Using URLs in ads
Most marketers include phone numbers in their ads. It’s intuitive to do so and appeals to that most primal of all marketing urges – the desire for an immediate phone call in response to an ad exposure. But, as readers of this blog know, the process of earning new customers usually involves multiple steps between the initial exposure and the first transaction. One of the most important stops along the way occurs when someone is encouraged to visit your website for more information. While it’s not unusual to see URL’s in advertisements these days, it is still fairly common to see basic formatting mistakes that can make it difficult for interested consumers to note the address. Here are a couple of very simple guidelines to keep in mind when placing URL’s in your advertisements:
- Do not use all caps to display your URL. Despite the fact that it looks bad, it’s also harder to read and generally looks unsophisticated.
- It’s okay to skip the “www” part if you want a cleaner look. Most people get that URL’s begin with “www” and most browsers navigate to the right place without it anyway. If you want to get picky about it a full URL includes the whole “http://” thing as well but you hardly see that anymore do you?
- Use capitalization or other font treatments to seperate words. Unless you are lucky enough to have an address like IBM.com, you probably have several words in your URL. It’s asking a bit much to expect drivers passing a billboard at 65mph to decipher:
www.joesfriendlypoolcleaning.com
But if you capitalize you end up with a much easier to read:
www.JoesFriendlyPoolCleaning.com
Different colors or other font treatments also work well:
www.JoesFriendlyPoolCleaning.com
- When you include a URL in an advertisement, make sure that the landing page is strategically relevant to the ad. If someone sees your ad offering “buy-one-get-one-free cheeseburgers” and then types in the URL to find out more, they should be taken to a page with information on that offer. Don’t just send people to your homepage and expect them to dig around. Again, sounds simple but lots of businesses still get this wrong.
- Simplify, simplify, simplify. Once you start adding a bunch of forward slashes to your landing page address you might as well forget it. Nobody’s going to hear this on the radio and recall it later that night after dinner:
www.ClarkSmithMcDonald.com/freereports/taxplanningtips
Using subdomains is a better option:
TaxTips.ClarkSmithMcDonald.com
Campaign Specific URL’s are even better still:
TampaTaxTips.com
If you really want to use your homepage as the landing page for an offer make sure you include a button, banner, or other link that is prominently featured and will take your visitors where they need to go.
The Magic Bullet
There is no “magic bullet” in advertising. Despite reports to the contrary, social media tools are not the exception to this rule. While we’re at it – television, search marketing, radio, outdoor, bus benches, bathroom stall posters, sky writing, giant inflatable guerrillas, and tissue packs don’t qualify either. If you current marketing strategies are not producing results, moving them around to different media will not make a difference.
It’s true that social media and digital content are revolutionary forces that are literally unraveling traditional advertising models. You do need to know about Twitter, Facebook, UStream, Wordpress, Typepad, Friendfeed, Flickr, Slideshare, RSS and all the other emerging platforms. But the most important thing to remember is that if your product or service is not remarkable and relevant to a well-defined niche there is no amount of friends, followers, viewers, subscribers or fans that will make up for it.
I realize that the whole “create something remarkable and relevant” thing is a little overdone these days so here’s a specific shortcut: Educate Your Customers – otherwise known as information marketing. Information marketing is the act of creating educational content about your product or service and marketing it (giving it away for free) to interested customers. Executed well, it’s probably the closest thing you’ll find to a “Magic Bullet” for marketing. There are numerous advantages to this strategy including:
- The content is inexpensive or free to produce
- You are offering something of value instead of trying to sell
- It gives you an opportunity to provide much more information than you can with traditional ads
- Provides a database-building opportunity
- Can enhance SEO efforts
- Differentiates your business from most competitors
- Takes the focus off price
- Trackable ROI
- Scalable
- Great way to leverage social and other digital platforms
Looking for ways to get started? Start a blog, write an ebook, record an audio presentation, make a handbook or users guide, produce a “how-to” video, create a survey, or publish an interview with an expert in your industry. Don’t do them all, pick one or two and knock it out of the park. Don’t look for shortcuts – create it yourself. Take your time, do your research, make it valuable and stick with it. We’ll talk about what to do with all this stuff in future posts.