Video Version of Marketing Hub Article

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25FX2GZPd1U

Leveraging Your Website as the Hub of Your Marketing (Not Marketing in the Dark)

This article demonstrates that no matter what marketing medium you use, all road lead back to the web.

I’m still staggered at the numbers of companies who don’t have any tracking on their website.

The one’s that do don’t review it.

The one’s that do review it, don’t know how the information can help them make decisions.

Bottom line, your website is absolutely the hub of all your marketing. I don’t care what you do exhibitions, leaflet drops, networking, direct mail, telemarketing, advertising it doesn’t matter, guaranteed the place every prospective customer will turn next is to your website.

It’s your living connection to your prospective customers. It’s dynamic, changeable and interactive (or it should be).

If you want to maximise that marketing expenditure, don’t let people fall through the cracks.

Website visitors are GOAL DRIVEN. Once they have read your leaflet or seen your company at a trade show they go to your website FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE.

If your website doesn’t serve that purpose you may as well not have bothered spending the time and money going to the trade show, because you’ll have dropped the ball.

Back to the idea of website tracking.

‘Web analytics’ as it’s called isn’t just a means of segmenting website visitors into categories according to where they came from (search engine, online directory etc) but with professional help it can also track your offline marketing.

The holy grail of business has always been knowing what activity most influences or generates new business. If we could get a better idea about that we’d make a lot more money at the end of the year.

Web analytics can go a long way to helping us with this.

By default analytics systems categorise your website visitors into three major categories (visitors from search engines, visitors from other websites, visitors who knew your website address).



But there’s nothing to stop you from creating as many categories as you like, allowing you to see exactly how many people where compelled by whatever piece of marketing material they came across.

So the next time you go and exhibit at a trade show or put out an advertisement, spend £10 on a new domain name that relates to what you are advertising such as ChristmasChocolatesOffer.co.uk and then forward visitors to that address to your real website.

Because the only place people could have found out that website address is from that particular advert or trade show, later when you review your website tracking you’ll see exactly how many people wanted to know more about your offer.

You can even track how many of those people ended up making an enquiry after getting more information.

We mentioned a couple of articles ago that we do this with our email footers so even if we don’t get through to decision makers when we call them up, we at least know if people are reading our introductory letters and emails and then wanting to find out more by visiting our website.

So stop shooting in the dark with your marketing money and turn the lights on by embracing web analytics.

For more information on anything discussed in this article please contact us directly and we’ll be glad to help.

Until next time keep that Profit Up.

An Example of How Marketing Can Sell Almost Anything to Almost Anyone

Marketing is supposed to present a product, service or company to it's target market in such a way as to be appealing right?

The basic specifications of a product or service are boring and undesirable, so it's the job of marketing to tell the story of how those features become benefits and ultimate what positive difference the product or service will make.

I came across a pearl of an advert recently and had to share it.

Here it is:

The 'Axe' brand is what we call Lynx in the UK, the men's personal hygiene and deodorant lines. 'The Lynx Effect' in the UK is 'The Axe Affect' in the USA.

I came across this advert in XXL magazine, an American hip hop magazine, the perfect place to promote a product that sells itself as helping you attract women the more you use it.

This advert appears to make the assumption that you are already using Axe products, have experienced the effects and now need this product next.

Looking at it and without reading my analysis or the marketing spin you'll see that the advert has a picture of what I would have previously referred to as a 'bath or shower scrunchy'.

I.e. a delicate sponge type product for ladies to wash themselves with.

The typical representation of a scrunchy is unlikely to appeal to the core market of males Axe targets.

So what did they do? They made the scrunchy into 'The Axe Detailer Shower Tool'.

Absolutely brilliant if you ask me. And just look at it, you can see it's really just a scrunchy but they've put this rough surface on one side and made it in the most manly colour scheme imaginable (red and black).

You'll notice this same colour combination on car interiors designed to target men too.

The fact that they have used the words 'Detailer' and 'Tool' to name the product, conjure up images of polishing metal, a construction site, cranes or a car garage, all very manly.

So using the Axe Shower Tool on your body is like detailing a car or fixing some heavy machinery, again very manly indeed.

Look at the two labels pointing to either side of the product. On the right where it points to the soft scrunchy side it says 'Washes lipstick off your neck' and the other side is labeled as 'Scrubs candle wax off your chest hair'.

The advert promotes the idea that 'Axe' is effective without question and now they have come up with a product to help you deal with the aftermath.

The labels referencing lipstick on the neck and candle wax also suggest a kinky image, which if you've seen the TV adverts, fits in with the dominating sexual theme.

Finally at the bottom they top it off with those two lines of text which I (as a marketing professional) interpreted as shots aimed at personality traits.

The Axe Shower Tool is almost like the perfectly rounded guy that will have the maximum appeal to women.

It has 'a rough side for your tough guy parts', suggesting women like a man who can protect them and 'a soft side for your sensitive guy parts' suggesting that the ideal man has some sensitivity too.

I don't know if you think this is over analysing but this is what we do as marketeers, we help you sell more of your products and services by dressing them up to have the maximum appeal to the market you want to sell them to.

I just thought this was an excellent example of a product which is really just a sponge, which no one has any urgency to go out and buy, into a concept of sex appeal that has a much higher chance of attracting buyers.

Hats off to them.