As one component of a comprehensive Search Engine Marketing program, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising offers companies a highly-flexible, cost-effective means of offsetting shortcomings in natural search rankings and search engine optimization efforts.

PPC is the cumulative process where advertisers bid on keywords or phrases, develop corresponding ads to be displayed alongside relevant search engine results or networked Website content, and pay only when their ads are clicked. Advantages of PPC:

• Highly-targetable – Ads can be served according to advertiser-specified interests, locations, languages, and other parameters.
• Reach & Relevancy – Millions of Internet searches are conducted every day; PPC messages are displayed in response to specific queries, when Internet users are typically further along in the acquisition cycle.
• Real-time Optimization – Advertisers can modify keywords, ads, targeting parameters and budget allocation within seconds of spotting performance trends; reporting periods, metrics and details are fully-customizable.
• Minimal Waste – Advertisers only pay when Internet users click on their ads, maximizing efficiency and online return on investment.

PPC is one of the most targeted and measurable forms of marketing.

The most successful PPC programs require dedicated time and effort to establish goals, monitor performance and maximize results.   One of the most critical components, and least understood, is ongoing budget allocation. Determining budgets is easy; properly managing them requires individualized attention and dedicated expertise.

The process begins by allocating budgets by campaigns, or keyword groupings. A best practice is to spread keywords across a multitude of campaigns, as a greater number of campaigns allows for more granular optimization and budget allocation. Proper allocation goes a long way toward preventing high-volume, highly-competitive (and thus expensive) keywords from rapidly depleting PPC budgets and keeping other important search terms from triggering important ad messages.

With budgets and campaign structures set, the keyword bidding process begins. Although “automatic” bidding is an option, we recommend manually bidding on every keyword purchased. The manual process yields greater strategic control and allows hands-on discovery of keyword trends in real-time. Proper bidding is a complex, labor-intensive process that requires constant monitoring and tweaking for optimal results. Our specialists regularly dedicate the hours necessary to ensure proper management throughout the bidding lifecycle.

This customer saw high time on site with a highly engaged audience and a high percentage of new visits compared to the overall site.

Merely spotting trends isn’t enough – PPC program managers must continuously absorb and leverage learned, program-specific intelligence. Because no two advertisers or programs are alike, this requires a great deal of real-time dexterity. We monitor geographic trends, search engine versus display network trends, device/access trends, and even evaluate trends by time-of-day or day-of-week. The result is a better, more efficient PPC program built, measured and continuously-adjusted to meet our clients’ specific marketing objectives. By proactively addressing trends, we maximize PPC results.

Many advertisers and small businesses choose to self-manage and end up abandoning PPC programs before they’ve been given a fair chance to succeed. Others simply never realize their PPC programs’ full potential. Putting PPC in the hands of professionals replaces the guesswork with expertise and infuses PPC programs with new life and strategic focus.

We’ve only scratched the surface of the many benefits and nuances of Pay-per-Click in this article. For more information, visit our previous blog post, 5 Steps to Building an Outrageously Successful Paid Search Campaign.

Ready to begin a Search Marketing Program, or improve your PPC performance?  Contact TREW Marketing today.

Last weekend, we were very honored to accept two PR awards for our work in K-12 education at the annual Texas Public Relations Association conference, the Best of the Southwest Communicators Conference. The awards recognized our marketing work for  The Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas, a non-profit organization founded in 2004 by U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and two of Texas’ Nobel Laureates.

TAMEST is comprised of Texas’ 10 Nobel Laureates and 200+ Texas members of the National Academies. These leading scientists and engineers issued a report, The Next Frontier: Worldclass Math and Science Education for Texas, that outlined four findings and recommendations to improve K-12 math and science education in Texas.

As Dr. Mary Ann Rankin, Dean of the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin and Committee Co-Chair, stated, “If we, as Texans, don’t roll up our sleeves and work together to begin providing our children with the science and math knowledge they need today – starting with training, supporting and paying great teachers – then our kids and our state will not succeed tomorrow.”

