Corporate Strategy and its Relationship to Sales and Marketing

A company that hopes for a prosperous future must have a sound plan. In the world of Sales and Marketing this is called Corporate Strategy.

Corporate Strategy is the overall direction of the company, defined by senior management, that takes into consideration an assessment of the existing capabilities of the company and external opportunities and threats. It usually coincides with the immediate future fiscal period or it could be developed with a longer-term view, such as a three-year plan.

It is important to understand the overall Corporate Strategy and its relationship to sales and marketing. The Marketing Strategy works within the direction provided by the overall Corporate Strategy of the company and also interacts with other elements of the Corporate Strategy.

Corporate Strategy is a combination of the following:

• Senior Management Direction and Insights: This is provided by senior management based on their experiences and insights related to the business.
• Corporate Product Strategy: This defines the products or services the company offers and the research and development efforts required to create them.
• Corporate Marketing Strategy: This defines how the company will target, position, market and sell the planned products and defines metrics, targets and budgets for all marketing activities.
• Corporate Operations Strategy: This defines how the company will manage operational activities, manufacture its products and provide the corresponding customer support and warranty.
• Corporate Finance Strategy: This defines how the company will manage its finances, attain funding and financially sustain its operations. The Finance Strategy should include forecasts and projections and summarize costs, income and investments.
• Corporate Human Resource Strategy: This maps the human resource capabilities within the company and considers talent management and acquisition needs to sustain growth.

Here are the components of Corporate Strategy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Typically, companies have existing documentation regarding their component strategies. These must be considered in an integrated manner to define a coherent Corporate Strategy. The level and complexity of documentation for these strategies may vary depending on the size of the company and the breadth of its product portfolio and geographic reach. If formal documentation of these strategies is not available—for instance, as with a start-up company—the teams involved in strategic planning should consider the various strategies and decide on an overall Corporate Strategy, which can then become a benchmark to execute future plans. The SMstudy® Guide framework is a great help in this endeavor.

Finalizing the company’s Corporate Strategy can be a time-consuming and rigorous exercise that requires inputs from multiple stakeholders, particularly senior management. It is advisable to execute strategic planning exercises at appropriate and specific time intervals, such as once or twice a year, and then finalize a Corporate Strategy on which senior management and the heads of strategy teams agree. Following this process will help to ensure that the leadership team has coherently defined goals and strategies that align with the overall strategic goals of the organization.

The Corporate Strategy can be divided into lower level strategies depending on the complexity of the organization. For example, the Corporate Strategy for an entire company can be divided into strategies for each business unit or geographic region such as country, state, or city, and then subdivided further into a Product or Brand Strategy for each product or brand in a business unit or geographic region. The Product or Brand Strategy is the lowest level in this hierarchy.

This illustrates the relationship between Corporate Strategy, Business Unit/Geographic Strategy and Product/Brand Strategy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corporate strategy is an umbrella under which many components of a company plan for future profitability. When that umbrella operates at full force, the forecast calls for raining money.

Paying Attention: A New Metric for Advertising on Mobile

Since the demise of newspaper’s great hegemonic grip on advertising, news media minds have been banging their big brains together, trying to come up with ways that not only monetize their content, but also generate some of the sweet ad revenue they used to have the luxury of enjoying. This is, of course, much harder in the infinite space and freedom of the internet. (limited space and information gatekeeping was a true friend to print news)

It’s been a bit of a slog and news outlets have been in “trial and error” mode for a while and still haven’t quite gotten it fully figured out. That being said, over the last year or so, user trends have been offering great nuggets of insight that are changing the way marketers and news sites are adapting to trends in mobile news consumption.

The landscape for mobile news outlets was important enough to make it to the front page of The Pew Research State of the Media 2015. What was the big deal? That 39 out of 50 legacy news outlets get more traffic from mobile devices than from desktop computers!

Full list (stats provided by comScore)…http://www.journalism.org/media-indicators/digital-top-50-online-news-entities-2015/

In the digital-only “newsscape,” a similar trend was noted.

