Every company, regardless of its size, needs a digital marketing plan. However, modern marketing has become so varied and flexible that it’s easy to feel lost with all the available options. Realistically, not every type of advertising is suited to each company. Therefore, you should research and invest in the best marketing campaign for your specific needs. Today, we are going to review the benefits of PPC for service-based businesses.
What is PPC?
Before we start our discussions, it would be best to ensure you understand what PPC is. Pay Per Click is a form of online marketing, where your ads are displayed to users, but you only pay a small fee when an ad is clicked. PPC advertising is typically done on a specific website or group of websites; however, PPC is most commonly associated with Google Ads. When advertising through a Pay Per Click model with a search engine companies will typically bid on specific keywords. The ads are then displayed when users search for those keywords. Since you can decide when your ads are displayed, and you only pay when someone clicks on the ad, PPC advertising can be an incredibly effective form of marketing.
Benefits of PPC for Service-Based Businesses
Small service-based businesses typically don’t have the marketing budget that can compare to tech giants or industry leaders. Competing with them on their level will probably fail since large companies can outbid or outperform you. However, that doesn’t mean you are out of the game just yet. Digital marketing is essential for any business that wants to reach a wide audience and attract customers. Thankfully, many affordable solutions allow you to specifically target users interested in your services. If you accurately set up your PPC campaign, you’ll be able to generate leads and grow your business. Here’s why PPC is an excellent choice for your company:
1. It’s Cost Effective
We already mentioned that PPC is an affordable form of advertising; however, that doesn’t mean you can’t achieve incredible results. That’s the main strength of PPC – you can do a lot with little, and it’s practically impossible to go over budget. You can set your maximum budget once you determine your chosen keywords and see how much it costs to bid on them. Additionally, on most major platforms, such as Google Ads, setting up a PPC campaign is free. You will only need to pay when users click on the ad, so there are no necessary upfront costs.
Since only users interested in your services will click on the ads, PPC is incredibly cost-effective. Users who click on your ads will be more likely to convert, so the leads you gain from PPC are valuable. Unlike other website visitors, we recommend you nurture these leads and guide them to conversion.
2. PPC Gives You a Lot of Control
Due to their low cost and overall effectiveness, PPC campaigns are excellent for experimentation. You can test different copies of your ads to see which one performs better. Investing small amounts of money in PPC can be an affordable way to try out several versions and then use that copy for other forms of marketing across multiple platforms.
PPC advertising is also scalable and flexible. If you can’t afford more expensive campaigns, you can use PPC to advertise even on a moderate budget. Although it’s an affordable form of marketing, you can also decide to increase your budget or go all in. You can even determine when your ads run, so you can line them up with when customers are more likely to need your services.
If you decide to advertise through Google Ads, you will have multiple extensions, giving you even more control. They represent additional pieces of information that you can display alongside your ads. For example, you can include product information and pricing, links to specific website pages, or a click-to-call button.
3. Target the Right Customers
Of the many options available when setting up your PPC ads, the most critical one is who you want to target. Due to its importance, we suggest you don’t eyeball your target demographic. Instead, you should perform extensive customer research. If you have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, you can use it to gain valuable insights into user habits.
User information gained from CRM can be particularly helpful for service-based businesses. For example, many moving companies use CRM to boost PPC campaigns. When designing your PPC campaign, you can combine it with CRM to gather customer information and accurately sort your user base. CRM can also help you set relevant KPIs to help you monitor the progress of your campaign.
4. Get Immediate Results
While we don’t want to argue against the effectiveness of other forms of marketing, some of them can take a long time to show results. SEO will require months of effort before you know if what you are doing is helping your company stand out and attract customers. On the other hand, your PPC campaign can go live with just a few clicks. You will instantly know how many people are seeing your ad and how many are clicking on it to reach your website. This information can allow you to make changes on the fly and pivot your marketing campaign, which would be much more challenging and costly with other forms of advertising.
The Bottom Line
Now that we’ve showcased the essential benefits of PPC for service-based businesses you can determine if it’s the right choice for your company. Even if you decide to go with a different form of advertising, you shouldn’t disregard PPC. Due to its flexibility and scalability, you can still use PPC to supplement your other campaigns. In short, PPC marketing has much to offer for any business.