Ad Words - Is it any good??? B2B adverts

[CSS - Employee Surveys]

Hello

As the title suggests, is google Adwords worth doing to gain business from businesses?

We have set up a employee survey company but we have limited cash to spend and would like to know if any of you experienced business people think that Adwords would work for our company.

If you do, how much do people pay to advertise?

and if not what would be the best way to reach businesses in the UK without shelling out a wad of cash ??

hope you can help me

Thanks

 

[movietub]

Hi,

We have used Ad Words for about 5 years now - and quite simply have built a business that just wasn't possible before such targeted advertising existed.

We sell large commercial water features and exhibition displays, because its such a niche market blanket advertising, magazines and such like would have been ineffective.

The biggest strength of Ad Words is you can be very specific in your search terms and geographical area. For example we target London (on the basis the ads cost the same but a design company based in London is likely to handle bigger budget projects the world over than one based in Bradford) so if you type 'water feature' our advert doesn't show. I don't want to pay for people looking to buy a £100 garden pebble pool to our site. But if you type in 'Large water wall' or contemporary architectural water features' we do show.

In other words the CPC is largely irrelevant, as no one finds our advert unless they want the exact type of product/service we can provide. This is very important. Equally because what we do is so specialised it is unlikely that anyone looking seriously will not make contact once they have found us.

Our average budget is £100 p/m which brings in a few enquiries a week. Conversion rate from this point is about 1/5 for us. If we are busy we turn the ads off, if we want double the workload we double the budget.

Possibly the best thing about Ad Words for us is that the budget directly corresponds to the number of enquiries we receive - therefore it is possible to speed up or slow down our business as we wish. Previously no form of advertising was so instant or so tune-able.

We are in a sense the perfect business model to benefit from Ad Words but many businesses will see the same benefits.

I think you need to outline your business and what you do. Also the type of business you need to attract. With that info it will be much easier to say if Ad Words is for you.

The good news is most businesses that don;t benefit from Ad Words will be better suited to B2B directories such as Kelly Search.

So what is it you do??

 

[CSS - Employee Surveys]

Thanks for your post

We are currently trying to promote and sell our service of Employee Satisfaction surveys, we are targeting small to medium size businesses who would require our help to check the 'pulse' of their employee perceptions and we offer an action planning section where we offer professional advice on ways to improve employee morale and perceptions aswel as ways to improve business efficiency

Do you think I should give adwords a try? or do you have any suggestions on the best form of advertising?

thanks again

 

[movietub]

It sounds like something specific enough to certainly try Ad Words. You need to sign up anyway and put a campaign together. Ad Words will normally be able to give some CPC and traffic estimates before going live. My method is to design a campaign, set a high budget (£1000 p/m) and then run it for just half a day. This gives me plenty of clicks (and only costs 1/60th of the £1000 of course!) from which to judge what keywords people are clicking - and work out why. Often it becomes clear that people are typing a keyword and clicking through despite my site not offering what they want. Refining keywords early on can save large amounts of money later on.

In your example you should create a specific set of pages that sell the service you are currently pushing, including an 'action plan wizard' and link the Adword ads directly to these pages.

Remember that this is the highest form of targeted advertising, its not passive. What this means is that the person viewing and clicking on your advert is not casually browsing, they are looking for precisely what you offer. Therefore its important to keep them traveling that journey once they click through.

Their first goal is achieved when they find your ad, their second goal is achieved when you successfully educate them as to their exact needs and why they should buy from you. Then if your price is right the final goal is achieved for both parties - you get £££ they get what they were searching for in the first place!

In essence tune a campaign so it will only appear and/or appeal to those looking for the exact service you are setup to provide. Then make sure they go to the relevant area of your website. If this chain is well put together (and your service is competitive and well explained) your conversions will be high.

 

[movietub]

Just out of interest - if I told you that Ad Words would definately make the phone ring with enquiries for this service what would you estimate the value of each enquirey was?

For example if you typically make an GP of £500 per successful sale of the service and for each ten calls you signed up one business a break even worth of the call would be £50. More realistically you would be willing to pay £5-10 advertising per call.

What would be the value you place on each extra call you receive?

I ask because I'm interested in selling Ad Words campaign management services. Most peoples I have looked at waste over £100 p/m attracting clicks for something they don't even sell...

I'm not fishing to sell you anything by the way - just an idea for the future possibly.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Thanks for your post

We are currently trying to promote and sell our service of Employee Satisfaction surveys, we are targeting small to medium size businesses who would require our help to check the 'pulse' of their employee perceptions and we offer an action planning section where we offer professional advice on ways to improve employee morale and perceptions aswel as ways to improve business efficiency

Do you think I should give adwords a try? or do you have any suggestions on the best form of advertising?

Adwords is good at selling a solution to people looking for a solution.

Are people looking for providers of Employee Satisfaction surveys?

If not, do these surveys solve a problem people are looking to solve? If so, what do they type into google when they're looking?

These are the sorts of questions you should be asking yourself if you're thinking about adwords. Sometimes you'll realise that your marketing has to be more pro-active, rather than reactive like adwords.

(and sometimes you realise no-one actually cares about what you're selling, but that's another story!)

Hope this helps,

Steve

 

[movietub]

Adwords is good at selling a solution to people looking for a solution.

Are people looking for providers of Employee Satisfaction surveys?

Whilst this is a good question to ask before packaging any service it once again reinforces the importance of a well targeted campaign. If no one is looking for what you are trying to sell then your campaign receives next to no clicks and you have not wasted money on advertising.

Thats the real benefit of ad words. It won't guarantee sales but if used properly it will guarantee you don't waste wads of money advertising something that no one requires. Hence the campaign must be well thought out (role play if needed) to ensure its not a money waster.