The report states, “similar to the larger list of top 50 digital news entities, just a minority of these digital-only sites, 11 in all, had audiences that spent more time with them via a mobile device than a desktop.”

Here’s the complete list of digital native sites… http://www.journalism.org/media-indicators/digital-top-50-digital-native-news-sites-2015/

This preference for mobile news consumption is only mildly tempered by the fact that longer times were spent on news sites when being read on desktop computers.

Nevertheless, it matters.

Believe it or not, tracking consumer behavior has been one of the main problems with news outlets and marketers alike when considering ad dollars for mobile. Now we know that people are preferring their mobile devices for their news both while in on-the-go situations as well as in the down time of “Netflix and chill” moments.

In addition, we appear to be in a “mobile ad desert” where despite a rapid increase year over year in mobile advertising spending, there’s still a gap between advertising dollars spent on TV and other marketing channels and those spent on mobile. It seems that marketers haven’t quite picked up on the huge leap mobile viewership has taken. As an example, Adobe Digital Index reported in July 2015 that media has risen by two hours a day over the last five years, but advertisers have been slow to respond.

The article states, “Just as internet advertising once experienced a lag between the number of unique users and advertising spend, a gulf now exists between the growing amount of time consumers spend viewing content on mobile devices and the relatively small investment brands are making in the channel. But it’s just a matter of time until the numbers match.”

When confronted with new information, a new approach is often required. And this positive mobile news usage data begs for new solutions.

One of the more interesting examples of calculating an accurate measure was put forward by the Financial Times. The FT has switched to a time-based metric, one that places attention front and center in their value assessment. Other news outlets are also recognizing the truer value of an attention-based metric, as well. I’ve begun calling this the “after the fold” ad as it appears when I’ve stayed on a story long enough to show I’m committed. This strategy bets squarely on the contents ability to hold attention. And so far, so good.

Although various solutions abound, no silver bullet has yet been discovered (and perhaps never will). Serious impediments to accurate metrics (and hence, the flow of ad dollars) include bots that inflate the numbers and the easy accessibility to, and preference for, ad-blocking. This trend is particularly noted among millennials.

But even so, a new approach based on time as opposed to volume (number of clicks) could be the way forward for news outlets. Getting a handle on what they have to offer marketers may be the thing to lead news outlets out of the red and back into the black.

For more on sales and marketing, visit smstudy.com/articles.

 

Sources:

The Pew Research State of the Medial 2015

http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/state-of-the-news-media-2015/

“How mobile metrics fall short for news outlets and advertisers,” James Breiner, July 13, 2015 https://ijnet.org/en/blog/how-mobile-metrics-fall-short-news-outlets-and-advertisers

“Is Digital Advertising Ready to Ditch the Click?”  Michael Sebastian. September 29, 2014. http://adage.com/article/media/digital-advertising-ready-ditch-click/295143/

“ADI: Advertisers Must Prepare To Follow Increasing Eyeballs On Mobile Video,” June 21, 2015. http://www.cmo.com/articles/2015/6/21/adi-advertisers-must-prepare-to-follow-increasing-eyeballs-on-mobile-video.html

“When Will Mobile Marketers Move Beyond Basic Measurement?”  June 15, 2015 http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Will-Mobile-Marketers-Move-Beyond-Basic-Measurement/1012600?ecid=NL1001#sthash.B8b4GxdM.dpuf

Lower Your Bounce Rates with SMstudy

The bounce rate (BR) or the percentage of people who entered a website and immediately left, is a popular metric companies use to determine the quality of a webpage.

According to Digital Marketing, Book 2 in the SMstudy Guide®, bounce rate is defined as “the percentage of visitors who leave the first page of a website they encounter without clicking to other pages on the website. A lower bounce rate from a modified advertisement would indicate that customers were leaving the page less often, possibly because they were finding the page relevant to the advertisement. The target bounce rate should be the bounce rate of pages linked to similar advertisements that the company has used successfully.”

