Pay per click (PPC) advertising is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies available. Like search engine optimization (SEO), it places your company's message directly in front of prospects at the perfect moment - when they've demonstrated interest and intent.

Think about this for a moment.

I know several window replacement companies that send post cards to neighborhoods where they are currently doing a job. While targeted direct mail can produce a positive return on investment, what percentage of the people you send cards to:

A) Read or even glance at your postcard before they toss it out with the rest of their junk mail?

B) Are in the market for new windows?

C) Are in the market for the type of windows you want to sell?

Thinking through this example, you can quickly see why many direct mail marketers are happy if they get even a 1% response rate! These days, the odds of reaching a truly targeted prospect using direct mail are somewhere between slim and none (note: even with the slim odds, you can generate sales cost-effectively with direct mail).

PPC advertising is great in that it eliminates some of the marketing waste by allowing you to ONLY place your ads in front of people actually in the market for what you sell. For example, if your focus is historic wood windows, you can adjust the settings in your PPC campaign to make sure that your ads do NOT show up when people search things like, "vinyl windows", "best price on fiberglass windows", etc.

While this all might sound great, there is a catch - several of them actually.

Here are 3 secrets to running a successful PPC campaign:

1. Know your numbers (BEFORE you launch your campaign).

To run a successful PPC campaign, you have to know your numbers. At a minimum, you have to know:

• The average revenue per job by line of business
• Your gross margin by line of business
• Your sales reps' close rate (the percentage of leads they turn into sales)
• Your website's conversion rate

You should also have a very good handle on your company's profitability and cashflow. Ultimately, to manage an effective PPC campaign, you have to understand the maximum you can afford to pay per click. it's impossible to know this without the information above (and then some). I cannot stress enough the importance of knowing your numbers BEFORE you launch a PPC campaign.

If you Don't know the percentage of your website visitors that convert into leads, you CANNOT run an effective PPC campaign. Similarly, you cannot run an effective PPC campaign if you Don't know what percentage of leads your sales guys turn into appointments and sales. Marketing today, without exception, is a numbers game. Know your numbers are be prepared to FEEL what it's like to waste money.

Now, it's worth noting that you may have to spend a bit of money on marketing just to learn your numbers. A lot of business owners see this as a waste. it's not. When you spend money to generate enough activity to learn your numbers, you're investing in intelligence. you're spending money to generate the activity required to get some key metrics that you'll use in the future to generate some serious profit.

When you track things the right way, no marketing investment is really a waste. You either get results or you get data, and contrary to What'some of your contracting buddies might tell you, data is incredibly valuable. Some of the most successful and profitable companies in the world win ONLY because they have data and information no one else has.

Most business owners that test pay per click advertising select their keyword bids based on ego. Don't DO THIS. What you bid for each keyword you target must be based on the economics of your business. Don't assume a competitor paying for the top spot on Google (at an insanely high cost per click) knows what he is doing. At this point, most of them Don't. Select bids based on your ego and you'll end up as just another contractor on an industry forum whining about how terrible PPC advertising is. In nearly every case, if you tried PPC and it went terrible, you either failed to execute correctly or you're not tracking things the right way - you might have stopped 10 yards from the goal line and you didn't even know it!

you're probably shaking your head in disbelief but it happens all the time.

Track everything. If you think numbers are boring, go watch the movie Moneyball and hire an accountant (or an online marketing expert that thinks like one).

2. Analyze your competition.

If you have a competitor investing in PPC, with a little bit of research, I can tell you EXACTLY what they are spending each day, which keywords they are fighting for, the techniques they are using to convert clicks into leads, etc. You can find almost the exact same information. All it takes is a little bit of money (well worth it) and an time (more for you than for me because I know where to look).

Go to Google and search for keywords related to your business. Do you see your competitors in the PPC section of the page (typically the top and the right side of the search results page)? What do their ads say? Go to their websit's. What are the calls-to-action? Look at the source code of their site - are they tracking things the right way (and what actions are they tracking)? How does what they are offering compare to what you're willing to do? How can you differentiate your business?

3. Learn everything there is to know about the PPC platform you are using.

Like everything in life, the devil is in the details. If you're going to have any hope at running an effective PPC campaign, you need to learn everything there is to know about the platform you're using. For most of you, that means learning everything you can about Google AdWords. Seemingly little things can make a HUGE difference in terms of your return on investment.