We couldn’t say it better ourselves.

We also appreciated the kudos from TAMEST members, including from Dr. James Truchard, President and CEO of National Instruments, who said, “TREW Marketing’s work on the marketing program for TAMEST’s education initiative was outstanding.”

A team effort indeed! Congrats to TAMEST and TREW for a job well-done, and more importantly, for a critical effort for K-12 students in Texas.

In the midst of hiring freezes and downsizing, you may find yourself in a catch-22.  

On the one hand, you cannot afford to halt your marketing efforts, as much as some may pressure you to do so, because as marketers we know this can not only hurt short-term results but sacrifice long-term market share, and perhaps more importantly, miss a great opportunity to gain marketshare on the upswing.  

This point was made in a recent analysis of the Profit Impact of Marketing Strategies, which showed that while companies who cut marketing budgets during a recession saw short term finanical benefit, they suffered during the period of recovery.  Conversely, companies that increased their marketing investment achieved a significantly higher return during the recovery period and gained an additional 1.3% of market share on average.

However…

On the other hand, your tightened budget may restrict you from hiring or retaining the talent necessary to architect effective marketing strategies.  A growing trend is to bridge the gap by outsourcing through a service such as a Virtual Marketing Director (VMD).  

The Sales and Marketing Times blog by 3Forward recently reported that “sales and marketing outsourcing is fast gaining momentum…because business, competitive and specialization trends continue forcing companies to find ever more efficient, scalable and effective solutions to generating revenue.” 

The VMD is a senior-level marketing professional who is retained part-time by your company, and provides marketing leadership without hiring full-time, permanent staff. Their job is to learn your vision and business goals, and translate these into a strategic marketing plan and campaigns.  The VMD can also bring expertise to identify cost effective marketing activities that you are not presently maximizing, such as social media, segmented e-marketing, and SEO, as well as streamline your existing activities by applying industry best practices.

VMDs often bring a network of marketing specialists to tap into which in turn increases the effectiveness of your marketing activities while lowering the cost of having such speciality positions in salaried roles or trying to seek them out and qualify them yourself.

Take time to asses how outsourced marketing professionals, such as VMDs, can help your business work more efficiently and gain market share, harnessing opportunities brought about by these unprecedented economic times.

We can see from this week’s Facebook debacle that social media has clearly become a critical part of any organization’s overall marketing strategy. With one post on consumer-advocacy blog Consumerist.com about Facebook’s changes to their Terms of Service, concerns among the social networking site’s 175 million users quickly spread. This crisis started and ended in the social media realm – it broke on a blog, spread through Facebook and Twitter, and was resolved back on Facebook.

With this backdrop, we thought we’d ask a couple of local Austin social media pros who were recently named among the 25 others as Texas Top Social Media Winners – David Neff of the American Cancer Society and Lisa Goddard of the Capital Area Food Bank -  for their social media tips.

David’s video tips

Lisa’s top 5 tips for social media.

1. Keep your tweets organized.  As your “friend and follow” list grows, it’s easy to miss out on good information from people you’re following.  I like to use www.friendorfollow.com to make sure I’m following the people I want to follow. TweetDeck is great to help me keep on top of legislative news, learn about food bankers across the nation using Twitter, and find the latest local news and buzz.
2. Make it personal if you’re raising money online for a cause so people can relate to your passion. Asking someone to donate to the Food Bank because of the impact hurricane evacuees have on your community, or because children don’t have access to school meals in the summer is a heckuva lot more compelling than just a general ask.  Show the impact.
3. Give your site a makeover, and often.  Freshen up your Twitter profile page with a new skin design or change the photo header on your blog.  It’s another simple way to communicate what’s new with you and show your creativity.
4. Don’t go overboard with hashtags. Sometimes it’s to your benefit to associate with an existing hashtag versus creating a new one.  For CAFB’s legislative initiatives, we’re using the exisiting #txlege tag so people interested in the 81st Texas Legislative session will also see what we’re doing and associate our nonprofit with public policy efforts. For events, a new hashtag makes sense.
5. Say “thank you”. I can’t stress that enough.

