Right now in Canada, almost 85% of the population uses the Internet and it’s safe to say this number will continue to expand. So why wouldn’t you use your web site to support the advertising you do in all other media? You do have a web site, right?
Here’s the scoop: If you read our article last week on “Two Step Direct Response Advertising” you know we recommend ads that ask the reader/listener to make a specific response or action.
If you have, and use, a web site, the action requested may be to go to the web site to get more information; download a coupon; buy on line; join a “preferred customer” group or whatever will further, or complete, the transaction process and establish a relationship with that most valuable person, a customer or potential customer.
Your web master, or increasingly, you yourself, can easily create a new “landing page” that is specific to your current offer e.g. – your web site is www.abc.com and you create a new page called www.abc.com/offer. Feature this address in your ad to create a super highway right to your specific offer page—most people who are interested will go there within 30 seconds of seeing your offer and you can watch the visits add up as they happen!
Customers have now driven right up to your site and you can bet they will also browse whatever else you have on the site while they are “in the store”—you have just given them another way in.
Why do this? Because whether newspaper, magazine, radio/TV or billboard, the space/time you buy is limited—on your web site, the space you need is almost limitless.
You can add all the details, all the pictures and all of the downloads you want—and what’s more, you can make it transactional! That is, in many cases you can make the sale right on the page by adding a PayPal link—how great is that!
It goes without saying that the way we buy has changed radically in the last decade. According to Internet World Stats: In 2008, Canadian retail e-commerce tallied its fifth straight year of double-digit growth. Online sales more than doubled in Canada from 2003-2006, and nearly half of Canadian retail firms now have a web site, compared to the 42% that did in 2005.
It is expected that the average amount that Canadians spend online will grow strongly over the next three years. Canadians are already either on par or ahead of their US peers in purchasing electronics, travel and event tickets online.”
So get with the program—put that web site to work in your advertising.
Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker are the Marketing Masters, a full-service marketing and advertising partnership that helps build busy businesses.
