Promotions 2.0Blurring the line between interactive advertising, promotions and social network marketing.

April 9th, 2009

Moving from Clicks to Conversions

For over a decade, Website publishers have relied on an old advertising model: Publishers provided advertisers access to online viewers, and the more desirable those viewers, the more online publisher charged for banner impressions. Like the early days of television this model worked (for a while), but as advertising clutter increased and consumers began to see banners as noise click-through rates have dropped to an all time low.

Marketers are now shifting their focus from a one dimensional awareness approach to  integrated marketing strategies that leverage the engagement cycle to move consumers from awareness to conversion.

Unlike the sales funnel. Engagement is better thought of as a cycle, a series of touchpoints designed to create engagement with a brand in order to drive a purchase, each time in a meaningful and valuable way to both brand and consumer.

In the world of interactive promotions the engagement cycle is driven by three primary stages: awareness, activation, and conversion (or purchase). Throughout the cycle, marketers must measure in order to add value throughout the cycle.

Promotions play a prominent role in the engagement cycle and in integrated marketing campaigns because they excel at moving consumers from one touchpoint to the next, and they offer ample opportunity for direct measurement and learning. Promotions are also powerful tools for furthering key brand marketing goals: identify customers, segment customers, learn about the segments, and target relevant offers.

What’s new about an online engagement cycle? What distinguishes it from traditional advertising or promotion? Two key elements: it can create true two-way conversations on a mass scale and it can provide real value to both parties.

The Internet makes real one-to-one engagement possible, and while the focal point of integrated marketing is often an offline purchase, an online extension moves the conversation beyond the retail experience.

AWARENESS

The first task of any marketing program is to make the consumer aware of its existence. Promotions are designed to grab attention. One of the recurring themes in marketing today is breaking through the clutter. Where advertising drives brand awareness and emotions, promotions are more action driven, and therefore better at driving engagement & response.

Increasingly, we use the metrics of promotions to measure their effectiveness. In a recent survey 73% of online consumers said they were more likely to open an email if they knew a promotion or discount was being offered. In order to drive the engagement cycle, consumers must choose to participate—soft “impressions” don’t count— therefore promotions that target significant actions are important.

ACTIVATION

The fundamental element of activating consumers is a demonstration of the value in the proposed interaction. A value exchange. Do this, get that.

Money is easy, straightforward, and effective - especially in a down economy - but there are other valuable currencies that can work equally well when used correctly. Rewards points, sweepstakes and contests, can all go a long way. Today we’re seeing the creation of entirely virtual forms of value; in social networks like Facebook, virtual objects represent value to many participants.

The ability to increase the relevancy of an offer to an individual consumer, thus increasing its perceived value to that individual, is also getting a lot of attention. It becomes particularly critical for promotions because relevancy is directly connected to perceived value. Also, the sooner value is demonstrated after creating awareness, the more efficient the tactic, and so everything about how you present a promotion to the consumer is important; how it looks, the words you use—the entire user experience counts. Even more important in the Web 2.0 world is creating promotion ideas that give consumers a reason to share the promotion with others.

ENGAGEMENT

Online engagement is an area where promotions really excel. A promotion may touch 100,000 consumers, helping to start all those little conversations, but it is also just the beginning of the conversation. When you run the right promotion to engage consumers you can begin to understand your audience. Target offers that they will respond too. And move them from consumers to customers.

By shifting your interactive marketing focus from clicks to conversions you can begin to provide context and learning around each engagement, and in doing so, get better results from your marketing.