The Beethoven Approach to Marketing

One of my favorite quotes is from Ludwig van Beethoven– the legendary composer. He said:

“Don’t just practice your art, force your way into its secrets.”

I think this principle applies very well to Internet marketing. If you want to succeed with Internet marketing by overcoming your competitors, the key is to be utterly relentless about learning, and making improvements.

The fact is that most businesses doing pay-per-click advertising, and other kinds of online advertising, are not doing it in an optimal and cost-efficient way. Why? Because they don’t know how to do it, most likely. It’s also possible that they hired someone to do it, and that person doesn’t fully understand what can be accomplished with these platforms.

Only a tiny percentage of businesses using Internet marketing are going about it in in the right way. If you want to succeed by taking the Beethoven approach, here are some principles you should live by:

Watch every penny

For AdWords, that means watching your spending and results for at different levels. Look at which are the best and the worst of your campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and other targeting methods you might be employing. Also, be sure to look at metrics for the actual ads. Split testing different ad creative lets you know which are more successful.

Understand all settings and features

There is no doubt that this is a challenge. AdWords is a big system that changes often. Sometimes small features that Google rolls out quietly can give you a significant edge over your competitors

Have conversion tracking mechanisms

Without a doubt, you must employ tracking mechanisms, such as call tracking, or conversion tracking. This is an indispensable method for letting you know which parts of your campaigns are most successful.

Have a structure that allows you to continuously split test

One major way that businesses run into problems with AdWords has to do with account structure. It’s important to have a structure that allows you to see the data in a way that makes sense, employ testing methods, and continuously make changes and improvements.

Don’t ever consider any part of campaign to be “good enough”—like Al Pacino’s character said in the movie “Any Given Sunday”, “This is a game of inches.” Continually striving for small improvements is the way to success.

Make sure you have good information sources

Follow certain blogs regularly, and know where to find answers when you have questions. Here is the official Google AdWords blog: http://adwords.blogspot.com/

Hello. My name is Barry, and I love Google AdWords! Would you like to connect with me? If so, send me an email at this address: