Every marketer leaks leads from their sales funnel so we created an ebook to help them plug the holes and get more customers.
The team took my ebook about the new consumer buying journey and turned it into an infographic.
– See more at the ReachLocal Learning Center
As you know from reading this blog, I'm a student of the consumer buying journey. Toward that end, I highly recommend this McKinsey report that provides great insights about the next wave of innovation impacting how consumers experience brands and buy. The future they paint is very near.
Check out this site courtesy of Rob Baker.
Nice way to make your point Mr. or Miss designer who built it.
My team created this infographic to give an example of the consumer buying journey for a need-based service like plumbing.
Even in this simple scenario you can see the complexity involved in trying to get a new customer for your business. You must continuously build your web presence with fresh content across all the places consumers go to discover and research before they buy. Google calls this the Zero Moment of Truth. I call it imperative to stay in business today.
Just the facts Jack. My team's latest infographic with the basics of advertising to reach consumers as they search, surf and socialize online.
The "Good" – building your brand where consumers are spending over 50% of their media time
A comScore study last October showed that only 16% of Internet users click on display ads, with 8% of users accounting for over 85% of all clicks. Does that mean no one should use display ads? Hell no. It means that display is for branding your business not trying to drive action (that is what Search ads are for). Does anyone doubt that TV/Radio/Print ads can build awareness of a brand? They typically don't drive immediate calls to a business but they do build brand awareness over time so that when a consumer has a need they evaluate that product and hopefully buy it.
Studies by comScore and others have shown that display ads, regardless of clicks, generate significant lift in site visits and both online and offline sales by those exposed to the ads. This "lift" is has been proven time after time so why do businesses think their campaign isn't working when they see a low CTR? Just like TV ads or any other offline media advertising, display is about carving out space in someone's mind so they remember you when they are ready to buy. Fortunately, display advertising is so cost-effective (low CPM) that most businesses can afford to now brand themselves online where they couldn't with expensive traditional media alternatives.
The "Bad" – not running paid search ads on your business name
Check out this blog post by my colleague Nathan Hanks over at Local Online Marketing Gumbo who answers the question many businesses ask "Should I bid on my own business name?"
A quick excerpt below…
When it comes to search engine marketing, bidding on business
category keywords (ex: “Dallas spa”) is a must if you want your
business to show up in a paid ad when someone is looking for your kind
of products or services. But it’s just as important to bid on your
business name keywords (ex: “Sally’s Swanky Spa”). Here are some
reasons why:
It’s your business name – so why pay for it? Because your
competitors are! According to Performics, leading brands only receive
87% of traffic from their business name keyword searches. The remaining
13% are “poached” by competitors!* That’s because they know that when
your customers search for your business, they have an opportunity to
snatch the sale straight out of your hands with a well-worded sponsored
ad. Don’t give them the chance.
Check out Nate's blog for the other important reasons why you should bid on your name.
The “Good” – reinvigorating online sales through web design
The other day I was summarizing my team’s accomplishments in 2008 and realized that this was one of the most satisfying. Not because it involved some incredible strategic plan or creative idea on my part, but rather because it validated that focusing on the simple things can have a big impact on results.
What I’m referring to is a site makeover project for my company’s SSL certificate product line. Certs are what organizations use to create secure (encrypted) sessions with users…i.e. the user sees https and the little yellow browser lock. Anyway, we are a smaller player in the market (VeriSign is the 800 pound gorilla) and primarily sell certs the same way we sell our enterprise security software — through our direct sales force.
During strategic planning last year we identified a significant opportunity to grow the business via the online channel. The problem was that our site was designed to mimic our enterprise site (www.entrust.com) and was NOT at all ecommerce friendly (i.e. “bad marketing”). So we executed a plan to completely overhaul the site design and buy process in order to make it easy to buy a cert in just a few clicks.
Here are the before and after screen captures.
It’s easy to see the huge improvement in design that came from our clear-cut focus on the user and their buying experience. Of course we also added in lots of SEO, Google Adwords and display ads to drive traffic to the new site.
Our results have been great with substantial increases in unique site visits, conversion rate and most importantly, sales (we’re publicly held so I can’t share specifics).
The key takeaway for me is that you don’t always have to shoot for the stars in your marketing plan – launching an innovative new product, making a big splash at the huge trade show, etc. Instead, it pays to focus on the simple projects like improving the web design for one of your smaller products.