For example, failing to bid on the keyword 'custom bottled water' using the exact match keyword option cost one local custom labeled water company $36,000 in lost profit (over the course of the year). Amazingly, he this same business owners till profited from the endeavor - just not as much as he could have (or should have). If you're going to generate a positive return from your PPC campaigns, you have to know and understand things like:

• When to use geo-targeted campaigns vs. geo-qualified keywords
• Whether to bid on your brands names or not
• Keyword match type options and situational bidding
• How call tracking and keyword-level call tracking works
• Why day-parting is important
• A/B testing and how to determine whether a test was statistically significant
• How to create (and test) effective landing pages
• How to use dynamic keyword insertion in your ads

If you're a small contractor, you might have more time available than money. Invest in learning this stuff. If you're a bit larger, you've got to ask yourself, "is this the best use of my time." To grow a business, you should only do what only you can do.

Conclusion

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising can be a highly-effective way for contractors to generate profitable leads and sales, but it's whether it's a homerun or a strikeout depends on the how you play the game.

Hi folks, as a token of my gratitude to the community, I asked my SEO person to write her best tips for busy contractors. This is What'she came back with:

Today I want to give you three simple strategies how to help local prospects find your company?s website online.

The Local Search Dilemma

All contractors I spoke with want their website to get found online more often. All of them want local customers, but Don't know what to do to attract them with the help of their website.

Many have already been lured by the promises of unscrupulous SEO professionals, paid thousands of dollars to ?get on the first page of Google? just to see their site penalized, and money and traffic lost.

Even if I tell them what to do, They arespond with something along the line, ?I am a darn good electrician, but have no time to sit in front of computer,? or simply ?I am not good at this.?

I think we can all agree that being found by qualified customers on the local search will bring more business without costly advertising.

And there are free ways of doing it.

Here is a little experiment for you. Google your local city and your trade, for example, ?general contractors Minneapolis.? Of course you will see lots of local results. Now, type ?general contractors? and see whether you still get local businesses.

You do. As a customer, you Don't even have to add a local area to a query because Google can match customer?s location with business address of general contractors and display the best result.

So, if you do nothing else, provide the big three search engines with your business address , phone and description. In other words, create a business listing. When you do this, one of the most important things to watch for is your company address.

From now on, wherever you list your website online, make sure your business address comes in the consistent format. No extra spaces, no ?St.? vs ?Street? or ?Suite? vs ?#?.

Your phone number must come in a consistent format as well. If your chose (416) xxx-xxxx, stick to it. Don't change it to any other format.

The best way to ensure consistency is to create a template in MS Word or Excel and copy-paste from it.

There will be common parts in all business listings, such as description, years in business, address, hours of operations, and so on. When creating your first listing, just write them down in MS Word, and keep copy-pasting every time you create a new listing.

Another tip is, upload as many pictures as you are allowed in your business listing. Google Images is a great free source of traffic.

Note to the Canadians here, only Google + Local is available to you. Yahoo! and Bing are for the US businesses only.

Start here:

http://listings.local.yahoo.com/overview.php

http://www.bing.com/businessportal

http://www.google.com/+/business/

2. Create local citations.

Citation is simply a mention of your business name with either address , website, or phone number, or combination of the three.

Your customers use their preferred sit's to search for local businesses. Sit's like Yelp, Manta, Angie?s list enhance their customer experience by providing reviews and social component. People may be reviewing your business there, and you should use your chance to say a few good words about yourself.

In addition to that, did you know that Google uses feeds from these popular websit's to create listings for local businesses too? One more incentive for you to create a citation.

Here is a great free tool to find prominent local directories in your area:

http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-city.aspx

And for Canada, here is a good picture of the Local Search Ecosystem in Canada

3. How to find time and resources to DO IT

I can hear you say, ?But I have no time for this.?

• Consider that this investment of your time will provide returns for many years ahead. Unlike with Yellow Pages, no regular payment is required. Listing your company in the web directories is done once and works for you for years.
• If you would like to outsource to an SEO professional, do not get lured by promises like ?1000 directories listings for only $40.? The times when you wanted to be listed in 1000?s crappy directories are gone. Businesses get penalized for doing this. Consider a reputable company to create and manage your online reputation.
• Lastly, if you have a teenager or another family member who is looking for ways to earn some money, hire them to do this for you. Doing so has three advantages: low cost, 100% control, and ability to claim their labor as advertisement expenses. Teens are very efficient with web, and copy-pasting is not a rocket science.

