Paid search advertising has helped thousands of businesses reach consumers who may never know they exist; for giant international companies, search ads also work well at bringing customers to solutions they provide.
‘Solutions’ is such an overused buzzword, especially in the software industry. I’d like to blame Apple for its propagation, since I first heard the term from an Apple salesperson in the early 1990s, but it may predate that.
It does summarize “products and services” quite well, though, so bear with us for trotting it out here. The ad:tech media marketing conference is well underway, and the DM News blog has a couple of interesting comments from a pair of very well-known brand name companies.
Global soft drink leader Coca-Cola uses search ads to great effect. Karna Crawford, interactive marketing manager at Coca-Cola, told DM News that paid search has “become the most effective way to drive traffic to new product innovations.”
Package delivery service FedEx found itself deeper in the world of search advertising after purchasing Kinko’s and its photocopy and document services business. From the blog:
Outgoing ad:tech chair Susan Bratton asked Steve Pacheco, FedEx’s director of advertising, the craziest keyword FedEx bought. Mr. Pacheco thought a bit and said, “Laminating.” Again, that links with the FedEx Kinko’s brand.
FedEx has “700 keywords which we monitor very carefully,” Mr. Pacheco said.
Our readers can learn a lesson here that is similar to those learned by entrepreneurs dealing with Wal-Mart dropping a store into a neighborhood and impacting their businesses.
With powerful brand names like Coke and FedEx among many others using search advertising, it may be helpful for online entrepreneurs to seek out niches not served by the big names, as brick-and-mortar firms have done around Wal-Mart.
Then again, maybe search advertising can be the way to let the world know one has built a better mousetrap, and go toe-to-toe with a multinational conglomerate. It’s a bold approach to take, but few rewards can be gained without risk anyway.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
