Canada’s Web Shop

Mike Sachoff from WebProNews posted an interesting article last Thursday about people who shop for cruises online.  The article states that despite the convenience of online ticket purchasing, total online sales for cruises totalled only 944 Million.  This number represents a fractional 7 percent of the total cruise revenue from ticket sales as a result of buyers wanting to speak to a “Real Person” about the cruise they’re considering.

The CEO of Priceline says that questions like “What restaurants are available on the cruise ship?” and “Will I have to wear a tie to a dinner?” are common.  Even with customer reviews and very detailed cruise descriptions available, in the end, people still want to be reassured that they’re going on a good cruise by a living, breathing, human being. 

From the looks of it, the more moving parts to a product and the higher the selling price, the more likely a potential customer is to pick up the phone and call to gain reassurance.  Would you agree? 

This is one of the reasons why we stress having a 1-800 toll-free number to all of our clients.

Tracking

1-800 Numbers can be tracked.  This makes them instrumental in tracking how many people call in as a result of your online efforts.  Not everyone is as inclined to fill out a request for information or send an email to await a reply.  In “online time”, waiting for a reply via email can feel like an eternity. 

Reassurance

In researching larger purchases, I myself have removed candidates from a short-list because they didn’t have any easy way to contact them should the need arise.  Having that 1-800 number available gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. 

Support

Often, getting a client on the phone and talking with them requires less time that composing several emails that go back and forth between you and your client.  What could have been dealt with in a single 5 minute phone call cost you over an hour composing and replying to emails.

1-800 Numbers have been around for a long time and for good reason:  They Work.  We use one for our website and one for our Yellow Pages ad so we know where our calls are originating from.  For the most part, all of our clients with toll-free numbers have had positive experiences with them. 

 Do you use a toll-free number for your business?  I’d be interested in sharing your experiences or tips here on my blog. 

Today’s larger, progressive companies are investing millions of dollars into discovering how to deliver their message effectively to consumers via the Internet. For smaller businesses with smaller budgets, the dollars that larger corporations sink into bolder internet marketing campaigns are like free internet marketing lessons without risk or expense.

While your company may not be as large as those mentioned in this article, the following scalable examples illustrate how moving even a small portion of your marketing budget over to Internet Marketing can translate into noticeable returns for your company.

BMW Takes Hollywood Online

6.5 years ago on bmwfilms.com BMW released and distributed a stunt-filled, action mini-film series called “The Hire” starring actor Clive Owen (Sin City and The Bourne Identity). Guided by such directors as John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Hulk, Brokeback Mountain), Wong Kar-Wai, Guy Ritchie, Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Woo (Mission Impossible II), and Joe Carnahan, this was unquestionably a big-budget Hollywood style production.

The 8-part series, each directed by a different director, won numerous awards and received accolades from the New York Times and Time Magazine. The result: over 100 Million film views translating into approximately 1.9 million film views per month over its 4.5 year run which ended in October of 2005. Though the series is no longer available for download, various websites still sell the DVD 6.5 years after it first debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.

View BMW Films on YouTube

If these films released via non-traditional media such as television, the statistics would have been less accurate and much more time-consuming and expensive to track. Imagine if those films made just 1% or 1 Million of those viewers curious enough to visit a BMW showroom. If even 1% of those 1 Million leads purchased a vehicle at an average vehicle cost (est.) of $50,000.00 USD that translates into $500 million USD of additional sales over 4.5 years; just over $111 Million a year of additional revenue.

Sure, few companies have the budget that BMW has but try scaling it all down and finding a unique way to present your own products online that will excite your target market and leave your competition in the dust. The lesson here is thinking outside the box.

GMC Uses Traditional Media to Support Online Campaign

For the last 3 years, GMC has been working with creative company Digitas – the National Football League (NFL), and the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) – to power an online interactive campaign for GMC.com. Mary Kubitskey, national advertising manager for GMC had this to say about the decision to move advertising dollars online: “Any day I’ll trade traditional media money for something nontraditional. Digitas did a great job in putting together a promotion, and we feed the promotion with traditional media.” The campaign is a direct result of the company moving a larger percentage of its advertising dollars online.

She also added, “As with all our traditional marketing advertising, we’re trying to go more digital. It’s not a surprise that 30-second ads aren’t working like they used to, and this gave us an opportunity to interact with NFL fans and football. I spend too many hundreds of millions of dollars in traditional media and broadcast 30-second spots and it’s getting hard to see that money work for us. So we’re engaging Digitas to keep trying to bring us what’s new.”

Bigger companies are starting to realize that traditional media doesn’t have the same bite as it used to so they’re thinking of ways to use traditional means in conjunction with newer online strategies to advertise effectively. Think of ways you can use your existing locations or marketing mediums to augment or enhance a web marketing campaign.

Benefits of Internet Marketing: What’s In It for Your Business?

