Paid Search (Pay-Per-Click) Advertising Management

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Are You Losing Market Share to Your Vendors?

The Opportunities and Perils of Pay-Per-Click Advertising

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Dear School Leader,

The other day I was talking with a school owner who proudly announced that “leads are up over 200% this year over last.”

“Great, what changed?” I asked.

“We made some changes to our website (that I had suggested – see Website Optimization) and we contracted with a lead generation portal. They are running a Google Adwords campaign for us.”

Something didn’t feel right, so I got curious. While we were talking I did a quick search on his school’s name. It turns out that the “great” lead generation portal he signed with had in fact bought at least two domains using his school’s name.

In effect, what happened was a piece of marketing theft. Here’s why:

Most lead generation portals are in the business of selling a “lead” as many times as possible. As a result, that “great” Google campaign the portal is running “for him” is really being run for him AND his competitors. When a prospective student fills out the inquiry form, they are often prompted to fill out forms for other competing schools. In the contract this usually appears as a “co-registration clause.”

By signing on with the lead generation portal, the school owner has also clumped his offering in with many others inside a directory, losing his competitive advantage and what we call online real estate presence. If he ever ends the relationship, the lead generation portal still owns the URLs with his school’s name! And can potentially continue to sell leads to his competitors. It doesn’t make sense.

The school owner had spent 20 years of sweat, hard work and risk, not to mention a huge sum of money, building the name brand of his school and the lead generation portal swooped in and used his brand, overnight, to promote the business model of the portal!

The sad part is, he unwittingly is paying this guy to do so! I can only shake my head…

What’s scary is this appears to be a fairly common practice. Many schools have made the same mistake and are in the same boat.

Get Better Leads AND Protect Your Brand

There are three basic ways to increase internet leads without using portals:

1.  Improve your website
2.  Get more website traffic through a combination of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and online PR
3.  Advertise on Google, Yahoo and Facebook.

Based on our research in lead-to-start conversion rates, improving your website gives you the best bang for your buck because these leads convert at a higher rate. You are essentially leveraging your EXISTING web traffic.

And if you have a website that does a good job of converting visitors, then SEO/PR is good bet to increase the traffic and therefore leads.

(BTW: We can help you do both with our Website Optimization service.)

The third option is to run your own Google Adwords, Bing Search Marketing or Facebook advertising campaign. (Google Adwords is usually the best place to start as they have 70%+ of search market share). When you run your own campaign these leads are exclusive and high converting. Plus they are measurable to a specific cost-per-lead so you can make informed budget decisions.

The Perils of Pay-Per-Click Advertising

However, and this is a big however, Pay-Per-Click advertising isn’t easy. Given the amount of competition and the ongoing changes companies like Google make to their advertising algorithm, it requires ongoing expertise to make it work profitably.

Most schools don’t have the in-house expertise to pull it off. That’s where we come in…

We are experts in creating and managing profitable Pay-Per-Click campaigns using Google Adwords, Bing Search Marketing and Facebook.

Paid Search Advertising Management Service

Enrollment Resources will create and manage a quality pay-per-click lead generation campaign for your school.

The campaigns created are yours to own. All accounts with third party tools (ie. Google Adwords, Yahoo, etc) are created in YOUR name, so you are in control of these assets, and are built in a systemized way so they serve you for years to come. You OWN the campaigns; we are the hired guns that build it and run it.

(How do you know we’re actually experts? Simple, we’re the first company in the education sector to achieve Google Adwords Certified Partner status, meaning we had to pass Google’s thorough certification exams.)

Project Details and Outcomes

- Increase lead flow
- Build a lead generation marketing asset that is the property of your school
- Create a presence online so you do not get swallowed up by the portals.
- Leads are exclusive to you (not shared with competitors as per portals)
- You receive leads real time

Our Campaign Management Involves:

- Creation and management of adgroups, key words, landing pages and ads within Google Adwords, Bing Search Marketing and/or Facebook
- Ongoing management of all campaign elements
- Rigorous split testing of landing pages and ads to keep cost per lead low while maintaining lead volume

Get a FREE ‘Pay-Per-Click Viability Analysis’

The first step is to get a FREE “Pay-Per-Click Viability Analysis” by one of the friendly and experienced Conversion Experts at Enrollment Resources. We’ll review your market, competitors and programs and give you an honest assessment of whether pay-per-click advertising is a viable solution for you. (It isn’t always possible to succeed due to a number of factors.)

We promise to give you some good advice, regardless of whether you become a client.

To book your FREE “Pay-Per-Click Viability Analysis” call us at 250-391-9494 to schedule a time to talk with an experienced Conversion Expert.

Sincerely,

Shane Sparks, Co-Founder
Enrollment Resources