Wizard of Ads Clay Campbell

My learning Curve for search engine optimization

In February of 2006 I emailed my nephew who is a professional search engine marketer and asked, “What is a title tag, and what are meta tags” I had a client I at the time who needed some SEO (search engine optimization) work done. The client fired me because he said he knew more about it than I did. Like a lot of business owners I was busy running m business and was completely ignorant of how the rankings on Google worked. I knew nothing of SEO.
But since that time things have really changed for me. I learned SEO from a man who really knew what he was doing. A true professional; Don Crider. He taught me the trade.

I brought my own web site from obscurity to # 1, for 4 of my keywords and phrases. Go to Google and type in Clay Campbell Kentucky. I have the top four listings; eight months ago my name didn’t come up in the first 5 pages of Google or Yahoo. We wave done the same thing with the Kentucky Opry site and we rank # 1 for our keywords there as well.
I learned to write HTML code and read numerous books about web-design, CSS, Flash and learned to understand the language.
I built a new website, updated my own, and implemented what I learned on several others. I made changes my blog that brought a lot more visitors.
I discovered that every website needs SEO work in order to found by the search engines. 85% of the traffic to websites comes through search engines.
We’ve added a young man to our staff that is an expert writing HTML and in writing CSS proficient in Macromedia Dreamweaver. Together we are building websites and also doing SEO work for my Wizard of Ads clients. Now besides our own websites we’re starting to branch out and do websites and SEO work for others.
Here are some frequently asked questions and the answers.

What is Search Engine Optimization?
Put as simply as I can; SEO and SEM (search engine marketing) is the process of moving your web site up to the top or close to the top on Yahoo, Google and the rest of the search engines. Yahoo, ask.com, MSN, and Google are the biggest, but there are 1000’s of smaller ones. If you were a Chiropractor in Memphis, good SEO work would bring your business to the top of Yahoo when someone types in “chiropractor Memphis” into the search bar.
Some experts are saying search engine optimization should be replaced by the more correct term search engine marketing. Search engine marketing is a much better term for what we’re doing.

When is the best point in the web design and development process to start the SEO?

Alpha and omega. The moment you start designing your site you want to think "SEO" and you want to keep thinking it throughout your process.

What tells search engines what keywords are relevant?
The search engines companies send out data collectors called "spiders" or "robots" that jump from site to site gathering all the content and going to links to see the rest of the site and other sites. There are millions of them all doing their work at the same time.

My latest endeavor has been to take over the ownership of a really great ezine newsletter. Take a look, and email me back and tell me what you think of it. Go to:
www.1westernkentucky.comMore about it Later,
Clay

Do a newsletter for your list of customers and prospects.

Below is a letter I sent to a client of mine. Caring People Services. They gave me permission to use this email in my blog today.

In italics are some additional comments I added for this post.

Hi Joni…and Carolyn I hope you're feelin better.
Ladies would you please read this newsletter over very, very carefully?

I believe something similar would be exreamely benificial to you. It is another tool to implement, to help you find more customers. It would be time well spent. It would also be great content for you a future book. Notice her book advertised in the newsletter.
You could find other similar stories and newsletters and we maybe could use some of their content in your newsletters. Look over the ideas in this one. View this idea as another lake you have never fished in before; you have put a few poles in the water, and waiting for a bite.

Radio is one lake (a branding lake), newspaper is a support lake, website is another, a brochure is another, business card another. Speaking at places like small church groups, the Rotary or Lions club breakfast is another, your location another,(the cheapest advertising you can have is expensive rent) word of mouth another, your new billboard sign out front another. I call this called is a gravity well. ( From page 62 of the book Making Ads Work by my Partner Craig Arthur) It's the various ways you are reaching and touching the consumer. You must then wait until their time of need arises and then they will call or contact Caring People Services.

The masses that hear your ads on the radio every day; some are customers some are prospects and some are suspects. You’ll never get the suspects. The customers already know about you. The prospects will hear your ads every day and will still NEVER respond until their time of need arises; ie their mom has Alsheimers and has become too much to handle alone and they think, "My Lord I need to find someone to help me with all this." THEN is when you become the person they were hoping to find. We must think long term. How long is our time horizion? A long time. Maybe 4-5 years. Win their hearts and their money will follow only after they like you and trust you. I don’t care what your product or service is, consumers like to buy from people they like and trust.I'm proud too be on your team. Together we'll make great strides. We are doing the crock pot job of marketing not the microwave oven. This is what a good marketing consultant does.I'll see you at our meeting next Tuesday morning.
Clay

Why do people do business with you?

