A look at the various online advertising options available to businesses regardless of budget. Broken up into three sections, we cover everything from Facebook business pages and online local listings to PPC campaigns and direct buy advertising. This presentation was originally delivered at the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, MA on March 25, 2014 as part of Salem State's Enterprise Center business workshop series. Originally presented by Tom Stirling, Brian Hanna and Chris Paganelli, employees of Stirling Technologies, a Wincester, MA based web consulting and web design firm.

1. Is Online Advertising Right For You?
March 25, 2014

2. Who We Are

3. Today You Will Learn How To:
1. Use free or low-cost online advertising &
marketing outlets to establish a basic web
presence
2. Use more advanced strategies to target
potential clients and drum up leads
3. Engage in paid online advertising in various
forms and evaluate the ROI of each type

4. Section I:
Free & Low-Cost Online Exposure

5. Benefits
• Virtual Real Estate
• Easier for potential and current customers/clients
to find and contact you
– IF they’re already looking for you
• Inbound links
– IF you already have a website
• Most importantly: Unlike in the real world, the
internet provides more free & low-cost
advertising options that have potential to
actually generate leads

6. Virtual Real Estate

7. Easier To Find and Contact You

8. INBOUND LINKS TO
YOUR WEBSITE

9. Audience Questions

10. Does anyone not know the
difference between a Facebook
business/fan page and a profile?

11. Who has a personal
Facebook profile?

12. Of those people, who uses it to
interact with brands and
businesses?

13. Now, who has a brand page for
their business?

14. Of those people, has it ever
produced any leads? If so, tell us!

16. Facebook
• A Facebook business or brand page is the
easiest way to get your business on social
media
• Facebook is the largest social network for all
age groups – your potential clients are
certainly on it, no matter who they are
• But… does “social currency” produce leads?

17. Facebook Pages: Are They For You?
• Facebook pages are best for businesses that:
– Want to have an easy and interactive way to stay in
touch with their more social customers
– Want to take control of their brand reputation on the
web and in the social sphere
• However:
– If you don’t have time to manage a page, claiming
your FB real estate may not be enough
– Don’t expect leads to come walking in through the
door because of your page

18. Audience Exercise
Write down 3-5 “tweets” of approximately 10 words in
length that you think would be interesting for your followers.
Include a call-to-action in at least one of them.
Exercise:

20. Twitter & LinkedIn
• Little value as a home for your business on the
web… the value comes from networking
• Interacting with colleagues, other local or
industry businesses or potential clients shows
your technological savvy and can be a
powerful tool for forging digital connections
• Best for anyone who knows how to reap the
benefits of networking in real life and wants to
apply similar skills in the digital space

21. Video Marketing

22. & Online Video
• Offers the ability for anyone on the internet to
“e-meet” you and gives you the opportunity
to show, not just tell, what makes your
business great
• Any properly framed video makes its
protagonist out to be the expert
• Videos are some of the most viral and
frequently shared forms of online media

23. Audience Questions
• Who has ever used Yelp to find a business?
• Who has ever written a review on Yelp?
• What about Tripadvisor?

24. • Facebook’s counterparts for review sites – wide
usage across all demographics and age ranges
• If you have a local or B2C business, you need to
be on Yelp, or your competitor could be
outshining you
• People trust peer reviews more than any
traditional form of advertising
• Not for the feint of heart – negative and harsh
criticism is common
&

25. Google+ & Google+ Local
• Google and Google+ may have lost the social
media war, but they are still the world’s
largest search engine
• Google rewards participation in their
ecosystem in search listing gold!
• Remember “virtual real estate”?

26. Getting Started

27. So would 50% more Google users!
How’s that for a free ad?
“Rich snippets”

28. “Virtualrealestate”inaction

29. &
• Visual and consumer-driven services that have
little value for B2B businesses
• Great for graphic designers, artists, interior
designers, merchandisers or apparel
companies, retail stores, etc.
• Rare that leads will ever come through
Instagram or Pinterest
• Beware: only for the socially savvy

30. Audience Exercise
Think of two relevant topics that you could write 300-500
words about relating to your industry or business category.
Think specifically and current – something that would appeal
to a potential or current customer
Exercise:

32. Guest Blogging
• Like video, offers a great chance for you to offer
your knowledge and expertise to the web
• Your blogs can be shared on all your social media
channels and with your email list
• Helps forge relationships with online publications
and journalists in your industry
• Best for a business that doesn’t have a blog that
is looking to get their name out there while
contributing their knowledge

33. So what does it all mean?

34. Is this kind of advertising right for me?
• Free or low-cost exposure on the web can be
time consuming, but it’s worth the effort
• You won’t find a better deal on basic marketing
• If you’re not making your presence known, you
can bet your competitors are
• But, none of these ideas could guarantee or draw
new business, unless you’re very lucky or in the
right industry
• Is it right for your business? Absolutely.

