Using Paid Search to Help Achieve Branding Goals

BG Creative // July 14, 2009 // Social Media // 1 Comment

Back in February, California passed a $10,000 new home tax credit.  This was a big deal for potential homebuyers, yet it’s rules were misunderstood. There were very few resources willing to put aside industry speak and break it down.

This lack of information in the general marketplace provided an opportunity for Brookfield to brand itself as a leader by providing the information people were seeking out.

Steve Doyle, President of Brookfield Homes San Diego, followed the news carefully and immediately upon the official word, wrote a blogpost clearly defining the details of the tax credit. Now pay attention because this is where we take full advantage of the opportunity: the same day, we purchased a set of keywords (i.e. CA new home tax credit, 10,000 tax credit) and developed relevant ad text which clicked through to his post. With the traffic from organic search and the complimentary paid search campaign, we were able to achieve outstanding results:

In a two week time span, the ad group achieved an average of a 6.2% clickthrough rate, and blog traffic increased by 250%, 80% of which were new visitors.  And our average cost per click was well under $1. These are truly outstanding results.

Here are some key takeaways:

• If you are an expert in your field, share your knowledge, especially in times of confusion.
• There is remarkable synergy in providing information (which is already good for organic search) and then paying to drive people to it through paid search.
• Don’t be afraid to spend money on a branding campaign.  You might not convert the visitor today, but you have made an invaluable impression in their minds about who you are in the marketplace.
• The more quickly you react, the less search competition you will have (both organic and paid).
• Be available to this new audience to answer questions and continue the dialogue.

Although the campaign was short-lived, we were able to successfully position Brookfield Homes as the expert and gain exposure as a leader in the industry.