AdWords Lessons from the iPhone

I recently received the lamest postcard from Verizon Wireless, my cell phone provider. It showed three of their latest cell phones – the Blackberry 8830 World Edition, and the Motorola MOTOKRZR and MOTOSLVR – and explained the features and benefits of each phone.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t judge a pedestrian promotion like that so harshly, but of course, this is still the week of the iPhone.

Motorola announced second quarter losses last week, as investors are calling for the head of CEO Edward J. Zander. Sales of Blackberries and Nokias are flat. Margins are razor-thin (or is that RAZR-thin?).

And Apple, a company that had never tried to compete in the cell phone market, has just redefined the entire industry with its revolutionary, or well-designed and well-marketed, iPhone.

And you’re telling me you’ve found an AdWords market too competitive to compete in?

If you wanted to name a highly competitive market in which the major players are all brand names, huge companies with millions of dollars in R & D scrambling mightily to produce the latest and greatest, cell phone manufacturing would be a hard one to beat. You might think these companies would be experts at giving consumers exactly what they want.

Uh-uh, apparently.

It turns out that everybody pretty much hates their cell phones. The way they look, the complicated interface, the unnecessary features, the features that weren’t included, etc. etc. etc.

You can’t really blame the cell phone makers, when consumers can be so irrational, can you?

And then along comes Apple, with a completely different vision of the relationship of the human to her or his technology. And now everybody wants one, despite the well-publicized limitations (including molasses-in-January web connection speeds and a spotty-at-best AT&T wireless network).

Now, I’m not suggesting you pick the most competitive market you can find and invent something crazy just to see if you can win market share. But you can use AdWords to drive qualified traffic to powerful surveys that will tell you, if you do them correctly, exactly what your market is and isn’t currently getting from existing vendors.

And I can almost guarantee that your competitors aren’t doing that. Because it’s harder than split testing, harder than keyword research, and harder than peel and stick.

And that "harder" gap is precisely why it’s so powerful. If you want to achieve things your competitors aren’t achieving, you have to be willing to do things they can’t or won’t do.

For over 15 hours of detailed audio instruction in the AdWords to Onine Survey method of market domination, visit www.UltimateAdWordsResearch.com.

And if you like it, let me know. Call me from your iPhone.

Strega Nona, the Missing Kisses, and Your Competitor’s Back End

The other day my wife and son were reading Tomie de Paola’s wonderful children’s book Strega Nona, an Italian retelling of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice story. In this version, Big Anthony comes to work for Strega Nona and overhears her incantation over her magic pasta pot. The result: he learns the spell for endless pasta making, memorizing the chant to turn the pot off, but because he is hiding, he misses the visual accompaniment to the "stop-the-pot" spell: blowing three kisses.

The pasta pot produces relentlessly, threatening the whole town, until Strega Nona returns and solves the problem by invoking the correct words and gestures. (Sorry for the spoiler.)

Online marketing is a lot like a magic pasta pot.

Big Anthony see a competitor’s ad running for several weeks, and naturally makes the assumption that they’re making money.

He visits their landing page (by typing in the URL, of course, since it wouldn’t be fair to make them pay for your competitive research) and see their front end offer. A $39 widget. A $19 ebook. A $3500 seminar. Whatever.

Big Anthony assumes that he understands their business model, and so copies it. But somehow the numbers don’t turn out right. He spends $100 on clicks for every $25 in sales. He’s going broke fast by emulating what he sees.

Keep Your Eye on the Back End

Big Anthony’s mistake, of course, was assuming that what he could perceive was all there was. Blowing three kisses was invisible, and so is the value-exchange that takes place between merchant and customer following the initial sale. His competitor may also be working with a negative ROI on the front end, and making it up with a high priced upsell, or a series of emails promoting affiliate programs, or a robust continuity program.

If you’re serious about emulating your successful competitors, then you must become their customer. Pay for the privilege of watching the whole spell, so you don’t end up drowing in spaghetti like Big Anthony.

Wanna Buy My Fridge?