So, a BR is not exactly a percentage of people who visited a website and immediately left, but actually a percentage of people who visited a website but then performed no other trackable actions. Technically, according to these guidelines, a person could read a 10-thousand-word article on a company’s website and share it with five hundred of their closest friends without actually performing a trackable action. A common misconception in regards to BR is often the way it is calculated. If a company does not take into consideration the example above, then the bounce rate will appear to be too high.

Once a bounce rate is properly calculated, it’s time to get down to business. User experience should be the first factor a company looks at in the hopes of reducing their BR. People that browse websites are looking for a seamless passage through the site. If a company’s website is confusing, difficult to navigate or causes confusion, people will tend to look for another site they can get around more easily. As the old saying goes, “keep it simple, stupid.” Another easy way to enhance user experience is to ensure the content is relevant and engaging. This can be done by creating videos, images, blog articles, and more.

One additional action that can easily improve a person’s user experience is customizing language to region. As stated in Digital Marketing, “In order to ensure that the marketing message is relevant and reaches audiences around the world, businesses can also customize their ads based on the language preference for their audience. For example, a company providing services in Canada may wish to develop both French and English versions of their ads to target search queries in either official language.”

For more information about bounce rate and how to lower your company’s percentage visit www. SMstudy.com where you can be sure you will be able to take a seamless journey through our website.

VMEdu Welcomes You to the Post-Capitalism Era

It has been said that we are exiting the post-capitalism era, and we weren’t even aware of it. We can thank this monumental shift to advancements in technology. Many terms have been thrown around in regards to what sort of economy we have ventured into—such as the sharing economy or frictionless economy—but what path are we really following?

In a recent article we discussed what exactly the frictionless economy is. The frictionless economy centers around companies that provide platforms on which suppliers and buyers can do business directly. Uber, Etsy, and Fiver are just a few of the hundreds of companies that have sprung up in the last decade offering people the ability to be a “self-entrepreneur.”

According to Alex Chriss, vice president and general manager at Intuit, “What we find so exciting about this trend is it’s solving what has traditionally been the number one challenge any entrepreneur or small business owner faces: finding customers. We’ve seen millions of small businesses struggle to find their next customer – and this struggle has set a bar, a hurdle for entrepreneurs to jump over. Technology is lowering this bar.”

But what about the sharing economy? Companies such as Airbnb and City CarShare allows owners to rent out something that they are not using. This has generally been sharing a house, car, or bike, but the only constant in technology is change, so this sharing could expand to new avenues. Each sharing-economy styled company provides users with ratings or reviews, so that trust is built on both sides of the transaction.

So, which economy are we really entering? One thing that we have learned from technology is that there are no limits. So, why would we limit ourselves by believing that we are entering just one sort of new economy? It seems to be that we are entering various economies that will create branches rather than one straight path. VMEdu gives professional trainers and educators the ability to be a part of both the frictionless AND sharing economy, with its Learning Management System (LMS). The VMEdu Authorized Content Partner (V.A.C.P.) program is one of the finest adult learning platforms available. The V.A.C.P. program is for anyone looking to create online adult learning courses for any subject and in any language.

As a partner, you can create and upload your courses with the user-friendly VMEdu Course Builder. You can also run the courses on your website for free. Course materials can include videos, test questions, flashcards, glossaries, case studies and more.

Once your courses are uploaded via the VMEdu Course Builder you have the option to sell them to the VMEdu network of more than 750 Authorized Training Partners (V.A.T.P.s) in 50+ countries. Having the support of such a strong network will help you reach a larger number of potential consumers in a shorter amount of time.

The V.A.C.P platform gives you the ability to sell your own courses, do business directly with customers that have been provided for you, and be your own boss in addition to hosting your courses on your own website to share with your contacts. This program equips you for whichever future economy becomes our reality.