In conclusion, many contractors simply Don't understand the importance of these steps, while some cannot find time or resources for doing this. As you can see, these important tasks can be outsourced. Don't postpone taking control of your online identity in the local search. Be there, be present, and grow your business by creating and maintaining your local business listings.

it's frightening how many contractors want growth, but aren't "all in" with pay per click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimization (SEO). But, What's more frightening is that the window of opportunity to drive profitable growth with strategies like PPC and SEO is closing - fast.

You see, at the highest level, Google is a real estate game. Depending on which study you'reference, something like 80-85 percent of the available clicks (for a given keyword phrase) go to one of the businesses with a listing in the first page of search results. Most of those clicks go to the organic listings (likely 70-75 percent) with about 10-15 percent going to the paid ads (PPC ads - located in the highlighted portion of the page at the very top, along the right side and sometimes at the very bottom of the page). According to some studies, a staggering 30-40 percent of available clicks go to the top organic listing (read: so, if your business is listed fifth on the first page, it's worth continuing to fight to move up to the second or first spot)!

So, the more first page real estate you have, the more clicks, leads and sales you're going to get (and it's worth noting that PPC ads do not significantly cannibalize traffic from the organic listings). Are you starting to see the problem, and why the window of opportunity is closing? There are roughly ten organic listings (excluding the map listings) and ten paid (PPC) ads. How many competitors are there in your market? How many of them are investing in PPC and SEO? Out of those, how many really know what They are doing (or have hired someone that does)?

In most markets, there are far more contractors than there are first page organic or paid search listings. Two or three years ago, most contractors had no idea what PPC and SEO stood for, let alone how to execute an effective strategy for each. Even those investing in either PPC or SEO were doing so via their current or former yellow page rep (based on this sentence, you can infer how I feel about the effectiveness of this approach). The point is, in the past, even though there were more contractors than available first page positions, most contractors were either clueless or lightly investing in strategies like PPC and SEO.

Today, in most markets, things are far more competitive. As a result, the cost-per-click for PPC advertising has risen (Don't believe Google's recent report that overall cost-per-click numbers are down... for the home services worth, the costs are going up, up, up - that's my prediction). When you have more competitors actively investing in SEO, the amount of SEO work needed to leap-frog them is going to increase. And this is exactly what has - and continues - to happen.

Take a look at these numbers:

These numbers are from a local residential plumbing, heating and air conditioning company. They are currently investing $1,500 per month in SEO and (roughly) $3,500 per month in PPC. For them, $46 per direct lead (as opposed to a lead sent from a third party source like Service Magic) is fantastic! it's about a third or a fourth of what they'd be willing to pay (considering the percentage of inquiries They areceive for replacement work, their lead-to-sale conversion rate and the average margin associated with the various jobs they do).

Their PPC budget is exhausted on most days and $1,500 for SEO is very low (relative to their larger competitors). With cost per lead numbers that are so favorable - and the willingness to grow - they should turn both dials UP. At the same time, they should continue to monitor their ROI very carefully. As more competitors enter the PPC and SEO market they'll need to make adjustments. For example, if they can increase their lead-to-sale conversion rates by training their sales reps, they will be able to (continue to) make money even with higher lead costs.

At some point, I predict that the ROI associated with with search marketing - PPC in particular - will decrease to the point that many contractors start seeking greener pastures elsewhere. Why? Because there are too many business owners that Don't (accurately) understand how much they should be willing to pay to acquire a new sale, customer, lead, web visit, etc. When these folks enter the PPC / SEO game, you get this huge glut of people willing (because they Don't know any better) to overpay for each click or focusing on increasing traffic when they'd be better served thinking about how to convert more visitors into leads. If this happens, PPC and SEO may become less profitable/productive. Savvy contractors will already be testing and moving their marketing dollars over to something new (maybe that will be PPC ads on other types of sit's or more organic word of mouth efforts on social media sit's, who knows).

Isn't this exactly what happened with the yellow pages? A whole bunch of contractors - mostly those that were accurately tracking the return of their ads - dumped their print ads altogether in favor of testing the web. Another group of contractors, mostly those that never accurately tracked their ads, stayed in the books. I remember one company telling me, "I can't cancel my yellow page ad because my competitor is still in there - if They are there, I have to be there." If I remember correctly, I think I almost started laughing and incredulously asked, "you're joking, right?" (they weren't joking). (Note: to be clear - in some industries and markets, print YP ads continue to work like a charm - the key is to track your ad.)

