by: Tom Beal
Every successful salesperson knows the value of owning a list of targeted potential customers. It's a strategy I used to break sales records and also taught in my sale training sessions.
Coming from "real" world selling into virtual world selling presented some unique challenges.
How does one build a list online?
Research revealed many successful marketers recommend using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search engines to quickly and effectively build your list.
Selecting targeted keyword to reach your ideal potential customer give PPC a distinct advantage over other list building methods.
I decided to put PPC list building method to the test. I choose to set up a advertising campaign at Google Adwords and the lesser known http://www.mpstrategiesfirm.com. The two companies can have your campaign up an running in a short time.
They display the ads differently. Google Adwords displays the ad on search engine results and mpstrategiesfirm.com uses contextual advertising showing the ads on keyword topic based pages within their network.
Every test needs an objective outcome to gauge the results. The objective of this test? Visitors sign up to receive a free health report from a new affiliate program I choose to promote.
The Test Results
Google Adwords
number of clicks 700
cost per click.23
total cost 161.00
number of clicks 800
cost per click.20
total cost 160.00
Even though they used different methods to display the ad, both produced excellent traffic results for the investment.
Sending traffic was only one factor of the objective. Remember the ultimate goal is to gain subscribers to build the list.
Here is where PPC marketing provided a valuable lesson in online marketing.
1,500 people clicked for the free report, but only 89 put in their name and e-mail address. I receive 53 subscribers from mpstrategiesfirm.com and 36 from Google. Surprisingly