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I want to sell PPC to white collar professional service businesses (lawyers, accountants, etc.) I already am a website designer marketing to these folks.

I could create a website that sells a listing membership in a web directory sourced by PPC ads, ranging from x to y, per month (could be anything, $20-$2000 lets say), or sell directly to a fewer number of clients and manage each campaign directly.

I'm trying to detail the pros and cons of each and in particular to what degree can I make the shared site method as maintenance free as possible? As folks don't usually buy PPC through a membership system will I wind up having 100x the number of phone calls to vet it for the prospective members or can it be a no brainer through a sales presentation? (Because if they're going to call I'd certainly rather sell $500 over $100 worth of services each month.)

What are your basic thoughts. (with some detail of explanation so I can give them the credence deserved).

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PPC = pay per click? – user6603 May 31 '11 at 8:56

3 Answers

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Turn your focus to "what best solves the problem of my (potential) customers" and the answer should become more clear.

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I used a directory like that in the past which due to age and prominence in the industry charged around 3k per year for a listing. It set-up mini-pages for each participant and had a 800# through which the leads were processed (think twilio) so that all leads could be properly accounted for.

  • 1,500 on PPC
  • 10/month on unique phone numbers
  • Email infrastructure to route emails (also for verification)

They provided that and then on a monthly basis we got an email which showed how many phone/email leads we got.

This provided them with a justification upon renewal of saying you spent 3k, but received 50 leads. Did those 50 leads justify spending 3k again next year?

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If you're talking about running a PPC bidding marketplace along the lines of Google Adwords (just to name a better-known one) vs. personally managing client's PPC campaigns - these two are completely different business models and have absolutely diverging prerequisites.

A marketplace would require you to front some capital to establish the platform, for one. Then you have to market it to your audience - and keep in mind that you're going to be in need of a constant stream of new customers to maintain it, since you are not influencing their results directly. Your audience is not experienced in internet marketing if I'm getting you correctly. If they will be writing and placing the ads themselves, as well as taking care of their landing pages and the sale path, then it's going to be entirely up to them whether their campaign is successful or not. You can't influence their success. Do you want to leave a complete novice steer the ship, provided you can convince them that they stand a chance in the first place?

A managed PPC campaign by you - if you do have experience in PPC - will likely keep them aboard longer. You only need to keep their ROI positive. Also, you won't have any upfront cost besides marketing your service to them, which should be quite low since these are your design clients already.

All provided I get what you're saying in the first place, of course.

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No, not talking about a PPC bidding marketplace, talking about a web directory site with membership fees funding the G/Y/Bing PPC ads to drive traffic. – Randy Mar 2 '11 at 14:18

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