Marketing

This interview with Catherine Juon, Co-Founder and Catalyst at Pure Visibility, marks the first in our series on "Financing Your Innovation". The series was sparked by the observation across multiple interview participants that they faced common problems in financing their innovative businesses.

Catherine introduces us to the issues faced in financing a services business. As we have covered previously, Pure Visibility is a three year old Internet marketing firm that helps its clients grow their businesses online. Like many services businesses, Pure Visibility has grown through bootstrapping. In their particular case, this has meant:

• They started with immediate cash flow from clients they had garnered in previous ventures so could forego bank financing.
• In addition to contract work, they established monthly recurring revenue streams that guaranteed a source of revenue.
• Working capital, the difference between payables and receivables, has been an issue as the company has grown. Pure Visbility is currently seeking bank financing to help with working capital but has also financed it through credit cards and loans from friends and family.

As I indicated in my previous post, I had a unique classroom experience working with Google to develop a pay per click advertising campaign for Dawn Farm, a local non-profit organization.  I created actual online ads that connected people to Dawn Farm's website, and I was able to monitor the progress of my ads daily and develop successful optimization strategies.

My project's success came from learning how to identify the specific target market for each of my ads and creating ads that focused on what people in those target groups were searching for on the internet.   I learned that by using strong, catchy headlines and descriptive words in the ad text, I was able to make my ads stand out and grab my target audience's attention.  I also learned that by keeping my ads focused on a very specific product, my target audience was more likely to click on my ad and become potential customers. 

As I learned to optimize my ads, the quality score of the ads increased.  This increase in quality score further improved ad visibility by causing the ads to be positioned at the top of the search page.  The project required a lot of work and attention to detail.  From my hard work came a lot of valuable knowledge and experience.  At the end of my experience, I was rewarded with the ultimate measure of success, my ads obtained a clickthrough rate comparable to that of a highly successful commercial ad.   

Last semester, I participated in an innovative partnership between Google and Eastern Michigan University where my classmates and I developed Google Adwords campaigns for several local non-profit organizations. This is the first segment of a case study I have prepared about the challenges we faced and overcame as part of this experience.

My team had the pleasure of working with an Ypsilanti-based organization called Dawn Farm.  Dawn Farm works to assist alcohol and drug addicts obtain long-term recovery. This first case study segment that I'm presenting here provides an overview of the initial challenges we faced in managing this account.  New to the world of pay-per-click advertising, my classmates and I went through the growing pains of learning how to effectively market a company over the internet.  We found that trial and error, actively monitoring our progress, and good communication with our organization were all key to our Google Adwords success.

We were able to establish a strong working relationship with Jason Schwartz, the Clinical Director of Dawn Farm.  This relationship was one of the key elements that helped us figure out an effective strategy for Dawn Farm. Jason provided us with valuable insight regarding Dawn Farm's clients and the advertising needs of the Dawn Farm organization.  As my classmates and I worked dilligently at fine tuning the online ads we created for Dawn Farm, we observed how our efforts caused a significant growth in the amount of traffic that Dawn Farm's website received.  By the end of the semester, it was obvious that our efforts had paid off.  Jason Schwartz reported that the amount of traffic on Dawn Farm's website increased over 60%, and Dawn Farm noticed a growth in the amount of applicants.

Currently I am still maintaining Dawn Farm's Google Adwords account and am also a reporter in Michigan Innovators' bullpen section. In future segments, I will focus on how we brought Dawn Farm's Google Adwords campaign on par with high performing commercial accounts.

In the past few years, Wagner Design Associates has significantly progressed from a sole proprietorship to a partnership with seven employees. Founded more than 20 years ago, the firm is clearly not on a rapid growth path. Rather they view their small size as an advantage. It allows them to more closely interact with their clients.

The firm adapts to client needs by pulling from its network of collaborators. They provide additional staffing as required. They also allow the firm to stay current with technology by supplying a pool of people familiar with the latest trends. It's worth noting that Wagner Design Associates became a partnership in part by incorporating one of its longtime collaborators, Kathy Roeser.