Google Boost versus Adwords, Facebook, Groupon and Direct Mail

[dessertmaker]

Hi, my main target market is high school seniors and families and I have a limited marketing budget so looking for the most effective use of those dollars and can't afford to try them all. I am listed on Google Maps/Places and have a good website. I have a new business fanpage on Facebook but don't have a large audience yet to go viral with thus the wider net I'm trying to throw out there.

Is the new Google Boost pay per click service worth investing in? Is Adwords better since you can control it more? Are Facebook PPC ads worth trying or a waste of money? What about Groupon to help get some traffic in the door? Should I skip all those and just do direct mail using a student list? What have you heard or experienced? Thank you.

[Dex]

Originally Posted by dessertmaker

Hi, my main target market is high school seniors and families and I have a limited marketing budget so looking for the most effective use of those dollars and can't afford to try them all. I am listed on Google Maps/Places and have a good website. I have a new business fanpage on Facebook but don't have a large audience yet to go viral with thus the wider net I'm trying to throw out there.

Is the new Google Boost pay per click service worth investing in? Is Adwords better since you can control it more? Are Facebook PPC ads worth trying or a waste of money? What about Groupon to help get some traffic in the door? Should I skip all those and just do direct mail using a student list? What have you heard or experienced? Thank you.

• Google Adwords and Facebook PPC are very similar in the way they work. You will be paying for ad space regardless.
• If you are looking to build you Facebook fan page, add a Facebook fanbox to your website.
• Groupon is excellent in generating traffic and sales and it cost nothing upfront. Downside is that they take 50% of the sales.
• For free advertising on Google, consider SEO (search engine optimization) for your website.

[dessertmaker]

Thanks Dex for your comments. I assumed that all PPC were similar but wanted to know if anyone had any real world feedback on how effective it was in generating new clients and if worth the investment?

Adding a Facebook fanbox to my website is on my to do list.

If you post a 50% off sale for your session fee on Groupon doesn't that mean that Groupon only gets 1/2 of your session fee and not 1/2 of the total sales from that session? Does Groupon just bring in low paying bargain hunter clients?

I've talked to my web hosting company Morephotos and they say my SEO is setup as good as it can be done already and nothing more to tweak. I do know that I need to start a blog though.
Thanks again.

[Dex]

Originally Posted by dessertmaker

Thanks Dex for your comments. I assumed that all PPC were similar but wanted to know if anyone had any real world feedback on how effective it was in generating new clients and if worth the investment?

Adding a Facebook fanbox to my website is on my to do list.

If you post a 50% off sale for your session fee on Groupon doesn't that mean that Groupon only gets 1/2 of your session fee and not 1/2 of the total sales from that session? Does Groupon just bring in low paying bargain hunter clients?

I've talked to my web hosting company Morephotos and they say my SEO is setup as good as it can be done already and nothing more to tweak. I do know that I need to start a blog though.
Thanks again.

I have used Google PPC in the past and it does provide leads. My problem was the cost. If someone clicks on your ad, you have to pay regardless whether you get calls or not. You may get 100 clicks but 2 calls.

[dessertmaker]

Dex, even though expensive was it worth the cost in the end, did you actually book some clients from using it and at least surpass your investment? What other advertising avenues have you tried and how did they compare? Thanks

[Dex]

Originally Posted by dessertmaker

Dex, even though expensive was it worth the cost in the end, did you actually book some clients from using it and at least surpass your investment? What other advertising avenues have you tried and how did they compare? Thanks

I was worth it. As long as it can pay for itself your are fine. Other methods which are much cheaper are:

Forum sponsorship/vendor - this averages around $100 per month and you have access to thousands of members.
Local city guides - still much cheaper in the long run than Google and Facebook.

Most of my clients came from being a forum vendor.

[dessertmaker]

I'm not familiar with either of those alternatives, what is a Forum/sponsorship vendor and are you talking about on this Texas photo forum?

What are local city guides and how do you find them? Are they just online or a physical publication?
Thanks

[Dex]

Originally Posted by dessertmaker

I'm not familiar with either of those alternatives, what is a Forum/sponsorship vendor and are you talking about on this Texas photo forum?

What are local city guides and how do you find them? Are they just online or a physical publication?
Thanks

Forum sponsorship can be any forum. City guides are online directories where customers find local businesses. There are many city guides but some are better than other. Here are a few.

