DRTV DERAILERS Section 4 - Part 5 of 13 - Irv Brechner

There is a lot of evidence that consumers search on company name, product name and keywords they've heard or seen in an infomercial or short-form as the means by which they respond. For whatever reason, they are typing in these words into Google, Bing or another engine instead of calling the 800# or typing in the URL on the screen.

While this may seem like a minor thing on the surface, the impact can be very dramatic. When a consumer enters a keyword as a means of responding to your commercial, he/she is then presented with a web page featuring anywhere from 10 to 20 search results. These results include both organic (SEO) listings and paid (SEM) ads.

The consumer now is faced with choosing between all the listings, and as a result, your paid search listing:

n Must be present

n Must be better than other companies bidding on the same words

n Must have a strong call-to-action

n Must have a solid tracking system (next section, #5)

If you do not have a strong paid search program, here is what is likely to happen. As more and more consumers respond via search, and wind up going to competitor sites, you will lose business and perhaps not even understand why. You may even be forced to cancel media placements that

are actually working when you take into account responses via search. This has become a major problem for DRTV advertisers, even when they have a SEM program.

A stellar paid search program that is totally in sync with your DRTV production and media placements will have several elements, all working in harmony, to get maximum value from "DRTV-driven search." They include:

· Communications: Get your search people and media people talking. They need to share information, schedules, etc. as the goal is to get the most accurate snapshot of how the DRTV is working, which is a combination of phone, web and DRTV-driven search orders.

· Copy Consistency: By reflecting an offer and verbiage used in a DRTV spot on your website and search copy, you provide a consistency that resonates with the consumer. Once they recognize your copy, they are more likely to click through to your DRTV site.

· Copy Testing: DRTV spots generally leverage multiple USPs for a product. Testing each selling point against each other in A/B split tests informs the advertiser of what the consumer's perceived value is regarding the product.

· Offline/Online Budget Parallels: By ensuring that your digital budget is elevated to meet the offline flighting schedule, you make sure that you maximize the amount of relevant traffic coming through to your DRTV site.

· Landing Page Testing: If more than one commercial is being run with multiple offers, make sure to create landing pages for each offer. Testing the pages in an even serving rotation will let you know what converts more effectively on the back end.

· Keyword Development: Make sure a thorough list of buzz words exhibited in the DTRV spots are included in your bidding strategy (aside from the product or infomercial names themselves), as consumers may be prompted to search a phrase or word they remember from the spot. Have your search team review the actual script and finished commercial to create this list.

If you need proof of the impact of DRTV on search, and hence the need for a well thought-out paid search strategy, this is a graph showing actual client data.

This graph clearly shows that sales made via paid search closely mirrors DRTV media spend. In this particular program, once the DRTV campaign started, daily search impressions increased by 1,230%, the click rate increased by 58% and clicks increased by 2,006%. Proof positive that paid search and DRTV go hand-in-hand!

You can download the entire ebook at any time at:http://DD111.acquirgy.net

Irv Brechner has written over 100 published direct marketing articles and 13 books on a variety of topics. He's been a pioneer in online customer acquisition since 1996 and offline for his 35-year career. He has developed Acquirgy.com's "Customer Acquisition Intel Center" (acquirgy.com/intel ) he evangelizes best-of-breed tactics to help companies acquire customers in the digital age. He can be reached at: irv@acquirgy.com .

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