You can find more information on the VMEdu V.A.C.P. program at http://www.vmedu.com/Benefits-of-VACP.asp

Market Analysis

A local company may boast the best surfboards around, but if it is situated in the Texas Panhandle a lack of sales could make waves. Similarly, a retirement home attempting to attract business through the latest technology might soon find itself in its twilight years. Companies that aspire to achieve sustained success in the marketplace must first perform a market analysis.

Market analysis involves examining market data to identify patterns and predict future events. The purpose of performing a market analysis is to understand the attractiveness of a market. David Aaker outlined the following dimensions of a market analysis:

1. Market Size—This dimension defines the size and potential of the markets under consideration. Market size is calculated on the basis of current sales volume for the market. Another important consideration for measuring market size is its future growth potential, so appropriate assumptions need to be made regarding market growth rates.Example of Market Size: The market for sports equipment typically varies from region to region. In areas with longer summers, the demand for tennis and golf equipment is generally higher. In mountainous regions there is a larger demand for skiing and hiking apparel. The population in regions may be similar, but the market size of each region may vary greatly for each specific product line.
2. Market Trends—Trends show the overall growth or decline of a market, competitor activities and customer behavior over time. Current market trends can also help in predicting future market trends.Example of Market Trends: The timing of major sporting events often results in an increased demand for particular products. For example, branded soccer balls and jersey sales increase every four years leading up to and during the World Cup.
3. Market Growth Rate and Profitability—Market growth rate forecasts use previous data and future trend indications to predict the future growth rate of markets. Product diffusion curves are used to predict inflection points in growth projections. Market profitability is often evaluated using Porter’s Five Forces model.Example of Market Growth Rate and Profitability: As international trade and growth in developing countries increase, it is possible to evaluate the potential acceptance rate of hi-tech features on bicycles in markets traditionally dominated by low-cost versions. For example, observing the patterns of user adoption of ceramic disk brakes in France may lead to an understanding of similar patterns in countries such as China.
4. Industry Cost Structure—Value Chain Analysis can be used alongside industry cost structure to identify value-adding activities and reduce costs by eliminating those activities that do not add value. Focusing on activities that are critical to the company can help develop a competitive advantage and prevent wastage of resources.Example of Industry Cost Structure: In the twentieth century, the banking industry typically relied on physical branches for addressing customer needs. However, the cost structure for the industry has changed significantly in recent times, with many customers preferring to do most of their banking transactions online, or through Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).
5. Distribution Channels—Analyzing the effectiveness of existing distribution channels and identifying emerging channels help a company understand its ability to reach customers and identify new opportunities to gain a competitive advantage. Companies with existing distribution channels may find it easier to launch similar types of products targeted at similar market segments.Example of Distribution Channels: As with most other industries, online sales and distribution have greatly impacted the marketing and sale of sporting goods. Online representation of the value of the product is crucial to ensure the customer is comfortable enough with the product to purchase it without actually being able to touch it. Relationships with shipping companies become equally important as the customer expects quick and reliable delivery.
6. Key Success Factors—Identifying key success factors helps an organization focus on existing strengths that have contributed to success and seize opportunities that can give it a competitive advantage. Such factors might include accessibility to essential resources, distribution channels, patents, operational efficiencies, technological superiority and so on.Example of Key Success Factors: The success of an online swimwear provider may be quantified with a few key factors such as the ability of the customer to receive clothing that fits without the benefit of trying it on, the ability of the company to keep shipping costs low enough to compete with brick-and-mortar stores and the ability to offer a broad range of product choices to maximize the overall appeal of the site.

Companies searching for success must be prepared to execute when presented with the opportunity. The prep work of any marketplace resident should include analyzing market size, market trends, market growth rate, industry cost structure, distribution channels and key success factors.

David Aaker’s outline of the dimensions of a market analysis can be found in Aaker, D.A. (2010), Marketing Research, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.

Would you like a Warranty for That Explosive Device?

Every year when the holiday season rolls around people take a glance at their bank accounts and ponder what exciting technological gadget will be released just in time for the shopping rush. This year it was hoverboards. There was just one problem… they are known to catch fire and burn down houses.