In conclusion, I track advertising for over 100 companies - the vast majority of which are home service contractors - so I can tell you that very few marketing strategies can rival SEO and PPC when it comes to measurable ROI. Over time, as I've stated above, I believe this will change. The more contractors that enter the search marketing arena, the harder it will be to make a profit and concurrently generate a decent number of leads.

So if you want growth and have the capacity for it, consider going "all in" with PPC and SEO. Track everything and grab as many new customers as you can. While you're doing that, Don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for the next wave (cause this one ain't gonna last forever!).

You probably spend more time this year trimming your Christmas tree (or toenails) than you have researching marketing trends, so let me offer a candid tip: The future of advertising and marketing is online. Over the past five years, every marketing research house has been saying the same thing - advertising and marketing dollars are moving from "traditional" channels to the web.

So, how does your website and overall online presence measure up?

Are you playing to win or doing the minimum necessary not to lose? As I cruise surf the web, I see an awful lot of contractors that appear to be doing the latter. The number of outdated, untracked, poorly optimized websit's that are practically invisible to prospective buyers, continues to be mind-boggling.

It appears that many contractors are employing a "bunker mentality." Given the current economic downturn, They are trying to play it'safe by either staying put and making no changes (gotta conserve my cash) or doing the bare minimum in order to say, "yeah, I tried XYZ marketing strategy." Trouble is, this "staying put" mentality - or tip toe testing mentality is almost always a bad idea. This is playing to not lose. Of course, the ironic thing is that when you play to not lose, you almost always lose.

I used to be a semi-professional cyclist and a cycling coach. Whether it's mountain biking or road biking, one of the hardest things to teach new bike racers is that speed is their friend. The faster you go, the more stable the bike is. If you're mountain biking and you come to a "rock garden", the natural tendency is to grab the brakes and slow down. Do this, and you're asking for serious trouble.

Counter intuitively, the right way to get through the rock garden unscathed is to let go of the brakes and accelerate.

In some ways, the same is true in business and marketing.

Forward motion is your friend. it's more dangerous to tip-toe along (playing not to lose) than it is to accelerate your level of advertising and marketing activity (play to win). Besides, it's not like going "all-in" with online marketing is taking a big risk. Five years ago, online marketing is "the new way." Today, it's just the way.

Take a look at this chart put together from a study by MarketingSherpa, a research firm specializing in what works in all aspects of marketing, recently released the following data:

The chart above compares the responses for the questions:

• "Which of the following sources generates the greatest volume of traffic coming to your website?" and
• "Which of the following sources generated traffic with the greatest conversion rates on your site?"

Three standout sources really stand out: Organic search (aka. SEO), Paid search (aka. PPC), and Email marketing campaigns. These are the online marketing sources responsible for the greatest volume of traffic and the most web conversions (typically leads). Now, think about your online marketing strategy (you do have an online marketing strategy, right?). What percentage of your 2012 marketing budget went into testing these three? How will your strategy and your budget change in 2013?

Of the contractors I know (that are not clients of mine), I'd say about 40% invested a couple thousand dollars (total, not per month) in an attempt to optimize their, often woefully outdated, website. Another 20%, also took the $100 AdWords credit Google sent them at some point during the year, and used it to test Pay Per Click advertising (most mistakenly concluded that PPC is a waste of money). Another ~10% tried a self-created, monthly email newsletter using Constant Contact, MailChimp or some other provider.

These guys are the epitome of playing not to lose.

If you're still reading, you're probably at the point where you're asking, "Okay, okay, I get it, but what does 'playing to win' even look like? I Don't have time for all this crap." Here are some web marketing tips to help you make the shift from playing not to lose to playing to win in 2013.

1. Get an online marketing audit and have a written online marketing strategy.

it's virtually impossible to create a plan to get to your goal/destination if you have no idea from where you're starting. An online marketing audit will show you exactly where you are today'so that you can create an intelligent plan based on your goals.

A typical online marketing audit will include the following:

• Implementation of the analytics tools required to get an accurate baseline of where you are today
• Review of your website - the code/structure, content, and linkscape
• An analysis of your 3-10 top competitors (how their websit's measure up, their online marketing strategy, etc.)
• Review and assessment of your overall online presence
• Creation of an online marketing strategy and implementation plan (your blueprint / plan of attack for 2013)

Don't fool yourself into thinking that the "free analysis" offered by virtually every online marketing company is sufficient. An effective online marketing audit takes 50-100 hours to create. The best online marketing companies in every niche are in very high demand. No decent web marketing firm is going to do this for free. Your website is your single most important and valuable marketing asset. Playing to win means making the investment of time and money to understand how your site performs today, how it compares to competitors, and working with a professional to create a plan to achieve your business goals.

