Internet marketing tips for Sandy Clough Tea

Envision That All Sandy Clough Tea Prospects Wo...

Envision That All Sandy Clough Tea Prospects Wore Vividly Colored Pink Jerseys?

Over the past, I've occasionally had the privilege of acting as a consultant directly or indirectly with Sandy Clough Tea independent distributors. Regardless of all my attempts to explain, I still from time-to-time get individuals that say, "running a pay per click marketing campaign might be marvelous, but paying money everytime somebody clicks scares me to death. Perhaps this is not best marketing strategy for my giftware, home accessories & decor."

Even though this type thinking always surprises me, I'm certain that one of the reasons I hear this is because the "concept" of running a pay per click marketing campaign is still not understood. Maybe an analogy will help.

What if you could park at the front door of a Target store or JC Penney and immediately spot customers who were looking for your product? Lets say they wore loudly colored Pink tee shirts announcing what they were planning to purchase at the store. Imagine if these shoppers knew to go straight to you rather than shopping in a hit and miss fashion?

With Yahoo's Sponsored Search, Google AdWords, or other PPC search engines, you connect with your potential prospects the very instant they want to hear from you.

Let's take this concept a step further. What if you could have hundreds and hundreds of college students at the door of every department store in the country. What's more, you'd have to pay them only if they got customers and began marketing to them your giftware, home accessories & decor.

Now, even if other big companies have made big advertisements, hovering over everyone, it doesn't matter. Few shoppers care for a general ad when something more targeted to their wants and needs is more readily available. All the while, your "agents" are constantly monitoring every single customer that passes by.

Deploying a campaign of pay-per-click advertisements in Google, Yahoo, or another PPC search engine is like deploying a team of non-stop "agents", except that these search agents won't require breaks and they require no pay unless they produce results. Your "agents" will be waiting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for customers looking for your products or services. As soon as they start looking, you'll be the first to know.

Online ad growth of 33.7 percent is expected in 2005 to $12.7 billion, raising a previous estimate of $11.5 billion for the year. eMarketer had estimated 2004 ad revenue at $9.5 billion. (Source: eMarketer 04/2005)

Is Sandy Clough Tea a Haven for Mompreneurism? ...

Is Sandy Clough Tea a Haven for Mompreneurism?

Source: Direct Sales Association

I recently checked the "gender stats" available from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "direct sales" are female. Guess what that means? Yes, the men total a paltry 20.1%. Many of the women in our industry (and customers we seek) are current or future moms. It seems natural that a new term has appeared on our horizon known as Mompreneurism.

Yes, you're reading it right. According to authors Patricia Cobe and Ellen Parlapiano, who trademarked the term "mompreneurs" and were recently featured in Time magazine and various other programs like Lifetime Television; their mompreneurs online web site (www.mompreneursonline.com) draws millions of visitors each month.

In reading through the Mompreneurs Online web site you'll discover that they've interviewed hundreds of at home mompreneurs. Their interviews revealed that these women share certain secrets for internet success. I borrowed a few points about mompreneurs from their site... below is a sampling of why and how mom-owned businesses are surviving and thriving on the web according to Cobe and Parlapiano:

Web Wisdom. Work-at-home moms understand that a dot.com name alone is not enough to power success. But the Internet can be a very valuable tool when used in conjunction with more traditional business strategies.
Money Smarts. Moms don't overextend their financial resources and are less likely to use outside funding during start-up. So they don't have to worry about venture capitalists pulling the plug on their businesses.
A Natural Niche. Cyberspace opens up a wealth of business ideas, allowing moms to tap into their talents, skills and passions to create products and services for highly targeted audiences.

It's possible you think Sandy Clough Tea is a good place for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract at home mompreneurs to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial revolution underway?

Whatever the case, "at home" business moms are an important niche and your marketing campaigns can target these moms. Moms are both a consumer and a business force to be respected and understood.

