Marketing a training organization is difficult. Is this the understatement of the century? Quick answer: No if you use Google Adwords One of the most common questions we get is simply, “Where do I start?” What marketing channels are actually driving your learner sourcing forward? And which marketing channels provide the most reliable returns on investment? The answer, Digital Marketing Agency Mohali in our years of experience, has always been Google AdWords.
An overview
Google AdWords, sometimes also called Pay-Per-Click or PPC, has always been one of the most powerful marketing channels for training organizations. The real power of using Google AdWords is in positioning yourself to be found by people who have expressed an interest in solving a problem for which you have a solution. It’s the near-perfect intersection of consumer intent and value proposition. In case you are unfamiliar, when you become a Google AdWords advertiser, you create advertisements that appear in Google search results when a Google user searches for a keyword or phrase that you find useful. For example,
1. Paid Ad Results
The training organizations that appear here use Google Adwords to advertise. In fact, you’ll notice that Google identifies them as advertisements by placing a subtle green box with the word “Ad” next to each result. If I were to click on their ad (which would take me to their website or landing page), they would pay a certain amount for that click. Hence the name “pay-per-click advertising”. They literally pay for every click on the website. Google AdWords is set up as an auction. So you are bidding against other advertisers. The amount you pay for each click will depend on the competitiveness of your individual market.
2. Google Local Results
This section is commonly referred to as Google local results or Google Places results. The majority of these listings are organic. An “organic” result means that it is not a paid investment; the training organizations appear in the order in which Google judged their relevance based on what you searched for and what Google knows about you specifically. Google’s local results come from a separate database within the Google ecosystem. This database is called Google My Business, a free directory service provided by Google. You can sign up for a Google listing by visiting Google My Business.
3. Organic results
These are the results that appear below the two mentioned above. These results are called organic results because they are the results that Google deems most relevant to the search term based on a wide range of ranking factors.
- This is not a paid placement, which means schools that appear in organic results don’t pay anything for this traffic.
- Achieving high organic rankings for your most important keyword phrases can be an extremely important marketing tool for training organizations.
- However, it can also be extremely difficult depending on the competitiveness of your market.
- Ranking higher on Google requires a significant time investment, usually through content creation, as well as some technical expertise.
- It’s a worthy investment, but not all schools can afford.
- That’s part of what makes using Google AdWords so appealing.
Google Adwords best practices for training organizations
By managing Google AdWords for our clients, we have developed a wealth of knowledge on what works, what doesn’t and how training organizations should approach managing their paid advertising campaigns. I am delighted to share this information with you. Before you do, allow for a brief disclaimer: Digital Marketing Agency Mohali every training organization is different and every market is different. What worked for us in Bordeaux might not work exactly the same in Paris or Lyon. I continue to believe that our learning lessons are of immense value.
However, you may just need to contextualize them in the most appropriate way for your target demographic. That said, let’s dive in!
Key words
Understanding Google Adwords Keyword Strategy Keyword strategy is one of the fundamental elements of Google AdWords. These are simply the keywords (terms and phrases) you choose to bid on in your marketing campaign. Remember that Google AdWords is an auction. Digital Marketing Agency Mohali you choose keywords and tell Google that you’re willing to pay (up to a threshold you set) to have your ads seen by anyone searching for those keywords.
- So if someone searches for “cooking training organization”, it stands to reason that you would want to show up in their results.
- It’s a relatively simple path to visibility.
- You’ll want to make sure to define as many keywords as possible that speak directly to people looking for kitchen training.
- I think the best way to be successful with a keyword strategy is to simply consider user intent.
- What would a person look for when trying to solve the problem for which you have a solution? My favorite example is Southwest Airlines.
- They will bid on any obvious keywords, such as “cheap flights to Mexico”.
- But they also bid on keywords that you might not necessarily consider obvious; an example: “Greyhound bus in El Paso.
Someone looking for a bus just wants to get from one place to another; they are not necessarily dedicated to buses as a mode of transport. Southwest has the opportunity to pivot the narrative and offer a flight that can cost nearly the same amount and save them considerable time. I realize this example is far removed from training organizations, Digital Marketing Agency Mohali but the lesson is good.
What value do you bring to your future learners? When you consider this value, what keywords can you bid on will help you bridge the gap between what people really want (their intent) and what they are actually looking for.
Bid on your own brand with Google Adwords
In addition to the generic keywords you’ve found (eg, “cooking training organizations near me”), you may also want to bid on the name of your training organization. This strategy may seem counter-intuitive since you are paying for traffic that is aimed directly at you. Why pay to advertise to someone who is already looking for you? Bidding on your brand is one way to ensure that you receive all the traffic that is intended for you.
We can’t always define exactly how we are perceived in Google search results. Also, we cannot define how users decide to interact with these results. Even though you’re probably in first place when someone searches for you by name, there’s no guarantee that they’ll click on your listing. They may start the search by looking for you, but get distracted by the myriad of other semi-relevant results provided by Google.
They can just bid on anything that has the term “kitchen training organization” in it. Bidding on your behalf also allows you to protect other advertising dollars. If you have billboards or sent direct mail, this helps ensure that people who search for you after seeing these other marketing methods can actually find you. The advantage of bidding on your own behalf is that the clicks tend to be extremely cheap.
Bid on competitive brands and alternatives
This can be a great strategy, especially if you’re in a competitive market. You can bid on the names of other training organizations or alternative options in your market. This gives you the opportunity to show up when someone is specifically looking for your competitor. This is an extremely powerful strategy when dealing with competitors who flood the airwaves with their marketing message. Take the case of some of the “big training organizations” that use direct mail, radio, television and billboards to market their services.
While they use more traditional advertising methods to build brand awareness, the vast majority of the actual engagement they receive comes from the internet. For example, radio advertising is what catalyzes the initial awareness of the future learner. However, very few people call or visit a training organization when they hear an announcement.
