This Thursday, we’re joining forces with local media communications agency, StoryTeller, for a webinar on how to make the most of your marketing budget and maximize the ROI of your paid search campaigns. Adam Proehl is hosting alongside StoryTeller Partner Kathy Heil. We sat down with Kathy for the scoop. 

Kathy, tell us a bit about StoryTeller. What do you guys do in a nutshell?
StoryTeller is an inbound marketing agency, as well as a HubSpot partner agency. We help businesses create compelling content that drives action. Our role is to help businesses first get found through content and then use strategic content to guide leads through the customer journey.

You’ve hosted plenty of webinars before. What do you love about them?
It feels great to be helpful! Our value as an agency is based upon how well we can help others achieve their goals and be more strategic in their digital marketing efforts. A webinar is one way to do that.

What do you find most challenging about webinars?
Starting and ending when you say you are going to. That and trying to make a big conversation actionable. We don’t want to overwhelm the audience. We do want them to walk away knowing there are things they should explore to drive better results.

So Thursday’s webinar focuses on maximizing your paid search campaigns for more effective lead generation. Why do you like talking about this topic?
This is a big conversation that most small to mid-size businesses haven’t even begun to understand. So many businesses don’t understand targeting capabilities, how to make a conversion actionable, what to measure, how to measure conversions… If they don’t know what they are doing, they are throwing money away. That’s often why businesses turn to agencies like StoryTeller and NordicClick: they’ve been scarred from throwing money at paid search without a strategy.

What do you find most exciting in the world of PPC today?
How dramatically buyer behaviors have changed over time! Search is now imperative to a buyer’s life. Just think of how often we use it. Understanding how to build and follow a long-term, sustainable PPC strategy and how to leverage PPC tools to drive results is so critical today. Plus, search is so multifaceted. Depending on industry, age, whether a person is typing a query into Google or using voice search, every search is different.

Definitely. It’s highly complex, yet something we use multiple times a day! Considering its importance, what is one piece of advice you’d give someone just getting started in paid search?
Kathy: Whether you’re trying to get found organically or via paid search, you have to set a strategy before you make any investment in it. Who are you trying to reach? What are you trying to say? You need to know this before you begin.

Adam: I would add that you shouldn’t be creating content solely for the sake of creating content. There is already too much content on the web and, honestly, most of it is crap. Creating content that is actually useful and meaningful, content relevant to the stage your customer is in and to the questions they are asking – now that is something most brands don’t do.

Key Takeaways

  • Without a PPC strategy in place, you’re throwing money away.
  • Search is a major (and inescapable) part of the buyer journey in 2016.
  • Quality content is key to creating PPC campaigns that go beyond clicks to drive qualified leads.

Looking to generate quality leads through PPC? We’d love to help. Check out our Paid Search capabilities.