CHOOSE THE BEST SEARCH TERMS (KEYWORDS)

Broad keywords (“shoes”) will generate many clicks with little or no benefit. Use specific keywords and phrases that accurately reflect your site. If you offer a product in a particular geographic area include location (“men’s shoes Seattle”). And consider many possible variations (“Italian leather shoes,” “men’s leather shoes,” etc).

For help refining your keywords, try Overture’s Term Suggestion Tool [http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/adcenter ools/index.jhtml].

WRITE ACCURATE AND RELEVANT AD COPY

The most effective ads communicate a clear message to a specific target audience. Your ad should emphasize unique benefits of your product or service. Use simple, direct language: avoid gimmicks and jargon.

It’s a good idea to include search term in your title and/or description. Users will be able to immediately see its relevance to their search. Overture reports that listings which include search term in both title and description have a higher click-through rate (more than 50% higher on average).

In Google, ad titles are limited to 25 characters. The two description lines and display URL are limited to 35 characters each-- so you have to be concise.

Altering a product is expensive and time-consuming, eating away at precious resources and profits. It also damages strength of its brand name, confusing consumer and widening rift.

The PR Rainmaker understands that there are two ways of doing business. You can compete or you can create.

Most companies compete for same set of customers. In a growing market, this works just fine. The number of available customers is going up and up, so there’s plenty for anyone who is willing to get out there and fight for them.

But what happens when a market refuses to grow? Or worse, what happens when a market actually begins to shrink. Suddenly, you are fighting for fewer and fewer customers. Your pricing power vanishes. So do your profits.

Instead, companies should seek to change customer by creating new behaviors. The best method for this is public relations.

No one understood this better than Edward L. Bernays, father of modern PR. Indeed, according to Bernays, it is this principle of changing public instead of product that separates PR from advertising and marketing.

Whenever hired to sell a product to consumer, Bernays always chose to sell a new behavior instead.

He began by quickly analyzing public behavior that prevented his client from thriving. He then determined how public would need to think and to act in order to benefit his client.

Finally, Bernays would select strategy and tactics that would alter public opinion and consumer behavior to fit his needs.

His methods were indirect, complex and at times inscrutable. They employed front organizations, public demonstrations, letter-writing campaigns, expert testimony and other alliances. But more often than not, they worked:

 Assigned to sell books for Simon & Schuster, Bernays enlisted experts to call for great literature in everyday home, plus he convinced architects to include built-in bookshelves in their home designs.