Thanks to David and Lisa for being guests on the TREW Marketing Spotlight!

One of the wonderful benefits of working at TREW Marketing is the opportunities we have to venture to new places and meet and collaborate with new organizations and people, from Texas’ nobel laureates to local entrepreneurs to our most promising young students through our work in education.

Last week, TREW co-founder Rebecca Geier had just this kind of opportunity when she attended an event at KIPP Austin Public Schools to hear from Washington Post education columnist and creator of Newsweek’s Best High Schools in America list, Jay Mathews, and KIPP co-founder Mike Steinberg. Both gentlemen spoke about and signed Mr. Mathews new book, Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America.

The most inspiring moment for Rebecca, as she shared on Twitter at the time it happenened, was when, at the beginning of Q&A, a KIPP mom stood up, began walking toward Mr. Steinberg and said, “Thank you for giving my son a future.” She then embraced Mr. Steinberg with all her heart as she explained the hardships of their low-income, minority family and their belief that her son attending KIPP has given him the future he might not have had. Her son now plans to go on to college, in line with a key requirement that all KIPPsters be accepted to college in order to graduate high school . Wow – what a moment!

Other highlights:

• Mr. Mathews described the four characteristics he believes makes schools successful: having 1. high expectations, 2. more time in the school day, 3. authentic assessments, and 4. team spirit
• Mr. Feinberg shared the four traits they look for in KIPP teachers: 1. smart and passionate in the topic they teach, 2. ability to connect with kids, 3. the heart to do whatever it takes, and 4. shared core beliefs and values

TREW Marketing is proud to call KIPP Austin our friends. We’re working on our client page where we can share more about the work we’ve done in education in this first year of business with clients such as KIPP. Until then, you can check out our PR work with KIPP on FOX News as well as on The Next Frontier math and science education report by The Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas.

In other education news, we are excited that Rebecca will be attending the E3 Alliance Leaders Summit for TREW later this month. One of the key elements of our approach at TREW is collaboration, and there is nearly no better example of collaboration than E3. You can check out more about their impact on Central Texas education at their website, and their unwavering and passionate leader, Susan Dawson, who has dedicated so much time and talent to improving the education of all students in Central Texas.

We recently attended the 2009 Gala for the Children in support of the Children’s Medical Center Foundation of Central Texas.  Events such as these sometimes struggle to strike the delicate balance between communicating information and raising funds while providing opportunities for fun.  I am pleased to say this wonderfully-executed event struck the balance with excellence, raising over $700,000 for the children.

We began the evening by peeking at the live and silent auction items up for bid.  After imbibing in a few adult beverages and some wonderful appetizers, the program began.  We heard of many firsts and accomplishments of the Medical Center from the past year, including being named the only hospital in the world to be Leed Platinum certified, and watched an incredibly moving video of patient stories.  

We had the opportunity to dine with the nice folks from Austin Suburu who played a significant sponsorship role of the gala and were touched by their commitment to the Children’s Medical Center.

The gala also featured a killer band, casino, and crazy fun photo booth courtesy of Say Cheese.

TREW Marketing Co-Founders Wendy Covey and Rebecca Geier, plus spouse Randy Covey enjoy the Say Cheese photo booth during the gala

Congrats to the Foundation staff for putting together a memorable night for all, and for raising over $700,000 for the children.

TREW Marketing is proud to be working with Convio, a supplier of marketing, fundraising, and advocacy tools for cause organizations.  Convio selected TREW Marketing for their deep knowledge and experience in trade show marketing.

TREW marketing also recently participated in Convio’s New Year’s Resolution campaign, where a dozen or so bloggers and many Convio customers, shared their goals for 2009 such as technology adoption, research, and measurement.   The output is an interesting guide and set of blogs.  View our TREW resolutions in the Spotlight blog archive.

