Hands up who’s doing PPC (pay per click) advertising? You know, Google AdWords and the like? Hmm, that’s quite a lot of you. And I see a few of you, even at fairly small companies, spending as much as you ever did on print advertising - and the monthly expenditure is rising too. So perhaps we need to take stock of where we are.

In 7 Signs Your PPC Campaigns Needs Optimization on the Marketing Optimization Blog the author contends that you’re probably not doing AdWords as efficiently as you might, and I’m sure you’ll be big enough to admit that’s probably the case.

The thing about AdWords is that whilst it can be used simply to drive traffic to your website (and that’s all many people are using it for), it can also be quite an expensive way of doing that. Those fifty-pence clicks add up if you’re just sending people to your website and not taking them so a highly-targeted page, with a great call to action, that you’re measuring accurately.

On the other hand, for specific campaigns (like distributing certain catalogues and data sheets, or sending out invitations, or even generating sales calls), the combination of an AdWords campaign and a targeted landing page is dynamite. We have a number of new products coming out here at Business Marketing Online in the new year, and one of them will be just perfect for those of you who are spending money on AdWords but want to see it generate real sales leads. To find out more, send me an email - chris@bmon.co.uk - and I’ll make sure you’re one of the group who get an advanced look at what we’re doing in the spring.

Thanks to BeRelevant for pointing out that a nice little e-book called The Practical Guide to Email Marketing is available for free download - go get your copy now while it’s still available. If you do any sort of promotional emailing for your company, I’m pretty certain you’ll find some good tips inside.

I mentioned not neglecting “snail mail” the other day, and in Direct Mail Versus E-mail: You Decide on the BeRelevant! blog, the strengths and weaknesses of the two methods are discussed. Of course, in the end, it all comes down to return on investment. You do know the return on investment figures for recent mailing campaigns in your business, don’t you? Of course you do.

I recently pointed you towards some good email newsletter production advice - now here are some good ideas about content. In 12 Content Ideas for Your Email Campaigns on the BeRelevant! blog, there are some nice suggestions which I might not have thought of - but which might just work well.

Does your company run an email newsletter for your customers? I’m sure you do - it’s just about the most cost-effective sales and marketing exercise available to you, and has been for many years. But if you don’t, or if you produce one only half-heartedly, have a read of 3 Steps to Regular Email Newsletters on the BeRelevant! blog. In this article, the author suggests that a successful newsletter needs a timetable, an owner and an easy method of contributing at a time of the contributor’s choice. What you simply must not do is to say “ah, it’s our quarterly newsletter day”, and try to make up something on the spot, on your own, when it shouldn’t really be your job anyway. Simple.

We’ll be covering email newsletters in great depth as part of our Insider Programme, naturally. Have you signed up yet?