position. An ad might get displayed in position 7, but only cost $0.09 per click through, but if the ad showed up in position 1 it might cost $1.00 per click through. It is very important to seek out a Qualified Google Adwords Professional to assist you in making the most out of this very lucrative program.