35. Questions

36. Section II:
Getting Found
On The Web

37. Comments/Questions?

38. What We Will Learn
1. How to build your search ranking and get
that phone to ring!
2. Create a web presence that is engaging and
will convert potential leads to prospects
3. How to interact with these prospects to make
them customers

39. Who Has A Website?
Are you concerned with getting more traffic? More leads? More business?
More Opportunities?

40. Websites
• At its most basic it’s a
business card on the web
but it can be so much more!
– A revenue tool (the phone
book on steroids)
– Control over how your brand
is represented on the web
– Portal to your other web
properties
– Marketing Tool for email
collection

41. How Does It Become Advertising?

42. How Does It Become Advertising?
#1 mistake everyone makes on the web?
• Failure to market your website:
– Your website can be a tool that helps you sell to
new customers, but you have to optimize it for
more than your business name, or a list of services
– Search Engine Optimization drives traffic to you
but you need to know the 3 principals of SEO.

43. 3 Principals of SEO
If I have to explain SEO
in 3 simple components:
• Keyword Density
• Keyword Relevance
• Keyword Proximity

44. What Is SEO?
• Search Engine
Optimization is the
process of affecting the
visibility of a website in
a search engine’s
“organic” search results
– Being on the front page
of Google for search is
like having a shop on
main street in the
downtown!

45. Where & How?
• On your website using meta tags and
descriptions, keywords and within your content
• Content Is King
• SEO can have differing levels of success
depending on a couple of factors:
– Avoid “Black Hat” SEO techniques
– Platform site is built on
– Amount and quality of content
– Regularity of updates

46. Some SEO No No’s
• Don’t try to play to
Search Engines
– Duplicate Content
– Poor writing
– Link Farms
– Spamming with
keywords and terms
– Hiding text and
keywords
– Dirty URLs

47. Some SEO No No’s
• Don’t assume your SEO
firm is doing it correctly
– Make sure you have a
plan in place and
understand what they
are targeting
– We see SEO tactics used
by other companies all
the time that actually
hurt your result

48. Not All Platforms Created Equal
• Older sites or those build in
platforms like WIX, 1&1, Web.com,
GoDaddy Website Tonight were
never designed with SEO in mind
and are limiting.
• Wordpress is the #1 recommend
platform for SEO because its
engineered with blogging in mind
and its FREE to download.
– Why is blogging the best way to drive
traffic to your site?
vs.

49. Blogging
Why Blogs allow you to put
content out there that sells you:
• Blogs only grow in value
• Share free advice & white
papers in exchange for leads
• Nearly 40% of companies use
blogs for marketing
• Blog articles influence customer
purchases
• Companies with >51 articles
experience an average of 77%
increase in monthly leads
Source: ramarketing.com

50. How do I Blog Effectively?
Blogging gets you leads, but
you need to know what bait
to use:
• Get ideas from audience
on social media
• Answer common questions
• Find trending topics
• Do it consistently
• Keep it short and sweet
Source: ramarketing.com

51. Turn Visitors Into Conversions
• You’ve optimized your site and driving traffic
organic traffic through search engines… now
what?
• A conversion is taking a website visitor and
turning them into a potential client, customer,
subscriber, webinar attendee – whatever the
conversion goal for your business is
• Do you know what your conversion goal (and
rate) is?

52. Conversion Optimization
These strategies can help
you convert a visitor into a
potential customer:
• Creates Trust & Affinity
• Calls To Action
• Quick Contact Form
• Video & Imagery
• Testimonials
• Case Studies
• Logos & Press

53. Conversion Optimization
My Big 3 For Conversion:
• Video: introduce who
you are and why to buy
from you.
• Testimonials: Use these
to help sell your
product.
• CTA: Make it easy to get
in touch!

55. Audience Exercise
You are in an elevator and the person next to you asks what
your business does and what makes it unique. You only have
30 seconds till you reach the next floor. What do you say?
If you don’t have a business, make one up!
Exercise:

58. Landing Pages
Allow you to target exactly
what you are looking for in
a new customer!
• Offer specials that are
not on your website
• Be as specific as possible
• Focus on quick calls to
action and conversion
• Give away FREE stuff!
– ebooks, or whitepapers

59. User Engagement
Make people stick around:
• Improve headlines (page titles)
focusing on special benefits rather
than features
• Make it easy for people to connect
with you via email capture forms
(build list)
• Update site with mobile friendly
pages and forms!