BMW chose to deliver its message via a very aggressive, multi-million dollar web campaign and got the attention of the media, potential buyers and non-buyers alike. GMC, instead of funneling marketing dollars into traditional media advertising has decided to use traditional media to feed an online advertising campaign. It may seem like bigger corporations have the upper hand but when you really break it all down, whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, the benefits of moving towards internet marketing are the same.

Measurable – Track visitation stats, conversions, paths through a website and more so you know where to channel your advertising dollars and where you shouldn’t.

Affordable – Internet Marketing is on average less expensive than traditional media, potentially saving your company money.

Wide Reach – Geographically, you can access local, national, or even global markets to expand your potential revenue exponentially for a fraction of the cost of using traditional media to accomplish the same task.

Geographic and Demographic Targeting – Certain types of campaigns allow you to target consumers by age, income levels, education, location and many other factors increasing the effectiveness of your campaigns and website.

Interactive – Allows quick and easy communication between advertiser and visitor via filling out online forms, email, or even live chat that further increase the chance of a sale or conversion. Visitors receive information on demand.

Compare that with traditional “show-and-tell” one-way media such as print, radio, magazine, and television and internet marketing suddenly becomes a very attractive way to get in front of a changing market. As more and more people begin to embrace the web as a rich source of information and entertainment, the importance of achieving an effective online presence and delivering your unique message over this new, digital medium is climbing its way to the top of the priority list.

Your customers are changing their thinking and your competition is starting to adapt. Is your business ready for the revolution?

Official BMW Press Release. “The Hire – The Acclaimed Film Series By BMW – Will End A Four And A Half Year Internet Run October 21st” October 11, 2005. Accessed on: October 05, 2007. http://www.bmwusa.com/bmwexperience/filmspr.htm

Clickz.com News. “GMC Launches NFL Site in Move Away from Traditional Media Buys”, Oct 05, 2007, Matthew G. Nelson. Accessed on: Oct 5, 2007 http://www.clickz.com/3627219

Something I hear often, in fact, I heard it again last week from a potential client (who will remain anonymous, names have been changed to protect the innocent yadda yadda yadda) is that their website isn’t “doing anything” for them.  Naturally, my next question would be, “Well, what do you want it to do for you?”

A website must have a reason, a purpose for being.  Without one, it just becomes something that floats in cyberspace hoping…praying that a visitor will happen along by fluke.  Unfortunately, the internet doesn’t work that way.  If you have a website that doesn’t serve any purpose other than an informational source, then how do you know that your investment was a sound one? 

There’s this little thing in the Marketing world called a “conversion”.  A conversion means that a customer has decided to take action on your message in a way that is desirable to you.  This could be a sale, a sign up for a newsletter, or any number of different actions available on your website.  A thousand visitors to your website, heck, even a million, won’t do you any good unless they actually engage and subsequently convert.

A book seller for example might put out a newsletter with a particular product highlighted and put on a discount only for the subscribers of the newsletter.  Let’s say they send out 3000 emails.  Now, let’s say that 2% or 60 people decided to click on the ad in the email.  That’s 60 people who have come to the website looking for a specific product that was highlighted in the newsletter so instantly you already have 60 visitors to your website that day.   The page they land on now takes the torch and runs with it to try and sell as many of those 60 visitors as possible. 

The point of this example was to illustrate how a website can “do” something for you.  If the same company did a mail blast with no conversion goals such as a sale, newsletter sign up, or lead, then they would essentially be throwing their money away.  Why?  Because they’ve diverted 60 visitors to a website which does nothing but…well…show and tell.  Go back a little further to the email itself and if there was no promo, why would a person reading it even bother to click on a link that says “Click here to visit our website”  Why?  What benefit would it bring me?  There wouldn’t be 60 people clicking on such a pointless link. 

Think of ways that your website could generate return for you.  You can model it after your offline business if you have one.  If you’re a footwear company, your goals could be shoe sales, shoe accessory add-on sales, and newsletter sign-ups.  If you’re a book seller and you sell books online, your goals here could be book sales and newsletter sign ups. 

Virtually any popular business model that exists can be duplicated or simulated on the web to double, even triple your sales volume.  Don’t underestimate the power of the web.  It works even when you’re asleep.  With a website that ”does nothing” for your business, it’s like paying an employee to sleep on the job. 

For more information on how conversion points on your website, check out my article called “Growing Websites Need Measurable Goals”

http://www.thewebshop.ca/story;story,2;Growing-Websites-Need-Measurable-Goals 

Until next time,

Michael Dela Cruz, Internet Marketing Specialist
Canada’s Web Shop
http://www.thewebshop.ca

I decided to create The Internet Marketing Journal as a way to chronicle important events, articles, and other Internet Marketing related material in one centralized place. I do this with the hope that business owners will realize that the web has changed considerably in the past few years alone and “giving this web thing a shot” doesn’t cut it anymore in today’s business world.

I’ll document here my experiences with clients, conversations in the office about Internet Marketing, articles I’ve found of interest or that may help you with your own efforts, and virtually anything that has to do with the world of Internet Marketing.

I hope you’ll have as much fun reading this blog as I have had writing it.

Cheers,

Michael