Marketing Expectations

Jon C. Coward, VP of Internet Marketing

The title of this article reminds of another great novel “Great Expectations”… but this won’t be a novel, I promise! As matter of fact, it may be one of my shorter blog posts – and it’s not about GREAT expectations. It’s about REALISTIC expectations.

As the title says, it is about marketing expectations. More specifically, what people expect from their marketing campaigns. In our case, what people expect from online marketing. I’ll be the first to say… millions of people use Google daily, there are millions of Google searches for products and services. But, I’m sorry. No matter who you are, you won’t get millions of people beating down your door when you launch an online campaign unless you have a very unique product that we all need or want. Most of us don’t. We do well in our own niche. However, when an online campaign is done right, you will get many qualified leads and customers that you can close. Hiring a professional to put together your online campaign is a pretty good investment that can yield great results… just not unrealistic results like many expect. I’m not sure why people think that online campaigns are magic. They are a great way to reach numerous qualified prospects, but not magic bullets to riches.

Most unrealistic expectations about online marketing seem to also fall in place when it comes to seeing yourself online when running a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. While it’s nice and fun to see your ad,  it’s also not realistic to expect to see yourself every time you look.  Yes, you paid for it, but you paid for shared time… shared random time. Many times people complain because they see a competitor’s ads showing up much more than their own. A simple search usually shows that their competitor is maybe spending more in a day than they spend in a month. You can’t compete – but you don’t have to compete. Don’t lose sight of the fact that your ad is still being being seen by many, maybe hundreds and thousands per month…  Just because you don’t see it your lower budget ad does not mean your ad has shown any less that it would if you chanced and saw it.  Someone once described it as pushing a crowd of people towards a spinning revolving door. Many will make it in, but you may or may not. Does that mean the door doesn’t work? You just didn’t get in. However, if you get paid by how many people go in, do you care if it is you?

And why is it that it is only online marketing (especially PPC) that seemingly gets this treatment? You may buy  radio ad campaign and then listen to the radio on the luanch date for a few hours until you hear your ad during your scheduled time block. At that point, you are happy and go about your normal business of making money. You don’t listen to the radio all day, every day for the duration of the campaign. You know your ad is running. So why do people want to do this with Google PPC?

Here’s another way to see it. You may have a national campaign  millions of people searching, and you are spending a few hundred or thousand a month (a small budget in PPC advertising). Why do you think you will see YOUR ad all the time? The chances are you may never see it… but 1000’s of customers will and that’s what counts. you are buying a share of time.

PPC works. Just keep your eye on the prize and not your ads. Let the professionals you hire take care of making sure your ad shows.