More on smart online marketing

Presented here is the second part of my column about Web-based marketing. The first part appeared in the February issue.

While appearing near the top of an Internet search makes it easy for potential customers to find out about your shop’s services, a downside is that many of the people conducting searches are marketers looking to sell something. In addition, many people who search for shops are competitors collecting information or just being nosy, so be careful what you freely post. With that in mind, keep your online content professional and do not provide unneeded information, such as anything personal or any specific details about your operation.

An obvious upside is that when you’re found online, you’re branding your company and, hopefully, generating business for machined parts outside of your normal area. If budgeted carefully, exposure through searches can be more cost-effective than hiring a salesperson. However, some shops already have enough work and don’t want or need new business. If you’re in that category, congratulations—your sales budget is probably a smaller percentage of overhead than most.

In 1999, I became aware of the power of robust online marketing and started digging to determine how and why a company appears on the first page of a search site. At that time, Yahoo was the dominant search engine and I discovered appearing first on a Yahoo search required paying them $500 to $1,000 per month in sponsored searches to guarantee results. For that amount, we definitely saw an increase in the number of inquiries and, eventually, new sales through many new prospects. Over time, most new business came via Internet searches and it was a wonderful thing.

Fast forward 10-years and Google is the search king, charging dramatically higher prices for high-quality results, with the competition to achieve those results being quite costly. While our company still allocates funds for an online campaign, we’ve had to adapt to the reality of an online world where the desire to be on top has become prohibitively expensive, especially for smaller shops. This requires a change in online strategy to include very targeted search terms so you’re not competing among the costliest search terms.