This week I’m selling a refrigerator on my local Raleigh-Durham Craigslist. It’s a chance for me to practice my marketing and copywriting, in a marketplace that doesn’t know me, trust me (a used appliance salesman!), or like me. Plus it’s highly competitive – I’m writing this at 10:30am and there are already 5 new posts up today for the search term "fridge":

Jul-11   GE Side by Side Fridge – $800 (Clayton) <<household items

 Jul-11   Need a small dorm room refrigerator? – $100 (Raleigh) <<furniture

 Jul-11   Will Go Fast….Refriigerator – $400 (north raliegh) <<household items

 Jul-11   Upright FREEZER!!! – $175 (TRIANGLE) <<household items

 Jul-11   STAINLESS STEEL FRIDGE!!!!!!!!!!! – $300 (raleigh) <<general

Here’s my listing title, from yesterday:

 Jul-10   Amana Bottom-Freezer Refrigerator – Quiet, Good Condition – $250 (Durham) pic <<household items

The first thing I did was research the competition so I could price my fridge competitively. As you can see from the photo below, it’s smack in the middle of my damn living room. If I can’t get rid of it in a day or two, I’m going to start using it as a bookcase. So I’m looking for a quick sale at a reasonable price. I thought I could get $300 maybe, so in the interest of a quick sale I dropped $50 to make it a no-brainer.

Second, I added two important benefits to the title: quiet, and good condition. When buying a used appliance, folks often want to know if it works and if it sounds like a construction site. Compare my addition to the exclamation point festival from a couple of the competing posts. Which is more likely to compel a click?

Cliffhanger? Keep reading…

Punch Through, Not To

Yesterday watching my son E’s karate class, the sensei (Japanese for "guy who can beat the crap out of me without even trying") was teaching the Yellow Belt class how to punch with energy. "Don’t punch at the target," he explained. "Punch through the target." And then he demonstrated the difference, which was (forgive the pun) striking.

Assistant Sensei Robinson (who I also must remember to stay on the nice side of) used the analogy of parking a truck in front of a building versus driving into the building.

While the destructive image may not float my boat, it sure made an impression on the kids’ punches for the rest of the class. They struck and blocked with more focus, energy, and commitment.

Seth Godin’s version of the USP

In his recent book, The Dip, Seth Godin redefined the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) in a powerful way: Be the best in the world.

In online marketing, this is what Perry Marshall calls "taking your customer off the market."

In dating, this is called marriage.

If you’re taking the trouble to get an AdWords account, choose some keywords, write some ads, set up some landing pages, and create some sales funnel, why do it if you can’t defend it from poachers?

Being the best in the world (in the world you define as your niche, not the entire intergalactic thing) is the only reliable shield against competition.

Find out what your market wants and how they want it. Creatively serve them like they’ve never been served before. (The bar here is so low it’s laughable – a follow-up phone call of thanks, an extra bonus, an email that shares rather than pitches.)

AdWords, and online marketing in general, is getting more and more competitive each day. Timothy Ferriss’s book The Four Hour Work Week is #15 on Amazon right now, and it teaches people how to live like a billionaire with an AdWords-based business. Ya’ think certain markets are about to be overrun by newbies?

And then some joker has to go and write AdWords For Dummies, which in my opinion is a totally irresponsible sharing with the masses of very powerful strategies – oh, wait, that’s me. Never mind.

So if you’re going to enter a market, don’t settle for ordinary. It doesn’t last. Punch through, not to. Ki-ya!!

Something that Beeps

Do you know why I’m not considered a complete and total flake by my friends, family, and business associates?

It’s because I have something that beeps.

I’m a very "in the moment" kind of guy. I can get focused on something – a book, a game, a thought, a blog post, a conversation – and tune out the rest of the world, including the passage of time and my obligations and commitments.

But luckily, I own a Treo 650, which contains the digital version of my calendar. It’s my cellphone, so I’m pretty good at keeping it close at hand (or leg, in a trouser pocket).

And it beeps.

It beeps when I have to call a client for a phone meeting.

It beeps when I have to pick up groceries for dinner on my way back from town.

It beeps when I have to pick my mother up at the airport in an hour (feel sorry for me the day I forget that one).

My wife is a much more aware and together person than me, and she uses a paper calendar.

Now I love paper calendars. I love being able to add layers of meaning through color and handwriting and doodles. I love being able to scan a week in LP-size, not CD-size. I adore being able to flip right to the date in question and pencil in an appointment in seconds. I love that it’s batteries never die.

But it doesn’t beep.

