How Landing Pages can protect your Direct Mail Campaign from Google
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Joine Boingnet CEO Dennis Kelly and learn how landing pages can help direct marketers drive more conversions out of the direct mail campaigns. Google has created an environment where marketers are losing direct mail leads to online research "distraction". Landing Pages and Microsites provide a "Safe Place" for marketers to direct their direct mail targets to without the distraction caused by Google's AdWords product.
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How Landing Pages can protect your Direct Mail Campaign from Google
- 1. Landing Pages: The Key to Direct Mail Success OR – HOW TO SAVE YOUR CAMPAIGNS FROM GOOGLE!
- 2. Today’s Speaker Dennis Kelly Boingnet CEO Use the Chat Panel for questions, or Tweet questions & comments #landingpagequestions www.boingnet.com www.boingnet.com/blog
- 3. Agenda • Direct Mail, Online Research & Google – How they all are related • How Landing Pages can solve the Google issue for Direct Mailers • Direct Mail & Landing Page Examples
- 4. Direct Mail Drives Online Behavior • “34% of consumers search online for more information about a product when receiving direct mail from a brand they’re interested in” – Direct Marketing Association • “Direct mail influences 76% of Internet users to buy a product or service online” – ExactTarget • “59% of consumers say that they are more likely to visit the insurance company’s website than call the company after receiving direct mail, with 32% turning to search engines to start research” – AIS Media
- 5. Google – The 800 lb Gorilla “Google holds a staggering 67.6% of the U.S. search engine market share” comScore April 2014 “Google now processes 40,000 search queries every second on average, over 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year” Internet Live Statistics
- 6. Your Direct Mail Google Strategy? All of your direct mail targets are using Google every day No amount of great creative, CTA, database targeting can help you avoid it Smart mailers bake Google into their campaign strategy. A good strategy starts with some questions:
- 7. Google AdWords – What Google Really Cares about 1.) In 2013, Google officially surpassed $50 billion in total advertising revenue. This comprised 85% of their total revenues for 2013. 2.) Of that $50 billion in ad revenue, Google reported $12.9 billion in net income for 2013. 3.)Total paid clicks on Google and Google Display Network sites were up 31% over the year prior and 13% over the third quarter of 2013.
- 8. What happens when consumers research using Google?
- 9. What is Google doing to your campaign?
- 10. What’s the Best Strategy to Maximize Direct Mail Conversions? Ignoring what consumers want to do won’t work Defeating Google’s momentum is not possible
- 11. Direct Marketing Jiu-Jitsu Use the overwhelming force to your advantage in 2 ways: 1. Redirect consumers in your Direct Mail by giving them what they want in a “safe space” 2. Link AdWords campaigns to your Direct Mail
- 12. Landing Pages & Microsites – The “Safe Places” for consumers to go online A controlled environment that lets you give consumers what they want without distraction Low cost, easy to set up & embed in Direct Mail & Google AdWords Especially useful for higher priced products with longer sales cycles
- 13. Best Strategy – Point them in the right direction Prominently feature a URL and QR Code in the Headline, Copy and Envelope of your Direct Mail Develop a landing page or microsite with information consumers want – features, benefits, reviews – that YOU control If you don’t give a URL– Google will fill the vacuum with AdWords
- 14. Embedded URL’s – 3 Simple Steps to Bypass Google Step 1 – set up a “Friendly URL” that is easy to read and type with personalization features. Step 2 – Set up a landing page that matches the creative of your direct mail piece Step 3 – download a file with URL’s & QR’s to your variable print equipped printer
- 15. 2nd Strategy – Set up AdWords for your Campaign Set up a Campaign in Google AdWords to correspond with your Direct Mail Campaign Bid on keywords that are related to your offer (tip – make sure to buy the brand name!) Link those keywords to landing pages that use the keywords in the URL, the title and copy
- 16. What Makes a Good Landing Page? Web Page Designed to Convert Clear & Consistent Headline & Subhead Single CallToAction “Message Match”
- 17. Use Responsive Design for Mobile • 20-50% of Landing PageTraffic Mobile • Smartphone &Tablets • 300% higher conversion
- 18. Your Home Page Isn’t a Landing Page! ▪ Multiple Messages ▪ 7 Calls to Action • Designed to help you navigate • Designed for SEO
- 19. Case Study – Bose Speaker Direct Mail Offer Received triple folded letter from Bose 90 Day Risk Free Offer Need to unfold for CTA
- 20. Case Study – Bose Speaker Direct Mail Offer
- 21. Case Study – Bose Speaker Direct Mail Offer
- 22. Case Study – Bose Speaker Direct Mail Offer
- 23. Case Study – Bose Speaker Direct Mail Offer
- 24. Case Study - Johnson State College
- 25. Case Study - Johnson State College
- 26. Case Study - Johnson State College
- 27. Case Study - Johnson State College
- 28. Case Study - Johnson State College www.madelinekelly.jsc/summerpreview
- 29. Case Study – Vector Summer Job
- 30. Case Study – Vector Summer Job
- 31. Case Study – Vector Summer Job
- 32. Case Study – Vector Summer Job
- 33. A Quick Word on Boingnet Lightweight Marketing Automation Landing Pages, Microsites, Email,Text & Direct Mail Campaigns Affordable, flexible options
- 34. ThankYou! Questions – Use the Chat Panel or #landingpagequestions Or get in touch: Dennis Kelly T: 781-421-6291 dennis@boingnet.com Boingnet.com
