On the subject of Google Ads, I just started a Google Ads campaign for Atma Yoga. We’ve had a number of people email or phone from our findyoga.com.au listing, where we’re number six down on the right in the list of schools.

While we were debating the new name for the school I mentioned a principle that Guy Kawasaki had talked about around that time in a post entitled “The Name Game“, about choosing a name for a company.

Guy said:

Begin with letters early in the alphabet. Here’s the scenario: you bought a booth at a massive trade show like Comdex. The list of exhibitors in the show guide is alphabetized. Would you rather be listed in the front of the guide or at back of the guide? Another scenario: A reviewer analyzes a dozen or so products. She lists them in alphabetical order in the review. Would you prefer that your product be at the beginning or end of the list?

Ka-ching. The only way to ace the findyoga listing would be to call the place 108 Yoga.

Candidasa hassles me every now and then about our non-appearance in Google searches for yoga in Brisbane, so let’s see what the Google ad campaign does.

Don’t be surprised if you don’t see any sponsored links for Atma Yoga in Google - the campaign is targeted to Queensland, Australia, where we are physically located. No sense in advertising to people in Iceland. I might widen it to Australia. We’ll see what happens.

We also got 10,000 flyers yesterday. Elliott and Maha-mantra reckon that they’ll distribute 500 a day, finishing the lot in 20 days. We’ll see how they get on. Again, carpet bombing is not as effective as targeted assassination, to use a military analogy. Bunker busters haven’t taken care of Mr bin Laden…

The personal referral beats the mass marketing campaign any day, or at least it does today. If you didn’t check it out when I previously mentioned it, and you have some time on your hands and the capacity for it - check out Greg Stielstra’s site Pyromarketing.com. Greg was the marketing manager for Zondervan who oversaw the marketing for The Purpose-driven Life.

So we find that people come if a friend invites them or tells them about it, or if they meet a staff member in the street. We trust what our friends tell us because we have similar tastes - that’s why we’re friends. What a stranger tells us is good is less reliable.

At the same time, a good military strike involves air and artillery support accompanied by a fast moving mechanized infantry wave. Boots on the ground. So Google Ads is part of that metaphorical strike - at least that’s how I think of it.