|
Click Here
for more Articles
|
|
|
|
Branding,
Internet Marketing and Keyword Search
|
|
by:
Angelique van Engelen
|
Online
marketers are busy mapping that magical space where the overlap between
real life and the internet is at its most poignant. Where else would
they be looking than where real people are actually spelling out
what they are planning to buy - searches on the web?
Every online marketer does it. Buying keywords like crazy. But that is
just about how much you hear when you try to focus on this area of
internet marketing. It's a wild goose chase and it's unlikely a method
will materialize in any recognizable form until the dust has settled.
If it ever will.
The keyword business is about the most competitive business transacted
over the web, so -as with most of the information on web related
business- it's unlikely you will come across any lengthy piece with a
comprehensive overview of what's going on where.
It's somewhat ironic that it's live and learn because in theory, the
marketing community should be in its walhalla with the arrival of the
internet. Hasn't it been the marketing dream for centuries to get to
the stage where a potential customer takes an action? At the end of a
marketing ploy, in offline terms it's called the hit, the transaction,
the sale, closing the deal.
The specifics of keyword buying may be intransparent, but slowly more
information is being gathered about the process of online buying. It is
striking that this is not exactly a reversal, from the offline process,
but slightly. From the beginning onward, the marketer can count on a
lot more commitment from his potential customer simply because
targeting is so much more specific if the process kicks off with the
customer's action.
Keyword marketing is much more powerful compared to the offline
marketing techniques, simply because it is the customer's actions that
set off the spiral.
To forego the keyword search as a marketer means you miss out one vital
element in the communication cycle your client goes through before
purchasing a product. Inefficient marketing was mainly the issue
leading to the demise of the dotcom sector earlier on and, having
learnt their lesson the hard way, marketers are now finding out more
about what customers really want before launching campaigns. From the
customer's own words. Sounds great in theory. In practice, the
landscape is bewildering to say the least.
Having the rights to certain keywords means you are dominating the
results that search engines will present to people who type in those
words. What is so great about this is that unlike in the real world,
online marketers have way more insight into what makes people buy.
Because they have access to what actions customers take even before
they would be onto them had they been in the offline world.
Mountains of gold on the horizon. But the sector is still showing a lot
of vulnerability and online marketing is in dire need of improvement
simply because the phenomenon is so new. The big advantage to customers
is that people can find what they are looking for faster and more
efficiently than on any other medium. But still the gap between what
customers are specifically looking on the web for and what they are
offered is considerable.
Customers are too often puzzled, searching a product on the web and
finding lists of items with brands totally alien to them. If an online
campaign is not backed by offline action, its chance of survival will
drop dramatically. Many product campaigns are faltering because adverts
are simply being thrown in a surfer's face in irrelevant contexts, they
are annoying or ill timed.
ONE big area where online marketers are not taking enough heed of the
expertise of their offline peers and where they might lose the battle,
is branding. Too much direct mail-type marketing means that credible,
trustworthy branding is unlikely to occur. Type in a generic search
term for a product and find yourself amazed at the outcome. Reading the
results, you'd think you'd landed on Mars.
Branding the old fashioned way is a lot more time consuming than any
internet marketer will naturally be inclined to think. Branding is an
exercise of timing, planning, researching and optimised launches. It
takes time before people are used to new products. Psychological
studies confirm time and again that we buy what we think is safe,
comfy, familiar, nice, soft, handy, easy, whatever the word to indicate
a certain comfort zone that creates an entry for marketers. It's a
known fact that you first need to see a product about umpteen times
before it has become a part of your reference frame. If you don't
believe this, move to a foreign country, visit a supermarket and try
not to feel totally lost. It's impossible.
Only if we are familiar with a product brand, we think that purchasing
it will better us. If we don't have at least a vague positive idea when
we purchase a product, no brand building has been done or not enough or
it has not connected with us.
Although branding of products offered online is something quite new, it
is quite amazing that outright stupid mistakes are made here. Where
online marketers are often wrong is where they are measuring search
engine advertising the way they would direct marketing. True, much of
search engine advertising resembles direct marketing, but realistic
measurement of people's attitude towards the products advertised,
should include more than only whether or not they buy it. Brand
measurement takes place when all the responses are analysed, even why a
product is not purchased or not immediately or not at a specific
platform.
In forgetting to measure any customer behavior outside the conversion
rate, they completely forego the power of branding. They don't realize
how much greater click through and conversion rates would be if their
brands were recognized and trusted by that same audience.
Here is an example of just how effective a campaign can be when
branding's taken seriously. The marketers have got it so right, that
their campaigns themselves have become an overnight brand known for
controversy. Called Gatoring, after the company that made the software
enabling it, this advertising has come under scrutiny of the courts.
What people are upset with is that popup ads are thrown on competitors'
sites. If are looking for a particular brand of car for instance, a
popup of a competing brand would pop up. Despite its dubiousness,
gatoring shows just how effective online marketing can be - when
marketers do their homework.
About the Author
Angelique van Engelen is a writer at
www.contentclix.com, a Netherlands based content writing agency. Email
her at AngeliquevanEngelen@contentclix.com
|
|