Think optimistically that your giftware, home accessories & decor will be just the thing these mompreneurs are seeking? Now, let's continue (below) with more tips in our series on pay per click strategies for gaining highly targeted traffic. Maybe you can get some moms clicking!

PPC Tips:

On the subject of ad copy (the words which will comprise your numerous different listing titles and descriptions) we can sum it up briefly: RELATE your listing to the keyword the searcher has typed, SPARK curiosity in their minds to encourage a visit, be TRUTHFUL, be BRIEF, be CLEAR, don't HYPE, and FILTER out bad clicks.
FILTER OUT BAD CLICKS? Yes, if your product is NOT for certain searchers, be clear upfront before they click. Example: If you bid on the keyword 'herbal shampoo' because your product is an herbal dog shampoo, make sure your ad copy reads: for dogs, pets, or animals. If you only fulfill orders in Canada, state this upfront in your listing ad copy. There is no need to pay for a visitor click if you cannot service a particular customer's needs. Use words to filter out bad clicks.
There are many good resources to help you with ad copy, writing, and knowing what to say about your product. We recommend the eBook by Kim Klaver, "If My Product's So Great, How Come I Can't Sell It". Click here for a complimentary 'Mini-edition' of this eBook.

How to Reach Out to Mompreneurs

Here's one way you can be relevant and compelling in reaching out to at home mompreneurs:

SUPPORT: Create strategies to support this emerging entrepreneurial niche. Provide convenient pathways and remove as many barriers to entry as possible. Almost every industry can tap into the mompreneur market by making their lives and their businesses run more smoothly.

How can giftware, home accessories & decor be s...

How can giftware, home accessories & decor be successfully promoted through AdWords or Sponsored Ads

Sandy Clough Tea encourages ladies to connect and build friendships around a warm cup of tea. Sandy has created products expressly for A Sandy Clough Tea that are designed to cultivate relationships and to show kindness.

As A Sandy Clough Tea independent distributor you know your product and you've set your goals. Your web page, site, or blog is up and you're pondering methods to get visitors to your site.

Can your giftware, home accessories & decor be sold through AdWords or Sponsored Ads or not? You've got to answer that first, right? But equally important, can you come up with a campaign that generates more profits bottom-line results than promotional expense?

Encouraging news, the answer is: "probably yes."

More tips for your PPC campaign:

Sometimes people type in web addresses in those search boxes! So bid on those if the search engine allows it: 'www.website.com', 'website.com', 'http://website.com' and every combination full or partial you think a searcher might actually type.
Match up keywords with words in your ad copy. Even though a 'spa', a 'hot tub', and a 'whirlpool' might mean the same thing in your mind, if a searcher types in 'hot tub' and your listing says: "Relax and save in your new Spa", you will miss out on many interested customers.
Think negative... yes, people search for herbs that can kill, plastic surgery pitfalls, mlm scams and sundry other peculiar things. Invite them to explore your related listing. Do you offer cosmetics or skin car as an alternative to plastic surgery? Is you mlm a beacon of light in a sea of seemingly dubious scams?
Get creative with interest spikes in the news. 'Mad Cow' might be a great keyword for your all vegetarian product line. The 'SARS' outbreak might have generated millions of searches that your 'immunity booster' could have benefited from (just don't make any false claims). And where were all the bra ads when a gazillion people typed in 'Janet Jackson' after the 2004 Super Bowl surprise?

Pay-per-click Tips. Google and Yahoo for Sandy ...

Pay-per-click Tips. Google and Yahoo for Sandy Clough Tea.

Sometimes you feel like flipping a coin when choosing a pay per click search engine. Which one is really best for you? The top two are Yahoo Sponsored Search and Google AdWords. It's a good idea to start your marketing push with a small budget, spreading it out over a few different search engines to experiment and see where your target market may be lurking.

