Australian small businesses are late to the online marketing party
Small businesses should stop thinking of online marketing as an optional expense says Christopher Wilkie in a piece that first appeared in Encore. It should be treated as an essential, much like insurance.
Over the last few months, we’ve interviewed and surveyed more than 350 small businesses for the 2013 Optimising Small Business Online Marketing Report. We’ve spoken to people across the country, from every major industry and in every major region, with some pretty compelling results. The most notable finding is that Australians do not have a strong grasp of online marketing. We clearly all want to be online, we just haven’t realised that having such a large portion of our population online, we can reach them to make more money.
This is a wake up call to all of you Australian small businesses because you’re actually being left behind when it comes to reaching customers through online marketing.
Here are some key findings.
Search engine optimisation
• More than 50 per cent of respondents had not performed search engine optimisation (SEO) on their website or even audited it for search engine rank effectiveness.
• Of the respondents who had performed SEO, 53 per cent didn’t know what amount of their traffic was attributable to their SEO efforts which is staggering if you consider a recent Google study which found 73 per cent of searchers use search to find out where products are sold, 72 per cent use search to make price comparisons and 63 per cent use it to find promotional offers.
Pay per click (PPC) and social media advertising (SMA)
• More than 71 per cent of people we spoke to have never run an online advertising campaign while 13 per cent are currently running online advertising and 16 per cent have run a campaign but aren’t anymore.
• Of all respondents, 68 per cent will be increasing their online marketing spend, but more notably a whopping 29 per cent won’t.
Social media
• Social media has had the largest increase of all marketing forms with 73 per cent of respondents having used Facebook for branding and sales.
Mobile
• A recent Google study found that 79 per cent of smartphone users use their smartphone before and during purchase decisions yet 45 per cent of our survey respondents don’t have a mobile-friendly website.
Perhaps the most interesting of all the above stats is how little small business is capitalising on SEO, PPC and SMA. So far, small business has really taken to utilising social media for branding and driving sales, but many aren’t even turning to social media advertising instead choosing to interact with fans and followers with posts, tweets, photos and competitions.
The general consensus seems to be that online marketing costs too much. But does it? A solid SEO campaign may set you back around $700 a month, but just think about how many more people are going to be clicking through to your website, calling you or buying your products. If you’re transacting and receiving more leads, and you can earn more than what you’re spending, it begs the question, what’s stopping you? Yes SEO isn’t right for everyone, particularly low cost items or businesses operating in highly saturated markets. PPC isn’t for everyone either, you certainly wouldn’t find a coffin maker advertising with PPC (or on Facebook). It’s a cost, yes, but attribute a value to it, much like you would any other expense you classify as “necessary”, because I can assure you if not now, then in the next 12 months, more than half of your direct competitors will be using online marketing to reach customers – your customers.
What does this mean?
Well for starters, online marketing is no longer something small businesses should do ‘if there is extra budget’, it’s something they need to budget for and take as seriously as insurance (because there isn’t going to be a need for any insurance when you’re out of business). It’s imperative to reach customers and compete to win their business, intelligently of course. We can appreciate that there are plenty of unsavoury parties out there trying to swindle you out of your money, but it’s no excuse. It comes down to shopping around and making sure the agency you entrust to push your rankings up or drive leads to your site has a solid reputation and can give you favourable terms. Remember also that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Low cost might seem appealing, but you could actually be damaging your ranking, either that or the agency is taking your money and doing absolutely nothing.
What can you expect to pay for online marketing?
When shopping around for online marketing agencies, expect that there will be a setup fee, expect that time will need to be taken to look at your business and that a price off the bat is extremely hard to come up with. This isn’t a bad thing. Any good SEO/PPC/SMA agency (and there aren’t many out there) will give you a price after they have done some research on your business. Online marketing isn’t about applying the same template to everyone’s business, it’s curating a customised solution that boosts your individual rankings/leads based on your individual desires.
For a good quality SEO campaign, expect to spend around $650 a month or more. For that, you can expect to get a solid organic ranking within six months with a variety of different methods used to boost your rank. For a good quality PPC campaign, expect to spend around $400 a month or more. For that you can expect good quality reporting with individual comments and robust methodologies about refining your keywords to leverage ad spend. For a good quality SMA campaign, expect to spend around $350 a month or more. For that you can expect something very similar to PPC in terms of solid reporting and ongoing refinement in targeting and reach to get conversions.
We are in a great position to push small businesses further by shifting mindsets, opening up our thoughts and digging deep to reach customers. They are out there and every year that marches by the customers are getting smarter. As small businesses, we need to get smarter too – not to trick anyone, but to engage in meaningful ways that these platforms give us the ability to with their immensely powerful tools.
Christopher Wilkie is the business development manager at Optimising.
This first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.
Well to be honest you note “Good quality SEO for $650 a month”. Sorry but I have been doing SEO in the Australian and US market for a very long time and any one who offers a “Good Quality” SEO campaign for $650 a month usually is willing to cut a few corners to get ROI for a business. Time and time again you see people say Guaranteed SEO for $999 a month and then 6 months later the business is banned from the index and the business owner is crying poor.