So occasionally, she forgets things because she’s distracted by children, or weeding in the garden, or tending the beehives. She’s the earth-goddess type, attendant to cycles of nature rather than the unforgiving and relentless tick-tock of civilization.

I’ve taken to adding wife-friendly beeps to my Treo. Just this morning at 11:55am: "Call M remind pickup Y from camp." She appreciates it. Both the reminder, and the fact that it’s me, not her, dealing with the beep.

My AdWords and Analytics accounts beep. I’ve configured 4 different reports in AdWords. They run once a week and appear magically in my inbox. I print them out and examine them for clues about how to make more money. About twice a month, I find something significant to change.

Analytics now gives me the ability to send myself a PDF snapshot of the important charts and tables of my online life.

Without beeps, I’d have a hard time living in the digital age. With beeps, I can just about manage. And thanks to AdWords and the online life, I now have more beepless time to spend away from the gadgetry that makes it all possible.

Is Your Market Waggling?

My wife keeps bees. She can sit in front of the hives for hours, just watching their dangerous little tushies waggling back and forth in front of the entrances. I sometimes sit next to her in the early evening and watch too – for as long as I can. To me, it’s all the same thing: The bees fly in. The bees fly out. A couple of bees are walking around in circles. OK, I get it. Now can we throw a Frisbee?

For my wife, on the other hand, the bee display is far richer than it is for me. She’s learning to read the language of bees, and so is eavesdropping a conversation in bee-talk, a conversation so important that the very survival of her hives depends on it.

What appear to me as random movements are actually precise and complex descriptions of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone." The direction the bee points, the figure she traces with her body (yes, all the worker bees are females), the duration of the dance – all these communicate the location of good nectar which can be brought back to the hive and turned into honey.

And My Point Is…

If you’re using AdWords, your market is waggling its butt in your face 24/7. It’s telling you clearly where the nectar isn’t, and if you’re lucky, where it is.

• Some of your keywords are profitable, and others are not.
• Some of the websites showing your Content Network ads are bringing you buyers, and others are just sending you expensive tire kickers.
• Some of your bids are too high, and others too low.
• Some of your ads are not connecting with your prospects, while others are driving them wild.
• Some of your landing pages are turning visitors off within 3 seconds, while others are getting prospects to do exactly what you want them to do.

WHICH ONES?

If you don’t discover the answers to this question on a regular basis (monthly, if not weekly), I guarantee you’re searching for nectar in the wrong meadows and gardens. Sure, you may be collecting enough to survive, but as Glenn Livingston notes, in AdWords, the good is often enemy of the great. If being great is simply a matter of learning how to set up and read reports, and then take drop-dead obvious actions based on the data, why not go for it?

Chapter 14 of AdWords for Dummies shows you how to set up reports that run while you sleep and show up automatically in your inbox. You’ll discover the most important numbers, and how to interpret and act on them. And since the book includes $24.95 in AdWords credits, you actually will get paid about $8 when you buy it from amazon.

So get cracking on those reports, and may your honey be sweet and plentiful.

AdWords Lessons from the Raspberry Patch

Today I helped weed the raspberry patch, and I noticed several things:

First, the raspberry patch is the section of the community garden most in need of weeding. Probably because it’s the most unpleasant section of the garden to be in: the raspberry stalks  have prickers on them that irritate and scratch the skin. Compared to the lettuce beds, raspberries are the front lines of gardening.

Second, the big problem weeds (lamb’s quarter and morning glory, mostly) get to be a problem only when the patch has been neglected. Both are very easy to pull out when they’re young.

Third, once the morning glory vine has wound itself around a raspberry stalk, it’s almost impossible to disentangle from the stalk. Much easier to follow it all the way down to the root and gently yank it out of the ground, then untwine and remove its tendrils.

Fourth, once the rasperry patch is weed-free and the raspberries are visible, everyone wants to come by and help themselves to the sweet berries.

Fifth, lettuce sells in the supermarket for 70 cents a pound, while a few ounces of raspberries can run you four or five dollars.

Metaphor Time

AdWords, of course, is like a garden. Each ad group is its own bed, with different time and energy and agony requirements and different inputs. The easy beds are the ones where lots of competitors come and do the easy work. You need to do it, but doing it isn’t going to give you any sort of competitive advantage.

