Member Article

Launch your product more effectively with digital marketing

It is essential to have a robust marketing strategy in place when launching a new product or service. Simon Wood, founder of digital marketing agency Ad Guru, gives his advice on the best online advertising tactics to utilise for sales success.

A healthy balance of marketing channels should be employed as part of any launch strategy to ensure maximum impact and how you allocate your budget will depend on which channels are most effective for your target audience.

In our ever-evolving digital age, which has seen internet users rise to 3.2 billion worldwide, one area business owners and marketers are investing their spend to support launch activity is pay-per-click (PPC), specifically Google AdWords.

But why?

Reach a targeted audience

Unlike the majority of traditional advertising and online advertising, where messages are often broadcast to a general audience, AdWords are only displayed to consumers who have shown a direct interest in a specific product or service.

People indicate their interest by searching Google for specific terms or keywords – the drivers of an AdWords campaign. When the results for that particular keyword are returned, ads that are pertinent to the user’s search keyword are featured. This makes ads relevant and useful in the same way as organic search results.

Taking a strategic approach to keyword development will generate the best results for your product or service. The keyword planning tool in AdWords is a useful place to start the process. By entering initial keywords, the tool provides variations which may be more relevant and obtainable for your PPC campaign.

You can also target audiences specifically by day, time, country, device and more, meaning AdWords can be used in launch campaigns to expose your products or services to new markets at the precise time your prospects and customers need them.

You can control spend

The true beauty of AdWords is that the risk of potential overspend is eradicated. You can set a specific maximum cost per day for your campaign and there is no minimum spend.

Unique to the advertising arena, you only pay if someone actually clicks on your ad. If your ad is shown but not clicked on, you do not pay – simple as that. The benefit to this is that there is no cost to its visibility, so for a launch campaign there is still an element of exposure and awareness to be gained.

The worst case scenario is that the volume of your ads served will decrease as your budget reduces. However, this can be increased accordingly, giving you the option to boost leads in a short amount of time. This is particularly useful for businesses looking to drive greater traffic at pinnacle points of a launch campaign.

With the option to change your budget at any time, you have full control of how much of your launch budget is allocated to your PPC campaign. The Google AdWords bid simulator is a handy tool which allows you to gather a good understanding of what campaigns could cost and how to reach the all-important rankings top spot.

It is worth noting, that the paid search landscape is competitive. Google is constantly improving AdWords because it’s one of its primary sources of income. Users are also becoming savvy. To ensure the success of a launch campaign implementing PPC, utilise data analysis tools, leading technologies, innovative thinking and paid search best practice.

It’s measurable

One of the biggest advantages of digital marketing and PPC is that it is highly measurable. AdWords is one of the most measurable channels available and with over two billion searches taking place every day on Google alone, the opportunity to reach your audience and get your launch noticed is huge.

Before embarking on your AdWords campaign, it is vital to first define goals or KPIs. This has a direct effect on the return you receive. Remember, without goals there is no direction and without direction, how can you measure success?

AdWords metrics allow you to track and evaluate the success of your PPC performance and provides a valuable insight into what is or isn’t working, supported by the ability to react. Adwords is instant, allowing both your target keywords and your Google ad to be refined and tweaked with ease – at any time.

This flexibility means you can immediately take action to leverage the efforts of your launch campaign from start to finish and everything in-between.

As marketing budgets continue to come under scrutiny and demand more from spend, AdWords delivers measurable ROI and works for almost any type of business to complement the other marketing efforts employed to drive a launch.

There are many other reasons to initiate an AdWords campaign as part of your launch and running a PPC campaign could prove to be the most successful tactic if implemented correctly. It could also be a costly and time-intensive mistake if not. The digital landscape is complex and it’s a full time job to remain abreast of new industry innovations and updates.

My advice to anyone unfamiliar with the sector and the tools it has to offer is to call in the experts. An AdWords campaign doesn’t need to be expensive and should quickly pay for itself, particularly if you invest in a partner who understands how to build a tailored campaign suited to your launch objectives, timings and budget.

Simon Wood, founder, Ad-Guru

Simon began his marketing career with blue-chip brands Great North Eastern Railway and Whitbread before moving to Google. A six year stint in the search giant’s policy and compliance department allowed him to carve his niche experience in digital advertising. In 2009, Simon launched Ad Guru – based from headquarters in North East England, the company provides PPC, social media and SEO services to businesses of all sectors and sizes, across the world.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ad Guru .