The hoverboard of today is actually just a two-wheeled self-balancing motorized scooter, but that is a mouthful, so hoverboard it is. And most importantly, the boards will not levitate like Marty McFly’s, but they may spontaneously combust.

To date there have been ten recorded instances in the United States in which hoverboards have gone up in flames. Most of the fires did not cause any real damage, no fatalities, except to the board of course. However, a hoverboard is currently suspected to be at fault for the burning down of a house in New York.

The reason for the fires is the lithium battery. After the first hoverboard was released, dozens of companies popped up selling their version of the product. The only problem is that if the battery isn’t connected to the wiring correctly it will explode, causing a very real firework show. Major distributors of the product, such as Amazon, pulled numerous hoverboard brands from shelves due to incorrect wiring. Amazon released a compliance statement, “Manufacturers must provide documentation demonstrating that all hoverboards you list are compliant with applicable safety standards, including UN 38.3 (battery), UL 1642 (battery) and UL 60950-1 (charger).”

Name brand hoverboard companies such as Swagway and Razor have applauded Amazon for their initiative. The cheap generic brands with the faulty wires were bad seeds and needed to be eliminated, but the question is, what do the name brand companies do to regain faith in their product?

According to the Marketing Strategy, Book 1 of the SMstudy® Guide, “Risk-Sharing Pricing is a strategy that businesses may employ when there is a potential for consumers to avoid buying a particular item because of a perceived risk associated with the product. In a risk-sharing pricing scenario, the seller shares some of the risk with the buyer or takes on all of the risk to induce a favorable buying season.”

Razor has stated that their batteries are manufactured by Samsung, a very reliable brand, but to ensure safety, they include a warranty with each hoverboard sold. In this case, the buyer is still expected to undertake some sort of risk, but hoverboards are worth it, right?

Swagway’s hoverboard is built with plastic rather than metal, so the hoverboard is sold for the low price of $399 dollars. When the majority of hoverboards are in the 1,000-dollar range, $399 looks very reasonable. The company is selling a cheaper product that appeals to the same buyers that were looking to purchase the less expensive generic brand, but still follows the safety standards. In this case, the seller is taking on all of the risk, but is also assuring the consumer that the product is a safe alternative.

Most people would think that Swagway and Razor would want to go out with a bang, but in this case, reliability works.   

All About Customer Advisory Boards

A Customer Advisory Board (CAB) or Customer Advisory Council is a representative customer group comprising senior stakeholders who convene periodically to validate product features, the marketing plan, and the strategic direction of the company to ensure these align with customers and the market. The company uses the information gathered at these meetings to realign business priorities and formulate strategy.

CABs meet on a periodic basis, typically two or three times per year. Some companies choose to meet more or less frequently, depending on need. However, it is challenging to have frequent customer councils as participation at these events is often voluntary, and participants are usually constrained by time. Also, the time and resources taken to accomplish and follow through with changes discussed in the customer councils often do not allow for more frequent meetings.

A physical meeting is the most popular format for customer councils. Other formats used by companies include tele-conferences, video conferences, and online CABs. Using these formats can help reduce time and money spent on travel and can result in increased participation levels. However, while they are more convenient, these formats are not always as effective as face-to-face meetings.

Key Functions of CABs

Some of the important uses of CABs are as follows:

• Validating ideas for new features or new products
• Providing valuable insights into how customers are using the products
• Prioritizing features and identifying the most important ones on which to focus
• Assisting in understanding how the products fare against alternatives in the market
• Helping in designing the next generation of products which customers may adopt in future
• Assisting in retaining key customers
• Increasing revenue opportunities within the existing customer base

A key distinction between a CAB and a focus group is that the members of a CAB are carefully chosen senior members of management from client organizations, unlike product users in the case of focus groups.

To read more articles about sales and marketing, visit www.smstudy.com/articles

What Did You Do When You Were Supposed to be Sleeping?

