Advertising ??

[fuzzie bear]

Do you advertise solely on the web through search engines, or would you advertise elsewhere - eg newspapers, flyers etc...

[jont]

This reply will depend entirely on the size of the company, market place, target audience, type of store (bricks & online or just online) and many other factors.

Targetting existing customers provides the cheapest and most effective campaigns but you can over saturate so new contacts are always needed - not least to replace natural database wastage over a given period of time.

You may like to check out http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=12118

I personally use in no particular order:

1. leads / sales through search engines
2. snail mail flyers to existing database
3. local adevrtising for the bricks and mortar store
4. national specialist advertising for trade customers
5. sponsor readers offers in several glossy magazines
6. write features for several magazines
7. trade and customer shows

Due to the nature of our products I will not send out emails and I detest adword campaigns - this is my own personal point of view - I know others have good results with these but they are just not for me and my products

[compendia]

We have a bricks and mortar store and I find that advertising the website in the shop is successful, though I have no way of monitoring the numbers. This partly works beacause we are in a tourist area so people take a business card away with them.

If you have a good service then people will recommend you to their friends. I regard most rural deliveries as an opportunity to gain the whole village as customers and I often get an order that is followed by orders from people in the same street. Though you can't control this.

I've never had the margins to do advertising and where I've dipped my toe in the water it's been a disaster. However I'm currently in the market for furniture and looked at several websites yesterday because I found them in the Guardian space section, I knew what I wanted would be there (albeit too expensive!) so maybe the key is to keep advertising where you think people will actively look at your advert, remember that your aim is get them to sit down with the ad and type in the website address to find out more. I think that's the biggest challenge.

Interesting that you don't like adwords Jont because I've been thinking of experimenting with them. Do you have an objection on principal or do they jusy not work for your market?
Megan

[jont]

Do you have an objection on principal or do they jusy not work for your market?

A little of both. As a web user and online purchaser I never look at or click through the sponsored or paid for links - I realise many people do click through adwords and must obviously make purchases and there are also many like myself who simply ignore them. As I personally ignore them it is very difficult for me to consider the expense of adword campaigns in consideration to the other forms of advertising we currently have to undertake in alternative mediums.

My products are not suited for adword campaigns and I would be paying for something that people can find for free using the regular search engine find facility.

If you are considering doing an Adwords campaign I would recommend doing some form of cost benefit analysis and compare to alternative forms for advertising or even the cost of producing and sending a new brochure with your URL on there - again this is very product specific and only you know your target audience and how competitive / unique you are in your own market place.

[compendia]

You're right of course. I think the attraction of adwords is that you can creep in slowly whereas with national paper advertising (which would be second on my list) you have to give them hundreds of pounds just to find out whether or not it will work.

The other thing I think is really important is seasonality. Throughout winter, and especially in the run up to Christmas, people are actively looking for my products and biting my arm off. At this time of year it's like blood from a stone. It's a real shame, but I think it's only worth advertising when people will be responsive, ie, when it's difficult to keep up with demand. sigh...

[chris ashdown]

We use Adwords and Overture and find both companies products well worth the small payment charge. I have more than doubled a new site's "sessions" when I used Adwords and after two months started Overture and again doubled the "Sessions" hits.

The beauty of PPC is that you control every step of the way and if in a popular subject you probably stand little chance of being on the first few pages under natural selection but for 10-20p can normally show up on the first page

If I was in the games market I would advertise all year, trying adwords first at a low click through charge and daily limit and try to expand the selling season, for £30 per month you can soon get the feel for it and see if its worthwile for you

One suggestion with some low priced goods like some games, it may be worth making bonus packs of two or more items so that the delivery cost is not so significant a percentage of the total costs,

Plus groups like Camping and Caravaning where people are probably keen to get back to basics

[compendia]

Yea, I guess its just that I'd prefer to begin advertising during the high season, otherwise it might be difficult to justify the cost. Thanks for that.

Fuzzie bear, I seem to have accidentally stolen your thread. Sorry about that. It seems that in answer to your question, offline advertising is valuable, but isn't easy to get right? Would that be a fair comment?