Editor's Notes
- The first important concept to understand is the relationship between offline campaigns & online behavior. Among the many new habits that fast & inexpensive internet and search engines have created is the idea that before consumers make decisions, they go online to do research. And why not? Within a few keystrokes or finger swipes, consumers have easy access to everything they need to help make their decision, including: 1.) Price & product comparison information (am I getting a fair price?) 2.) Detailed product or service information such as spec sheets, videos, e-books, whitepapers & case studies 3.) Reviews from professional sources as well as fellow consumers Interestingly, the higher the price of the product, the higher percentage of consumers go online to research decisions. GE Capital Retail Bank recently discovered that products with a price point of $116 have twice as many online researchers as lower priced products. Think about what that means for things like auto purchases, financial services, non profit donations and especially college tuitions (says the parent of two teenagers).
- In order to get all of this – consumers have figured out that they just need to type www.google.com and a few words describing their interest. Google has become the default “free” product & service researcher for the world (except in China, interestingly). When it comes to search, and more importantly when it comes to online research, consumers around the world have come to rely on Google to provide them with the information they are looking for in ways that are easy to access & understand. As a near monopoly on the “starting point” activity that just about every consumer is doing, Google has the power to make or break your success. More & more consumers are hopping online whether they are at home, work or walking around on the street to check things out before buying. This is happening before picking up the phone, or responding to any type of offer from brands. Direct Mail recipients are no different. As they sort through what the postman has brought them, their eyes catch an interesting headline, offer or Call To Action, and they think “Hey, I think I’ll check this out further”
- So, Google is out there, what is your strategy? We’ve established that Direct Mail Campaigns Drive your targets online to do research prior to taking action. Many of them will use search. We’ve also established that Google is the dominant player in search. In formulating a strategy on how to maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns, the next logical questions to ask are: 1.) “What does Google REALLY care about, since everyone uses their free search, there must be more to the story” 2.) “What happens when consumers use Google to do research when I send a direct mail campaign?” 3.) “What happens to my consumers after they use Google to do research?”
- What does Google really care about? Their Google AdWords product. Google is a spectacularly successful business that almost entirely depends upon selling ads to their search users. While they generate headlines for things like self driving cars, Google Glasses and all sorts of other geeky research projects, AdWords is really their business. The Google AdWords product is their Search profit engine. It reinvented the online search business in the early 2000’s and has achieved a dominant status in online advertising. AdWords lets businesses & organizations bid on “keywords” that are associated with searches and place ads that are designed to get consumers to click on them when they express interest in a topic via those keywords. As you can see, it’s a nice little business that kicked off about $13 billion in profit last year and has a nice little growth rate of 31% annually. We should all have nice little businesses like this.
- So what happens when consumers – including your direct mail targets, user Google to do a little research after you’ve grabbed them with your clever headline? Here’s an example of a simple online search for donations to AIDS. Perhaps this user has gotten a direct mail piece soliciting a donation, and thought they’d go online to do some research before deciding what to do. Why not? Its free, its comprehensive, its fast & easy to use. As you might expect, when consumers come to Google to use their free search engine, Google wants to get paid. The way they get paid is through Adwords Campaigns. Each of the items in the red boxes are ads that Google has strategically placed for maximum impact. The ads are designed to make consumers click to see what content is behind the solicitation.
- What is Google doing to your Direct Mail Campaigns? While H. Ross Perot famously described the “giant sucking sound” of jobs leaving America because of NAFTA in 1992, I think a better image for the effect of Google AdWords on your campaign is that of a siphon. Google is selling ads to the eyeballs that you’ve driven to them with your direct mail (or other offline campaign). These ads are designed to distract your clients from whatever their original intent was in going online to research. Once your clients click on an ad – you risk losing them to competitors trying to entice people to spend their dollars with them. In this case, the non profit who sent out the direct mail campaign to generate donations for AIDS is having its hard earned leads being “siphoned” by organizations like Unicef, an AIDS orphan organization, Heifer.org, Goodwill, a Find AIDS charities company, an AIDS research organization, and the Elton John Foundation. All great causes. All of them siphoning off interest in your campaign.
