Armina Fareed: PPC Stakeholder Management

Transcript: PPC Stakeholder Management

Hello everyone, my name is Armina Fareed. I am working as an SEO/SEM specialist with System Soft Technologies. I have 10+ years of experience in marketing and 6 years in PPC and SEO. I have master’s degree in international business, and you can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Today, I will be talking about stakeholders’ engagement and management in PPC.

Let’s start with a question why stakeholders are important?

Stakeholders are important because they are customers. Without them there will be no campaigns to run. They keep us in business. Stakeholders are also people who provide us support that we need for campaigns long term success. And this give rise to opportunities for us to learn and grow as the goals are accomplished.

PPC Campaign

PPC campaigns may depend on several stakeholders or just a few but breaking the silos and working together will ensure the success of the campaign

In today’s presentation I will be covering the 6 key steps to engage stakeholders successfully. These 6 steps are

• Setting up a process

• Having strategy sessions

• Providing continuous education

• Sharing reports

• Taking feedback

• And working with empathy

Process

Use project management tools. There are many PM and communication tools available in the market, free or paid. These tools will give a head start, and improves productivity

Make sure to clearly identify the steps in your process document. This will ensure and help stakeholders to recall steps, keeps everyone on the same page.

Mention due dates and assign owners 

These are some free tools for project management and communication

Strategy Sessions

Knowing goals is critical part for the campaign’s success. Deep and clear understanding of the stakeholders’ objectives will ensure that campaigns are set up properly with right tracking to measure conversions

Be a consultant. Consultation provides the opportunity to inform. Use your knowledge to advice which campaigns would be best and most importantly why

Discuss and identify top level KPIs. They help in making data driven decisions and evaluate the success of the campaigns

• Marketing Objective

Different PPC platforms let you select marketing objective, for example in Google you can tell the platform what you want to achieve

• Right Campaign

You can identify the right campaign that is best suited to meet your business needs

• Forecasting

All the channels also provide a forecasting or an estimate for the budget. For example, in Google you can use budget forecasting tool to estimate daily budget and if you have historical data you can also estimate conversions

• Audience

Running a campaign without understanding of audience is risky. Discuss with stakeholders the different audience targeting options available and which stages of the customer journey you can target with the right campaign

Continuous education

Create an effective, simple and value driven communication. Communicate with stakeholders in a manner that work best for them. Keep them informed. This will also help them in making right decisions to achieve their overarching goals.

• Easy to remember

But make sure to share information in easy to remember format. Remove any extra information, provide clear insights and explanation, keep your ego aside and this one is important. If something is not right. Recognize “why that is happening?” and what can be done to change that? We may think that we have said or explained the same thing again and again but if this is not going right why then why? Can we do something different so that it is easy to understand.

No one said managing and engaging stakeholders is easy! Lead with lots of patience. The way to win is to lead with knowledge and to admit if we do not know something. Being transparent but ready to find the answers and provide solutions will go a long way.

Reports

Reports play a key role in keeping stakeholders informed and if the campaigns are moving in right direction or as expected.

Taking Feedback

Taking feedback from your stakeholders strengthen relationships and help formulate business decisions. There is always scope for improvements. Have an open and honest conversation. Listen to them, recognize the gaps, strive for improvement, and celebrate the wins

Empathy

The best way to have long term relationship and retain customers is to find out their needs, problems and address them. Put yourself in their shoes. Set aside your interpretation. Listen to them. Recognize their constraints and provide value-based solutions. Respect their opinion and consider the shortcomings or their needs. Finding the right balance is hard but learn how to balance reality with the demands and expectations of stakeholders.

There is an African proverb that goes like this: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Thank you.