2. Make data-driven decisions.

You can't win the game if you Don't know the score. Imagine building a house without measuring anything - just eyeball it. You wouldn't do that in a million years, so why do you operate that way with your website and your online marketing? When it comes to making advertising and marketing decisions, your gut intuition stinks. All of the plumbers using this website probably think that print yellow page ads are worthless. Smart plumbers - the ones actually accurately tracking their ads - know that print yellow page ads are not worthless (far from it).

Your website is like a virtual sales rep for your business. At a minimum, you must know metrics like:

• Visits per month
• Non-branded organic visits per month
• Visit-to-lead conversion rate (web forms/emails AND phone leads)
• Cost per lead by traffic source
• Lead-to-sale conversion rate
• ROAS

If you Don't know these numbers, you are getting crushed (or going to get crushed) by all the contractors that do (and more contractors invest in marketing and web analytics with every passing day). When you know these numbers, you can continually optimize your visit-to-sale conversion rate. Contractors that track and methodically work to improve this metric dominate their market. Most contractors have no idea what this number is, let alone how to improve it.

3. Invest in the big three - SEO, PPC, and Email Marketing.

The web is a real estate game. Your primary website is your main sales funnel. Each micro-site, social media profile, etc. is like another funnel leading prospective customers to your main sales funnel or to the front door of your business. If time and money were no object, you'd put your business everywhere online. Since no contractor has an unlimited amount of time or money (far from it), you should start maximizing your real estate on the search engine results pages.

Why? Let's say you own a roofing company. While there are a lot of people on Facebook, not all of them own a house or need a new roof. Contrast this with people living in your service area Googling, "roofing contractor city, state." Search engines offer the potential to put your business in front of people that have INTEREST and INTENT. This is where you want to invest your marketing dollars first.

The way to maximize your search engine real estate is to invest in SEO and PPC. On the SEO side of things, you need to understand that Google doesn't rank websit's. Google ranks web pages. The easiest way to increase your organic visibility, traffic, leads, and sales is to create more web pages (this assumes your site has been coded in a way that makes it easy for search engines to find, crawl, and understand). But Don't create content just for the sake of creating content. You want to create content that answers your prospects' implied questions. You want to create content that establishes your company as THE authority for what you do in the markets you do it.

If you're a computer savvy contractor, you might be able to get away with managing your own SEO and PPC. Based on my experience, I'd estimate that less than 2% of contractors fall into this category. The rest of you will end up wasting a lot more money than you make. Think about the average homeowner you serve. What do their DIY projects look like vs. the work you do? Marketing your business online isn't much different. Hire a pro.

The goal with SEO and PPC is to bring qualified visitors to your website for targeted non-branded keywords. Non-branded keywords are keywords related to the products/services you offer that do NOT include your company name. Every time you a new visitor reaches your website using a targeted non-branded keyword, you're building your brand and your business. Some percentage of these visitors will inquire immediately. These leads are like diamonds.

However, some visitors will not contact you during their first visit - either because of the timing, where they are in the buying cycle, etc. If you do nothing, some percentage of these visitors will return and eventually become a lead/sale. However, many will never return. You can increase the number that do by investing in opt-in email marketing. If SEO and PPC bring new visitors into the top of your sales funnel, opt-in email market helps nurture them through to the bottom of the funnel.

Conclusion

2013 is almost here. Are you going to stay in your bunker and take a "wait and see" approach or step up and decide to start playing to win? Five years ago, it was a big risk to go "all in" with online marketing. Today, the big risk is NOT going all in.

Search engines like Google offer something which few other advertising strategies can. They facilitate a connection between your business and a prospect at the exact moment of interest / intent (i.e. you own a roofing company in Memphis and someone living in Memphis searches, "Memphis roofing contractors"). It doesn't take much mental horsepower to recognize that if your website is not listed at least once on the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo for keywords related to the products/services you offer, you're losing jobs to those that are [listed on the first page].

