Retail Bounce Rate

Using internet metrics in my offline campaigns has become a staple to my marketing campaigns I am currently managing. One in particular that should be top of mind with every client spoken with is "bounce rate". Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a site who "bounce" away from your site to another site, rather than continue on to other pages within your site. For those unfamiliar with these terms, someone landed on your page because of a message that enticed them. After seeing where you have sent them (likely a landing page), they leave. Why? Because you failed to deliver the experience they expected after clicking on your advertisement.

Now let us shift our minds to the retail world. At some point in your advertisement you have a call to action; come to our store, visit us today, call today for more information, etc. At that point, unless someone tells you that they came in and purchased because of an advertisement they saw, the campaign ends there. However, having a good advertisement with a good call to action isn't enough in today's world to convert a sale from. In fact, it is just the beginning, the beginning of the retail sales process. An emotional decision was made to come to your store or call about an ad they saw. What are you doing to deliver the same feeling and emotion when they walk through your doors that they saw on television? The advertisement is the first step to a sale, but likely one of the smallest. When you design your campaigns you need to re-design your sales models and approach, deliver what the customer is expecting you to and you will convert more sales.

Let us use Best Buy as an example, when I see in the Sunday ad a laptop, carrying case, portable mouse, and a wireless router for $XXX, if that strikes me as something that will fulfill my needs I will go to a Best Buy to look at it. When I go there to look at it, they need to put it on an end cap that is clearly marked with everything I need. The second thing they need to do is staff someone to monitor (not hawk over me, because if I wanted that I wouldn't have researched first) to ensure that the questions I didn't get answered online (because if they were I would've purchased online) get answered timely. Fancy that Best Buy does this already, however how many of your retail clients think things like this through? I would argue not enough, the thought stops at the end of the ad.

Taking a step back sometimes and really focusing on the customer experience start to finish will give you an opportunity to notice things like this and make your marketing dollars really work for you. Bounce rate, remember that, and in every marketing decision remember you should be emulating your message in experience or your customers will not be as receptive to your campaign goals.

Something Different

There is no doubt that what transpires on television is emotional. Each show, whether reality or sitcom, pulls at your emotional strings, evidenced by shows like ER, Grey’s Anatomy, American Idol (three major network prime programs). The show gets you emotionally involved by linking you to a character, and vested in that characters best interest. This exemplifies why television is such a powerful marketing tool, in between the breaks of these programs your customers are emotionally vested in, runs your commercial. Here is the perfect opportunity to engage your customer with a reason to purchase. The only hiccup here is that not all people make emotional decisions to buy, not all people make instantaneous decisions to buy, and most importantly you’ll never know that they decided to buy because they were engaged by television. Also, this makes the ROI for television campaigns very difficult to measure. This is where the coupling of internet advertising, a solid landing page and website, and television will be the future of marketing.

Imagine:

A meticulously designed: 30 commercial. One that perfectly speaks to the potential customer, it talks to them in their language, using a non-intrusive voice, and says the things they need to remember when they go to research it on Google.

How:

Start with the website, and define the keywords that people use in searching for the client on Google. Identify the most important phrases and use as many as possible in the :30 script for television. It is also important to purchase using a PPC campaign the keywords that are highly ranked in the event someone can’t remember the entire commercial they saw. This will ensure it is easy for them to find they offer they were intrigued by.


Why:

Because after they have seen the commercial, they will likely “Google” your ad, to find out more information. Have a designated landing page set up, this will guarantee that those who come to this page have come here because of the advertisement they saw.

What next:

Give them the opportunity to convert, to say yes, to engage. Give the opportunity to enter an e-mail address for more information, give them an opportunity to buy, and give them an opportunity to do more research on the normal website. All of these are capable of being tracked and all of them tell a story about whether or not you won or lost with the customer. This is the most important information going forward, to model future campaigns by.

By following a model similar to this you will eliminate many marketing challenges in today’s world. It is easy to manage ROI, define your goals, and clearly track your victories and losses.