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Direct Link is Not Allowed

What’s Direct Link?

For example, you think your friend may be interested in one of our offers, you give the click url to him/her, he/she copy and paste the link into his/her browser, then your friend visits the advertiser’s website and signup or buy something.

This is Not Allowed for our Campaigns. You must put our banners on your website then tell your friend to visit your website. Or you must send an email to your friend to introduce the offer.

More Proof That Email Rules!

Why Now is the Time to Step Up Lead Efforts

With consumers tightening their purse strings, it’s more important than ever for marketers to reach out to potential customers with relevant offers they can’t refuse.

By Jere Doyle

Debate continues in the media as to the fate of the US economy:  Are we in a recession, or merely flirting with one?

For brand marketers, it turns out, the effect is the same.  Consumers, made wary by gas prices over $4.00 a gallon, the mortgage mess and less-than-stellar employment forecasts, have tightened their purse strings.  And when consumers spend less, marketing - traditionally a company’s first budget-cutting line of defense - is in trouble.

Yet there is much evidence, scholarly and anecdotal, that points to the wisdom of maintaining marketing spend during a recession.  In fact, a recession is an ideal time to take advantage of consumers’ comfort with familiar brands by creating web-based interactive, direct-response campaigns that offer special promotions and savings.

Why web-based?  A recent report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project reveals that 81 percent of internet users research products online - for convenience (78 percent), time savings (68 percent) and the ability to find bargains (ranging from 38 percent of 50- to 64-year-olds to 62 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds).

Tough economic times not only lead consumers to do online research, they lead to more time spent researching and comparing brands and prices.  A recent Prospectiv survey, which discovered that 84 percent of those polled had changed their shopping habits due to concerns about recession, gives further clues to consumer behavior in this economic downturn:

• 66 percent are logging more hours online researching and comparing brands and prices
• 74 percent would welcome more online offers, coupons and e-newsletters from their favorite brands and products
• 60 percent are more likely to sign up/join a website or online community that offers recipes, healthy meal ideas, cooking tips and savings they can use at home

As consumers under financial pressure ponder a switch from favored brands to generics, brand marketers must seek out ways to engage consumers online, using direct-response interactive marketing to reinforce the value of brand.

We strongly believe that marketers should consider countering the effects of the downturn by stepping up programs that build strong relationships with consumers who have exhibited interest in your goods and services.  Take the opportunity to add to your in-house opt-in email newsletter list and reach out with these tips:

• Consumers are eager for special promotions and savings during tough economic periods - now is the time to consider a brand-building campaign.
• Consider campaigns designed to generate leads as well as near-term sales.  Whether you have a brick-and-mortar store or website, use a well-timed, anti-recession campaign to drive traffic.
• Provide information that’s clear, relevant and easy to find online.  The Pew study found that 43 percent of searchers were frustrated by a lack of information, or the difficulty of finding information about brands they were interested in.  Another 32 percent were confused by the information they were able to locate.
• Be selective in your programs.  Market only to consumers you identify who have an interest in your product/brand and have requested your offers and promotions.
• Be aware that some 70 percent of internet users are still concerned about giving out personal information or credit card information online.  Treat your customers with care - many of them are wary.
• Monitor campaigns closely for performance and redirect your efforts as needed to improve results.
• Consider using pay-for-performance lead-generation programs.  You’ll pay only for results, versus clicks or impressions.

Don’t forget the most important metrics of a brand campaign - quality and relevance.  In difficult times consumers aren’t shopping for nice-to-haves; they are focused on must-haves.  Here, pay-for-performance lead-generation campaigns that build your own opt-in email lists and produce consumers who are interested in your product and brand are particularly useful because they make it easy for marketers to ensure relevance, and simple to measure lead quality at several points in the campaign, before hand-off to sales.

Finally, in a down market brand marketers must maintain a laser focus on lead-generation best practices to ensure high quality leads and maintain a respectful relationship with consumers to build trust and discourage abuse of consumer privacy.

Opportunity for brand marketers comes in many forms.  In these unstable economic times, it is incumbent on marketers to reach out to consumers with offers, promotions and information that reinforce brand preference, provide much-needed purchase information, and offer advice, tips and ideas for living well while saving.

CPG Brands: If You’re Thinking Digital, These are Your Tools

Consumers Turn to E-Newsletters, Search, Branded Sites to Learn About Your Products In the latest of several studies showing surprising power for digital marketing among package-goods brands, more than two-thirds of consumers who use the internet have used it to research package-goods products, according to a new survey by Prospectiv, a firm that provides online customer leads for marketers. The survey, conducted late last year with more than 4,000 consumers culled from Prospectiv’s online database, showed a slight plurality of the consumers who use the internet to research package-goods brands (48%) do so primarily to get product information. Another 46% use the internet to seek savings or coupons, while 6% are primarily looking for tips on how to use the product. Turning to e-newsletters A slight plurality (27%) in the Prospectiv survey said they got most of their product information from e-newsletters, compared to 25% who favored search and those who favored general savings and shopping sites or branded product sites (tied at 14% each). Only 12% of consumers used seemingly more objective sites run by newspapers and magazines for such research, and only 8% used comparison-shopping sites. The survey would seem to indicate substantial potential for package-goods marketers to use e-newsletters, either their own or those published by others, said Jere Doyle, CEO of Prospectiv, whose clients include Procter & Gamble Co., General Mills and Nestle. He conceded the makeup of the panel, some of whom were pulled from groups the company had recruited into marketers’ e-newsletter programs, could have weighed on the results. But he said the group overall was made up of people who had responded to a number of online offers and some who had simply responded to a survey request. The survey didn’t include phone or mail sampling to reach people who don’t use the internet regularly. The data appears to dovetail with recent research from other sources showing surprising consumer interest in using the internet to research package-goods brands, whose relatively low prices and low glamour once seemed to preclude consumers ever seeking them out online. Branded CPG websites Deloitte Consulting last year found 62% of consumers read online reviews, including 17%-18% who read online reviews of household cleaning or personal-care products. In separate studies last year, ComScore found 47% of traffic to package-goods websites came from search queries and that branded CPG sites had seen traffic grow 10% last year, twice the rate of the overall internet population. ComScore also found online display advertising was a significant driver for much of the increased traffic to branded sites. Prospectiv’s survey found broad-based interest across several segments, with 70% of respondents saying they had done internet research on “everyday grocery products,” and 63% saying they had done so for health and beauty products. Mr. Doyle was most surprised by the relative pull of information over promotional offers, though Prospectiv’s results are similar to those of ComScore, which also found a slight plurality of consumers using search on consumer package-goods brands for information rather than savings. Even so, Prospectiv’s survey found discounts continue to have particular pull in getting people into branded sites and e-mail programs. Of respondents who said they did most of their product research on brand sites, 52% said they were primarily attracted by savings or offers. And when asked what would induce them to sign up for a branded e-newsletter, 76% said specials or savings, compared to only 22% who said they would be lured by new-product information. Digital-marketing tools Prospectiv’s survey combined with other recent studies would appear to show considerable power for the digital-marketing tools most employed by package-goods marketers, including search and display advertising, branded websites and e-mail. John Yengo, partner with Barefoot Advertising, Cincinnati, which handles digital work for P&G and SABMiller among others, said no particular sub-discipline appears to be growing faster than the others, but he said most programs now incorporate sweepstakes or some other response element, such as one last year for Dawn dish soap in which people could enlist friends to join them in populating virtual duck ponds.