Well - I’ve been building a free online marketing educational community called the 7xo Academy.  I wanted to put something together that would help out small businesses that couldn’t afford to hire a consultant or an agency - but still give them the “good stuff” without a bunch of run-arounds and spammy offers.

So - there it is.  7xo Academy.  It’s been a lot of work, and it’s only going to get harder, but as it grows, I think I’ll find that it was all worth it!

Hey - what are you waiting for? Go check it out, sign up!

This rite of passage has been much for difficult for deaf children, and, at times, nearly impossible.

That’s why it’s so awesome that there are organizations out there like Sertoma - who provide kids that might not otherwise get the chance to participate in team sports the opportunity for a great baseball experience!

Click here to learn more, and how you can donate.

I bet you can guess by the tone of this post whether or not she actually called back….

You see, this account has been up for well over a week - and got about an hour’s worth of impressions.  It should be running.  My clients don’t really understand why they aren’t running - and I am desperate for some actual help.  So, you can imagine my reaction when I called back, entered the client ID number, and got a recording stating that they “were no longer able to address my concerns via phone” - and recommended I checked in to their useless help section.

Frankly, I’m done.  Or, rather, I wish I could be.  I have managed campaigns totalling well over $1 Million dollars in Adwords.  I have convinced folks to use it, and created campaigns that were profitable for Google, my clients, and myself. Because of the fact that Google has such a huge share of searches, I can’t see where I can abandon them completely.

But, I wish I could.  Because their questionable review practices and pathetic customer support wouldn’t be acceptable in any company that had real competition.

I am also linking to a post on the adwords blog - so at least someone might take notice.

Dear Google -

I just wanted to let you know that your policy on random reviews and lack of any guidance or information on the matter really sucks.  Why?  Because lots of people here are running campaigns for their clients - clients that like to know when they are going to get clicks, and why their account hasn’t been working in weeks, even though they are paying an “expert” to manage it for them.

I realize you’re trying to keep scammers at bay, and all that good stuff, but could you at the very least provide some sort of reasonable semblance of support.  I mean, I can look at a campaign in 20 minutes and tell if it’s real or not.  Why does it take you a month?  Just because I changed one ad?

You do so well with things like Gmail - why does dealing with your Adwords system have to be so painful.  Your people try to be helpful, so why is it impossible to actually get in touch with one?  Why, if I’m working in an agency, can I have my account rep override an ad policy and have ads that violate the TOS up and running in 5 minutes, but if I’m not spending $50k a month, I can’t get safe, quality, legitimate ads to run more than an hour at a time?

Frankly Google, I think what’s going on here is pretty pathetic, and I’m going to do my best to avoid spending money here from now on.  I probably can’t avoid it altogether, but my typical recommendation to push al your PPC ad spend into Google is going to change.  Why? Because using your service IS HURTING MY BUSINESS. Not that you care - because if you did, there wouldn’t be 1000 people on this forum wondering why in the hell they can’t keep a legitimate campaign running.

thanks,
Scott

UPDATE -

So, someone from their support forums (not a Googler) gave me a # to call - which I did, and it looks like I’m actually going to get some help.  Again - I want to stress that the actual people at Google are almost w/out fail pretty awesome, but it’s the system that is messed up.  We will see if this campaign will be live by tonight.

If you outsource with a reputable company, there are many, many benefits, especially for small business.  For one, you save on things like full time salaries, employee benefits, and payroll taxes.

And, you can do this while actually getting better results than building and training your own in house team.  For one, instead of one, or maybe two people in your marketing department, you may have 10 people working on different parts of your campaign.  Here are just a few other reasons that outsourcing your online marketing can help your business:

• We know what’s affecting other industries RIGHT NOW - and you can benefit from that
• We live and breathe this stuff, and have to keep up to date on the latest tactics
• We already have access to top minds, tools, and vendors to benefit you
• There’s a smaller learning curve
• We pay our own way to conferences
• We’re never comfortable “just getting by”
• We’re a lot cheaper than you think
• We’re happy letting you be the hero
• Our social media networks are already in place
• We buy our own coffee
• Employees with our skill sets are pricey

And, that’s just the beginning.  If you want to know more - let’s talk.  Contact me using the form on the right!

1) Twitter has become my new Facebook.

2) All the dudes’ (and dudettes) at Affiliate Summit posts inspired me to give that a shot as an additional revenue stream.

3) There are piles of neat KC area folks in the online industry - we really should have regular meetups.

4) I want to get rid of my Starcom phone, and get a Blackberry SO bad.  Too bad I have to wait until June.

5) I also need a video camera to do some things I need to.

6) Probably need some editing software to go with that.

7) College Basketball Season dwarfs all other sports for me.  By a LONG shot.

This Southern boy is NEVER going to be used to -5 wind chills.

