OBSESSED WITH RESULTS

Great marketing minds think alike. So I would like to believe we keep in good company with renowned marketer, Seth Godin. He recently made an accurate distinction between mass marketers vs direct marketers which got me thinking under which category we, as a company, belong to.

Mass marketers such as Best Buy and Microsoft capitalize on their ubiquity. They have successfully infiltrated our homes and our spending habits and in doing so, now enjoy massive revenue.

On the other hand, direct marketers focus on a capturing a specific niche, getting terrific response rates and only then will they venture into expanding reach. They don’t need to be in every home, but they need to count in each home they actually get introduced to.

Godin says, “The key distinction is when you know it’s going to work. The mass marketer doesn’t know until the end. The direct marketer knows in the beginning.”

These things considered, Ionic Media prides itself in being prolific direct marketers – with a huge emphasis on testing creative thoughts on a well-researched niche, followed through with the ability to analyze results. Only then do we expand into a bigger reach with data at hand and calculated, educated risks. This is not to say we are unable to go big and handle ubiquity. With big brands such as B+L and Disney under our belt, we need to think like mass marketers as well. But we do so intelligently and profitably. It doesn’t always work. But it usually does. And when it doesn’t, we figure out why and do better on the next go.

Bottom line is, we care enough to do the work upfront to reap the benefits of being right (or wrong) in the end. We understand that the best mass marketers, it seems, start off as excellent direct marketers.

Ameetess Dira
Account Director

So, you have an advertising budget for your product and have done all the research to figure out where to run your advertisements, how to disburse between Search, Display, etc.  Now how do you make these ads convert?

The Advertisement:

1. Text and Tone:  Create a strong CALL TO ACTION (this is the #1 most important detail).
   1. Use strong call to action phrases and words.  Examples include:
      1. i.      Free “ex. Get your free copy by clicking here…”
      2. ii.      __% off  “ex. Get 25% off your online purchase…”
      3. iii.      Make the offer time sensitive…”for a limited time only…”
      4. iv.      List cost – example – only $19.99 in bolded text and eye catching color.
      5. v.      New, Premium, etc.
      6. Graphics:
         1. Use graphics that catch the users eye.  Keep in mind that your advertisement is competing for the user’s eye.  If it is text heavy and not appealing to the eye it will be overlooked.
         2. Make sure ads load quickly.
         3. Keep the ad simple to read (i.e. average sized text), no shaky banners (most sites will not accept these and you may not want to be responsible for an epileptic seizure…seriously they become annoying more than anything else and don’t convert into a true sale.)
         4. Adding the touch of human faces to an advertisement also helps the user ‘connect’ with the offer on a personal level.  Remember – many people out there on the web are visual and the competition is fierce to capture their attention and lead them into action.

The Sales Process:

1. You have a click…now what?
   1. The same practice should be applied to your landing page and purchase process as it is to your advertisement.  The key points to focus on are:
      1. i.      Reiterating your offer.  The landing page content/offer should match the advertisement.  If it doesn’t, your messaging will not be clear and the user may think he/she  has landed on the wrong site or that the offer was bogus.
      2. ii.      Strong CALL TO ACTION! Keep that call to action in every step.  What does the user need to do?  Keep it simple, snappy and easy to do.
      3. iii.      Keep the collection of data fields above the fold of each page.  This reduces drop-off rates.  The easier you can make a process for a user the more likely they are to complete the process and not drop off.
      4. iv.      Short transaction process (shorten the amount of pages a user needs to go through in order to hit that oh so important ‘submit‘ button.
      5. v.      Provide a safe transaction zone for the consumer. (i.e. secured shopping).  If you intend to use any  user information for future promotions you need to be up front and let them opt in to this.  Transparency gains trust and hopefully this consumer will not be a one-time shopper but become a loyal customer, fan on Facebook, etc.

Andrea Cravitz
Client Account Manager
Ionic Media

I recently ran into a situation where another company staked a claim: We increased total sales by 600%! And this type of claim is not unique – I may actually venture to say that it’s the most common type of spin out there today.

Increasing your daily conversions from 1 to 6 is a 600% increase after all. But most people are looking for bigger, greasier pieces of the pie.

The savvy marketer is always on the lookout for said claims because we know that it really depends on the scale of the campaign. Whenever confronted with this type of scenario ask for the hard data. Would you prefer to grow your smallest channel from 1 to 6 sales/week, resulting in 600% growth, or your largest channel by a mere 10%, from 10,000 to 11,000 sales/day? Go one step further and assign an actually revenue variable to that, and it turns into something even more tangible (like that cute little sailboat you’ve had your eye on).

So next time your marketing manager tells you about xx% growth, don’t be afraid to ask to peak around the curtain and get the hard data. It’s all relative in the end.

Dee Dee Paeseler
Client Account Manager
Ionic Media