Interflora Visits Search-Marketing-Blog.com

Online brand protection. Important to have a policy, but can be difficult to implement.

The first thing is to be aware of the buzz about your brand online - news, forums, blogs, myspace, etc. If you're not aware of what's being said, you can't counter it in a timely manner.

The guys at Interflora are doing at least the first bit right. My blog is so new it has very limited visitor numbers still, but this morning's stats show a visit from interflorahouse.co.uk. Within 12 hours of my post mentioning Interflora. Probably an automated news-clipping service rather than a real person, but who knows?

On another positive note, it means my blog pinging service is working!

Got A Brand? Why Aren't You Using Pay-Per-Click?

As the only form of advertising spend that allows ROI to be calculated down to the last penny, paid search naturally was first adopted by the ecommerce community. If you sell something off your website, there is no better way to drive new customers to your site and grow revenues. But, what if you don’t sell anything from your site? Your website is not ecommerce, you are a brand?

The answer is actually very clear, but has yet to be fully understood and effectively embraced by many big brand owners. If you have a brand, you should be using paid-search as a significant means to communicate with your customers.

It is cost-effective, immediate and reactive engagement with your customers – at the instant in time they are actively involved in searching for either your brand or terms you would wish your brand to be associated with. The jury is no longer out, the jury has returned and found the big brands ‘guilty’ of not effectively using paid search to support messaging and engagement vital to brand building and protection.

Online Advertising Hits The Big-Time In UK

Very roughly, online advertising accounts for about half the UK national advertising spend. Of the online total of £2bn, paid search is roughly 60%. Historically, paid search has been the ‘tail’ of advertising spend, but with online overtaking national press and showing continued strong growth as other media falters, the tail is now wagging the dog.

Or, it should be. By that I mean it is not a practical strategy to simply leave PPC (pay-per-click) advertising to the procurement department.

The difference between a ‘great’ PPC campaign and a ‘good enough’ PPC campaign can be an order of magnitude in ROI. With paid search grabbing an increasing share of spend, it is even more important to ensure that a paid search campaign

1. is carried out by professionals with proven expertise, preferably able to guarantee ROI, and
2. is carried out in a manner that closely integrates online with offline advertising and other events that stimulate search activity.

Brand Association Online is there for anyone to see

If you don't actually sell anything on your website, or ask for customer sign-ups, applications or subscriptions, there is a question about whether PPC has any value to you. This is a question that major brands are starting to tackle. Underlying the use of PPC for brand building online is the point:is brand association visible online?

Google Trends is more than a toy (but only just)

I wondered, last month in the run-up to Valentine's day, whether there was a connection between 'Roses' as a search term, and the brand 'Interflora'. So I went to Google Trends. This is what I saw.

There appears to be correlation between searches on the two terms, during February of each year. Note that the seasonal fluctuation is required to show the correlation - if both lines were flat or equally curved there would be no evidence of specific causes that connect the two.

The correlation is most evident around peaks about 14th February. Note that correlation does not imply cause and effect - what this chart is showing that about the time of those peaks, the causes of the spike in searches for the term 'roses' are connected to the causes of the spike in searches for 'interflora'.

(Note the interesting reduction in correlation for the second spike in each year, .. demonstrating that people are less interested to buy roses for Mother's day than they are for Valentine's day. Sorry Mum.)

So then I looked at another example. 'Fitness First' is a well-known chain of gyms.

The correlation, or association, between 'gyms' and 'Fitness First' is written large. The drivers that make Joe or Jane Public search for gyms are the same as those making them search for 'Fitness First'

One final example. BSM (British School of Motoring) and 'driving school'.

What does this mean if I have a brand?

What it means is this: brand association exists and is very strong online. If you have invested in a brand, there is absolutely no excuse for not using search marketing to enhance your engagement and messaging with your audience - not just by SEO but by PPC also, even if you don't sell anything off your website, you should be intercepting your customers online activity at the time they are most likely to be receptive - when they are actively searching for terms you wish to be associated with.

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Online Advertising Very Effective For Branding

New research from Outsell shows some interesting things. A survery of over 1000 advertisers shows that advertisers rate online advertising very effective for branding, contrary to common wisdom that online shines at leads but is weak for branding.

tag:stats

Ecommerce Results Announced By Ford

Direct Magazine today carries a small piece that FordDirect sold one million vehicles in 2006.

Dealer sales generated through Internet referrals accounted for 15% of total sales for the Ford and Lincoln Mercury divisions of the automaker.

"The Internet plays a huge role in how people shop for and ultimately select their next vehicle," said in statement Cisco Codina, group vice president of Ford Motor Co.

FordDirect is a dealer-controlled joint venture with Ford Motor Co. It was launched in 2000.

A big figure. But I'd be really impressed if they could fix cars over the net too...