Ulster County Press, October 15th 2008
BY RICH THOMASELLI, Ulster County Press
The economy has been constricting, to say the least, to a number of area businesses, especially to small business owners.
It's a catch-22 in some respects. In order to drive business, companies need to advertise. But advertising costs money, and traditional media such as television and daily newspapers are losing viewership and readership.
But not the Internet.
More and more, guided by the younger generation, people are turning to the Web. And more and more, businesses are finding that to compete, they should be advertising online a fair amount.
That's where PPC Tarmac, a Kingston-based company, comes in.
Area small businesses are boosting sales and saving money with Internet search advertising, thanks to this new company with a unique business model. PPC Tarmac offers workshops, online classes and personal support to help local firms master the low cost, high impact Internet ad space of Google Adwords.
PPC Tarmac opened this summer with workshops in Dutchess and Ulster counties on Adwords, which creates sponsored links on Google search pages. The workshops include a presentation with many Q&A breaks, and "Car Talk" style problem solving. The next session, "Getting Adwords Right," will be held at Unison Learning Center in New Paltz on Thursday, Oc. 16.
With the growth of online shopping, many businesses struggle to apply traditional methods to the new world.
"My background is marketing, but I didn't have a clue when it came to advertising my business on the Internet. That all changed after the workshop:' said Sue Story of Clutterbusters, a home-based business in Ulster County in which Story helps people de-clutter their lives. "I had expected to feel confused and overwhelmed with technical jargon. Instead, I had a good grasp of everything discussed."
Participants learn why Internet search advertising is so effective, and the key difference between PPC (Pay-Per-Click ads) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
PPC Tarmac workshops concentrate on four steps to successful Web sales campaigns: brainstorming “search personas," choosing the right keywords, and creating an appealing ad offer worth clicking on. However, the secret to boosting sales as well as traffic, says Bram Moreinis, principal of PPC Tarmac, is backing up Adwords ads with effective destination pages that are worth the per-click price of sales leads.
Moreinis promotes Adwords as an ideal way to learn Internet Marketing, because costs are under total control.
"Successful online marketing is an ongoing process - nobody gets it right the first time," he said. The great news for learners is that you can experiment for a few weeks at very little expense, if you have some guidance. By the time you decide to run your campaign full bore, you already know how and why it's going to work, and you can design print materials to match."
Pages reached by clicking on ads are called "landing pages." To make sales, these pages need to provide a sequence of steps that establish trust, relevance and value. PPC Tarmac provides clients with online tools to make their own landing pages, and track the paths visitors take through them.
After the workshop, interested attendees form an online learning group guided by Moreinis, whose professional background is educational technology. In the following weeks, participants use professional tools to develop ad campaigns and review each other's work.
"Usually they give each other exactly the feedback they need," Moreinis said. "I only pipe up if someone's off track, or if an important point was missed."
Although PPC Tarmac is glad to manage campaigns for clients who do not have the time or interest to continue monitoring results and making changes, it prefers to offer the service in a "turn-key" approach.
"After training our clients to update their ads and web pages themselves, we 'turn over the keys' for as many aspects of the work as they wish, with a five-hour prepaid retainer for just-in-time help and minimal hosting fees, Moreinis said.
Visit /ppc-roi to learn more and register for the next workshop, or call 845-750-6204 to bring an Adwords workshop to your area.
