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Today’s article is the last in our Advanced PPC Strategies series. We’ll be taking a slightly different turn, as today we will not be talking management strategy, but we will focus on how to present your pay-per-click services to C-level executives. By C-level we mean CEO’s, COO’s, CMO’s or CFOs – most any title that starts with ‘Chief.’ To instill a sense of trust you need to position yourself not just as a PPC expert, but as an excellent strategist with an understanding of marketing and business processes as a whole.
If your prospective client is interested in your PPC services, then you must have already done something right. Regardless if this prospect was generated by a referral, a blind inquiry email from your website, or even someone you met through networking, you still need to convince them that you are the solution to their online marketing challenges.
Begin at the top. Find out how PPC factors into their overall business objectives. This is where you can determine if your services are even a good match for this client. Asking about their overall business objectives, processes and goals will help qualify your client for you, but you’ll also qualify yourself with them as you demonstrate that you are not just a PPC manager/consultant, but you want to help their business in every way possible. What you are looking to arrive at is what does success look like for this client?
Once you’ve established that PPC is a good choice for your client, then you need to determine how they want to position themselves through PPC. Their messaging needs to be parallel within their offline ads, other online initiatives, as well as your PPC campaign. You can position yourself as a unifier of their message, even if you’re just managing their PPC campaign.
In regards to PPC management, your prospect may want some details on how you will help grow their business via PPC but they want to be spared the nitty-gritty detail. This is why they are thinking of hiring you. These executives are looking for business outputs, rather than inputs. This means they want to know the outcome of your PPC efforts; they don’t need to know what you put in to make these efforts successful. However, you’ll have to take this on a client-by-client basis in order to determine the level of detail they will need.
This leads us to goals. Setting the proper expectations from the beginning will save you and your client many headaches down the road. You need to establish goal tiers, such as: realistic, aggressive, and unrealistic. If your prospect is unfamiliar with PPC, they may not even know what to expect. You need to educate them.
From the very start, you want to establish a healthy foundation of trust, transparency and your commitment to growing their business – not just their PPC campaign. Follow these steps and you’ll be able to get C-level executives excited about you and your services, and they’ll convey this excitement to everyone in their organization, resulting in a new client for you.