Yesterday, we had the unique opportunity of witnessing one of the great communicators of our time – the 44^th president of the United States, Barack Obama. No matter your political viewpoint, you can’t ignore the unprecedented millions who were personally inspired to get involved and ultimately succeeded in their mission to elect him president. President Obama’s followers truly trust him and they show it. From the 3,851,604 friends on his Facebook page to the record-breaking estimate of over 2 million attendees at his inauguration, it is clear President Obama is committed to communication – from traditional media to new media – and he has driven record-breaking results.

There are great lessons for all of us in business to take from President Obama and others leaders’ committed and innovative approaches to communication. Especially in these very uncertain times, business leaders have a unique and compelling opportunity to inspire employees and build trust, and as a result, lead their markets, strengthen their customer relationships, and beat their competition. Employees are at the heart of your company’s success – they are your most vocal and honest spokespeople, whether you ask them to be or not, and building trust and inspiring this community by empowering them to make the customer experience better than any other in the industry takes great commitment over a long period of time.

Herb Kelleher, co-founder and past president and CEO of Southwest Airlines said it best in an interview with Worth magazine in April 2001: “Employees come first, and if you treat them well, they treat customers well. That makes customers keep coming back, and that makes shareholders happy.” SWA’s performance shows how this commitment pays off, as Fortune magazine reporter Barney Gimbel said in March 2008, “Besides posting its 35th consecutive year of profitability, [Southwest Airlines] was the most punctual, lost the fewest bags, and had the least complaints compared with its peers.”

One of TREW Marketing’s most unique consultation offerings is executive and employee communications. We have led award-winning employee communications programs, and we know first-hand there’s not a silver bullet. We understand the best practices from years on the front lines and bring our collaborative, measured approach to customize programs for our clients, from new, innovative approaches employed by President Obama to the tried-and-true commitment of day-in and day-out global leadership communication.

This is a 2-part series – this post focuses on the founding of TREW and the importance of building trust, and the 2nd post will follow with examples of companies who are committed to building trust and the outstanding results they’ve delivered.

We get asked often about the founding of the TREW Marketing name and approach, so we thought we’d share the story. As we began the more serious discussions about starting our marketing firm – vs. just the “one day we’re going to…” happy hour banter – we kept coming back to two core values at the heart of driving results and differentiating ourselves: trust and authenticity.

While marketing practices continually change and provide new ways to drive awareness and efficiency– from e-mail marketing in the 90′s to social marketing today – people are still people. And if they don’t trust you, your company, or your spokespeople, or if they believe you say one thing but do another, no marketing program is going to change that.

Trust, just as with friendships or professional relationships, is built through consistent and constant communication and interaction over the long-term with all your stakeholders – employees and customers, donors and volunteers, partners and suppliers. So if it’s so straightforward, why did we at TREW see it as not only a core value, but a differentiator? Because we have seen marketer after marketer advise flash-in-the-pan programs with no long-term, comprehensive view that takes into account how all stakeholders are affected. In the end, this approach is not only unsustainable, but can actually threaten your company’s trust and credibility in the marketplace, and as a result, your organizational performance, from sales to fundraising to employee productivity and turnover.

Jack and Suzy Welch talked about trust and effective leadership in their October 27, 2008 WelchWay article, Trust in a Time of Turmoil in BusinessWeek, “Trust is the very foundation of effective leadership; it’s the grease of change…The more authentic a leader shows himself to be, the stronger the connections. Authenticity feeds trust.”

We believe this holds equally true to companies and organizations – large or small. We couldn’t say it any better, except we like to spell it a little funny to work in the “W” in one of the founder’s initials!  True or TREW – in the end, it’s all about building trust to drive results. For more information about our Trust Drives Results Workshop, visit http://www.trewmarketing.com/workshops.html