July Workshop Recap

Hi, everyone!

I’d like to take a minute to let you know about this month’s Workshop. Melani Gordon of gWaveConsulting, Inc. presented on the topic: How to provide marketing campaign ROI/transparency in times of slowing economy & decreasing marketing budgets.

Melani is a strong presenter — she was simultaneously organized, informative, friendly, and approachable — and the group helped to make the morning one of dialogue. The attendees, including a hotel owner, Gaslamp events planner, two healthcare representatives, and a financial advisor, were active, vocal, and engaged. The group’s diverse perspectives greatly enhanced the learning environment, and Melani tailored her presentation to the group’s needs by referencing attendees’ individual websites and providing relevant industry-specific advice.

Here are few take-aways from the presentation:

• When the economy slows, many companies cut their marketing budgets = fewer advertising competitors = greater advertising visibility for companies who continue to advertise. So, times of slow economic growth are actually the best time to advertise to get the most bang for your buck.

• Cost/benefit analysis of organic SEO growth vs. PPC advertising (see slide 9, included below). This really helped me, because I never click on sponsored links, so I didn’t really understand their benefits and uses objectively.

• Tracking. It makes sense that if you throw a bunch of money at something, you’ll need some quantitative indication of whether or not it’s working. However, because I’ve never had a bunch of advertising dollars (or any kind of dollars, really) just sitting in my pocket, this didn’t occur to me.

• I was really interested to discover the techniques behind:
  a) PPC tracking (online): separate each PPC campaign, track all conversion rates, and determine each PPC cost per lead
  b) Call tracking (print): each ad source refers consumers to a unique toll-free number, then measure amount of traffic generated from each source

• Client examples. Melani walked us through the complete assessment process for an online advertising campaign. As nobody in the room except for Melani had ever done anything like this before, it was very beneficial to be able to physically view each of the steps along the way.

• Comparison. You can be doing above-average, but that’s not enough if your closest competitor is A++. Protocol requires that you SPY on them. Luckily, the internet makes this possible through a plethora of sites (KeywordSpy.com, Compete.com, etc.). They will never escape your watchful eye.

gWaveConsulting offers pay per click advertising, online media buying, social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, web design/development, marketing analytics, and lead management/distribution services.

View the entire slideshow: gWave Consulting Online Marketing Presentation