Web Site Promotion

Week 9

Objectives

• Online promotion techniques

• Online advertising

• Offline promotion techniques

• Measuring advertising effectiveness

Some Definitions

• Online promotion – uses communication via the internet itself to raise awareness about a site and drive traffic to it.

• Offline promotion – uses traditional media such as television or newspaper advertising and word of mouth to promote a company’s web site

Online Promotion Techniques

• Online promotion– Banner advertisements– Other methods of linking to sites

• Techniques are combined in what is known as a traffic-building campaign

• This is a method of increasing the audience of a site using different online and possibly offline techniques

Online Advertising – A Basic Model

Portal

General news service

Portal

Content: Corporate web site

Audience of web site pageContaining Advertisement

Page or adimpressions

ProportionWho clickOn bannerAdvertisement

Clickthrough2-10 per cent

ProportionWho takeAction

Marketing outcome

Key Concepts of Advertising

Old media New media

Space Expensive commodity Cheap, unlimited

Time Expensive commodity

For marketers

Expensive commodity

for users

Image creation Image is everything

Information secondary

Information is everything Image is secondary

Communication Push, one-way Pull, interactive

Call to action Incentives Information (incentives)

Main Differences

• The cost of advertising in the new medium reduces as more space becomes available

• It is the customer who initiates the dialogue who will expect his or her specific needs to be addressed. Web marketers need to promote their web sites effectively in order that customers find the information they are looking for

• The user’s time is valuable and the time interacting with the user will be limited so this time must be maximized

• Information is the main currency. Supplying information is arguably more important than appealing to emotions

Purpose of Banner Advertising

• Delivering content

• Enabling transaction

• Shaping attitudes

• Soliciting response

• Encouraging retention

How Well Does Banner Advertising Work

• Online advertising is more likely to be noticed than television ads

• Lower advertisement to editorial ratio on web pages 90% text to 10% ads)

• Web users use the medium actively rather than passively

Locations of Banners

• Portals

• Generalized news services

• Specialized interest sites

Internet Advertising Options

Media buys(advertisements)

Ad content

Banners•Static•Animated•Interactive

Advertising site•Corporate site•Brand site•Distributor site

Co-branded content•Sponsorship

Nested content•Microsite•Within banner

Interstitials•Static•Animated•interactive

Media buys drivetraffic to ad

content

Payment Models

• Per exposure – through ad impressions or possibly through the length of time the user views an advertisement

• Per response – payment only occurs according to the number of clickthroughs that occur

• Per action – payment according to a marketing outcome

Making Banner Advertising Work

• Appropriate incentives are needed to achieve clickthrough

• Creative design needs to be tested extensively• Appropriate keywords are needed• Placement of advertisement and timing need to be

considered carefully• Consider the clickthrough quality, not just the

quantity• Build the infrastructure to deal with the response

Forms of Advertising

• Advertising networks – collections of independent web sites from different companies and media networks, each of which has an arrangement with an advertising broker to place banner ads

• Affiliate networks – collection of web sites that link to an online retailer in exchange for commission on purchases made from the retailer

The Future of Online Advertising

• The size of audience is likely to be constrained by the cost of buying devices to access the internet

• Message is delivered using limited space on screen, and with limited use of sound and motion

• Efficacy of advertising may decline as users become familiar with advertisements

• Advertising inventory is always increasing as new sites go online and size of existing sites increase increasing the costs to place an ad

Other Online Promotion Methods

• Promotion in search engines and directories• Links from other sites: co-branding and

sponsorship• Using email for advertising

– Liszt www.liszt.com– Kim Bayne’s personal site www.wolfBayne.com/lists– Online advertising www.o-a.com– Clickz www.clickz.com/list– Internet advertising organization www.internet

advertising.org

Loyalty Techniques and Online Schemes

• The process of adoption follows the stages of:– Knowledge– Persuasion– Decision as to whether to trial product– Implementation of trial– Confirmation of product as valuable

Site Announcements

• What’s New web page

• Directories and search engines

• Newsgroups

• Newsletters

• Books and magazines thal list web sites

On-site Promotion Techniques

• Sponsoring of an event, team or sports personality• A treasure hunt on different pages of the site, with

a prize• A screensaver• A site-related quiz• Monthly product discount on an e-commerce site• Regularly updated information indicated by

current date or date new content is added

Offline Promotion Techniques

• Put your URL everywhere• Using traditional media advertise the URL

address • People can be directed to the web address

for information rather than calling a phone number

• Include URL on stationery• Use PR to publicize the site

Integrating Online and Offline Techniques

• Callback service

• Sales promotions

• Relative importance of offline and online promotion techniques

Measuring Advertising effectiveness

• Create a measurement process

• Identify the measures to use

• Specify the online measurement methods to use

• Measure individual behavior

• Customer satisfaction, loyalty and brand impact