Tag Archive for 'Online Marketing'

How Online Marketers Adjust in Tough Economic Times

Published
by
Eric Dudley
on October 13, 2008
in Customer Acquisition, Customer Retention, Email Marketing, Online Marketing, Paid Search, SEO, Search Marketing and Social Media
. 1 Comment
The plunge of the stock market last week is certainly a reflection of the weakening economy and dare I finally say recession.  Few of us are unaffected that have investments in the market, however, it was encouraging to see the Dow’s 11% rebound today!  Frankly, I am still in shock over Wachovia’s failure and acquisition by Wells Fargo in a week’s time.

With the market turmoil and economic factors that we don’t control placing pressure on marketing, what are smart marketers doing? I recall a Bain study, that said in a downturn:

Savvy management teams look beyond cost cutting and seek out opportunities to grow the top line and improve their strategic position

As strategic online marketers, we are helping our client focus on driving measurable results that can be monetized and scaled for the upturn.  Equally important is strengthening the bonds of loyalty with your team, customers, and key partners.

Interestingly, in the first quarter of this year, Forrester and MarketingProfs survey of Online Markters found that in a recession the top 5 marketing channels that they would increase in investment include:

  1. Social Networking
  2. User Generated Content
  3. Email Marketing
  4. Blogging
  5. Search Marketing

Online Marketing Adjustments in a Recession

In a very recent less scientific poll from Top Rank Online Marketing when asked of online marketers ”what top 3 Internet tactics will you emphasize most in the next 6 month“, the top 5 online marketing tactics were:

  1. Search engine optimization
  2. Blogging
  3. Pay per click
  4. Email marketing
  5. Social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn)

What marketing channels are you increasing or shifting in this economy?  And does it surprise you to see search engine optimization, Social Networking and Blogging as high on the list?  Let me know your thoughts.

Papa John’s CEO Nigel Travis Shares Online Marketing Success

Published
by
Eric Dudley
on September 24, 2008
in Branding, Customer Acquisition, Customer Retention, Email Marketing, Online Marketing, Search Marketing and Website Analytics
. 0 Comments

Papa Johns CEO Nigel Travis Shares Online Marketing SuccessFounded 24 years ago by John Schnatter, Papa John’s with 3,270 restaurants world-wide in 28 countries surpassed $1 billion in online sales through its online ordering site, papajohns.com.  Nigel Travis shared his story with us at the ExactTarget Connections conference.

They are currently addressing these business challenges:

  • Commodity inflation
  • Labor costs
  • Rising fuel costs
  • Credit crunch
  • Consumer woes
  • Wall street bailout

Here’s what they’re doing to address using technology and software:

  • Driving top-line revenue
  • Subsidize franchisees
  • In store productivity improvements
  • Unit growth to achieve more scale
  • Food service productivity opportunities
  • Corporate cost containment

Role of Online:

  • Attracts different and new segments
  • Drives great convenience to customers - 55% of customers store their credit card online
  • Higher ticket average & frequency - industry average frequency is 4 times per year, Nigel wouldn’t share their current frequency
  • Self selected price increase
  • Stickability

Papa Johns CEO Nigel Travis Shares Online Marketing SuccessHere’s what they’ve found:

  • iPhone is by far and away the most used mobile device used to order pizza.
  • Online is more than 20% of total sales and they did $400M in online sales in ‘07.
  • Online orders have increased 50% each year since 2001 and have processed more than 60K orders in 1 day!
  • 50% of customers have ordered online at least once.

Online tools used today include:

  • Local Search and Banner Advertising
  • Email marketing

Key to their success: Helping the “uninitiated”

  • Simplicity and reduce the steps
  • Pressure testing -
  • Check the obvious - miles from home, instead of miles from store
  • Email frequency is key - their rule is no more than 2 emails a week.

The future of eCommerce for Papa John’s include:

  • Interactive TV
  • Gaming consoles
  • Andy device with connectivity, because if you can communicate with it you’ll be able to order with it

Nigel offered a free Papa John’s offer:  ”Just text pizza to 47272 and you’ll get a promo code from Papa John’s” for a free 1 topping medium pizza.  ENJOY!  If you take just text the promo, please comment below.

Facebook Marketing Strategies, Food for Thought

Published
by
Tom Dressler
on July 30, 2008
in Branding, Customer Acquisition, Customer Retention, Lead Generation, Online Marketing and Social Media
. 0 Comments

Facebook Marketing Strategies, Food for ThoughtWe as Interactive Marketing professionals, consumer market research professionals, and eBusiness & channel strategy professionals look for solutions that meet the needs of today’s online environment. When posed with this question, Facebook comes up over and over again. So what should we do about it?

As described by Forrester,

Facebook is a media, community, and application platform that offers an existing thriving ecosystem, scalable growth, and quick word-of-mouth marketing. The ability to understand users, their preferences, networks, and helps web applications to quickly segment and rapidly grow.

WebsiteBiz FacebookWow, what does that mean? First off, as a community the opportunity to study your prospects are huge. Are they engaged on Facebook and/or Social Media as creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, or inactives? I find this information to be surprising at times. If your market is using Facebook it provides a targeted advertising platform unlike any we have ever seen before, the ability to provide messages segmented by location, gender, and/or preference gives us the ability to accurately market effectively.

Ideas to be considered when evaluating Facebook Marketing

  • Demographics and trend data
  • Word of mouth and viral growth using Newsfeeds and widgets
  • Groups, sponsored groups, and other community features
  • Harness personal and network information
  • Contextual and targeted advertising opportunities
  • Monetizing your efforts
  • Case studies of success and failure
  • Understanding costs, and strategies to measure ROI

While this can seem intimidating at first, proven strategies do in fact deliver positive results. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.

Please provide your thoughts and impressions of Facebook Marketing.

Measuring Results Online - What should you track?

Published
by
Kyle Bumgardner
on February 28, 2008
in Branding, Customer Acquisition and Website Analytics
. 0 Comments

Unfortunately, I still see marketers struggling to communicate the value of online marketing and how it drives bottom-line results. Much of this is caused by a lack of standard metrics by which to measure results online and report impact…especially when a direct response conversion is not clearly evident.

Most CEO’s and CFO’s are focused on driving efficiency and scale to achieve revenue growth. But when it comes to marketing, they need to be able to make a connection between the work ($) that is being done and the revenue that will be produce as a result.

Bottom line.

With studies suggesting that merely 2/3 of all marketers include metrics in their marketing plans…a need for more standard measurement is necessary for measuring results online. So, what do you track? The ultimate answer is Everything…but realistically, try focusing on things that will move the needle and provide leading indicators of revenue. (Stuff that C-Levels discuss).

Here are 10 tactical examples that you might not be considering when establishing metrics for measuring results online:

  1. Brand impact (i.e., increased brand awareness, intent or favorability)
  2. Number of impressions
  3. Position of paid listing
  4. Number of clicks
  5. Ratio of new to returning visitors
  6. Amount of increased website traffic
  7. Duration of website visits
  8. Amount of increased traffic to physical store
  9. Amount of increased volume to call center
  10. Number of leads generated for products sold online
  11. Number of leads generated for products sold offline
  12. Number of immediate sales generated for products sold online

Collecting this data will create trends and insight that will translate across most organizations.