Relational customers want to do business with businesses they like and trust and “feel good” about. Transactional customers want to know “where can I buy this for the lowest possible price?”
Regardless what kind of customer they are they don’t care about much where they heard about the business; it just doesn’t matter to them very much. It does to the business owner, but not the customer.

I own a family entertainment business (a country music theatre venue) that in the past five years has grown over 200% in the number of yearly tickets sold. In 1988 I started a small outdoor billboard company called Bluegrass Signs. I still own and operate it today. I worked in phone book advertising five years, owned a very successful “clip it” coupon type Ad Sheet paper for five years,
I have been a Wizard of Ads Partner since June of 2004. I have much experience in advertising from a business owner’s point of view and from a seller of advertising’s view. I write about ways small businesses can get better results for their ad dollars in my new newsletter More Bang for Your Marketing Buck. I hope you’ll sign up!

Finding someone outside of your business to consult with is a great place for you to start. When an Uncovery of your own business is done, it will help you to find your untold story. Why do people do business with you? You must to “uncover” what are the strengths and also the weaknesses of your business and your competitors.

Here are some great “Uncovery” questions for you.

What is the REAL reason customers do business with you?
What do your customers tell their friends about you? THAT is what you need to find out!
In the Uncovery you must find out:
1.How will you measure the success of your next advertising campaign?
2.What goals or objectives for your business do you have for one-two-three years from now?
3.Is your advertising below or above the level of your competition in regard to frequency and salience?
4.Who is going to really going give a rat’s hind end about what you have to say in your ads? Are you answering questions no one is asking?
The consumer just wants to know why should they do business with you.
Just THINK about this: when “we the people” are listening, reading or watching ads on Radio, newspaper & TV, we are thinking to ourselves: “Why should I care about this? “Is this going to solve some problem I have?
If not they close their mind to it. They don’t see it or hear it. Broca blocks it out of their mind.

Most business owners are running ads that are targeted to the 1% or, at the most, 2 % of the surrounding population, that are in the market for that product or service today! What is your ad saying to the 98% who aren’t in the market today?
5.Will people want to hear your ads again or when your ad comes on next time, will they change stations or channels?
6. How long is your time horizon? Check out the article by my Partner Roy H. Williams...The Four Faces in Every Store

This is how word of mouth advertising really works.

On a recent trip to Kansas City to pick up grandkids Tanner and Tyler, we went to a great little pizza place. This is how word of mouth advertising really works. We were at Paradise Park, a play-place for kids, and I asked a teenager behind the counter if there was a Pizza Hut close by. He said “Yeh but, if you want a really good pizza go to Waldo’s Pizza”. I said, “Waldo’s?” he said, “Waldo’s. It’s a family owned place and it’s really good. Lot’s better than Pizza Hut, I think.” He got out a 4-inch-thick phone book, looked up the number, and gave me directions. Nice kid. Now, I don’t think he had stock in Waldo’s Pizza he just liked their food I guess. I called them on my cell phone. Since I wasn’t familiar with area, they gave me directions several times. After thinking I was lost for several blocks, I called again, they were very patient in continuing to give me directions. We finally got there. We were starving. My wife said, “This better be good after all this.”
As it turned out, it really was a great little family owned pizza place. It had the biggest flat screen TV I’ve ever seen. About 5 feet by 8 feet was my guess. There were several video games. The grandkids just loved it. The pizza was very good. The salad bar was very fresh and had those little cold green peas… everything was excellent. The service was very good. I was a happy camper. The bill for 7 of us was $44, which I thought was a bargain because we got way more than $44 worth of food, drinks, and service. Then came the “clincher.” We asked for a to go box and they took our food back to the kitchen and packed the box for us. They brought it out with a full color coupon taped to the top. I looked on the back of the coupon and there was their menu!

