Would you like more targeted traffic to your website? Contextual advertising could be the answer you’re looking for, especially if your business targets a specific niche.
It is an online advertising model where relevant ads are displayed on websites or other online media, based on the content that is on that web page. The advertising network searches the page for keywords and then delivers an advertisement that matches those keywords. For example, if you were reading a website about sports – and they use contextual advertisement – then you would only see ads related to sports.
For the advertiser it means that their ads are being displayed on pages related to their products or services. Chances are, if someone is reading that page, they may be interested in that topic – in this case, sports. That increases the chances that they will also be interested in your product or service.
No, pay per click is a model of how you pay for advertising, not how it is displayed. However, in many cases PPC is used alongside contextual ads – for example, Google Adwords and Adsense. When you type something into Google it searches the web and then displays the pages it thinks are most relevant based on the terms you typed in (your keywords). For example, if you type in ‘tropical fish’ it will give you a list of pages that use the term ‘tropical fish’ in order of relevance and importance.
On the right hand side of the results page Google also displays what it calls ‘sponsored results’ – this is Google Adwords and is a perfect example of a contextual ad. The ads that are displayed there are relevant to the keywords that you typed into Google. In this case you would expect to see advertisements related to ‘tropical fish’ – fish tanks, pet shops and the like. Each advertiser chooses the keywords that are appropriate to their advertisements and will only show up when those terms are searched for – i.e. contextual. They only pay however, when someone clicks on that ad – that is PPC.
Google Adwords combines the two – contextual advert and PPC – to great effect and has become one of the world’s largest advertising networks. Adsense is based on the same concept. Adsense allows website publishers to put small bits of code onto their website that deliver Adwords-style ads based on the text that is on the website page. So a page about boxing would have small boxing-related text ads appear on the page. When someone clicks on these ads, the revenue generated is split between Google and the website owner.
Google is certainly not the only advertising network that uses contextual ads and contextual advert does not have to use PPC.
The purpose of contextual advert is simply to make any advertising more relevant to what is on the website. That should mean that advertisers get a better response (and more targeted leads) and customers are not annoyed by irrelevant ads.
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If you’re like most businesses you’re probably looking for effective ways to:
Of course getting it right is what counts.
For example, you may need advice and assistance in:
You may want to outsource all your lead generation needs or simply need to get some occasional advice and support when you need it most.
Either way, we can help …
Custom lead generation programs – a full-service solution, from marketing planning and research to site promotion and reporting, we have everything you need to drive sales to your business.
Private Consultancy – One-on-one advice on any aspect of your online marketing strategy or lead generation needs.
Developing a website marketing strategy is a must for any business that wants to succeed online…and it doesn’t matter what kind of business you run. Here are a few things you should consider when you’re deciding when and how to promote your website.
1. Research
To develop a marketing strategy that is effective, you need to know a few things about your business and your customers. Research other businesses – both your direct competitors and successful businesses outside your industry – to see what’s working for them. Find the answers to these questions:
Research your customers to learn how they use the Internet. Do they get information from doing a Google search, or do they ask their Twitter followers for help? Do they look for video tutorials on YouTube? Are they participating in forums or blogs? Know where your customers are, and make sure they can find you there.
2. Methods
When you’ve finished your research you’ll need to choose the methods you want to use, and make a plan for success within those methods. Online you should consider search engines, directories, social media, and placing ads in the “content network”, meaning on other websites that are relevant to your product or service. If your research shows that your customers do their research in the search engines, for example, you’ll have to create a step-by-step plan to succeed in the search engines that will probably start with an attractive, user-friendly and search engine-friendly site design. Then you’ll have to learn how to drive traffic to your website (see my FREE eBook to learn all about this!), and you’ll need to constantly test for maximizing conversions.
Don’t forget to promote your website offline too! Print the url on all business literature, and include it in any offline advertising.
3. Media
Once you know the kinds of marketing and advertising you’ll use, you need to choose the particular media – i.e. which website or what directory? Obviously it should be relevant to your business but more importantly, it needs to be relevant to your customers. For example, if your research shows that your customers are very active on YouTube, your plan of action should start with a video marketing strategy.