A good place to start is by viewing the wonderful tutorials and flash overviews offered by Google and Yahoo. View the sample tutorials below, you'll find others at Google and Yahoo:

Yahoo Sponsored Search: Flash Introduction
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/tu_srch.php
Learn advantages of Yahoo's PPC program.

AdWord Options for Keyword Matching Explained
https://services.google.com/marketing/stats/tutorial_redirect
Perfecting your Google AdWord targeting and filter worthless clicks.

AdWords Optimization Tips
http://services.google.com/tutorial/opt_tips/google_opt.html
Attract more prospects by editing your Google ads.

Bidding Rules Are Different at Google and Yahoo:

Yahoo Ad Sponsoring Rules (bidding)

Yahoo sets your keyword bid only 1 penny over your next lowest competitor. Thus, if you bid $3.00 per click, and the next highest bid is $1.95 per click, you will only pay $1.96 per click.
Yahoo allows you to see who you are bidding against and what they are bidding, so you know exactly where you will rank, and how much you will pay.
Yahoo's maximum bid is $999.99
Yahoo's minimum bid is $0.10

AdWords by Google

Believe it or not, Google never reveals what you will pay per click. Thus, if you bid $3.00 per click, you will pay anywhere from $0.05 to $3.00 per click.
Google does not allow you to know how much your competitors are bidding per click.
An advantage with Google is that you will rank higher if your click-through rate (CT rate) is better (a CT rate is the ratio of clicks on your ad to the number of times your ad is shown). Thus, you may have a better rank than your competitor, even if he or she bids more than you (because of your CT rate).
Google's maximum bid is $100.00
Google's minimum bid is $0.05

New Google AdWords keyword status changes: Simplified keyword states and quality-based minimum bids.

NEW: Google announced in early August 2005 that they will simplify their keyword status system and introduce quality-based minimum bids, giving us more control to run all keywords we find important.

How it works

Each keyword will now be assigned a minimum bid that is based on the quality (also called Quality Score) of your keyword in your account. If your keyword or Ad Group's maximum cost-per-click (CPC) meets the minimum bid, your keyword will be active and trigger ads. If it doesn't, your keyword will be inactive and will not trigger ads.

Previosly, keyword statuses were called normal, in trial, on hold, and disabled. Under the new rules, this will be replaced with active (triggering ads) or inactive (not triggering ads). No more slowed or disabled keywords if no do not have a minimum clickthrough rate (CTR) threshold.

Tips, Tips, Tips... They just keep on coming!

Pay-per-click advertising tips for the Sandy Clough Tea independent distributor continue below:

When thinking up keywords, use examples of specific things your product is used for: 'clean floors', clean countertops', 'wash floors', 'mop floors', 'polish stove top', 'remove grime', 'shine appliances', 'disinfect bacteria', 'hide furniture flaws' etc.
Explore variations: 'soy milk', 'soymilk', 'soy-milk'
Add plurals: 'protein bar' and 'protein bars'
Use abbreviations and acronyms
Use US and UK spellings
Keyword phrases may be questions: 'how to repair bad credit', 'when should I diet', 'how do I lose weight', 'where are discount cosmetics', etc.

Sandy Clough Tea? What do people really think a...

Sandy Clough Tea? What do people really think about it?

Have you ever thought about the public's perception of what you do?

Sandy Clough Tea

Do you assume visitors already think this about Sandy Clough Tea?

That's an important point you must not overlook in any search engine marketing campaign; you should factor in from the start (as you are preparing your keywords, your ads, and your landing page) what the majority of visitors already 'have learned' about you and the giftware, home accessories & decor you offer. You might consider playing it safe and assume they've never heard of you. That's always the safe bet.

If you're selling iPODs or something very well known, you can approach things much differently. Less time explain 'what' you've got and more time explain 'why' they should buy from you.

If your selling something that seems like a common commodity (vitamins, shoes, cosmetics, telephone services, etc), then you must differentiate your product from the other seemingly similar things the public possibly will associate you with.

