Pulling back for full benefit

I spoke yesterday about communicating (or pushing) your Christmas promos online, once you get your message out you need to turn that interest into a sale by pulling the customers/prospects back to you.

When the interest is created, some people are ready to buy straight away and others need more information. It?’s most likely these people will go online to get more information to help make their purchase. So, to get full effects of your promotion you need to meet those people when they?’re seeking for more information and send them somewhere to convert them.

Catching the information seekers
You?’ve got to make sure you and the details of the promotion are easily found. Searching is the easiest way for someone to find what they want. You should make sure your customers can find you for all relevant searches that reflect your offline communications. Sometimes your advertising could spark an interest for your type of product or service and it?’s likely to get a person to search on your products. What if you have bad rankings on Google? They?’ll find your competitor first. Search optimisation may take too long to help you before Christmas so it?’s pretty important you invest in pay per click search advertising. The last thing you want to do is drive traffic to your competitor?’s websites from your offline advertising.

The coveted Superbowl advertising spots showed testament to this theory. Last year, Ford advertised using Kermit the frog to promote their new hybrid version of the Ford Escape. GM went a brought the keyword ?kermit?’ and advertised with a relevant ad and drove traffic through to their site promoting their hybrid cars. Take a look at this article (http://www.reprisemedia.com/superbowlscorecard.aspx) for a review of how Superbowl advertisers missed their opportunities to back up their expensive ad spots. The principle doesn?’t just apply to TVC?’s, it can work for any offline communications.

Match the message
Everything you do needs to say the same thing across your initial push, your search ads and most important the area on your site that is relevant to the promotion. The reason why people go to this part of you site (be it landing pages or a micro site) is to find out about the promotion so you need to give them content that?’s going to match what they want. You?’ll see effects like higher click through rates and conversion rates if you. Key pieces of information that need to be included are details of the promotion, when it runs out and links to where to buy ? either online, making an enquiry or store finder.

This is especially important with the rising number of people who are using the internet at the same time as watching TV. It?’s a usual situation that if someone sees an ad that interests them, they Google it to find out more. I myself do this a lot, but it?’s not just me ? a study in March 2005 found 28% of children were online ?"often?" while watching TV in the US. This is sure to be hugely increased now with more broadband and wireless networks in the home.

Track it all
With offline promotions you should use special URL?’s to tell where they came from. It?’s a classic trick that?’s also used with 0800 numbers and specials. An example is Dell using the URL dell.co.nz/tv for their special promotion and then they can measure the effectiveness of that TV advertisement.

Of course there?’s your web analytics which you should go over with a fine toothed comb to see how it all went and take your findings to help you next year.

That concludes our tips for Christmas. We haven’t suggested anything revolutionary, these are basics that a necessary to support a full integrated marketing communications approach.