Sleep Cycle is an app that tracks your sleep cycle. Seems pretty simple, but looks can be deceiving. In November of 2015, just a few short months ago, the app was released to the public and the vote is in. Everyone loves it.

So, here’s what you do. First, download the app. Before you go to sleep set the alarm programmed in the app and the sleep cycle device will activate. Place your phone screen side down on your nightstand, plug in your charger, and, hopefully, have a great night of sleep.

When you wake up in the morning, the app provides you with a line graph that depicts how many hours you were in bed and how your sleep varied throughout the night from awake, sleep, and deep sleep.

I tried out the app for the first time last night and it appears as if I am a champion sleeper, but I moved 1,267 times. I am a champion sleeper that thrashes.

But that’s not all! The trends tab on the app is available to premium members, and it provides you with several different charts that display sleep quality, what time you went to bed, the amount of time in bed, and what time you woke up at for the week. It also gives you a percentage in regards to sleep quality. Did you sleep poorly because you ate dinner too late? Or did you wake up refreshed because you hit the gym the day before? The app will tell you. It also lets you know if your sleep quality was affected by air pressure, weather, or if you are a thrasher like me.

You get all of this information for a large fee of 83 cents a month (This is not a typo).

Sales and marketing professionals can learn a thing or two from Sleep Cycle. We, as people, are fascinated about sleep. We can’t study our own sleep patterns, considering we are sleeping, so it was all too fascinating to find out that I sleep the majority of my night in a deep sleep. I would have never known that. That’s how they get us in. It’s all a marketing ploy. And then for just 83 cents a month I can not only learn how I sleep, but I will learn how I can sleep better. Who doesn’t want to know that?

83 cents a month is nothing for us fortunate enough to be living in a first world country. We see the advantages for the app, sign up, and never unsubscribe because it is only 83 cents, even though we never use the app anymore and it has been long forgotten. And the money is just rolling in for Sleep Cycle.

(Applause for Sleep Cycle)

So what did they do right? First of all, it is a very big gamble to charge such a low monthly fee. But according to Marketing Strategy, book one in the SMstudy® Guide, it was a very calculated move with the help of secondary marketing research. “Secondary marketing research involves the use of content and information that is currently available within the company or in the market through primary research that has already been conducted and is readily obtainable through company reports, trade journals, industry publications, and/or the Internet.”

The very popular Fitbit will track your sleep, but it can cost upwards of 200 dollars. Fitbit sold nearly 11 million devices last year, so the market was there. From looking at information that was right at their fingertips, Sleep Cycle was able to build a sales and marketing plan that was destined to succeed.

I was pulled in by a marketing ploy and I didn’t even see it. That’s how you know a company is doing its job well. I look forward to going to sleep tonight, I have a competitive streak, so I want to beat last night’s amazing performance.

Give it a try, you know you want to.

For more information and resources about sales and marketing visit SMstudy.com.

Importance of Data collection in Marketing Research

Data collection is an important part of marketing research. Many significant marketing decisions are made based on the analysis of the data collected from a research project. One critical component of data collection is ensuring the quality of the data collected. Specifically, the data should be both high-quality and relevant. Data quality is the degree to which data represents the true situation. High-quality data is accurate, valid, and reliable, and it represents reality faithfully.

In some instances, researchers try to obtain the same data from multiple data sources to ensure the reliability and validity of the data collected. The following characteristics are assessed to determine the quality of data:

Reliability – The data should be reliable such that repeating the same methods produces the same results.

Validity – The data should measure or represent what it is supposed to measure.

Along with the quality of data, other important factors to consider in a research project are the availability of data and the affordability of the process required to collect it. Often the marketing organization already possesses enough information to make sound decisions without additional marketing research.

When adequate information is not available to make a decision, additional data needs to be collected from an appropriate source. If a potential source of data exists, the researcher or the decision-maker must consider the cost of obtaining it. The data should be obtained as quickly as is required to keep the research project on schedule and at an affordable cost. If the data cannot be obtained, or if it cannot be obtained in a timely fashion, the marketing research project should not be conducted.