Much of these consumer 'mindset' conflicts should be handled on your landing page, that is, the page where they land after clicking your ad; so before you start any attempts to generate traffic, stop and think for a moment about what your potential customer might perceive as they arrive at your landing page.

Pay per click tips for this week:

So as promised, below you'll find this weeks installment of search engine tips...

If your product or service is something that can be related to a locale, like a city, state or region you may be able to find some ripe tomatoes in phrases like: 'retirement homes in Florida', 'Mississippi flat rate phone service', 'herbal sunscreen for southwestern sun', 'indoor air filters for Los Angeles'.
Discover more keywords by narrowing down to extreme specifics. People can be VERY specific when they search. Use names of months and years like '2004 tax savings', 'May flowers', 'Christmas of 2005' or 'September back to school supplies'.

Let's say you are marketing a broad line of herbal products... why not get a list of all herbs (there may be thousands) and use that list as a keyword list. Maybe your product doesn't contain every herb on the list, but people searching for any ONE herb specifically may be interested in others. Try specific model numbers, makes and designs if your products are sometimes referred to this way: 'Epson stylus CX6400', 'Apple G5', etc.
Add adjectives to your keywords like: big, purple, new, cheap, affordable, soft, aromatic, healthy, etc.

Fadsense: Google Adsense for Fashion? ...

Fadsense: Google Adsense for Fashion?

Fadsense: Google goes blue jeans and sneakers? Valentino Garavani, Donatella Versace, Ralph Lauren and all the other big names in fashion may soon have a new competitor (or partner) on the runway.

Don't miss this: Google FadSense™

As A Sandy Clough Tea independent distributor, you might be wondering why I'm talking about a futuristic contextual AdSense (AdWord) program like FadSense. It's partially because it's funny, but more importantly, it's because I feel the type of advertising we have been discussing here at my "Internet Marketing Tips for Sandy Clough Tea" blog, is critical to your future. What I'm hoping to teach you are skills and tips that will not only work for Google today, but for any similar type advertising in the future. Google FadSense, real or not!

To summarize the core of our current discussions, we want to know:

How to find keywords related to your products and services.
How to prepare your marketing campaign from the ground up.
How to track your traffic, results, and advertising ROI (return on investment).
How to create a destination or landing page that works.
How to manage your advertising budget.
How to create eye catching headlines for your ads.
How to use the internet effectively in any marketing campaign.

My Continuing Tips To Help You With Sandy Clough Tea...

Over the past few weeks we have hammered away with dozens of valuable tips. This week we continue.

Expand your keywords by asking your spouse, friends, neighbors, relatives, existing customers and strangers to look at your web page and offer their keyword suggestions. In this phase you cannot have too many cooks in the kitchen.
Put your biscuits in the oven and watch'em rise... That is, use web based 'keyword expanders' and research tools to expand your keywords beyond what you can come up with on your own.
Remember, searchers may type in something that describes your product, but more often than not they will be typing in words describing their problem. If your product or service solves, fixes, heals, masks or even distracts them from their problem, you want those keywords on your list.
"In-house" keywords (those used frequently by others in your industry or business) are often the most costly because lazy business owners don't often think beyond their own nose. The result is these limited keywords get bided-up sky high. Customers on the other hand seldom search using "in-house" keywords. Your goal is to find keyword niches popular with customers but less popular with your competition.

Today in History... After 118 Years, Google Inc...

Today in History... After 118 Years, Google Inc. Closed Its Doors.

www.flickr.com

What started as a a unique approach to solving one of computing's biggest challenges (retrieving relevant information from a massive set of data) and and grew to become the "five-and-dime" of pay-per-click search engines, pulled the plug on the last server on this date in Mountain View, California. It's a story of a future time that could be soon, or beyond our horizon.