9) @secrettweet and @holygod are the two most interesting Twitterers

10) I am a very lucky guy to be surround by great people!

If you’re using broad match - stop.  I don’t mean completely stop - that would be silly.  I mean stop and think for a second.  Pour yourself a cup of coffee and spend an hour with your analytics and see what you can learn.

Here are two things you should be able to find:

1. Longer Keyphrases that aren’t converting. Your keyword bid on “widgets” might be sending lots of folks looking for “free widgets” even though you charge for yours.  This means you should add “free” as a negative keyword in that campaign.  That will save you money.
2. Longer Keyphrases that are converting. Your keyword bid on “widgets” also sends a lot of clicks for “red widgets”, and those people convert like crazy.  So, break “red widgets” out into a different ad group, phrase or exact match it, and save money on click costs and watch your conversions jump even higher.

Those are the two primary tenents of keyword optimization - but you have to have the analytics in place to tell.  If you’re broad matching hundreds or thousands of words, and not doing this on a regular basis (meaning daily if you can) you’re wasting money.

The short answer to that is, if your online marketing isn’t showing a direct contribution to your bottom line, you can’t.  However, the ABSOLUTE BEST THING about online marketing, especially pay per click marketing, is that you can track it down to the dollar.

Let’s take my favorite example, a local family owned plumbing service - we’ll call them “John Smith and Sons Plumbing.” Well, ole John doesn’t know much about PPC, and blew through $1000 in a couple months, and decided to get stop advertising.

Instead, he is spending $500 on Yellow Page ads, and another $2000 a month on some remnant radio time.  He’s doing ok, but he’s not really sure how many of the calls he’s getting come from his website, much less how many come in as a result of his Yellow Page or radio ads.

He’s throwing $2,500 into a void.

The neat thing about John’s business is, he doesn’t need leads, email opt-ins, or someone to purchase online - John needs PHONE CALLS.

Did you know there are CHEAP services out there that let pay per click managers like me track phone calls, down to the keyword?  Instead of throwing money into ads you can’t track - why wouldn’t you want to put an ad in front of people searching for “local plumbers?”

I can tell you right now - I can deliver phone calls to your service business for less than $20/call (that includes my profit margins) - do you think your business could turn a profit on those kind of numbers?

Let’s make some assumptions in John’s case….he’ll turn 35% of those callers into customers, at an average revenue of $300/customer, at a $175 profit margin/job.  So, if he gets 125 calls from his $2500 ($20/call), he’s going to get 44 new customers (35%).  At $175/customer, that’s $7700 in profits.  Remove the marketing spend ($2,500), and you’re left with $5,200 in pure profit.

Let’s go one step further and say John retains about 30% of his business for future jobs.  Those people hire him back at the same profit margin, approximately once per year.  Since I talked him in to setting up a monthly email newsletter, there is no cost associated in closing these guys again.  So, for every 44 customers, he gets about 14 repeat customers the next year.  For 12 months, that turns in to 168 repeat customers.

So, in year one, John spent $30,000 online, and netted $62,400 in profits after it’s all said and done.  (that’s not revenue, that’s profit).  Because of his repeat business, in the next year, he netted another $29,400.

You can imagine how this could compound year after year…right?  If you’re interested in how using a system like this can help your business, just let me know in the form to the right!

Note - I am concerned it could end up being like MySpace - ruined by spammers and MLM douchebags.

Anyway - as a business owner, Twitter can be a nice tool for doing a couple of things:

1)Identifying New Customers (who could evangelize your product)
2) Creating a following and a connection with your product
3) Identifying and connecting with potential partners and vendors

If you’re a small business, I still highly suggest you sign up.  A friend recommended I set up searches for Overland Park and Kansas City, which basically gives me a list of people in my area to follow.  Now, if I have posted useful, interesting, or entertaining tweets, it’s likely the folks I follow will follow me back - which plants the seeds for a small community of people who want to hear what I have to say about SEO and Online Marketing, (and my dog, morning coffee, and @replies to my other nerdy friends).

So, give it a shot…it’s free, easy, and quick to get up and running.  If it works for you, swing back by and drop me a line and let me know!

Another acronym that gets thrown around a lot is SEM (Search Engine Marketing), and has been a cause of a fair amount of contention over the last few years as to what exactly it includes.

Some purists believe SEM and PPC are about the same thing (namely, SEM is any paid search engine placement).  I, for one, have chosen the path of assuming that SEM is the over-arching discipline of providing customers through the search engines.  So, it includes PPC, SEO, paid inclusion, and any other search engine related tactic you can think of.

Semantics aside, SEM (including pay-per-click and search engine optimization) is still the most cost effective form of marketing when done correctly. Feel free to contact me to learn more about how it can help your business!