Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Hi KaMills,

You need to look into search engine marketing "pay-per-click" with Google and Yahoo. This is not search engine optimization - this is running sponsored search ads on the "right side" (and sometimes top) where you pay-per-clickthrough as determined by what you and your competition are willing to bid per keyword and click for "X" position.

This is the only method that will guarantee immediate impressions and click-throughs to your website, and you will get them.

Without trying it out, there is no way to know what the cost or results will be, or if you will even have a postive ROI, but if you don't try, you will never know.

Often the difference between success and failure as measured by sales, profit, ROI, whatever you choose short and long-term, is a strategy that develops specific landing pages, tweaking keywords, phrases, copy, offer etc.

I can give you a lot more information to help steer you in the right direction, just click on my name to contact me offline.

Good luck!

Pepper Blue has given you a great way to get started. Google Adwords will at least get you started.

The question I would ask is how you're promoting your site. If people aren't showing up there, it's probably because they don't know about it. If you opened a bricks-and-mortar store in an out-of-the-way location, how would people find it? You'd advertise somehow and promise them a benefit that is so compelling that they'd find you.

Well, it's the same thing with an etail store. You need to make your target audience aware of your site. First define the target audience carefully. Then develop a marketing plan that addresses the key unmet need of your target audience and offers your solution to that need.

Then direct your resources to communicating your message to the target audience and making an offer they can't refuse. If you do a good job of that, people will find your site.

Why are you limiting yourself to ONLINE advertising? If search engine advertising isn't right for you, why will other kinds of online advertising be any better?

Have you considered that cookies may be one of those categories that don't lend themselves to Internet sales? Not EVERYTHING is suited to etailing.

I don't know that it's impossible to make a successful business selling cookies online, but I don't think anyone has done it before without first establishing an independent off-line (i.e., non-Internet) franchise first. And it's also possible that you've hit on a perfect idea, if only you can find some way to attract people to your website.

If you're really serioius about this, my suggestion would be to consider non-Internet-based marketing approaches to get people to try your cookies, then direct them to your website. It takes a lot of trust to buy a food product from a company you've never heard of, just because they opened up a website to display some pretty pictures.

KaMills,

A ccokie blog or forum etc.? Come on.....you gotta win customers one stomach at a time!

I believe your sour attitude with PPC is because your "familiarity (vs. experience) underlines that you really don't understand the fine mechanics of it.

It sounds like you opened a Google account, put up some keywords using their Keyword Tool, created some weak copy and a few ads and after blowing through a couple hundred dollars, you gave up.

Too bad. You gotta have some huevos to work your way through a successful PPC program. As are all successful marketing initiatives, it is a long-term, not a short-term solution.

Now, if you don't have the budget to support it long-term, that is a different and acceptable argument.

But if you are getting clickthroughs but not conversions at a minimum of 2% - 3%, that is telling me that your landing pages and calls-to-action are, too put it in forum friendly terms - "not good".

You say you are familiar but I am experienced and just trying to help out, so before you throw the baby out with the bath water, back up and see what made the water dirty.

That being said, we never said that PPC is all we can come up with. You asked "I would like to increase traffic to my web site and ultimately improve on-line sales" and we told you the most practical way to "increase traffic", and that is PPC, regardless of what you might believe.

Improving sales is another animal and completely dependent on how deep your level of knowledge of PPC is and how many .10 per click (which by the way is a lot less than you are going to pay for a top 5 "unique cookie" ranking, and anything less than this doesn't matter) you are willing to pay Google or Yahoo until such time, if ever, you find that silver formula.

Good luck. I know and have experience in the market you are in and it is a tough one to crack.