40% increase in sales 62% reduction in costs
30 November 2010
For four years Dr Judith Povall had been using Google Adwords to drive traffic to her dental tourism website - but at a cost. Since teaming up with Quiet Storm her Pay Per Click (PPC) conversion rate has improved six-fold.Judith, Director of Access Smile, explained: “When I started the business I ran our own PPC campaign. Having not too much idea about how Google works I ended up spending a lot of time checking our performance and spend. Even when I enlisted the services of internet campaign ‘experts’ I was not achieving the consistent results I was looking for. The campaigns were expensive and were in my view, underperforming. By then the cost of the conversion reached an unsustainable amount. The costs for my website were escalating too. Whenever I wanted to change something, even a phone number, I had to pay.
“Then I found Quiet Storm. What a difference. I now have a fantastic package which includes a website I can edit myself, MailBlast, a growing database and access to in-depth easy to follow reports.
• My cost/conversion went down 62%
• The conversion went up 600%
• The enquiries increased by 300%
• But most important of all, sales increased by 40%
Pay Per Click is a highly efficient way to drive targeted traffic to a website. You compile a lineage advert by carefully choosing keywords and phrases that match your product or service and, in effect, pay for this to appear on a results page for that type of search. The paid listings appear either as ads on the right hand side of the page or are mixed up with the organic listings. Quiet Storm have developed a successful model for creating Pay Per Click campaigns with proven results.
When Judith Povall began offering her dentistry services in the UK in 2007 she had no previous experience of running her own business or how to market her company on the internet. She was looking for the most efficient way to promote her high level of expertise and top quality services.
The business is now firmly established and Access Smile provides consultations, dental treatment and after care through its facilities in London, Manchester and Ireland. Major treatments are carried out in the state-of-the-art clinic in Budapest using high-tech equipment.
“At the start, as a scientist coming from a multi-national company culture I had no idea about running my own venture,” said Judith. “ I had no experience about marketing, advertising, websites, IT, finances etc - all the things that I needed to deal with because I had no one else to do it. I only had one part-time employee who answered the enquiries. At this stage of the business we were working as an agency for a Hungarian dental clinic.
“We opened our own clinic in 2008 and now have three employees here in the UK and we deal with all the enquiries coming from all over Europe. In Budapest we have a state-of-the-art clinic under our ownership with 18 employees and have two members of staff in Ireland. We are the only dental clinic with ISO9001 certification including dental tourism services.
“After trying to run Pay Per Click campaigns myself I sought help. The price of the services, based outside the UK, was affordable and this company seemed to efficiently manage the campaign. Then the market changed and our campaign did not change with the new wind, despite the quite high monthly fee. They certainly did not log in and checked the performance regularly.
“After this experience I tried a more local expert with whom I could develop a good working relationship. This worked well and I’m positive that they did the best what they could. But the market changed again and Google Adwords started to become really expensive and reached a rate of £45-£50 per conversion. I was told that there was nothing at all they could do on Google any more due to my poorly performing website and the highly competitive nature of my industry.
“I went and asked for another quote from a company in London. I choose carefully and even called their existing customers to make sure that I picked well. However, although they promised a lot it transpired that they had no experience in anything as complicated as dental tourism. They were experienced only in helping internet based shops. They did not realise how competitive the market is and, in one single week, when I was on holiday and I could not check my Google campaign, I spent £3700 on advertising on the internet! They surely were not monitoring but had just set up something they thought would work.
“Following this experience I contacted the local company I had used and asked them if they take me back - they did. Things went back to normal but it was still expensive and majorly underperforming. They still blamed my website wanted to redesign it and then fill up the site with content. By then the cost of the conversion had reached £62.
“Before moving to Quiet Storm I had never had access to my own website or had stats available. Every time I came across someone they wanted to change the design and then wanted me to work on the content. I did not like any of the new designs (or the prices) and therefore I did not go ahead.
“About a year ago I met someone who gave me the confidence that they could get us up in the SEO searches and tell me what to do with the content to improve the position in the listings. They said they could also improve my conversion rate using Google Adwords. I worked hard on the content but after seven months I still could not see any difference. The website certainly did not get better results with only the better content. I lost all my faith that I would ever be able to find someone who could look after everything as well as give me the opportunity to understand and follow up what is going on.
“It was during a business networking event that I heard a presentation by Steve Megson from Quiet Storm. It was a valuable 15 minutes and Quiet Storm offered a free training session about sales and marketing so I left my details and sat back. To be honest I was waiting for the first contact and the moment when I would be told that the free offer was conditional on something. But, I was contacted within a few days and the free seminar was indeed ‘free’. Moreover, it was free for all my staff too. Nice start!
“At the free seminar I met someone who had just set up his own business and started developing his website with Quiet Storm. He has known Quiet Storm for years as they used to work together via his old workplace. He had a very high opinion about the facilities and the support. He encouraged me to get in touch with Quiet Storm and at least have a quote.
“When I asked for a quote I was honest and I told them about my frustrations regarding the website and Google. I wanted to act quickly and despite the short notice we managed to arrange a quite late evening meeting. Steve came to my office and spent hours with me to understand the issues I needed help with. He came prepared and full of energy.
“He had passion about his job and his company – something that had been lacking in everyone else I had come across before. I realised that before Steve, I hadn’t met anyone who had the same drive and enthusiasm for their business as I had for Access Smile.
“Steve studied the business idea, the competitors, my website and my Pay Per Click campaigns before the meeting. This was impressive! We could get into the very important details straight away because he already knew a lot about the situation Access Smile was in. He knew that the problem was not the site design and not the content. He knew that the problem was the way we were addressing the visitors by not telling them why we are better than anyone else in this service. I knew he was right.
“Quiet Storm took over the website, the PCC and SEO. We are now working together to drive my business forward.”