Tag: campaign

  • Four Ways to Kill a Campaign Before It Starts

    Four Ways to Kill a Campaign Before It Starts

    For those who employ marketing strategies over the Internet, the term ‘campaign’ is generally used to denote a particular advertising implementation which utilizes specific components.  The benefit of working with campaigns is that they can be deployed, analyzed, modified, and redeployed.  The concept of working with campaigns is quite simple, but in practice developing a profitable campaign is often the result of long, painstaking work.  Because of this, performance marketers should give themselves and their campaigns every opportunity to succeed, and avoid the following campaign killing mistakes.

    Unclear goals – Before you begin a campaign you should clearly determine its goals, the results you intend to achieve, and what criteria will need to be met in order to determine whether or not the campaign was a success.  Often times people begin a campaign solely hoping to make a profit.  While this is certainly overall goal of performance marketing in general, it is not necessary that every campaign to be implemented with profit as its specific goal.  Campaigns may be used to test consumer sentiment, test a particular landing page, gain insight into the algorithms of a particular website, or test any of countless other metrics.  So before you design and launch campaign, be sure to clearly define exactly what you hope to accomplish with it.

    Throwing it out there – One of the most common beginner mistakes when developing their first campaign is giving in to the notion that they should simply put something out into the marketplace, that this alone is better than doing nothing.  But this is not usually the case.  The deployment of a campaign costs money in the form of advertising payments, be they pay per click, pay per call, or other pay per action charges.  Hence, it is best to think through even your initial campaigns in order to best design them in such a way as to make them most likely to succeed.

    Lack of research – When designing a campaign it is usually not enough to simply consult your previous knowledge for guidance on how to move forward.  The Technological Age has led to a rapid increase in the rate of change occurring among the population, which gives rise to continuously growing and changing sets of demographics and data points.  One of the best ways to kill your campaign before getting started is to neglect to research your targeted customer and what makes him or her tick.  On the other hand, thoroughly investigate your prospective customer if you want to increase your chances of success.

    Listening to popular wisdom – So often, in the performance marketing community self-described experts offer page upon page of free advice online, and are often willing to defend their ideas vigorously against anyone who questions their reasoning.  However it is not a good idea to take such declarations to be the infallible true.  This is not to say that the advice is worthless.  But it is to say that what does not work for one person may very well work for you after you apply your unique creativity and problem solving skills to the matter.  Is usually a good idea to consider all free advice in light of that fact, and instead of allowing others to determine for you that which is possible and impossible, make the determination for yourself by testing and verifying.

  • The Advantages of Stealth Marketing in the Pay per Call Movement

    The Advantages of Stealth Marketing in the Pay per Call Movement

    Stealth marketing is the latest soon-to-be-overused buzz term that is picking up momentum in the world of performance marketers. It has earned something of an unsavory reputation as a type of underhanded and manipulative form of marketing because of a few unscrupulous individuals who have used the tactics in those kinds of ways. Even the term itself – stealth marketing – carries with it an inherent tone of sneakiness that comes off as something that is designed to line the pockets of advertisers at the expense of their customers. However, stealth marketing – sometimes referred to as undercover marketing (which admittedly sounds just as ominous) – is simply a form of advertising that allows performance marketers the opportunity to market their business without damaging their reputations. Pay per Call promotions are among the most effective means for advertisers to harness the power of stealth marketing, and there are a variety of ways in which they do so.

    One of the quickest and most efficient ways to generate sales leads through stealth marketing is through blogging. Writing short articles related to performance marketing and recommending the specific business in question with the phone number is an extremely effectively way to push a Pay per Call campaign. The articles don’t need to be extensive but they do need to be relevant, and more importantly, informative and helpful. Advertisers create a niche related to the campaign or offer and write the relevant articles around the topic. They then generate a list of businesses that perform best in that niche, establish a solid SEO position, and incorporate tracking numbers.

    Another online avenue for lead generation for performance marketers is creating YouTube videos. This is among the most popular methods because it is relatively easy to do and can generate the quick and lasting leads that every business longs for. There are several other video forums such as Vimeo and Vine that marketers use to showcase their business and phone numbers, but YouTube is far and away the most popular and the most effective. Think of the most effective videos as visual blogs. That is to say, find a niche related to the offer in your Pay per Call promotion, offer some kind of relevant and useful information about that niche, and display your number on the screen throughout.

    Something that requires a little bit more effort and time in order to see results is the “giveaway” tactic. Pay per Call Campaigns and the performance marketers who use them can benefit tremendously from this type of stealth marketing. It involves having your numbers on all possible manner of physical promotional items like t-shirts, coffee mugs, pens, and key chains. These items are then handed out to anyone and everyone in the local community and the word – as well as your numbers – spread, both offline and online. This tactics does not generate the fast leads that online tactics do but for generating leads over a longer period of time, it is one of the best ways to implement stealth marketing. This is far from an exhaustive list of tactics that performance marketers can use but it will definitely get your mind working in the right direction. Advertising is about creativity, not just creativity in your content but also in the way you present that content. There are countless ways to promote your business and many of them haven’t even been thought of yet. A few of the others, well, you just read about them. Now use them and get those leads!