Last Friday I was talking with a hotel in Florida and they told me, point blank, that their biggest problem was how well their PPC campaigns were being run.
It seems that BookingSuite™ was giving them poor customer service and, because of that, they weren’t getting the number of direct bookings they wanted.
This line of thinking requires a step back. In fact, let’s take two giant steps back because a bigger or more sophisticated PPC campaign is not the answer.
Step 1. I understand that more traffic to your website usually sounds like a good thing. It’s one way we can justify the expense (and our effort) during your weekly meetings. And it feels good. It feels like you’re headed in the right direction…
But if your website has poor messaging. If it doesn’t grab people’s attention and move the sale forward with a solid lead generation strategy… it’s like inviting a crowd of strangers to the house, pictured above, for a party – and there’s no food, drinks or music to speak of. What do you think is going to happen?
‘Click’ – your visitors (the ones you just paid for) are all jumping over to your competitor’s websites!
The conclusion that everyone should draw from this situation is this.
You should never spend money to drive traffic to a crummy apartment with dingy lighting and a pile of dishes in the sink… or a poorly converting website. That money could be much better spent elsewhere.
Step 2. The real solution starts with testing.
I hope, by now, you see that more traffic isn’t the answer; just like more people who aren’t interested in buying from you isn’t the answer.
So how do we find out if they’re actually interested in buying?
In John Caples legendary book, Tested Advertising Methods, he explains how he used to prepare magazine advertisements – as if they were posters – and then place them in various bank’ lobbies. Then he would have someone stand nearby to keep track of how many people passed by each poster, how many people stopped to look at it and for how long.
What did he find?
Two things.
- It didn’t matter which bank lobby he tested, the best posters performed on a consistent basis, and the low-performing ads did the same. Human psychology is more or less constant.
And, 2. He was able to prove which ad would be the winner, and which ones were all dogs. With a grin he admits that he would have never know which ones where which without running these controlled test.
The translation for our modern age is, when you ask yourself: Should I do a PPC campaign? Stop and think about where you’re driving traffic, first and foremost. That means we should test our landing pages and improve performance before we ever think about sending invitations.
Here’s another example to drive the point home.
Giving a red rose to a girl on your first date is a proven way to express your intentions. But giving her a cactus might not have the same appeal…
Maybe it would make her laugh? And maybe that would be good… but maybe not..?
The point is: if it hasn’t been tested and show to work, why would you ever jeopardize that very first impression by giving your visitors something that hasn’t been proven to work?!
If you did that, if you went ahead and budgeted $6K per year on PPC – just because you have the notion that more traffic was always good – it’s just like the guy that hands their date a cactus to tell her how he feels…
Can you imagine how that scenario might play out?
It probably won’t work. It’s a waste of money. And, from that, he’d probably come to the naive conclusion that dating doesn’t work… and PPC is a waste of time.
It does, however. But blindly spending money is not the first step.
Let’s look at the right way to build relationships and create more direct reservations online, using the dating metaphor to make things easy to remember.
Picture this. When the relationship is two steps away – focus on quality. Focus on the things that have been proven to work. Nice clothes, a clean car, good manners and a steady job are all proven qualifiers. In the same way, your hotel needs great reviews on TripAdvisor, special deals on your website, an enticing lead generation piece and an easy reservation process. Don’t make her walk a few blocks on a windy day to get to the restaurant!
Then, after you’ve proven that she likes you by going on several dates… (i.e. looking at your website’s analytics and open rates)… then and only then! do know that your marketing funnel is working.
Then, just like in a relationship, you can start thinking about getting serious.
Then you can go out and buy the ring. You can spend money on PPC with confidence – because you’ve gone about your courtship in the proper manner. You’ve invested the time, money and effort on the fundamentals and that’s why she’s almost guaranteed to say ‘yes!’