If anyone back in the late 1800's or early 1900's had been thinking ahead to the future of Woolworth Corp., it's unlikely they would have ever predicted that the famous five-and-dime would be a line item on a "Today in History" script published to millions of readers across this thing we call the internet.

Yet today, has I opened my RSS News Reader, there it was. I can recall shopping at the five-and-dime as a kid. It was the "best" store in town. Just like Google; the best. Now, its history. Perhaps the best is not good enough?

As Google co-founder Larry Page puts it, "Never settle for the best, the perfect search engine, would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want."

On this date...

The Woolworth story begins when Frank Winfield Woolworth, son of a potato farmer, decided farming wasn't for him and just before turning 21 in 1873, he started work as an employee at Augsbury and Moore's Drygoods store in Watertown, New York. The experience wasn't the best in the world for him, according to this book, as Frank soon was called "the worst salesman in the world." Because he was "eager and polite," though, the store's owners took a liking to him and kept him on. F.W. Woolworth went on to become one of retail's most successful pioneers and his empire of department stores defined the shopping experience for millions over the course of its 118-year existence. On this day in 1997 Woolworth closed its doors.

Could this happen to Google? Well, yes. Simply put, Google has become a new kind of foe, and that has Bill Gates riled. Google has combined software innovation with a brand-new Internet business model and it wounds Gates' pride that he didn't get there first. It's an eye opening article from Fortune magazine: GATES VS. GOOGLE. For now however, it's all fantasy thinking as the titans of search (Google, Yahoo, & Microsoft) battle it out in cyberspace.

Research shows global Web search advertising revenue, which is big business for the Internet giants, will be almost $8 billion in 2005 -- more than 20 times what it was four years ago. (Source: Reuters 2005)

Good news for the Sandy Clough Tea independent distributor

The Cost Per Lead using Pay-per-click is Cheap Compared To Other Ads

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know where to spend your advertising dollars... $8.50 for search, $20 for Yellow Pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail. Those are the average cost-per-customer numbers based on research by Piper Jaffray.

"The market is growing fast, primarily because the ads are trackable and target people who are already interested. The medium is also inexpensive compared with television, radio, direct mail and Web banner ads. Paid-search advertising has become a do-or-die proposition," says Jeff Saville, a consumer direct marketing manager at Deckers Outdoor Corp. (Nasdaq:DECK - news)

Are there dangers or flaws in search advertising?

At times, advertisers and their online business affiliates find they are competing with each other in auction-style bidding for key words and pushing up their own costs.
An estimated 5 percent to 20 percent of clicks are believed to be fraudulent -- the result of people clicking on ads to drive up advertiser costs or to make a profit for Web site publishers who get a cut of revenue.
Some worry that new advertisers are rushing blindly into paid search and inflating key word prices -- a concern underscored by WebTrends data.

Adding all this up, we come to two conclusions: 1) It pays to get good at pay-per-click advertising if you plan to do business online and 2) we may only have 118 years left with Google :-)

Search engine marketing tips:

When cooking-up your keyword phrase list, use an extended "keyword discovery" phase. Your competition, like you, will do basic keyword research. You can only beat them if you take it to the next level, and that won't happen in the first day. Having a large number of targeted keywords in your campaign is a side effect of an extended period of brainstorming, discovery, research, or whatever you want to call it.
Not very wood with gords? There is a hidden target market of quality visitors who type in incorrect spellings of what they are looking for. Site owners often overlook this. In a recent 30 day period on a major search engine at least 108 people where searching for a 'buisness'? Hundreds more were searching for: 'vitiamins', 'vitimans' and even 'vitamens'... You can bid on misspellings and have very little competition on the search results page.
Assume that at least half your keywords will be rotten eggs, that is, no one will ever look for them and end up at your site. Because there is no extra cost to add as many keyword phrases as you can think up, treat them like biscuits and bake-up as many as you can... 100 or more keyword phrases for each destination page you list in any PPC search engine.