How 4 Small Businesses Used Google Adwords to Grow Their Biz
It pays to use Google Adwords to drive traffic to your small business—literally. It’s estimated that on average most business make two dollars for every dollar that they spend on Google Adwords advertising. As a small business entrepreneur, Google Adwords can give your brand the visibility it needs to grow, but only if you use it wisely.
To give you an example of how Google Adwords can shape the future of your small business we rounded up these inspirational success stories featuring four small businesses that grew their brand with Adwords.
1. High Cotton Finds Their Niche
High Cotton is a men’s apparel family owned business that started out as “a yard of fabric on the kitchen table” and has now grown to be a million dollar business. The initial idea for High Cotton was to create fashionable cotton ties that could be washed and therefore were more sanitary for doctors and health professionals to wear. But owner James Hill saw greater success by targeting a niche market of young, fashionable Southern men and targeting their marketing accordingly. High Cotton found huge success using Google Adwords to drive traffic to their brand using niche keywords like “southern bow tie” and “gingham bow tie.” Today, High Cotton continues to be the top Google search result for their targeted niche keywords, which has helped the brand to grow exponentially.
2. Quench Expands Its Market
The water cooler manufacturers Quench started as a local brand in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, providing eco-friendly, bottle-free water coolers that reduce the waste caused by traditional five-gallon water bottles. A few years ago they decided to experiment with Google Adwords and as a result they went from operating in 15 local markets to 35 of the top 50 markets in the United States. The brand saw a 100 percent increase in revenue and now two-thirds of all their sales come directly from the Internet.
[Tweet “How 4 #businesses were able to grow after using #Google @adwords.”]3. Balloons Over Asheville Keeps It Local
Balloons Over Asheville provides recreational hot air balloon rides over scenic Asheville, North Carolina. Their business is exceptionally busy during the summer tourist season and Balloons Over Asheville uses Google Adwords to drive out-of-towners towards their brand. Balloons Over Asheville focuses their Adwords targeting to a geographical location—Asheville and the surrounding area. That way, people looking for something fun to do in that area will find them first and they don’t waste money showing ads to people who are too far away to utilize their service. They also drive more traffic to their website during their busiest season by using seasonal keywords like “summer fun Asheville” or “summer ideas Asheville.”
4. Happy Hound Uses Google Adwords to Drive Word of Mouth Business
When Suzanne Golter started Happy Hound, a boutique doggie daycare and boarding facility in Oakland it was just her and two dogs alone in a warehouse. But thanks to her success with Google Adwords, Happy Hound rarely has any vacancies. These days Suzanne says that Google Adwords generates 90 percent of her new business, which is why she gives it 90 percent of her marketing budget. Suzanne says that word of mouth does help her business to grow, but that Google Adwords still plays its part. When people hear of their friends and family using Happy Hound, they search for it on Google, so Adwords helps facilitate her word of mouth business.
What we can learn from these small business success stories is that if you know the value of your product and you know how to target the people who are looking for that value, then Google Adwords can be a useful tool for expanding your business.