Keep your goals realistic and measurable. Don’t try to conquer the whole online marketing game at once, or you’ll quickly get overwhelmed. Instead, tackle the most critical media first, then move on to others one at a time. But don’t just jump on the next media that sounds good; make sure you are moving strategically, based on what you learned in your initial research.
4. Test, Test, Test
Effective marketing always requires some trial and error. Put Google Analytics on your website (it’s free!) to get data on user behavior on your site. Track the results you see, make changes and keep tracking. Over time you’ll find a mix that works for you. Make small bets when testing new ideas so that you can afford for some of them to fail.
Every business wants the perfect strategy and every marketer wants to promise results every time. Unfortunately marketing – especially online – just doesn’t work like that. However, if you plan well and ask yourself good questions before you start, you can raise the chances of succeeding.
Be willing to test ideas, track results and make changes and over time you’ll see the results you need. It just takes a little time.
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Articles & Online Marketing Services & Website Marketing Strategy
Every business with a website wants to make the best use of online marketing tools to help them attract new leads and visitors to their website. Of course, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of internet marketing tools that you could use. So how do you choose the best ones for your business?
Finding the right tools depends as much on your business and your goals as the tools themselves. But generally online marketing tools can be lumped into one or more groups, including but not limited to:
Advertising online is much like advertising offline – you need to choose the best places to advertise based on your target market. Once you’ve chosen the best places to advertise, you’ll also have a choice of advertising types – largely split into display advertising and pay per click advertising.
Display advertising is exactly what it sounds like. Your advertisement gets displayed on a page and if people are interested they can click through to your website. The amount you pay will either be based on a flat fee or on a cost per impression.
Cost per impression means that you will pay every time your ad is displayed to a website visitor. This is usually expressed as a cost per thousand (CPM). For example, if you agree to pay $10 CPM then you will pay $100 for every 10,000 times you advertisement is displayed on screen.
Pay per click can look identical to display advertising but you only pay when a person clicks on your ad to visit your website. If nobody clicks, you pay nothing. Google runs the most popular pay per click advertising network called Adwords.
Further Reading:
Online content comes in many forms but in most cases you will be talking about written content either on your own website or created for other websites but linking back to you. Good content helps you perform better with the search engines (read our free report on search engine optimization basics). It can also help demonstrate your expertise or the quality of your products.
Further Reading:
Email can be a very effective online marketing tool provided you use it in the right way – otherwise you run the risk of being classed as a spammer. The right way is based on permission marketing. Permission marketing starts with you asking potential customers to provide their contact details, usually in return for some kind of information or special offer. The prospective customer will know and accept that they will receive future marketing communications from you.
Email can be particularly useful as it can help you automate a lot of your marketing and lead generation systems. In particular, you can use auto-responders, small software programs that send pre-written emails at set times, to help you follow up with prospects and deliver useful content.
Further Reading:
The Internet allows even the smallest businesses to use a variety of media to market themselves. It is now easy for businesses to use everything from video to recorded audio to live webinars to market themselves. The possibilities are endless.
Further Reading:
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Do you want to develop leads online? The Internet can be a great place to develop and grow your business. In particular it offers a perfect opportunity to attract customers, build your prospect list and ultimately help you close new business. The good news is that internet lead generation is not all that different from traditional offline lead generation.
Yes, the Internet changes the way that people look for information. Yes, the Internet allows you to automate lead generation. But, ultimately the steps involved in good lead generation are the same:
Let’s take a look at each step:
Imagine your website as if it were a store. Your first job is to attract people to your store using effective marketing techniques. You can’t sell anybody anything until they’re in your store. Some of the marketing techniques to consider include:
It’s also worth remembering that you can still use effective offline strategies like direct mail to drive traffic to your website as well.
Once you have started to generate traffic to your website then the next step is to turn some of that traffic into a list of prospective new customers to follow up with. Usually this will involve you creating an incentive for them to provide their contact details, the first part of any good permission based marketing campaign. That incentive could be a special offer, or, more likely, further useful information.
What form this information takes is up to you. You could consider a blog that people can subscribe to, a free newsletter, or a webinar that people can take part in, for example.
Once you start building a list the next question becomes, ‘what do I do with this list?’. The goal has to be to move people from being interested to being willing to buy your product or service. Of course not every prospective customer on your list will end up becoming a customer.
That’s fine.
