Direct Response Marketing and Search Engine Marketing (sem) Principles

I produce Pay Per Click how-to training sessions geared to help online marketers increase their search marketing ROI. As Chairman for PPC Summits, I meet online marketers from around the world, and there is one common theme that seems to reoccur frequently: the myth that SEM is some kind of rocket science. What most marketers don’t understand is SEM falls under the category of Direct Response Marketing.

SEM is just another form of direct response marketing and many of the same principles apply. Successful marketing messaging resonates with the intended audience and the same controls apply to search marketing campaigns.

Here are some direct response marketing principles that should also apply to your SEM campaigns:
• It takes work. Successful marketers have to constantly test response rates: copy, keywords, placement, pricing, messages, landing pages…
• You have to test. In direct response marketing, testing rules is never-ending. Just like testing in direct mail, the cost of the campaign can be justified if the lift in the conversion rate is enough to offset the expense. If the lift in conversion offsets the cost of optimizing the pages, keep testing and roll out new ones.
• You have to track results. Just as savvy offline marketers can tell which piece of mail and from which specific message a customer converted, you have to be able to tell which keyword, message and referrer drove your sale. Tracking is easy to do on PPC, harder on search engine optimization, but critical on both.
• Creative is key. Google rewards those with high click-through rates on PPC by better placement, and the way to get high CTRs is to write great copy that resonates with your audience. Similar to an offline campaign, online creative (i.e., your search listings) should be tested frequently.
• It's all about the benefit. Successful marketers sell on benefits, not features, and look for the messages that play on their customers' emotional responses to their product or service. Over time, you will discover offers that work only online, but like offline marketing, it comes through the same test-and-learn discipline.
• The "Lead to Sale" conversion rate is important. Just as in the offline world the key to conversions from search is providing the right hook in your listing at the right phase of the buying cycle, and then converting that lead into a paying customer with the right offer on your landing page.
• Analysis is your friend. Like any good offline campaign, you learn a great deal from analyzing your testing and conversions. One set of keywords can perform significantly better than the rest; but because even changing a keyword from singular to plural can have dramatically different results, you have to test and analyze each variable separately.
• It's all about CPA or CPL. All search engine marketing campaigns need to be analyzed by cost per acquisition (CPA) or cost per lead (CPL).
• Create customer loyalty. Search engines are looking more and more at how many websites link to yours.. You need customer evangelists driving more sales, and links can provide that.

Direct response marketing skills and experience are some of the key drivers in SEM campaigns. There are some nuances of SEM that you can only learn by experience, but if you go into it with the mindset that these rules apply you will demystify the whole experience.

PPC Summit Boston March 3-4, Vancouver March 31-April1, London April 14-15, San Francisco May 19-20, and Los Angeles Sept. 2008.