paramore|redd speaks
Accountability! That’s just great.
(1) Comments | Posted: Wednesday November 1, 2006 in The Pink Boa Blog - by Hannah Paramore
Clients just go crazy over the idea of a type of media that is measurable and flexible. Knowing exactly how many times people have seen your ad (whether it’s an email, a banner, a search ad or a co-registration ad) is great. Knowing how many times people click on it – or open it – is even better. Counting up the sales or completed lead forms is a lot of fun. Sometimes.
Unless it’s lower than you expected. And why shouldn’t you expect higher results? After all, it’s the WORLD wide web!
Well, in October the Netcraft survey reported that there are now 100 million websites online. That’s DOUBLE the 50 million that were online in 2004. Think about that. It took 2,004 years to get 50 million websites live – and only 2 years to double that. Online advertising will pass $13.5 billion this year (that’s billion – with a b).
What this means is that your customer has many choices how they spend their time and money. And with so much information at the customer’s disposal, your product and offer have to be compelling to get their vote.
So, yes, with interactive media we can give you real-time reporting. You can know your ROI on almost a continual basis and you can optimize your campaigns based on that reporting. But what often happens is that the very ability to know exactly what is happening with your campaign makes clients impatient with the campaign. It leads to bad decisions. Somehow, clients forget the basics of advertising with all that data in front of them. Basics like allowing a campaign enough time to ramp up. Spending enough money to make an impact. Spending enough money to have really good creative.
If you want to use interactive media to meet your sales and advertising objectives, here are a few things to consider:
1.Spend enough to make a difference. Yes, we believe in testing and justifying an advertising budget, but we also know that if you don’t spend enough you shouldn’t spend anything at all.
2.Understand your ROI but don’t pull the plug too fast. Make smart optimization decisions, but don’t abandon a campaign until you know what the metrics mean.
3.Figure out how long the tail is. Sometimes consumers are much earlier in the buying cycle when they request information online than they would be if they walked into a brick and mortar store. Give the leads long enough to mature.
4.Have a solid communication plan in place for Internet leads and be religious about it.
5.Invest in creative. Test several creatives so that you learn what works and what doesn’t.
6.Get help from experts (shameless plug).
7.Let patience have its perfect work.
