Two examples I like of using creative and topical themes in online marketing, the first a clever email campaign from Boden, the second a risque Google adwords ad from Ann Summers linking in with the leaders’ debate last week.
I don’t know if Boden and Ann Summers do their email marketing and PPC management in-house or through an agency; they’re either good examples of creative in-house marketers with a great understanding of the brand and customers, or a very well-managed agency relationship.
I was talking to the owner of Sunspel, a website selling luxury menswear both online and offline, who came out with the statement “Adwords is not cost effective for us” (not for product-related keywords, only for brand-related keywords).
My main experience with Adwords was for Viners.co.uk where my adwords campaigns generated 50% of sales at a cost per conversion of around 10% of the average order value – so very cost effective, in fact the most cost effective marketing channel in that particular case.
Of course an adwords campaign will not be particularly cost effective if the keywords chosen are not relevant, if ads are poorly written, and landing pages are poor. But the point made by Sunspel was that there were too many competitors bidding on keywords like “T Shirt” or “mens clothes”, and with so much competition it’s difficult to push a luxury message vs. a price-based message.
To some extent I had it easy running campaigns for a site selling mostly cutlery, where the majority of traffic came for a handful of “cutlery”-related keywords. And there are fewer Adwords competitors in the world of cutlery than T shirts. But to a much bigger extent Adwords was cost effective due to constant optimization; stopping keywords and ads which were not cost effective, refining keywords and ads which were more cost effective; constantly looking for trends and opportunities in the long tail of search terms.
I’ve encountered various companies where having an ecommerce website was seen as a threat to other channels in the business – either conflicting with other retail channels (“you’re stealing my customers!”) or conflicting with wholesale channels (“why should I buy from you when you’re selling direct?”).
Perhaps people who are used to meetings and sales rep visits are suspicious of a world where you don’t need to have ever met your developers and agencies, where you can supply a product data feed to a customer rather than send a sales rep with a suitcase full of samples, where customers can receive an instant quote using bulk prices and customer-specific pricing…
Here are some tips, learnt the hard way.
Make retail channels work together, not against each other:
Maximise incremental online sales by having a ecommerce strategy that encompasses your own website(s) and online marketing, and other websites selling your products:
Involve other departments in online development & merchandising:
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