It s Quick, Easy, and Inexpensive to Generate New Business

It's Quick, Easy, and Inexpensive to Generate New Business

I don't know about you, but before I invest any money into a new marketing program I want to know about the potential return on investment (ROI). It helps me to hear success stories during my marketing efforts; I spot ideas to improve my results. It's also inspiring . That being said, you may be happy to know there are many examples throughout this book of how companies are achieving success from search engine advertising.

As the new media director for a direct response television agency, I witnessed immediately how profitable search engine advertising can be. A handful of the agency's clients sold "As Seen on TV" products. As soon as the latest products appeared in television commercials, I marketed them on search engines, directing shoppers to the clients ' web sites.

Important

Trademark terms identify a particular company. Generic terms, also called related terms , are keywords that could be relevant to more than one company.

For example, for Tristar Products' popular Flat Hose product, I bid on keyword phrases using the product trademark name , such as flat hose, flathose, tristar flat hose, as seen on tv flat hose, the flat hose, and flat garden hose. I also bid on generic terms such as hose, water hose, and garden hose. For less than $2,000 per month per client in search engine fees, several As Seen on TV companies generated an extra $10,000 ‚ $40,000 in gross sales each month. Around the 2002 holiday season , one ab fitness product generated close to $40,000 from only $800 in search engine fees. Now that's an impressive ROI.

What made this form of marketing even more exciting was that it took me less than 15 minutes to add a new product listing to a search engine. The links generally appeared during a keyword search within a few days (Google, bless them, launches listings after you've deposited money online using a credit card). Because some search engines require only a $50 deposit to start advertising, you're just $50 and a few days away from sending qualified traffic to your web site.