Before You Hire an SEO Company

But, before you start calling SEO companies to ask them what they offer, how much they charge, etc., I'd urge you to pause and take a step back. Think for a moment about what it is you'really need. Is it'sEO or profitable ways to generate more leads and grow your business?

it's almost certainly the latter.

SEO is a marketing strategy or tactic (depending on your perspective) that can be a highly profitable way to grow your business. However, as effective as SEO is in this regard, it's only one arrow in a much larger quiver. In my opinion, what you'really need - before SEO - is a framework for marketing and more specifically online marketing.

If you call around to various SEO companies and ask them what they offer and how much it costs, most are going to answer your questions in a somewhat direct manner. I'm here to tell you that they are making a strategic business mistake (for their own company) and doing you a disservice in the process.

Why You Need a Framework for Online Marketing

To clear up any confusion, when I say a framework, what I'm talking about is a process to make complex decisions when the variables are dynamic and constantly changing. Those light on experience tend to think of the world in black and white terms. I know this was true for me when I first got started running a business, and if you're honest with yourself, I'm sure you can find a dozen or so examples of where it has been true in your life (if not, consider yourself lucky!).

Think about your customers... doesn't this generally ring true in your interactions with them? An unsophisticated customer might take two bids for their kitchen remodeling project and go straight to the price - as if all kitchens (and the craftsmanship required to create them) are the same.

As you gain experience, you'realize that there are an awful lot "grey areas." You find yourself saying, "it depends" a lot more than you used to. How much should you invest to optimize your website? Should you pay someone to improve your current site or build you a new one? Is Pay Per Click advertising worth it? What's a good visit-to-lead conversion rate? Should you build multiple websit's? The answer to all of these questions - contrary to What'some "purported" online marketing experts might tell you - is "it depends."

The Proven Way to Make Smarter Marketing Decisions

The framework required to make more intelligent marketing decisions (and what you should do before you hire an SEO company) is simple: TRACK>TEST>TWEAK>REPEAT.

TRACK

Before you teach yourself SEO and spend a bunch of time making changes to your website, or hire a company to do it for you, take an inventory (audit) of your business (from a marketing standpoint). This exercise falls into the "TRACK" bucket. As part of it, you need to determine things like:

• How much do I want to grow - What's my goal?
• What am I willing to pay (or What'should I be willing to pay) for one new customer?
• What are my conversion rates (lead to sale, web visit to lead, etc.)?
• How many leads do I need to hit my goals?
• How many leads am I currently getting from my website, Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.?
• Given everything above, What's the most I should be willing to pay to generate a lead?

If you are serious about building a sizeable, profitable contracting business, you need to stop asking questions like, "what do you charge for SEO?" or "What's the cheapest package you have for SEO?" and start asking questions like, "how would you determine an online marketing strategy for my business?" or "describe the process you use to determine how much I should be investing in SEO?"

Whether you believe it or not, these ARE the right questions to be asking.

TEST

Once you have baseline numbers for the marketing aspect of your business, you need to implement a test (or multiple tests). If you can't find your website on the first page for relevant search phrases, SEO might be a priority test. Having already been through the TRACK part of the framework, it's a whole lot easier to set realistic SEO goals and come up with an initial budget.

Just recognize that tracking doesn't end after you collect baseline data. You have to accurately track all your tests.

TWEAK & REPEAT

There are few feelings in business as rewarding as the satisfaction of having made a data-driven decision. This is especially true when you can also see your competitors doing the opposite of whatever you're doing (knowing that they are only making their decision based on "following the herd"). One of the single most enjoyable days of my business career was watching Bob Perini of DrinkMore Water cancel $120,000 of print yellow page ads - based on data we had collected from our tracking. The YP sales rep simply couldn't believe his ears. He was almost yelling at the two of us - telling us how much we were going to regret our decision; that were on the fast track to going out of business, and that our competitors were all doubling the size of their ads.

I'm happy to say that DrinkMore Water is alive and well today; in fact, they are one of the most successful bottled water delivery businesses in the country (meanwhile several YP companies have gone bankrupt and most of DrinkMore's competitors are long gone).

Final Takeaways

For the past five years or so, most businesses have taken a very tactical approach to online marketing. My bet is that this is going to change (dramatically) over the next 2-3 years. All businesses - small, medium, and large - are going to shift from shopping for SEO packages and start looking for the best framework within which to make data-driven marketing decisions.

there's a tremendous amount of value to be gained by being at the front of this curve - rather than playing catch up to the early adopters. And when you think about it, what do you'really have to lose?