Below is the majority of the speech I gave on Tuesday the 10th at Commerce Lexington. I won’t lie. I was and am pissed about how it went.

I’ve attended Resource Round tables since I joined the Chamber.

Last talk that was about Social Media had a packed house. (60-70 people)

Sadly the Green Thumb turn out was probably 30 or so…

I’m also pissed because the video guy we used made the shoot look like it was done on a cell phone…but at least cell phones have audio….
I’ll probably reshoot the talk with a good video guy when I find one…

For now here’s the write up for all of you who couldn’t make it.

I’d like to thank the Chamber and all of the great sponsors for making
these roundtables possible. I know I’ve learned a bunch by coming to
these and I hope that you all can take away something from this as
well. If at anytime you have a question, have something to say, or
are lost. Please just blurt it out.

I’d also like to thank our Team of millennial monsters at Green Thumb
particularly Jarod for making this look ok…

So Let’s get into it…

It was Bill Gates who said, “If you have only one dollar to spend on
Marketing. Spend it on PR”
Bill Gates is a liar.
You should spend your time and money on SEARCH.

Infact, Bill Gate’s Microsoft has spent over 100 million dollars on
Marketing their new search engine. BING.
Does anyone in here know what BING stands for?
Because
Its
Not
GOOGLE.

But its not Google.
Bing is NOT google.

Google is not just a search engine, it’s a verb. You don’t Yahoo something, you “google it”
It’s in the dictionary. Google is almost 70% of all search traffic. It’s also has a mountain of other tools that have improved our lives. In this discussion I am going to be taking you all through a brief history of Google. Some of the tools you can use. And how to market your business online using GOOGLE.

First I want to show you a quick history of Google…. (I freestyled this off of the presentation Jarod made…)
You can see the link here…

http://greenthumbmarketing.com/social/live.html

The history of Google to me is very interesting, particularly how it’s stock price opened at 85 a share and is now trading at 525.

Search is where all the money is.
I love search…
Here’s a few reasons you all should too.
You get almost exactly what you are looking for when you are looking for it.
I will argue that this form of marketing….search engine marketing, is the single most quantifiable marketing medium. No other form of marketing can give you such accurate data as this. One might argue that you could take a phone survey…

To them I would say that people will tell someone on the other line what they want them to hear. People will type ANYTHING into a searchbar. It is safer for us. We are hidden behind a computer. This data is better than phone survey.

Speaking of phones, Can anyone in here tell me the last time they used a phone book? A certain demographic still does. But it’s shrinking…fast.

You want more? Why do you think that all the phone book companies offer PPC and websites? Cause they are getting CRUSHED.

FACT: 2008 was the first year that more people turned to the internet
for their local searches then the phone book. REPEAT THAT.

Here’s three reason why more people are.

1. Faster and more accessible. (does anyone still keep a phone book in
their car? Its ok I used to when I delivered pizzas)

2. The answers are deeper, more photo, more content, videos more info.

3. REVIEWS. That’s right, A Kelsey group study showed that 90% of
people who read reviews on line believe them to be accurate.

I’m going to show you how to get more people to you business locally,
but there is a step to do it better first.

Here is something else to consider about your website and your web
presence.
Unlike other forms of Media, like television or Radio. Your
customers are “leaning forward”
That is they are just a click away from what they want or even buying!

SO HOW DO WE SEE WHO’S searching for what? WE ASK GOOGLE.
This is one of my favorite tools. Google Adwords.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Alright. So we have one of the best tools around.

Now let’s use our newly acquired Keyword knowledge and go tell Google who we are.
(you can find out how to get your business in the local search by clicking here…)

Local Search.
This is the local 10pack. How do you get your business up in the ten
pack? Tell Google, yep, register your business with Google. Has anyone
in here done this?
You want to see how it’s done? Here’s we go.

I will say this much about local, it is typically based around the
most down town post office. If you are outside of New Circle it’s a
little harder. This isn’t always true however…
An interesting note as well. There are certain keywords that you do
not have to type in the location, for example. “Shoe Repair” You don’t
need to type in Lexington to your search engine.

Pay Per click. Google revolutionizes marketing with this. People type
in exactly what they are looking for. Then you can Bid on how much you
want to pay for this? Brilliant. This is PPC or pay per click…
These results are along the right side as well as the top. There are
also PPC locations all over the content network of Google.
What that means in English is that there are ads up on websites that people can
click on. So if you had a product and wanted to promote it online you could run a PPC add while you were waiting for google to recognize your site.

PPC is also a great testing ground for landing pages and conversions.
In other words you could make one page look different from another and
see which one gets the most people to buy or fill out the form.

Here is something to consider as well. Let’s say you just have an
idea for a product or service. You could test to see if it is even a
viable business model with PPC. Just run a bunch of different adds
and see if your idea has any traction. If you get some nibbles you
might be on to something. If not. It only cost you a tiny bit, but at
least you know.

There are some down sides to PPC. You are typically competing with
the big names who have giant budgets and aren’t afraid of paying 7
dollars a click. NOTE: I didn’t say 7$ for an email address or sale. I
said 7$ per click. (they could have clicked and left.)
It has been determined that up to 30% of all PPC click is fraudulent.
Usually it is your competitor clicking on your ads, burning up your
budget.

In 2007, comScore, Starcom USA and Tacoda conducted a study on display
advertising clicks. This past March, they updated the data and have
recently released the new info.
Clicks on display ads have seen a decline. In the 2007 study, 32% of
internet users clicked on ads. In 2009, just 16% clicked. 8% of the
Internet user base accounts for 85% of the clicks.

Also, you are paying for something where you may or may not gain
anything. You aren’t growing an asset. You might spend several dollars and have nothing to show for it. “Your renting instead of buying” There was an article in Inc. magazine over the summer talking about
some of the major companies had slashed their PPC budgets and started hiring writers on staff to update blogs.
This leads us into Organic search.
I’ll be posting the organic section as well as the conclusion in a few days….In the mean time if you read something you liked or disliked let me know.
A big shout out to Gwen Hacker, who was in the audience and befriended me on Face Book that night to say that she really enjoyed our talk.
“ I’m going to use some of what you taught in my grad school class this weekend - our group is presenting on social media. I’ll give Green Thumb a shout out for you. It was super helpful.”

Thanks Gwen and everyone else who attended