Where are your raspberry patch ad groups? What tasks in those ad groups are the nasty weeding work that others can’t or won’t do? Peel and stick? Split testing landing pages and order forms? Reading keyword and ad placement reports every week?

What tasks are easy when you keep on top of them, but get massive and difficult when neglected?

In all things, the sweet rewards come to those willing and able to endure what others cannot and will not. Happy picking!

You Sunk My Battleship!

This morning my 7-year-old son and I played a rousing game of Battleship. Well, it would have been rousing if he hadn’t been too excited to mark the results of his guesses. He’d say, "F-8" and I’d say "miss" and he wouldn’t put a white peg in the F-8 hole. Two turns later, he’d say, "F-8" again.

Even though I was giving him two guesses to my one, I was still able to hold my own because he didn’t register the crucial feedback provided by the game. By the time he grew bored (which happens without compelling feedback in most of life) and started building lighthouses by stacking the white and red pegs vertically, I was winning.

I say this not to brag – well, maybe a little – but to point out a serious problem with most marketing – lack of attention to feedback. In the offline world of newspaper and magazine ads, radio and TV commercials, direct mail pieces, etc., feedback was reasonably hard to come by. But online, everything you need to know to make intelligent decisions is readily available to you, for free.

If you’re using AdWords and don’t have Conversion Tracking set up – both the code and reports scheduled to run on a regular basis and sent to your inbox – you’re shooting at battleships and ignoring the results. If you don’t have Analytics running, you’re throwing away profits on sub-optimal (a fancy direct marketing term for "lousy") web pages.

Never before in the history of marketing has there been a feedback mechanism as immediate, precise and statistically valid as pay per click. Use it fully, and may your battleships float in peace.

Question about Audio on Web page

I was asked the following questions at the Glazer-Kennedy Peak Performers meeting, where I was presenting on internet marketing.

Q1: Is it better to have audio play automatically when a landing page loads, or let the visitor control whether to play it or not?

A1: I always give my visitors the choice, because I don’t like to create Web sites that I wouldn’t like to experience as a visitor. That said, I understand I’m not necessarily my typical visitor, and my preferences aren’t universal. So I’ll take the "marketing guru dodge" and say – test it. Run an A-B split test, send half the traffic to a page where the audio loads automatically, and the other where they have to push a button to hear the audio.

If you’re driving traffic using Google AdWords, you can split test from directly within the AdWord interface, using identical ads and different destination URLs. Can’t be much easier than that.

Now, I think video that plays automatically is a slightly different animal, and most people will be more forgiving with a video that talks than a disembodied voice coming out of nowhere. YouTube has trained us to expect the video to play as soon as the page loads. For a great example of autoplay video on a marketing site, visit www.Fripp.com/forplanner.html. Notice the instructions under the video – "click on image to pause video – click to resume playing" – that provide a feeling of control for the visitor while still serving them the multimedia without their permission.

Q2: What vendors/formats do you use for Web audio and video?

A2: For audio, I like AudioAcrobat. It’s easy to convert and upload audios, simple to get code for your page, and wonderful at tracking how many people listened, and for how long. It’s in the Flash format, which is pretty much universal these days.

For video, I go with QuickTme (for Mac) for ease of editing and uploading. If you have a mac, definitely include quicktime format. Just realize that some PCs don’t have the QuickTime plugin and will see an empty screen. For them, include a link to the pretty-universal Flash video (flv) format. You can buy a program like Sorenson Squeeze (at www.sorensonmedia.com) to do the conversions, and host them yourself, or get the easy-upload, cheap-hosting solution at www.webvideozone.com.

Q3. Is there still room for me at your fabulous "FINALLY GET IT DONE" AdWords Workshop in Durham on June 22-24, 2007? Oh please!!!

A3: I’m so glad you asked that one. Yes, there are still a few slots available. If you’re spending $1250/month or more on AdWords and you’re not implementing all the the strategies listed below, you’re throwing away money:

1. Fully optimized campaigns (peel and stick, content vs search, etc.)
2. Conversion Tracking set up, along with automated reporting that you actually print out and study each week
3. Analytics set up, along with key goals
4. Autoresponders to turn prospects into leads, leads into buyers, and buyers into loyal customers
5. Spit testing of landing pages and other site pages

Find out more about the workshop here.