Megan

[Luddite]

Hi - We're an online and 'bricks & Mortar shop and we've decided to suspend all our advertising as it just doesn't seem to work. In the past we have advertised in national architecture/design magazines, local paper, adwords etc - but nearly all of our online sales come through people finding us on google (not via adwords). So we just decided enoughs enough. I'm not saying it doesn't work, it just hasn't worked for us. One thing I will say though - if you are going to advertise in print - always haggle and never ever pay the rate card price. I have never paid more than 50% of the rate card price in any printed media!
Hope that helps.

Nick

[B_Online]

Found the info below in an ad.

Some Of The Most Reliable, 3rd Party Sources Available
According to a Forrester Research Media Field Study, getting a loyal audience in the first place is best done by Search Engine Placement.

According to Georgia Tech's Graphics, Visualization And Usability survey, 84.8% of Internet users use search engines to find websites.

In a recent ActivMedia Research study, Search Engine Positioning was ranked #1 website promotional method used by ecommerce sites.

Search engines create more awareness about websites than all advertising combined — including banners, newspapers, TV and radio (as reported by IMT Strategies, a division of the Meta Group).

And look what was found in a recent issue of Target Marketing Magazine...
Top Ways Websites Are Discovered"

Banner ads
1%

Targeted email
1.2%

TV spots
1.4%

"By accident"
2.1%

Magazine ads
4.4%

Word-of-mouth
20%

Random Surfing
20%

Search Engines
46%

Source I know this is an ad but it has some interesting facts for you to make up your own mind.

[george]

I enjoy reading this kind of thread, debate such as this always good to browse for opinions/ideas, etc. Is there such as thing as a ecommerce forum thats worth checking out?

[steveaich]

As a reply to the initial question, for our consumer sites we now exclusively advertise online, and then only when it is performance based (ie ppc or affiliate). We have generally found that other forms of advertising have simply been totally ineffective. Our main consumer site is www.blushingbuyer.co.uk we do lots of PPC, and in the past have tried print ads in national magazines and papers to little or no effect.

[Jim Riley]

Our promotional mix is a combination of:

- Search engine optimisation + PPC on adwords
- Direct mailing campaigns (e.g. we've just sent out about 16,000 brochures to our existing and target customer database)
- Email marketing (VERY effective)
- Website promotion (we offer a mix of free and subscription materials - so the website can do some subtle (and often unsubtle) selling
- Attendance at exhibitions (ineffective for sales, but useful for brand buulding
- PR (when was the last time you sent out some carefully scripted press releases)
- Speaking at industry conferences
- Upselling when customers are on the phone

I'm not sure there is an e-business out there that relies totally on just one or two elements in the promotional mix?

Jim

[compendia]

I like the list of ways of advertising. Its made me think that we have several that I don't ever consider. We often upsell when customers ring us, but it's a product of natural enthusiasm rather thana concious tactic.

As a B+M business we promote through the shop, especially at this time of year when people are in London and then will go home with a business card.

We've also found that the web will drive people into the shop. I'm also beginning to find for the first time that very local people will order online to send things to people far away. So they know the shop but would rather pay the p+p than do it themselves.

I also post all my email nesletters to forums where customers might see them, it always gets me a few enquiries or sales. I know this can be a difficult tactic but I'm very upfront about the commercial nature of the posts and nobody has ever complained.

Interesting that nobody seems that enthusiastic about print advertising. Anybody with a high cost item, ie furniture found it to be useful?

[Luddite]

Interesting that nobody seems that enthusiastic about print advertising. Anybody with a high cost item, ie furniture found it to be useful?

We do some furniture - but are still put off by the high prices of ads in printed media. We are on the brink of opening another B & M shop (gluttons for punishment!) which will be specifically for larger furniture. When this happens we will be trialling printed media again but in partnership with the furniture manufacturers, and other stockists - making our costs considerably lower.

[jont]

- Attendance at exhibitions (ineffective for sales, but useful for brand buulding

And sore feet!

We have now totally pulled out of exhibitions - the cost to have a stand plus time out of the office just does not stack up for anything other than brand building as you say - best left to the IBM's and Ford Motor Company than Joe's Corner Model Boat Shop

Interesting that nobody seems that enthusiastic about print advertising.

We feel almost compelled to advertise in local print but mainly at the most seasonal peak. I now tend to prefer submitting articles / features loosely related to our products but not a direct sales campaign, more understated and long term brand awareness to build trust. It takes time to research and write but this is offset against the cost of say a 2 column advert in the paper or half page glossy... coming up with new article ideas is always the stumbling block for me