By Taylor Tuomie
In an ideal world, the effect of any piece of advertising that a business produces is measurable. No matter the form it takes, we want to know the effect that it has on our business. For example, if you were to send out 1,000 postcards in your area with a promo for snow removal services, you would want to know how much new business was generated from those mailers.
One of the problems with traditional forms of advertising is that it isn’t always measurable. Someone might have known about your company prior to you sending out those postcards, they may have heard about your business through a friend. So how are you supposed to measure the effect of your promo on that potential new customers?
Additionally, traditional advertising can be very expensive. Even though you aren’t planning on producing the next Super Bowl commercial, advertising isn’t cheap. If you’re looking into radio advertising, an ad that runs regularly for a week can cost anywhere from around $500 to $8,000 depending on what area you are in and how frequently it will be played. And again, how do you know for sure a sale can be attributed to that ad? Newspaper ads might be an option, but not every potential customer is going to be sitting down with their local paper every day. Truck wraps can look great and can be effective, but how much can you spend on some sweet graphics?
There is a way that we can advertise and know exactly where a new lead is generated AND it doesn’t have to break the bank. With online Pay-Per-Click ads, we go from a model where you cast a wide net and hope that you catch a couple customers, to a model that allows you to choose specific people to market to. Here are five reasons why Google AdWords is a great option for advertising your green industry business.
Ease of Use
AdWords is fairly simple to set up and to start running quickly. Google provides free training on the platform and has a huge amount of information on best practices for anybody using it. Once you set up an account, create a campaign, and a few ads, it can be pretty autonomous. You can easily see which of your ads are performing the best and you can change where, when, and how your ads are being shown. Google has even created an Express version of AdWords which is designed for the first-time user or smaller businesses. It automatically optimizes how your ads are delivered, what ads perform the best, and will integrate with other Google services, like Maps and My Business.
Measurability
There are a few different methods of creating and showing ads in AdWords, but generally speaking, your ads are entered into an auction. Say you create an ad for your irrigation business for a special you’ll be running in the next month for winterization services. Google will assign a quality score to your ad (this is based on what people are searching for and your ad’s relevance) and will then factor in the max amount that you are willing to pay for your ad to be shown.
If your ad gets shown in the search results, a user clicks on your ad, then is brought to your site. Google is able to tell you which ad was shown that led to a click and then it is able to tell you whether or not that user filled out a form, requested more info, or even called your company through a call extension.
Find Customers in your Area
Odds are that if a customer is searching for terms like “irrigation services near me” or “lawn maintenance company in insert your location here” they are looking for something local. For many business owners, a large worry about their advertising efforts is that they are wasting dollars on people they know won’t buy. AdWords helps you drill down your specific location. You can filter to certain towns or even create a radius for where your ad is going to be shown. Google is able to tell where a user is searching from, making sure you aren’t spending money for clicks outside of the territory that you work in.
Flexibility
AdWords has multiple bidding, billing, and targeting methods. It also is flexible on what kind of customers you are looking to reach. Google is able to get a general idea of the demographics that you are attempting to reach based on interests, age, and device type. You are able to allocate more of your budget to certain parts of the day or even use what they call enhanced bidding to acquire clicks from customers they have identified as more likely to buy. You can start, stop, or pause the ads that you have created at any point in time, too. This is a benefit that is pretty unique to Pay-Per-Click advertising.
Pay-Per-Click
This means that you are only paying when a person clicks on your ad(as you might have guessed). The reason why this is a benefit is that, for the most part, you are only receiving clicks from people that are interested in your ad. As long as your headline, body, and display URL are clear and attractive, people are only going to click on your ad if it is something they are needing or searching for. Additionally, Google also has made it very easy for people searching on their phones to call your business right out of their search. One study said that 51% of mobile searchers needed to call a business right out of their search! Think of what that might mean for your green industry business. A potential customer searches for a service in their area, you have an ad with a call extension (your clickable phone number), it gets shown on their smartphone, and they call you with what is most likely an immediate need.
Google does a great job in providing training and support for AdWords. If you want to go an extra step further, you can even take their free courses and get certified! They do provide great insight on creating ads and in general, they have some very useful tips in marketing.
While AdWords might not be the magic marketing bullet, it can be a very powerful tool to help get you in front of potential customers. Try starting with a small budget, toy around with a few different headlines, and really run with what works!
Now that you have a few reasons to look into another form of internet advertising, download our guide on how to become a Social Media Rockstar!
