All Covered gets 10 to 20 percent of its new business from Google AdWords.
| As a small business owner, Renee Courington made use of a part-time IT consultant, but as the company grew, she needed a higher level of support. This need led her to create a business in 1997 to provide IT services and consulting to small businesses without the resources for a full-time dedicated IT specialist. Today, All Covered Inc. (www.allcovered.com), based in Redwood City, Calif., has grown to 300 employees and more than 20 offices across the country. It currently serves over 5,000 clients on a monthly or project basis.
Approach One of the main marketing challenges All Covered faced was the often-neglected state of IT within small companies. "Small businesses are not focused on IT until it's really a problem," said Nick Pegley, vice president of marketing. "When people need us, they really need us." But Pegley says they discovered certain "trigger events," when small businesses are more likely to consider new sources of IT support. These might include moving to a new office or opening a new location, buying another company or experiencing IT personnel changes. Pegley says All Covered's goal was to market to these businesses during those trigger events. After years of acquiring clients through direct marketing and referrals, three years ago the company shifted focus to Internet advertising. Today, they spend 95 percent of their ad budget online – and 90 percent of that is allocated to Google AdWords. Pegley says that when the "trigger events" happen, AdWords excels: "That's when small businesses do a Google search. We wanted them to find us right at that moment when they're actively considering a new provider." All Covered focuses heavily on online advertising because of the ability to rapidly reach many dispersed local markets and deliver customized ad text to those locations, which he calls a particular strength of AdWords. "One of the most powerful things about AdWords is the ability to localize a message to a city," he says. "When someone in Atlanta searches for 'IT support in Atlanta,' we give them a landing page with our Atlanta phone number, Atlanta office address and relevant Atlanta info," Pegley says. "That makes us appear as a local provider, which we are. But we're in a lot of other places as well. Business ultimately happens locally." He adds that AdWords enables All Covered to track the performance of local markets and quickly make adjustments to campaigns in those markets. "I've not found another system that can do what AdWords can." Results Pegley says that between 10 and 20 percent of All Covered's new business in a typical quarter comes directly from AdWords. And he estimates the ultimate impact of AdWords may be as much as double that, factoring in customers who visit the site through AdWords but who sign up on a later visit. Fully one-third of inquiries that come in from Google are converted to appointments, and Pegley says the close rate on those contacts is high. Pegley says AdWords campaigns are currently running in all 20 of the company's markets, and should they open offices elsewhere, "We would absolutely add a new AdWords campaign to generate new business. By using Google AdWords we have been able to successfully market to thousands of small businesses around the U.S. and make them aware of our IT services. The ability to localize our landing pages to each city is critical to our local marketing model." About Google AdWords Google AdWords is currently used by thousands of businesses worldwide to gain new customers in a cost-effective way. AdWords use keywords to precisely target ad delivery to web users seeking information about a particular product or service. The program is based on cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, so advertisers only pay when an ad is clicked on. Advertisers can take advantage of an extremely broad distribution network, and choose the level of support and spending appropriate for their business. For more information on launching your own campaign or getting expert help, visit http://adwords.google.com. Would you like to share your Google AdWords success story with us? We'd love to hear from you! Return to Tech Commerce overview page |
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