The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.” Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is about getting your prospects to have you in mind as the first choice when providing a solution to their problem. A strong brand is priceless as the battle for loyal customers intensifies every day. People without a brand need to concentrate their resources in finding new customers. At the end of the day, it is all about trust. People buy with confidence from those brands they trust.

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The buzz is definitely out there. Everyone and their mother have probably heard of the iPhone by now. If you haven’t, then you must be living in a cave. Apple announced the launch of the iPhone in January of this year. Within the past week, news organizations have been covering all aspects of the highly anticipated cell phone. The iPhone was a hit even before it was officially released. The iPhone made its debut on June 29th, 2007 at AT&T retail and Apple stores at 6 p.m. The phone is feature-rich with a fully integrated iPod, built-in internet access with email, video capabilities, and more.

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So, you’re running Paid Placement Campaigns (PPC) in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. You have set them up and you’re finally getting visitors to your site. That’s all you need to do, right? Wrong! It is absolutely imperative to ensure that your paid campaigns are running properly, and that you are using the most effective keywords and ad copy, bidding appropriately, etc. One of the biggest mistakes often made is to sit back and let the campaigns run on “auto pilot”. I can pretty much guarantee that your competition is not doing that and therefore, you should not be either.

That being said, how do you improve the effectiveness of your campaigns? Sometimes it is just a matter of tweaking your ad copy or changing your keywords. Other times, it could be revising your match type or increasing your bids. Match type refers to the way an engine matches your keywords to the actual terms people are searching for. For example: Broad Match would be the widest range possible, which means you will get coverage for any variation of your keywords. This happens to be the default setting. Exact Match, on the other hand, would require the searcher to enter your keywords exactly how you have them in your campaign. This will obviously limit your exposure significantly. It might take some testing to determine which match type is best for you based on your particular keywords.

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