Researchers have the option of collecting secondary data, primary data, or both. Secondary data is that which has already been collected for purposes other than the problem at hand. Primary data is newly obtained data for a specific purpose or a specific research project.

The marketing researcher needs to decide whether to collect primary data or spend the research budget exclusively on secondary data. Researchers usually prefer to examine the utility of low-cost and readily available secondary data first to see whether they can partly or fully solve the research problem under investigation without collecting costly primary data.

The source of the secondary data can be internal or external. The sources may include books or periodicals, published reports, data services, and computer data banks. When the needed data is non-existent, out-dated, incorrect or inadequate, the researcher needs to collect primary data. Most marketing research projects do include some aspects of primary data collection. Primary data may be obtained from individual consumers, subject matter experts, random samplings of a target segment, organizations, and other sources.

To learn more about data collection, visit http://smstudy.com/Certification/Marketing-Research-Associate and try our free associate course on marekting research.

PPC Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or paid search advertising involves a company paying to have its ad appear on search results pages of search engines. PPC advertising providers such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing show sponsored ads, or paid search results, for most search queries. A consumer intending to purchase a microwave oven for her new modular kitchen may enter a query “microwave oven with convection and grill for home use,” seeking cost and feature information. A chain of electric kitchen appliances would likely then appear as a sponsored result. It is often observed that users with a high intention of making a purchase click on sponsored ads. This is especially true of highly transactional goods such as clothing, electronics, and consumer foods.

PPC advertising has a significant impact on consumer metrics such as brand awareness and brand image, even among users who do not click on the sponsored advertisements. Image ads tend to be more effective in exerting positive impact and increasing visibility in search results. A consumer seeking a new microwave oven may choose to review multiple electric kitchen appliances advice pages before making a decision.

A business can increase the reach of its website using PPC advertising in the following ways:

Choosing relevant Keywords–keywords are the search terms used by consumers to tell search engines about the specific product or service they are interested in purchasing. For businesses looking for maximizing their reach using PPC or search engine advertising, the focus must be on bidding on keywords that are highly relevant to the search queries that are common in their business. Businesses can make use of their historical data and competitor data to determine the popularity and relevance of various keywords.

The price of keywords can vary greatly, from pennies to several dollars depending on popularity, demand, and the value to the advertiser. The ad’s “quality score”, rank and popularity of the keywords among the competitors determine the price an advertiser has to pay. The quality score is the search engine’s way of determining the relevance of an ad to the searcher by evaluating each keyword’s relevance to the business and its landing page, as well as other factors. The rank of an ad is determined based on its cost-per-click (CPC) and its quality score.

Choosing relevant Geography and Time–search engines have enabled business to analyze their past data to determine where their online customers are located and the best time to reach them. Based on this data and other internal research, businesses can choose the desired geography and time of day in which they should advertise their products and services for optimal results. For small businesses that cater to a local audience, geography-based targeting is especially important and helps ensure that their ads remain relevant.

Profiling the audience–Businesses must understand the profile of their target audience and create “user personas” that will help them identify the relevant ads for their customer base. A young age group may be attracted to video ads, while a more mature audience may prefer an image ad. Audience profiling may also help businesses identify the time of day when their target audience is most likely to make a purchase.

Selecting appropriate Ad sizes–Advertisements displayed on search engines and other third-party sites are available in different sizes, and the digital marketing team must customize their marketing content to the size of the ad being displayed.

Testing various Ads– Search engines allow businesses to experiment with two or more ad options in order to identify the more attractive one, commonly referred to as A/B or multivariate testing. A business can divide its marketing budget between two or more ads to be displayed to a similar audience throughout the day if it is unsure about the most effective advertising message for its products or services.

Customizing Language–businesses can also customize their ads based on the language preference of their target audience to make sure the intended marketing message is relevant and reaches audiences around the world.

To learn more about PPC advertising, visit SMstudy.com/articles