Effective marketing takes a willingness to periodically look at things in a whole new way. That’s one reason why it can be so fruitful to work with a PPC agency. Not only do agencies know the channels and marketing tools available to you, they can also bring a fresh perspective to your business and your marketing.
Consequently, PPC agencies will sometimes recommend strategies and actions you haven’t tried before. And, quite frankly, these strategies and actions might take you out of your comfort zone—and make you feel uncomfortable.
To help ease your discomfort, in this blog post we’ll outline the three “L”s to keep in mind when you work with a PPC agency:
- Let go of preconceived notions
- Look at the data
- Learn and apply.
Let Go of Preconceived Notions
In marketing your products or services, you undoubtedly spent countless hours researching and testing to figure out what to call them and how to describe them. But what clients often don’t realize is that PPC advertising sometimes necessitates loosening these decisions.
For example, we did some work for a client who was a distributor of microfiber cleaning cloths. After conducting keyword research, we found that the keywords “microfiber rags” yield high searches with less competition than other phrases, such as “microfiber cloths,” “microfiber towels,” and “microfiber wipes.”
As you might predict, our client balked at the descriptor “rag.” To him, “rag” was a disparaging term, synonymous with repurposed T-shirts. It certainly didn’t reflect the high quality of his microfiber product.
But the opportunity the term presented was too good to pass up. Eventually, he agreed to let us give this term a try in our ad copy—and yes, we got great results.
Remember, it’s not up to your potential customers to figure out what terms you use to describe your product. It’s up to you to figure out what your potential customers are looking for and how THEY describe it.
Look at the Data
Abandoning preconceived notions doesn’t mean you have to go with every idea your PPC agency comes up with. If you’re feeling uncomfortable with your agency’s recommendations, then take at look at the data.
This is something we often encounter when working with educational institutions. For example, say a school offers a Master of Marketing Management degree with a concentration in marketing communications. But our research reveals that prospective students aren’t searching for “MA marketing management” but instead “MA marketing communications.”
So what do we do? In this case, we would ask the client’s permission to use the phrase “MA marketing communications” in our ad and (sometimes) landing page copy. It’s not technically correct, but it’s not deceptive or misleading either. In fact, it HELPS prospects find what they’re looking for.
But this type of thing does make clients cringe. When they resist our suggestions, we’ll ask for permission to test our approach. We then look at the data to prove that the approach is working and not generating unqualified leads or “misled” conversions.
More often than not, after examining the data, clients come around to our way of thinking.
Learn and Apply
Once you’ve opened yourself up to new “out of the box” approaches, take what you’ve learned and apply it to other areas of your PPC campaigns. Think about the terms you use to describe your other products and services. For example, if your school offers an MA in women’s history, think about using “MFA in women’s history” or “MA in women’s studies” as keyword phrases.
The more you open yourself up to the ideas and recommendations of your PPC agency—all backed by hard data—the more productive (and successful!) the relationship will be.
