Allied Virtual Media LLC

That is an excellent question for small businesses. Understand that Budweiser spends $2 to make $1, so if you are doing better than that, you are ahead of the game. Let’s start with a small business. Let’s say a small shop is making $60 per customer on average and is making $175,000 a year. That means they have 10 customers a day. If they did online marketing they could have 13 customers a day. That would be $225,000 per year or an increase of $50,000 in revenue. That would be worth spending money on marketing to get 3 more customers a day.

Should you spend $5,000 to get $50,000 in revenue? Well let’s consider $5,000 divided by $50,000 which is 10%. A salesman would draw a salary or commission of 25% on split. So 10% for online marketing is less than 25% to the salesman. So that is more effective.  

That is another excellent question for small business. Let’s say you are a deli and your average customer spends $12 and you have 100 customers per day. That’s about $345,000 per year. If you could increase your sales by 20% and have 120 customers a day that would be $415,000 per year or an additional $70,000 in sales.

You could get that by spending $600 per month in online marketing. Other businesses spend $1,500 per month but $600 would be a good start. Cost-per-customer depends on desktop or mobile bids. $4 to $6 per customer is good on desktop. Peak time and mobile can be $7 to $10 per customer. It depends on the cost per word and ad position.

Usually immediately, but the answer depends on which phase you start with and how much you spend. If you do organic search engine optimization then your audience finds you if they are the type to dig down the page for details as opposed to clicking on the top page ads. Some customers do this because they can see that the top ads are irrelevant.

For example, say someone searches for nail salons, but the search results are from 3 towns over and not applicable. The customer would then scan down the page and look for an ad closer to where they live. If you have good SEO then you may have a shot at that customer. But if you have an ad in 3^rd position then you also have an immediate shot at that customer too. They can see you in both the organic and pay per click positions and you have a greater chance of being selected.

So the answer is that you can get customers right away if you do both SEO and PPC phases. Some clients have results immediately because searches are done daily. If the campaigns are set up within a week then results can happen just as fast. So access to web pages for tracking code implementation and payment method implementation are important to getting results. Being qualified to run ads is also important so your account does not get suspended. 

That is an easy answer. Ask them if they have a degree in online marketing. Ask them if they do continuing education in marketing. Ask them why are we doing this step? If they can give you an articulated answer that doesn’t sound like avoiding the question then that is good. Some people just work for marketing companies but they do not have a formal education in marketing. So they only know what their supervisor told them.

If they completed an entire curriculum of classes including regulatory, technical, consumer behavior, then they are going to be more secure in giving you an answer as to why the change is necessary. Someone can have someone else take a test for them outside of university, but if they spent months and years getting a degree they are going to know the fundamental reason for the process. Plus if they have tested the variables then they should have examples to give. It’s your business so get to know your expert. If they repeatedly have to ask their boss for explanations then they are probably in a job but not qualified.

AVM is qualified. See linkedin profile: Gabriel Rios  

You should put it on a credit card. The $1,800 in non-recurring setup fees may not be part of your monthly cash flow. The $2,400 in management fees over a year’s time may be in your cash flow after a couple months. If you consider both at $4,200 then it may be an issue if you try to come up with it out of current cash flow. So plan to put the first 2 months charges on a credit card. That way it will not affect your cash flow and you can pay Visa/MC at the rate you wish. If you pay for SEO/SEM in individual phases it can come from cash flow easily. But if you want to pay for a package deal and pay 50% or $2,000 upfront then putting it on a MC/Visa is probably smarter. 

You should start with $200 for each major search engine. Then you can see which search engine works for you. Some prefer different types of results so after 6 months of analysis you’ll be able to make that decision with your advisor. 

You should consider if you are spending for setups and or for monthly ad budget. For example setting up SEO and PPC as a total package will cost @$1,400 for service websites. Then an ad budget of $400 plus a management fee of $250 will be $650 per month x 6 months will be $3,900. Together that will total $5,500.

Keep in mind the SEO and PPC setups will bring you revenue for years because they are designed to be your systems. So if you sell your business they are your intellectual property, can be transfered, and operated by the new owners if your website is transfered to the new owners as an intangible asset in an asset sale. This is a huge selling point if new owners keep the same name of the business and phone number for repeat customers. This is a strategic decision in selecting the right media agency for your SEO and PPC. AVM helps your business by increasing your value and designing your system assets that are transferable. Not every media agency looks this far into your future but AVM has experience in mergers and acquisitions so the strategy is in the design.

Lucky for you AVM has a BLOG which you can review. Topics such as Social Media, Spinning, e-Commerce issues, and Yelp solutions are covered. It's worth a look. Plus you can review pricing for facebook and twitter setups. AVM makes it easy to include it all in the budget. AVM can get you started and then you can take the wheel when you are comfortable. Sound good?