What is PPC?


Monday, March 23, 2009 by Jim Cusson


Today, it’s not enough to have a well-designed website or a secure e-commerce presence. You need people to actually go there and interact with your online brand. And if you are a member of the branding Charlotte or marketing Charlotte, NC communities, you know you have to pay to play.

Pay per click search engine marketing is a form of online advertising where the advertiser pays to be listed in the sponsored link section of the search engines. When you launch a PPC advertising campaign, you pay only when someone clicks on your ad. Of course PPC ads, also called sponsored links, are related to the searches made by the users. You have to buy keywords using an auction feature that determines the Cost Per Click (CPC) of a given keyword, this bid also has an influence on your position among the other ads on the page.

You then set a maximum budget for your campaign. That means that if you set a $500 budget for a $1 keyword your ad will virtually be printed on search pages until five hundred users have clicked your ad and landed on one of your website’s pages.

Charlotte, NC advertising agencies please take note: PPC advertising is one of the most effective marketing methods used on the Internet. According to some experts, online marketers will spend more than 5 billion dollars on PPC campaigns by 2010. Consequently the competition for keywords is likely to get tougher and tougher as time goes by, making the optimization of that process ever more necessary for North Carolina advertising agencies, from Charlotte to Raleigh.

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Is Your Business too Small to Have a Blog?

Wednesday, February 25, 2009 by Leslie Kraemer
Though small businesses with blogs are still a distinct minority in the blogosphere, a recent America Express survey found that only 5 percent of businesses with fewer than 100 employees have blogs. Other experts put the number slightly higher. But while blogs may be useful to many more small businesses, even blogging experts at North Carolina advertising agencies do not recommend it for the majority. 

Jim Cusson, brand strategist at, birdsong gregory, a marketing and branding agency in Charlotte, NC, puts it this way, “if you’re a clothing manufacturer or a restaurant, blogging is probably not as high on your list as making good food or good clothes because blogging requires a large time commitment and some writing skills, which not every small business has on hand.”

But some companies are suited to blogging. The most obvious candidates are consultants, who are experts in their fields and are in the business of telling people what to do. Marketing and branding agencies are also good candidates.  And for companies in the technology sector, having a blog is pretty much expected.
 
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North Carolina Advertising Agencies Tighten their Belts

Thursday, February 5, 2009 by Jim Cusson
As companies from Charlotte to Raleigh (and across the country) examine their marketing budgets for 2009 and prepare to make deep cuts, many NC ad agencies are worried about how the economic downturn will affect their staff and their client relationships. 
 
In lean times, however, smaller design and marketing studios generally do better than large advertising agencies because, unlike the traditional agency/client model, the smaller, more agile creative shops operate on a project-based model, which is better suited to the trough in the economic cycle. Think about it: it’s a huge commitment to have a contract and a monthly retainer, and clients are increasingly looking for more efficient solutions.
 
The Nielsen 2009 Industry Outlook is titled "Careful” and here are some of its most general observations:
  • Overall spending will be tighter.
  • Consumers will focus on products and services that provide "a rational benefit."
  • Increased spending will most likely be "found in the online, mobile and in-home entertainment sectors."
  • Consumers, manufacturers and retailers will be in a "no frills" mood.
  • The "green movement" will be moved more by desires to save money than by pure environmental concerns.
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