Six Indispensible Measuring Tools for Marketers

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.

John Wanamaker, US department store merchant (1838 - 1922)

We’ve come a long way since the late1800s. Frankly there’s no excuse not knowing the effectiveness of all your advertising. These days we can measure virtually everything. And I’ll be bold enough to say that if you can’t measure it you shouldn’t do it.

In the age of internet and sophisticated telecommunications, marketers are able to accurately measure the effectiveness of all types of marketing activities. Even a good old-fashioned questionnaire can reveal lots about who is responding to your campaign.

Measuring success is vital to marketing planning and driving more from your marketing dollar. If you don’t know what’s worked before then you’re flying blind.

Test and Learn.

Sure, some marketing activities don’t work very well, perhaps for a variety of reasons.  After all marketing is not an exact science. The key point is to figure out what did work and what didn’t. Then you can do it better next time.

Here are my top six measuring tools:

1.       Dedicated telephone number for campaigns. As a minimum, make sure your call centre records the number of in-coming calls during the campaign period.

2.       Unique codes on letters. You can measure responses right down to an individual level. At the end of your campaign you can perform geo-demographic profiling to build an accurate picture of your responders. This works particularly well in direct marketing.

3.       Landing pages and online forms deliver accurate reporting for internet or email campaigns.

4.       Internet analytics packages will help you profile a number of aspects about your internet traffic. Even if your marketing activity is off-line, you can often attribute a spike in internet hits to a particular campaign by looking at the date range.

5.       Individually coded coupons can be used for driving traffic to stores or exhibition stands.

6.       Simple questionnaires can be conducted by telemarketing or in-store staff. They can ask and record the answer to one or two simple questions at the till or at the end of a telephone call. There is some margin for error in measuring success this way, however it will give you a starting point.

AND FINALLY:

Share your learnings. Don’t forget to write up campaign reviews and keep them in a central place for your marketing colleagues to view and learn from one another. Marketers often move on, and it would be a shame for this information to be lost.

What’s your top tip for measuring your marketing activity? Type your comments below and let’s share and learn!

Seasonal Marketing

As I started writing my final blog for 2010 with the holidays just a couple of days away, I began to think about how we, as marketers, capitalise on seasonal events such as Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Halloween etc. It’s not just toy stores at Christmas who stand to win from seasonal marketing. There are a whole range of opportunities throughout the year where you can take a seasonal event and turn it to your advantage. With a little lateral thinking, I’m sure most businesses could come up with a promotion to capitalise on a season’s festivities.

I’ve had a little troll through You Tube and the depths of my memory to find some examples of what I’m on about. Here are a few adverts/promotions from companies who have cleverly used a seasonal event which does not really have a direct correlation their product, but they’ve used the time of year to their advantage.

Prescription drugs at Easter:

NHS Easter Bunny Advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpGRFM-8mW4 

End of Financial Year and Pay TV

Foxtel EOFYS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVo39AsXcZ8&NR=1

Lamb and Australia Day

Eat Lamb on Australia Day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqsyXPkG3I&feature=related

Iron Bru soft drink and the World Cup

Irn Bru – world cup 2010 advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S36BCNgH9As

Tea bags at Christmas

PG Tips Tea Christmas advert:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga08Lz5-RLk&NR=1

Citroen Car on Valentines Day

Citroen – Love in London: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q1cv1o_0rQ

There are many more examples where organisations have turned a seasonal event to their advantage. It would be great to hear your stories, so feel free to share any experiences.

What will your marketing calendar look like in 2011?

CraftWrite wishes its blog readers a wonderful  Christmas!
Look forward to bringing you more marketing gems in 2011.

The A to Z of Advertising

Here are a few words of wisdom from the world of advertising:

Awareness – creating awareness is an important reason to advertise, but that’s just the beginning of the process. You need to turn that awareness into sales.

Big idea – communicate one single idea to your audience that will make sense to them and drive them to buy.

Call to action – a strong call to action will drive sales.

Desire – your advert needs to create desire to purchase the product. Techniques include discounting, or in the case of a new product, creating the illusion of a “must have” item .

Effectiveness – measure the effectiveness of your campaign. For example, measure brand recognition pre and post campaign.

Free – a strong word in advertising. But customers are becoming more wary and wonder “what is the catch”.

Goals – Be clear on your goals and carefully plan your advertising spend.

Humour – Funny adverts can be very effective. Increasingly adverts are required to entertain in order to gain cut through.

Integrated campaigns – We all consume different media at different times of day, therefore integrated campaigns are important to ensure you connect with your audience.

Jingles – a fantastic way to get inside your consumer’s head and ensure they remember your product.

Know how – Engage the right advertising agency for you.

Leads – Record and process your sales leads quickly.

Memorable – Ensure your advert is memorable. But remember it’s the subject of the advert that needs to be memorable not the advert itself.

Naughty  - Being a little bit risqué in your advertising can pay off. You might attract some complaints, but as long as the target audience are not offended it may be worth the risk.

Online – it’s hard to get cut through with online adverts, so you will need to be extra creative to attract attention.

Press – Printed newspapers and magazines are a gradually dying media as more and more of us source our news and entertainment online. However, for now, press shouldn’t be ignored as part of an integrated advertising campaign mix.

Quantity – get the quantity (frequency) of adverts right to create sufficient awareness. People often need to see an advert several times before taking in the message.

Response mechanism – people respond to adverts in different ways so provide as many different ways to respond as possible – phone, email, in person etc.

Simplicity – keep it simple. We are bombarded with advertising messages all day long and people will not take time to understand something complex.

Timing – get the timing of your adverts right. This could be time of year, time of day or at a trigger point in someone’s lifetime.

Understanding – your advert must be clear and the message understood in a second or two.

Value add – a useful way to drive responses. Eg: Buy now and get an additional XXX.

White space – a design technique to make an advert clean and uncluttered and therefore easy to digest.

X factor -  Sometimes an advert just works, despite not testing well in research groups. Trust your gut instinct and go for it!

Yes – the technique of asking questions that you know the audience will say “yes” to. It’s an effective way of engaging the audience.

Zoo – the use of animals is an effective technique in advertising.  Connect the animal traits to your brand or message and it will help to make it memorable.

Jill Bynon is an experienced copywriter who has written and edited many advertisements. Contact CraftWrite today for help in crafting your ads: jill@craftwrite.com.au