Pay Per Click Ads Bring New Source of Revenue to Postcard Power
Background
Postcard Power offers comprehensive writing, design, print and direct mail services that help businesses generate results and profits. They have launched direct marketing campaigns for a variety of businesses including medical practices, doctors, lawyers, colleges and universities.
Challenge
Postcard Power, while generating impressive revenues through sales channels, referrals and repeat business, wanted to expand their growth by utilizing the internet. They realized they needed to market their website through online channels or risk missing out on many potentially lucrative business opportunities.
Postcard Power's first venture into the online world came through participation in a low budget pay per click campaign with the LinkShare corporation. They decided to add some keywords to their campaign and budget about $500 per month toward clicks. However, their staff, while experts in direct marketing, knew very little about marketing in cyberspace. The campaign got very few clicks and there was no way to determine if the $500 they were spending each month was actually bringing in any leads. With their staff stretched thin, the small pay per click campaign was left unmonitored and eventually became just another expense that brought little results.
Still wanting to expand their growth through internet channels, Postcard Power decided to try again, but this time they decided they'd need help.
Solution
Out sourcing the project seemed the best way to see if the internet really offered a lucrative market they could tap without the expense of hiring additional staff. After researching several internet marketing providers, Postcard Power settled on EZSolution Corp., a local web design and web marketing company, to handle their new internet marketing venture.
After consulting with EZSolution Corp., Postcard Power realized they had been on the right track when they had decided to run a pay per click campaign in the past. However, their past pay per click campaign had not been carefully monitored and tailored to provide immediate, measurable results. This time, with the help of experts in the field, Postcard Power would launch a brand new pay per click campaign that would allow them to test ad copy, keywords and website copy without a huge investment of time or effort.
First it was determined that Postcard Power's goal was to develop new business in three key areas: the health care industry, colleges and universities and the general direct marketing industry. Through keyword research and suggestions from Postcard Power's staff, EZSolution came up with a list of keywords to target.
Next, Postcard Power's design staff created three separate landing pages on their website, one for each of the industries they had decided to target. This allowed them to 'speak the language' of potential leads and only present services that were relevant to businesses in each focus industry. Finally, EZSolution worked with Postcard Power to write the ad copy that would appear in the search engines and to setup a tracking system to track the pay per click ads.
The first pay per click campaign was setup using Google Adwords. Google Adwords was chosen because it offered greater flexibility - multiple ads could be used and changes could be made within minutes without lengthy editorial approval. A modest monthly budget of $1500 was set and the campaign was launched.
Results
Results came in quickly. Within the first two weeks Postcard Power had acquired 6 new leads as a result of the pay per click ads. The landing pages, which contained an online form, had picked up 4 of the leads. Two additional leads came from phone calls that directly referenced the landing pages.
The first month of the pay per click campaign brought in a total of 9 leads from online sign ups and many phone calls. Postcard Power estimated that for every online form that was filled out, two businesses actually called them directly.
After the first month, EZSolution suggested cutting out some of their under performing keywords and spending more money on the keywords that had generated leads the previous month. Encouraged with the results thus far, Postcard Power also decided to raise their budget to $2000 for the next month's campaign. The result? The second month of the campaign brought in 21 new online leads and an estimated 40 telephone leads.
Over the course of the two month campaign, Postcard Power reported over $40,000 in new business that was a direct result of their pay per click campaign.
What's Next
As a result of their early success, Postcard Power is now preparing to expand their pay per click campaign to include ads in other industries including pools and spas, dentists, and cosmetic surgeons. EZSolution continues to monitor their results, test new ads, and offer advice to continue Postcard Power's growth on the internet.
Advice
While the success of Postcard Power's pay per click campaign is amazing on its surface there are several key factors that contributed to that success. Postcard Power advises others that are considering pay per click advertising to keep the following key points in mind:
- Work with professionals in the industry to save time and money.
- Know what your goals are. The key to a successful pay per click campaign is focus.
- Set a realistic budget.
- Choose your keywords wisely.
- Test, test, test.
- Create separate landing pages so that you are talking to your target audience effectively.
- Track your results.
- Gradually add additional keywords to your campaign to continue expanding your reach.
More Information
For more information about to implement a Pay Per Click marketing program for your business, please contact Tom Malesic, President of EZSolution, at 717.291.4689
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