BRANDING

Branding vs. Offering
You've taken great strides into the online space and search engine optimisation is proving extremely successful. But how successful are you really? The strength of search engine marketing allows instant placement, creative manipulation and accountability - provided you are using some form of tracking tool - but are you spending good money on words and phrases that don't covert and is your brand name keyword bolstering an otherwise mediocre campaign?

This article looks at how brand name and brand presence within search engine marketing plays a crucial and sometimes masking role on the success of your search campaign, and continues the theme from last month 'Is search engine marketing right for you?'

The most important factor that must be considered first and foremost is the brand or organisation itself. The Internet has demonstrated that through low barriers to entry and minimal start up costs a large number of Internet firms have sprung up. Adversely the pitfalls of starting a business in this fashion have demonstrated that only companies with a sound business plan or solid brand name have succeeded; just think how many internet brands you can name past eBay, Amazon.com, Google, or Lastminute.com.

So what does this mean? It means that there are two distinct groups of online organisation, those with a sound offering but no brand name and those with a solid brand name (such as high street retailers or household brand names) - understanding these groups and the grouping in which your organisation fits will allow you to apply rational to the selection of phrases for search engine marketing. So let's take a look at these two groups:

Companies with limited brand recognition - The challenge here is easier to identify, above all else you must find your unique selling point (USP) and promote it via your listings. With engines such as Google, eSpotting and Overture preventing the use of inflammatory statements such as 'The best' or 'Web's Favourite' the only choice you have is to meet one or more of the online users expectations, these commonly being; 24/7 access, speedy delivery, convenience and in many instances cheap price. Therefore, your search engine creative must contain not only a call to action - buy, save, compare, find - but also within the description it must contain a USP such as 'free delivery', 'low prices', 'great value' or 'same day delivery'.

Companies with a strong or recognised brand name - The challenge for a company in this position is a great deal harder - why? - because not only do you have to compete with all of the above mentioned firms and suggested techniques, but you have to make sure you use your brand name well and not at the cost of your other efforts. Now this needs further explanation so here goes! Your brand name is often the term that drives most conversions from a search engine at the lowest cpc (thus the highest ROI). As there are few companies who will bid on the same keyphrase as yours within an Overture or Google, and within reason you can prevent them from doing so if you wish, you can drive a large amount of traffic to your site at next to no cost. As the searcher is using your brand to find your site chances are they are already aware of what you do or sell and as such they are much more likely to convert. For many companies this is the case and from a portfolio of keywords and phrases within an engine the 80:20 rule applies with 80% of your revenue coming from 20% of your listings, which unsurprisingly are your branded campaigns or products or services that are unique to you. The problem that exists is that if you don't a) manage this process and b) track each and every word within the engines the poorer performing campaigns are supported by these branded campaigns and as such the channel, be it Google, eSpotting or whomever, will still seem extremely successful.

So what do you do? The challenge is working out which words are converting and which aren't, how do I know that if I remove a word today that it won't convert tomorrow, if I remove my branded campaigns will I loose revenue, adversely if I leave my branded campaigns in am I paying for a click at number 1 when the term at number 2 is a free listing? The following suggestions give an insight into practices and procedures for answering these issues:

1. Utilise a tracking solution to measure individual keyword success - this is such an important factor that even the engines are starting to offer ROI tracking per keyword.
   
   
2. Match your keyword listings by seasonality - if you are worried about selecting words to remove, check your past history of sales to see the success of the product or service for that particular time period..
   
   
3. Have you optimised your site for organic (free search)? - If you have then check whether your paid for listing is appearing just above your free listing. Then determine the following, with a free listing you have no control over the title and description so when special offers or seasonal messages have to be pushed they aren't represented; however, your click cost is zero. Paid for listings are controllable and creative can be changed so if you are willing to pay for a click then make sure the listings represent that information.
   
   
4. Manage your bids - bid prices on many terms can run wild, make sure your non branded campaigns aren't converting or delivering an acceptable ROI because a) your bid price is too high or b) you've let your listing slip out of the top placements to get into the larger search network.

An archive of James' Articles for WNIM can be found below:

Search engines - developing an effective strategy (Part 1)
Search engines - developing an effective strategy (Part 2)
Tracking 'true' success from your online media
Website Success (Part 1) - Conversion: Where did the other 99 go?
Website Success (Part 2) - Improving your 1% conversion rate
It's all about segmentation, targeting and positioning
Is search engine marketing right for you?