However, it is important for you to find ways of separating those with a genuine interest from the ‘tire kickers’. Tools like newsletters and autoresponders can help you automate much of this process.
Of course the final step is to close the sale. You can create online marketing tools that will encourage customers to buy from you. But unless you are actually selling a product via your website, you will almost always have to close the sale through direct contact with your prospective customer or client.
However, if you set your lead generation program up effectively; the advertising you use, how you build your list and what you do with that list can all help ensure that the people you actually spend time selling to are the most qualified prospects you could hope for.
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Why do you need a lead generating system at all?
Simple, a good lead gen system can:
In this brief overview we’ll consider both the advantages of an effective system and how you can create one for your business.
Lead generation starts with your external marketing, captures initial interest and passes the most qualified and interested prospects through to you.
Done online, it can be not only be hugely effective at attracting qualified prospects but also a huge time saver too.
1. Marketing and Advertising: The First Step in Lead Generation
The first thing to consider when constructing a system that generates leads is where and how to advertise. Offline marketing can include just about anything, from print ads to direct mail. Effective offline marketing needs to attract attention and lead the prospect into the first stage of the system – your website. Again, the point is to attract attention and then lead people to the first stage of your system.
Where and how to market your business – online or off – should be based on your ideal customer. Where do they hang out? What websites do they visit? What terms do they use to search for businesses like yours? Start with a detailed knowledge of your prospective customer and it’s hard to go too far wrong.
Online marketing can also include any number of tactics, including; search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click advertising (PPC), display advertising and social networking activities. Read my FREE eBook for details on how to do this.
2. Your System Should Be Automated
Once you’ve got your system set up, the system should be left to do its own thing. The less effort it takes to manually run the system, the more efficient it will be. That means automation. More specifically, your automated system should be able to:
3. Your System Should Develop Trust
Your lead gen system should also promote a trusting relationship between you and your customer. They should be made to feel appreciated and looked after. The better job your system does, the more responsive they will be.Your system should also provide you with a chance to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise, which is why so many lead generation programs start with an offer of information. By keeping these simple guidelines in mind, your system will be on a par with the best online. Moreover, you’ll be generating leads with enough regularity, accuracy, and effectiveness to ensure a healthy profit from whatever endeavor you undertake.
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Articles & Lead Generation & Lead Generation Techniques & Lead Management & Online Marketing Services
Are you using lead generation articles? Should you be?
Using articles for lead generation can be a great way to attract new prospects and demonstrate your expertise at the same time. They are simply short informative articles written about a topic that your potential customers are interested in. Once you’ve written them they can be placed in various places online or even used offline. Either way, by giving away free information, you can encourage prospects to visit your website and request further information.
Your lead generation articles should answer a specific problem that your customers might have. So, the best place to start is with them. The first thing you should do is some basic keyword research to find out what kinds of things your prospects are searching for online (get more information in our free special report). You will also want to have a basic understanding of the kinds of problems they are trying to solve. With those two pieces of information you can start to write a list of likely topics.
Lead generation articles should be simple and provide a real solution – they are not a sales pitch. You want to demonstrate that you understand the problem and can provide a solution. Start with a basic bullet point outline of what you want to say. Usually you will have an opening paragraph that explains the problem. Follow that with a simple list of the key points or best solutions. Each point in this list can become a subheading for your article. Use bullet points or numbered lists when appropriate for easier readability. Finally, you should close off your article with a simple concluding paragraph to sum up what you talked about.
Using a simple structure makes your articles easier to write, logical and easier to read or skim. Aim for about 500 words total and if you are writing for the web, make sure to include your key words and phrases. Use examples to help illustrate your points and keep the tone light but professional.
There’s no point in writing articles for lead generation if you don’t promote them well. Writing articles takes time so the best bet is to try to use each article in a variety of ways to ensure you get the best results.
For example, you can:
Try to use each article in as many ways as possible to improve your results but remember to rewrite it slightly for each place that you want to use it. If you start with a good outline you can work from that and make the job of rewriting easier.
Informative articles can be a great way to generate leads, bring people to your website and show that you ‘know your stuff’ – but it is a long term strategy. Commit to writing regular articles, use a simple structure to help you and distribute them as widely as you can. If you do that over a period of time you will start to see real benefits.
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