Printer-friendly version
Advertise Online or Offline? Yes, is the Answer
Franchising World July 2008
Testing your advertising outreach will provide answers to the right combination. By Doug McCrea Today, there is a vast amount of statistics available online that provide us with information supporting the increases in online sales, use of the Internet for researching a sale and so forth. For example, 84 percent of online Americans have used search engines, and on any given day 56 percent of people online are using them, cites a Pew Internet & American Life Project of 2005.
Advertising changed, adapted
1. Understand Your Numbers
2. Collect Information
3. Use Experienced Professionals 4. Use Online Media to Test Your Ideas
5. Test Combinations of Online and Offline Media
6. Measure Your Program Variables
7. Make Sure You Have the Tools to Measure Your Tests
Doug McCrea is the president of AcquireLocal. He can be reached at 410-296-1425 or dmmcrea@acquirelocal.com.
According to a Nielsen/NetRatings report in 2007, Americans compose 18 percent of the global population using the Internet—some 210 million.
Supporting this increase, the U.S.Census Bureau reported early this year that total e-commerce sales for 2007 exceeded $136 billion, an increase of 19 percent over the previous year and retail sales increased 4 percent during the same period. E-commerce sales at the same time rose one half of one percent to 3.4 percent.
Over the past 15 or so years, the Internet has drastically changed the global communications lexicon, adding words and terms that once seemed strange but today are common in conversations, such as blog, bandwidth, cookie, span and cyberspace.
Not only has the Internet changed how we approach our businesses, but in particular it has altered advertising, mainly because consumers have changed their behaviors.
et, the objective today is the same as it was prior to the 1990s and the Internet: to get sales. Now with the capability of the Internet and the tools that are available, not just large companies can benefit from good marketing and advertising. The Internet has given franchisors and franchisees the ability to do what only the biggest companies could do before its existence.
We can test virtually all forms of online media, creative approaches and offers very inexpensively compared to pre-Internet days. We now have the ability to set up Web sites and micro-sites to test how consumers will respond to various advertising approaches.
And, we can use e-mail, search engines, banners, and other online advertising methods to drive prospects to Web sites or landing pages at much lower costs.
Best of all, these efforts can be measured easily and accurately. Online advertising is a tool available for use in a manner similar to or better than offline media and advertising approaches.
When measuring sales costs, average sales, life-time value, and all of the other important variables in building cost-effective marketing programs, franchise systems should evaluate as many different configurations of media and creative applications, and test as much as possible. The Internet allows this to be easily and effectively accomplished. By testing programs, franchise companies may find that the online and offline combination works better than online only.
An example of the importance of evaluating and measuring which method best suits a business, is the case of a well-known DSL provider who conducted a test using an e-mail acquisition approach to obtain new customers. In measuring online results, only the program proved to be a complete failure; however, when measuring the sales that were driven in by the e-mail program overall, through in-store, phone and other sales channels, the e-mail program was successful and reduced sales costs significantly.
The key to success is to be able to measure the true effectiveness of the total program. We have all been stuck in the coupon redemption, open, clicks, inbound phone call, and response-card measuring arena for so long that we haven’t truly examined how a specific program has affected other response channels. Internet marketing enables franchises to accomplish this.
With e-mail programs, a company can set up control groups and compare them against “marketed-to” groups to determine the real effectiveness of your program. You can set up “A/B splits,” which is an approach separating variables within a program for evaluation purposes such as price, creative or offers, with landing pages or micro-sites, and use online and offline methods to drive in prospects and sales to those test panels. This can provide a very specific view of how you should approach your market. It will also help you understand which specific media, creative approaches and offers are working for your company. You can use the approaches in one medium and apply them to another medium as well.
As a franchise business, if you’re wondering what you should do to leverage the Internet for advertising, following are some tips for using online and offline media to build your business.
What is the true (life time) value of a customer? What is a reasonable acquisition cost of a new customer? If you have an average sale of $1,000, don’t expect to get a new customer for $1. Another way to view acquisition costs is to consider that if the value of a new customer is worth $10,000 over their lifetime, then how much would it be reasonable to spend to obtain that customer? It’s important to understand your “real” average sale.
Gather as much information about your customers and prospects as possible. Even if someone does not buy from your franchise, attempt to get their contact information. You will be surprised how easy it is. Remember, the person you are communicating with is interested in what you have to offer, either now or later.
This may be more expensive than you’d like, but it pays in the long run.
If you have collected e-mail addresses, then you have the ability to test your ideas inexpensively. Use an inexpensive customer relationship management or e-mail deployment service or set up A/B splits to your Web site or landing pages.
Set out to accomplish this with a postal mail and e-mail combined approach, and drive them using mass-media programs to a Web site or landing page. Don’t be afraid to receive interested prospects actually calling from your online marketing approaches.
Franchise systems that are just starting a marketing program should test the most influential variables first, such as media-channel offers such as different lists, sites, lead sources, and then employ creative methods. Once you determine what is working, then conduct more precise testing, such as text and artwork changes.
Code the tests separately, use couponing, track the phone calls, and query your walk-in customers, among others.
