Clicksharp Marketing

The number of people “just browsing” in search engines vastly outnumbers those walking up to the cash register. Therein lies your opportunity.

In Part 1 of Spawning the next transactional query, we established that roughly one out of ten search queries is made with a purchase transaction as the primary intention. This suggests that search engines still have a long way to go in establishing their value to end users.

And this is true. We’re only just beginning to scratch the surface of how Google, Yahoo, et al. can help make us more informed, better armed, ultimately validated consumers. But are you going to wait until 100% of search queries are transactional, to start leveraging them as a marketing medium? (Hint: that day will never come.)

Hopefully you won’t wait. In running your business, you’ve probably come to understand the buying cycle that is unique to your product or service — it tends to revolve around a handful of the usual themes:

• Where do prospects tend to come from — and how do they find you?
• How much education does a prospect need to start being qualified?
• What finally convinces the customer to open their wallet?
• What needs to be done to transform a one-time customer into a repeat customer?

Answering all these questions revolves around your company’s ability to convey information. And guess what: informational searches make up 80% of search queries. So in an abstract sense, you could say that on average, it takes about nine tries before a website ever prompts its visitor into action.

One out of nine. See any room for improvement? Let’s say the 1’s are far from making a purchase, and the 8’s are almost there. What can you to move them all to towards #9?

• SEO (search engine optimization) grabs the low-hanging fruit: 1’s, 2’s and 3’s who are taking the first step in understanding what you have to offer, by Googling keywords relevant to your business. This alone might give them enough information to reach 7 or 8.
• But if they’re not sold, social media come into play. Your company blog casts a different light on your business. User reviews offer an impartial opinion. Seeing your brand over and over again in YouTube videos might just turn them into 4’s, 5’s, 6’s…or higher.
• A well-researched PPC (pay per click) ad campaign zeroes in on the 7’s and 8’s — and turns them into customers.
• And if they ever hesitate: local search will remind them that the solution to all their problems is right around the corner!

Revisiting the question posed at the end of Part 1: what do Powerpoints, white papers, webinars, and sales calls have in common?

The answer: like the aforementioned list, they are all different manifestations of the same essential sales practice of imparting knowledge and information to create solutions for customers. That’s all it boils down to. Solve their problems, move them from #1 to #9, and eventually they’ll come back with their checkbooks.

~~~~~

Paul Burani
Clicksharp Marketing
New York, NY

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 @ 7:17 pm on the category Local search, Pay-per-click advertising, SEM, SEO, Social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.


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