I thought WOW! How many hundreds of times have my wife and I went out to eat at a nice restaurant and asked for a to go box and they come out with a little Styrofoam box and hand it to you? How many restaurants out there need more customers? Just start putting some coupons, or your menu, your phone # or your logo… (Anything, would be better than nothing) Tape it on the top of the to go boxes to entice your customer to come back. How about a magnet with your phone # on it and note saying thanks for your business…please place this magnet on your fridge??
When we go back to Lee’s Summit we will go back to Waldo’s again. Your customers are like that. They go back to places where they’ve had a good experience. What brings a customer back to a restaurant for the second visit? The first visit!
The same goes for a jewelry store, furniture store, plumbers, lawyers, advertising consultants, dentists, and family country music variety shows like ours. Whatever. If you want to build a great business make sure your PEF (personal experience factor) is good. Very good. Then do something, (ANYTHING) so that when your customer leaves, she will rave about you to her friends. So what are you doing at your business that would create word of mouth advertising so people would rave about you?
Remember great advertising will make what was going to happen anyway; just happen quicker.
If the Word you is good…great! If the word on you is not good… $100,000 in radio and TV ads will not make your business grow.

Clay Campbell Wizard of Ads
Marketing Consultant copyright 8-8-06
Article maybe copied if the source is included and
the complete article is used.

Part # 2 More Bang for Your Marketing Buck

#7 Your business needs a good looking, well thought out, well planned brochure that fits your core values. These core values come from an Uncovery and a Strategy Planning Session. If you want to know what a great brochure looks like; send me a self addressed stamped envelope and I’ll send you one. It’s cheap in comparison to the highly valuable new customers it can bring in. If you use your imagination you can think of lots of places and ways to give out brochures. One of the very best ways to get More Bang for your Buck is to hire a writer to do all your copywriting for you. A properly worded brochure is worth as much to you as a very good nine iron to Tiger Woods.

# 8 Keep a database of the people who come in and do business with you. This is the biggest mistake most businesses make. It costs nothing to email out a nice chatty newsletter to a 1000 people who have been to visit your store. Small businesses do NOT realize how many dollars they’re actually losing by not keeping a current mailing list and sending them something regularly.

#9 Cut back your ad in the yellow pages. Most businesses are spending WAY too much money there. That money can give you more bang for you buck in lots of other places. Yellow pages are a great alphabetical listing for products services, but very poor for giving you any Top of Mind Awareness. The new yellow pages is a good website. Ask someone in an office, under 30, that has a computer in front of them, to please look up a phone number for you. You can count on 9 out of 10 looking on Yahoo or Google instead of the yellow pages.

#10 Survey and ask questions of your customers all the time. Constantly. Consistently. Deliberatly. Quiz them. Poll them. Ask them. Offer to put they’re name in a drawing for a humongous big screen TV if they’ll honestly answer your questions. Or…offer to put their name in a drawing for a trip to the Bahamas.
What do you ask them? Start by asking them what is the main reason they do business with you. What’s one thing that your business could improve for them? Ask them if your prices seem about right, a little too high, or a little too low. Ask them if there is anything about your business they would change if they were the boss. You get the idea. Ask them to give you honest genuine feedback. They will. Then go do something with that info and the info in this article. Knowledge unapplied is as useless as “tits on a boar”. (That’s a male pig for those of you that didn’t grow up on a farm)

#11 The most inexpensive advertising you can have is expensive rent. Great marketing and promotion can get a person to come to your business once. What brings a person back for the second visit is their FIRST visit!

#12 Hire the nicest, sweetest, kindest, friendliest person can find to answer the phone and greet people as they come in. I hate going in to a store where there is no friendly greeting. If I don't get one... I'm kinda offended. Most of the time I say to the person: "Hey, where's my friendly greeting?" Then they usually smile and say "hi" or "how are you" or some such thing. Owners need to TRAIN the employees what they want them to say. Verbatum! Whether on the phone or when greeting a customer.
You wanna know what's worse than training your staff then losing them? NOT training them and keeping them!
I was in business talking to the owner a few years ago and I asked him how he was able to train his people to be so nice to his customers. He said something I'll never forget: "We don'train our people to be nice. We hire really nice people to begin with; then we train them to do the work we need done." I say GREAT Plan!

clay campbell-wesite-seo-wizard office 270-554 0093

www.claycampbell.biz
Contact me at claycampbell@wizardofads.com

Watch for info on my upcoming new book:
"More Bang For your Marketing Buck- How Small Businesses Can Get BIG Results for Their Small Ad Dollars"