Search…Land…Profit…ideas from Jeffery Giesener – CEO – ShoppeSimple

 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney, Thursday October 8, 2011 ) — Unemployment might be high, but the people who work continue to shop. The consumer is not dead, and the recently lower gasoline prices are certainly opening more room for discretionary spending.

There are some distinct pockets of strength among retailers that could afford to transfer rising costs to their customers via higher prices. High-end retailers continue to increase same-store sales in an impressive manner, proving that not all customers are price-sensitive.

In which segment does your business reside?

If you are like the non-luxury Retailers and Business-to-Business prospects we have spoken to last week they have not seen these “distinct pockets of strength” in their business. It is just the opposite. Many retailers we’re speaking with are really concerned about  4^th quarter performance and how their consumers will react for the Holidays to all of the bad economic news.

This was evident in a number of recent merchant engagements where we were asked to apply our Surround-Sound Social Business solutions to improve their Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization programs.

Why?  While one merchant is investing over $2 million a month in PPC/SEO and another is making a much smaller $15,000 per month investment, no merchants could afford to get into a keyword bidding war in the fourth quarter. We also learned . . .

• All need more program flexibility to optimize their Keywords program
• All admitted their own internal IT struggles are preventing their Keyword program from performing better especially in 4Q

Is this resonating with you?

But you may be thinking ShoppeSimple helps businesses drive social monetization. Throughout the summer I have been writing about Surround-Sound™ Social Business solutions and this is no accident.  We have proven through our testing that social monetization must be integrated horizontally across all of your on/offline channels to maximize your results.

What every social business needs to master is distributing content and conversations that your consumers want from you when and where they want it. So your brand goes to wherever your consumer is on social and mobile. Master this and your social business will create incremental, bankable revenue for your business.

Over the course of the summer we have been piloting Social Business programs across additional channels. In this blog I will share a results example where we optimized PPC and SEO. Pardon the detail but this illustrates a big opportunity for your business to consider immediately.

A case study example

A $100 million pure dot COM business produces 20% of their sales through their PPC and SEO program.

The current monthly PPC-driven results

• This merchant site converts 2.0% of their PPC traffic to buyers at a $75 average order.
• 795,600 clicks to the site from PPC at 2.0% conversion 15,912 orders.
• 15,912 orders at $75 per order produces PPC sales of $1,193,400
• 35% net margin = $417,690 at the margin a $5+ Million PPC margin channel

PPC & SEO Optimized

Improving conversions by just 5% in the case study above produces a bankable incremental margin gain of $20,885 monthly or $250,000+ annually.

For the skeptics reading this, if you could bank even half that amount (just 2.5%) would you test a program that banks over $125,000 incremental margin annually?  Imagine if you could bank at 10% and it gets even more exciting.  We’ve seen this range of improvement!

What does optimizing PPC & SEO mean?

Improving the user experience by giving users what they want from your brand in one click from Google . . . exactly what we enable you to do through the ShoppeSimple Keyword Search solution.

Will you see results like this?

That will be the test and is why we are putting our “skin in the game”.  We prove the program’s value to you or you just don’t pay. Don’t discount the value of what happens when your customers share your brand with their friends and family either.  The viral results we have seen through ShoppeSimple Keyword Search are amazing!

You may be thinking, how can we possibly achieve these returns? We’ve been trying hard internally to squeeze out incremental gains in our program for years. We’ve heard the following from other merchants as to why they’ve been held back when they try to improve PPC and SEO at this level.

Which of these hurdles resonate with you?

• “I can’t make marketing changes to my website since it is already locked down for the holidays. Now I can only just watch and hope that my programs will come in as I projected. I have no alternatives today or Plan B’s in case they don’t”.
• “Every year in Q4, I hope and pray my PPC/SEO program comes in at a cost per order we can afford.  I worry that my keyword bidding could get out of control or my budget may force us to drop out. Every year I sweating it out. This year I am really worried”.
• “My IT department is so inflexible, I have been waiting for nearly a year to make even the slightest changes to the website. Even with a program as big and critical as PPC/SEO, which is 30+% of my revenue, I still can’t move the IT-mountain to make my PPC/SEO channel experience better”.
• “My Internal Search technology is just broken and really doesn’t provide my consumer a good user experience. Internal Search is integrally tied into Keyword Search”.
• “I can’t quickly create on-demand landing pages which I can control, track and measure back to Keywords from Google Adwords”.
• “I cannot marry product and content together, which provides for a richer user experience. I know content drives product purchasing.”

The result is why I am writing to you… more bankable revenue. And right now is the perfect time to protect your business from negative economic factors and apply our Social Business Keyword Search solution.

Right now, it is possible to improve your Keyword program without utilizing any of your own IT resources.  And, your PPC/SEO manager can have complete control while the consumer search experience is improved.

So, the choice is yours.  Continue to provide this consumer experience . . .

Search, Land, Land, Land and maybe Bank

Or, with ShoppeSimple Keyword Search provide a . . .

Search, Land, and Bank experience GUARANTEED.

Give me a call at 612-349-2740 or email me at jeff@shoppesimplenetwork.com to have us show you how ShoppeSimple Social Business will be applied to your Keyword channel.