Disclaimer: We are not a digital ad agency. We do have accounts in which we manage their growth, and marketing is part of the service. This article is a result of last week’s webinar. We answered many questions on this topic.

Social vs. Search Promotion

Outside the office door, we didn’t have a line of potential customers waiting to listen to our story. Do you have a line now?

So, we decided to be pro-active. We hired a promoter.

We paid the promoter for each potential customer they brought to the office

It worked. It was expensive.

To reduce the cost, we asked the promoters to send many more people to our website instead of bringing them to the office.

We bought website visitors.

We started adding new customers.

Not long after, we understood:

Rule #1.

Waiting for people to come to us willingly, is the first step in closing the business.

Moving forward, we hired two kinds of promoters:

One: Targeted/Search and

Second: Awareness/social.

Which one works better?

Should we use the Search engine like Google and Microsoft or use social ads, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and others?

This article will outline our thought process.

Search engines like Google and Microsoft and Social Media each claim to be the most effective platform.

Do they?

We study that each serves a different need. We learned what to expect from each media outlet and how to use them to support each other.

In this guide, we’ll examine

What sets search and social ads apart?
How do the two ad platforms work?
Should you consider both?

What is the difference between the Social and Search ads?

Paid Search – Match the user-specific words, phrases, and search queries to the phrase advertisers want to be visible.

Example

One of our products is Paperless, Digital, Interactive Business Card. Any time a user searches for these types of business cards, they show an intention to engages new prospects with the most effective Business Card in the market, and we want our product to be visible to them. We are willing to pay for a ‘click on our ad’ and a visit to our Paperless Business Card website page.

There are different Click-Pay / bids Campaign Strategies. The bid-strategy, the amount of dollar we are willing to pay for a visit, is a topic on its own. We’ll not touch here. You will be able to know it. However, it is time-consuming and experience.

Conclusion one:

First statement:

We are willing to buy a visitor. NOT a buyer.
How much to pay for each visit is based on the Keyword’s Market Demand

For Service Business, there are 3 steps before you add a new customer to your books

1. Buy a visitor:

a. A click on your ad(s)

b. You pay the search engine for each visitor they send

2. A Lead:

Visitor calls, fill the contact form or Email

Your website or other online assets need to be keen to convert the visitor to a lead

3. Your team needs to make a sale.

A conversation or meeting will take place.

Note: I like to add a note to point 3. It may sound like advertising to book-it, one of the Gobiggi products, but it is also one of the reasons we developed book-it.

People are the most expensive cost for every business.

Each lead requires a follow-up. follow-up need people time

Receive the lead
Contact the prospect via email or phone.
Often it takes several emails or calls
You exchange email back and forth to find the proper time to meet.
The worse part:

In the process, the hot lead starts cooling off.
When there is a constant flow of leads, the process takes a salesperson’s time

To expedite the process, we added ‘Book-It’- an online scheduling tool to all our communications. Prospects can schedule the day and time for a meeting or book/rent equipment, book a table at a restaurant based on mutual availability.

The results: serious potential buyers set the time online, reduce the back and forth emails and calls dramatically, and reduce the overall cost.

We attach book-it to all our communication, including social media, website, Email, and paperless business cards.

A successful promotion depends on

The Cost Per Website Visitor.
The percentage of visitors who become leads
The rate of making a lead to buyer

To make it real,

The cost of buying a visitor is $5.
a. We buy 100 Visitors = We paid $500

From 100 visitors, 30 made contact.
Lead cost- $16.66
We sold to 17.The cost of the buyer is -$29.14

NOTE: I like to stop here and talk about point 2. Your website has a critical task

CONVERT HIGH PERCENTAGE OF VISITORS TO LEADS.

No matter what promoter you choose Social or Search

THE WEBSITE OR ANY OTHER ONLINE ASSTAES YOU SEND YOUR VISITOR TO, MUST CONVERT A GOOD PERCENTAGE OF VISITORS TO LEADS.

Conclusion

The ‘bulls- say – Search Campaign

We pay for visitors that are potential buyers.

The bear says – the Search engine is expensive.

We say: That the cost of doing business in the big league.

You hire a superstar, you pay, and win the ring!!

How to win a ring and reduce the cost?

Social – “window shopping traffic.”

What brings a person to any of the social media platforms?

Entertainment
Sharing and reading friend’s stories
Social Event
News.

People may ask friends for a referral for a service or product on social media, but most

Pick their time. Share and read stories.

To that environment, companies inject ads and receive

Paid “window shopping traffic.”

Although the road, Visitor, Lead, Sale are the same, the visual, the results, the cost, and therefore your objective and the money designated to social ads should be different.

The percentage of Facebook users clicking on ads range from 0.7% to 1.9%. from 1000 users – Approximately 10 will click on the ads assuming your targeting done right.

Those 10 are not in the market to buy or hire a service. Those 10 are “window shopping traffic.”

All social platforms will charge for each ‘window shopping visitor.’

The percentage conversion- from a visitor to a lead, is much lower than search promotion, and therefore the money paid for each visitor should be much much lower than search.

How much less? It’s hard to say.

Testing will be the right approach.

So how we use Social platforms?

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn have become an integral part of our SOCIAL lives. Most of us use it. Businesses must be present professionally. That does not mean posting ads all day long. That means, engage users socially. Make friends. Communicate and listen.

A well-managed page allows you to reach your target audience, create broader visibility, and become top-of-mind. That means – If at one point I need your service or product, you are the first one I think off.

Videos attract social media users who come for entertainment. Ads that a user can read in less than 2 seconds do well. Your logo and identity must be featured and memorized by the audience.

Asking your audience a question will trigger a dialogue that will attract many prospects and increase the sales cycle of your business or product.

How we use Social media:

Paid Search is not cheap. Testing and optimizing is required.

We first test using social media. We place many ads on social media. We test hardlines and images for the lowest price possible. We make sure our logo, tag line, and messages are clear. We edit update all the ads for 10 to 14 days. We take the best performing ads to paid search.