60. User Engagement
Make people stick around:
• Test how people will interact with
your site and gage ease of use with
UserTesting.com
• Get feedback with UserVoice
• Monitor Analytics and bounce rate
to create pages that rock
• Speed up your website (hosting)

61. Recap
The Road Map:
• SEO gets them there
• Once we get them to your site the goal is
conversion from leads to prospects
• Now lets keep these prospects engaged so that
they become customers
Takeaway:
• Whereas an ad is static, the process of acquiring
and converting customers on the web is an
interactive one

62. Is this kind of advertising right for me?
• Investing in a website that is setup for success should
be a priority of any business owner’s agenda
• Spend the time to learn who your target customer is
and speak to them directly
• Create content that has value for current and potential
customers alike
• People are searching online for products and services
every day, now is the time to seize the opportunity and
stay ahead of your competitors by taking active action
today
• If you have a product or a service the answer is YES!

63. Section III:
Paid Online Advertising

64. Intro to Online Advertising

65. What We’ll Learn Today
Which online
advertising
services are right
for me?
What are
some pros and
cons of each?
Can I
manage it on
my own?

66. Paid Internet Advertising

67. Is Online Advertising Right For You?

68. Advertising

69. Newsfeed Ads
Mobile
Desktop

70. Why Facebook Ads?
• Use ads in a variety of
ways
– Garner likes
– Increase Social influence
– Promote event ticket sales
– Develop brand awareness
– Generate contest entries
– Direct users to your
website
– Promote product launch

71. Sponsored Stories
• It’s all about trust (your friends like it, so you might!)
• Option to use your voice or your customer’s voice

72. Exercise
Think about the people and/or audience you want to reach.
1. What kind of traits does your target audience share?
2. Identify key customer segments (geo, age, gender, etc).

73. Targeting
• People volunteer a lot of
data on interests, their life
– Zip codes
– Family members
– Workplace
– Relationships
– Partner interests
– Socioeconomic status
• Extensive control over who
sees ad
• Detailed reporting and
insight on customers

74. Ease of Use
• Creative genius not required
• Ad equality
• Low minimum spend

75. Video Advertising

76. 76
Who has uploaded a video?
76

77. 77
YouTube Ad Facts
• 75% of online video viewers interacted with
video ad this month
• Avg. 20% increase in traffic to your website
when running video ads
• Reaches more U.S. adults than any cable
network
77

78. 78
Placement
78

79. 79
TrueView
• Only pay when people watch entire ad
79

80. Advertising
8080

81. 81
Found a Business on Yelp?
81

82. 82
Yelp Ad Facts
• Remove competitor ads
• Places your ad on competing nearby businesses
• Can provide professional videography
• Unlimited listing photos to showcase you
• Serve different ads on different platforms (Mobile,
Desktop)
• Average campaigns range $300 - $2,200 per month
82

83. Pay Per Click
8383

84. 84
A Few Myths
84

85. 85
Did You Know
• ‘Insurance’ bids avg. $55 per click on Google!
• 89% of the traffic generated by search ads is
not replaced by organic clicks when ads are
paused
• The top ad position can achieve 6%+ CTR
85

86. 86 86

87. 87
YouTube Example
87

88. 88
High ROI
• If done correctly PPC can provide you with a
huge return on investment:
– Takes time, skill, vigilance
– Google Partners training and testing
• Well run campaigns can return $2 for every $1
of spend
88

89. 8989

90. 90
Put It On Display
• Place custom ads on relevant websites
• Retargeting vs. remarketing
• Stand out from the crowd
90

92. 92
Where Will I Show Up?
• Place custom ads on relevant websites
• Retargeting vs. remarketing
• Quality affiliate websites
• Areas on the web that maximize clicks
• Influenced in part by user browsing history
92

93. Direct Ad Buys
9393

94. 94
Bulk Purchasing vs Bidding
• Fixed or variable cost per thousand impressions
(ad views)
• Manual (direct buy) vs technological approach
(eCPM)
• ‘Premium’ placement
94
VS.

95. & Local Deals
9595

96. Local Deals By the #’s
• 650,000 merchants
featured on Groupon to
date
• 200+ million Groupon
email subscribers
• Local deal users spend
45% more than average
U.S. online consumer
9696

97. Opportunity
Pros
• Attracts high volume of
consumers
• Advertises your business
• It helps move inventory
• It builds relationships
• It generates incremental
revenue
Cons
• Deals attract low-end
bargain seekers
• May impact perception of
the brand
• May not generate repeat
customers
• Deals may not turn
profitable
9797

98. Recap
Ad
Type
Facebook YouTube Yelp Pay Per
Click
Online
Display
Direct Ad
Buy
Groupon
& Local
Cost As low as
$5 / day
Varies
based on
productio
n & CPC
$300 -
$2,200
average
per
month
$1.00 -
$55.00+
per click
Varies
based on
placemen
t
Minimum
$10,000
spend
Varies by
business
and offer
type
Ease of
Use (1
easy to
5 hard)
2 2 or 3 1 4 4 5 2
9898

99. Q & A