Any one who is “decent” at SEO will charge $100 an hour range, bigger agency will charge even more $150-200+ range, so that leaves you with 6.5 hours work a month at the least. Sure you will have a wave of people who pick up a SEO 101 book and decide they suddenly know the finer details of SEO and they want to charge $50 an hour. These are usually the most dangerous people to deal with. Time and time again we deal with businesses who have used amateurs in the past to destroy their SEO.
With your 6.5 hours you also need to factor in client communication, research on the client as you note and further to this a monthly report, I mean sure you also need to do SEO work on the site on site and off site. Suddenly $650 a month is not going to get you very far in the SME market if you want to do things the right way.
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Great comment Not so sure…! Agree with you that $650 isn’t the most ideal spend, though I think you may have taken my point a bit out of context… $650 is a starting point for a Small Business SEO campaign (remember that for a small business, this is still a sizeable marketing budget!) and we think an achievable one for a lot of small businesses, especially the kind that we have a lot of experience working with.
In terms of deliverables, we feel it is certainly possible to provide a good quality product that will provide benefit to the Small Business within that budget, although we agree it’s certainly on the lower end.
I think the more relevant point is that this notion of “guaranteed” SEO is where people are left crying poor, because SEO is anything but guaranteed. The other fallacy you’re working to is that $100 is not necessarily a standard charge for anyone who is “decent at SEO”. The bigger firms may well be able to command $100 an hour, however we are neither a bigger firm, nor want to be! Price isn’t really the goal for us, it’s the ability to deliver great SEO that dictates whether we work with a client or not (yes we do choose to not work with those we can’t add value to). On the other hand, your point begs the question – Do you really want big web development firms for example diversifying into something they are not passionate nor good at, and charging those rates to SMEs who are truly left crying poor when they don’t get what they want?
This is a pretty contentious point, and an interesting debate for all engaged in delivering SEO services.
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I am just addressing your points from your article:
“For a good quality SEO campaign, expect to spend around $650 a month or more.”
In regards to pricing 100 per hour is the market standard for most professionals, I mean this type of price range is well documented here over at Moz:
http://moz.com/blog/seo-pricing-costs-of-services
Sorry but I see this type of SMB SEO set up where they take on 100 clients paying $600 a month, it is just a recipe for problems with SEO.
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Doesn’t the same article mention typical monthly spend as $251-500? I think Chris has hit a sweet spot starting at $600 that’s achievable for small businesses and remains effective.
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Yes ! I agree, this is a wake up call to small businesses in Australia since they are being left behind when it comes to reaching customers through online marketing.
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I found training is very useful prior to binding the SMB owners into any online marketing contracts. At the moment, with lack of education, everyone think of Google and social networks as their immediate source of income while they must be thought that marketing is a long term process and there is no guarantee of return. If that happens in initial steps, then with no pressure the desired results can be obtained.
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Hi Ethan,
Thanks for your comment – And yes training is very effective for a few reasons before SMBs enter a contract. However it’s even better if they don’t have to enter into a contract at all! You are absolutely right that marketing is a long-term process with no specific guarantee of return, however with tried and true methods there are definitely outcomes that can be predicted with sufficient accuracy.
Overall however, great comment – Thank’s for raising this very valid point!
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Thanks for your insight Christopher.
I would say that Aussie SMEs are behind because they’re either scared or sceptical of online marketing. Plus, often the key decision-makers are ‘old school’ and online marketing is not at the forefront of their mind (but should be!).
You mentioned that there aren’t many good SEO/PPC/SMA agencies around. To help those of us who operate SMEs, can you please tell us (in your opinion) some of the ‘good’ ones?
Likewise, for bigger businesses which ones are the good ones?
I think a quick and easy way of finding out if an SEO company is all that it is cracked up to be is by googling terms like “SEO Melbourne” – for example, if you are in Melbourne. If the company is not on page 1 of organic search for its own key search terms then how could they possibly do a good job for your SME? (Note: I see that your company Optimising is on page 1 for this search term, so well done.)
I look forward to your response. Thanks!
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Hey Mike,
I think there definitely is fear and scepticism in the market, and unfortunately it’s going to be a long process to educate the market that the case is different!
And yeah there aren’t many good SEO/PPC/SMA agencies, however that’s from a purely service provision perspective – A lot of people choose businesses for more than that though, so it would be difficult to suggest which are the good ones. For example we have a lot of interstate clients, and they have a priority on high quality and just getting the job done, whereas our local clients could be considered to have the priority of using someone local that they meet and discuss things with in person.
Pointing out who are good or bad isn’t really effective, I am primarily trying to draw attention to the fact that people do need to be wary and critical when evaluating the right path forward – Pretty much what everyone should do when evaluating a service provider! I actually just posted an article on some good questions people should be asking their SEO manager, but they also apply to PPC/SMA. You can check it out here:
http://www.optimising.com.au/b.....eo-manager
You’re right! Checking an SEO agency’s own rank is definitely a great way to see how effective their work is!! Thanks for noting that we rank very well 😉
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