• Yelp
• City Search
• Urbancitylifetv - Sample listing

Other methods can include social bookmarking, video marketing, article marketing, social media, etc.

[dessertmaker]

Thanks Dex, I'll check into those city guide links and will learn up (Google) on those other methods you mentioned as those are all new to me and hadn't even heard of them. Have you ever tried direct mail postcards sent to a student or family list? The big boys all say that you should definitely still be doing this since hardly anyone is anymore and will make you stand out but some of the threads I've read say that it is expensive and results vary greatly. Great input, thanks again.

[Dex]

No problem, what is your website? I would like to take a look at how it's optimized.

[dessertmaker]

Dex, web is michaelcampbellphoto.com
How can you tell anything from looking at the site though as I thought all your SEO info was created on the backend in the web manager metadata setup page, like keywords, title and description or am I missing something here?

Also, have you ever tried direct mail postcards sent to a student or family list and if so your results?
Thank you

[Dex]

Ahh, young grasshopper. You do not need backend access to analyze a website. There are software and tools for that. The easiest way it to go to your site, right click your mouse and select view source code.

My software provides more in depth information like backlinks, anchor text, title, headings, url descriptions, keyword traffic, Adwords value and more! I'll let you know what I find.

I have not used direct mail. Too time consuming and expensive. You can do this yourself by creating an newsletter or email list and send out email blasts to your subscribers.

[dessertmaker]

Thank you master, I left footprints all over the rice paper and there is no pebble in my hand!!! I'm obviously a newbie to a lot of this and have a lot to learn, thanks for anything you may find. I tried the right click you mentioned but had to set the mouse on an html section within the flash site before it would work; the code I found is Greek to me though; I assume it reflects what is on my SEO setup page and then some.
I'm sort of digitally restarting an older film based studio that has been on the back burner for a few years now, so time to get up to speed on all things digital. I don't have a big list of client emails so not sure how effective an email blast or newsletter would be, thus the cold start advertising questions.

[Dex]

As far as online marketing with your site, you have an uphill battle. I looked at two of your keywords and here is what I found:

Senior Portraits

• Monthly searches on Google: 40,500
• Average Estimated CPC: $0.81 - $1.21
• Total Estimated Clicks: 13 - 18
• Total Estimated Cost: $10.67 - $22.47
• Keyword in Title: Yes
• Keyword in Heading (H1,H2,H3 tags): No
• Keyword in Description: No
• Keyword in Url: No

Family Photos

• Monthly searches on Google: 301,000
• Average Estimated CPC: $0.43 - $0.64
• Total Estimated Clicks: 23 - 31
• Total Estimated Cost: $9.84 - $20.24
• Keyword in Title: No
• Keyword in Heading (H1,H2,H3 tags): No
• Keyword in Description: No
• Keyword in Url: No

Your site is not optimized at all. The reason why you could not right click is because it's built with Flash. This is major issue I notice with most creative sites such as photography. Google does not read Flash and it's best to keep it to a minimum, basically limiting Flash to your portfolio.

This was just a quick check. I may not be able to offer anymore advice because it's time consuming and can get very in depth. I understand you do not have a client list but with enough work, patience and effort you can build one. Otherwise you will have to outsource it.

My recommendations will be to start with an overhaul of your website, its your main source of business and potential clients, then go from there. You wont be sucessful at the other methods until you have a solid foundation.

[dessertmaker]

Thanks for the info DEX; I'm new to PPC so not sure exactly how to interpret your findings but assume that what you are saying is that I need to optimize my site WAY before attempting to use any kind of PPC services (if at all). When starting the Morephotos template site I read recent articles about using flash versus HTML and they were split, with half saying that HTML is still much more visible to search engines while other articles say that times have changed and flash is just as searchable these days and looks more current. Sounds like you agree with the HTML crowd. I had asked my web managers SEO guys if we should have a HTML splash page before entering the flash site and put keyword info on that splash page, but they say that clients like to immediately enter a nice flash site and they will most likely have my direct URL anyway instead of doing a general Google search (which currently mainly seems to find HTML page versions within the website). Thought I was set but sounds like I need to rethink this.
Money is tight but should I pay someone to help optimize my site since the webmaster thinks it's already good enough?
Is setting up a splash HTML or most pages other than portfolio set to HTML good enough as that would be fairly easy to do or are there a lot of other things that an optimizer can do for me?
Thanks again.