Internet marketing and keyword search - why branding should make
a difference but isn't
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 s p e l l i n g 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.