- We’ve discussed how consumers are increasingly using Google to make research decisions prior to responding to any call to action in any campaign, including direct mail. We’ve discussed how Google is generating billions in profits from their AdWords product that is designed to distract your campaign targets from their original intent in learning more about the offer that you’ve spent your hard earned money putting in front of them in your mail piece. You can’t pretend this isn’t happening. Great businesses develop strategies to deal with reality. While Google may eventually be slayed by a new competitor, it probably won’t be one of us here on the webinar today that does it. Their cash hoard of about $55 billion will ensure they will be a player for some time. So what’s a direct mail marketer supposed to do?
- While I’m no martial arts expert, there’s much to be learned from some of the philosophies that have evolved over the years – in this case when an overwhelming force is being applied to a marketplace – an economic battleground of sorts. We are all marketers – we need to give consumers what they want, while directing them to a “safe” spot (away from Google and your competitors ads) to dig in further and to quench the thirst to use online resources to learn more about the offers you are putting in front of them. This can be done both in the creative in your direct mail piece, as well as within Google AdWords campaigns themselves
- Landing Pages and Microsites are the “Safe Space” where marketers control the content, the message and the options for consumers. Good Landing Pages are opportunities for marketers to give consumers a place to go online where they can learn more, compare & contrast, without being distracted by competitors. The best option is to set up really good landing pages and embed them in your direct mail. Tell the consumers exactly where to go online to learn more. Head Google and their AdWords product off by redirecting the consumer energy to YOUR landing page rather than in the wild west of a Google search result page. The other thing to do is to set up your own AdWords account and link YOUR landing pages to your Direct Mail campaign. Your campaign can then “own” some of that real estate that Google is selling to your competitors.
- Landing pages are web pages designed with a single purpose - conversion! By focusing their intent on exactly their goals, landing pages deliver better results than “normal” web pages. What do we mean when we say “designed with a single purpose” At the most basic, fundamental level, we mean: 1.) All Content and all Navigation not needed to achieve the conversion is stripped away – images, text, linkes, buttons, etc. 2.) The Headline of the page is clear, simple and to the point. If a sub head is used, it builds upon the headline with simple, clear language describing the product/service or offer. 2.) There is a SINGLE call to action on a landing page. By limiting the choices of actions that a user can take, you are purposely driving them to accomplish the one task you’ve set out to do – CONVERT! That call to action is usually the focal point of the design of the page – the layout, use of “whitespace”, the coloring choices should all be driving the eyes to focus on the Call To Action (CTA for jargon). The CTA will often be expressed in a button that requires the user to click. This button needs to be designed carefully, with color, size, font & word choice being thought through to attract the eye and convince the user to take the desired action. 3.) The primary messaging of a good landing page will match that of the messaging that DROVE THE USER TO THE PAGE. It doesn’t matter if the user got to the page via a Google search, an email message or an offline advertisement. The messaging needs to be consistent or you will lose a high % of your potential targets when they arrive at the page. We call this “message match” & we’ll dig in on this shortly.
- As everyone knows, mobile usage is on a massive growth curve Smartphone & Tablets are being used more & more for all purposes When landing pages are designed for mobile – they convert mobile traffic at a much higher rate than non mobile. Think about your own experiences, if you have to zoom, scroll around, pinch and do a lot of extra work, you are much more likely to click out & keep moving Research backs up the obvious. Many more people convert on pages that are optimized for the device being used. Build Once – run anywhere One set of code Automatically resizes for desktop, tablet & smartphone
- Finally – don’t use your home page as a landing page. Often, direct mailers & others in the offline marketing world assume that because the brand has a home page, people will just respond to an offer by going to that home page and getting what they need online. This isn’t the case. The home page is a wonderful portal to many things, and rightly has huge time and effort put into it to ensure it accomplishes its many tasks. What the above example points out is that it just can’t keep up with marketing. Marketing campaigns come and go quickly – they are, by definition, limited time efforts. Home pages really struggle with message match – the ability of a marketing effort (in this case, web page) to line up with the messaging that originated the viewing of the page. Marketers have learned that by building landing pages and microsites with the sole purpose of acknowledging and building upon the messaging that prompted the consumer to act, conversion rates skyrocket.
- Bose First Fold
- Bose 2nd Fold Do the fine folks at Bose really think in 2014 that I’m going to find a pen, out a form in tiny spaces, and put something back in the mail as my first option? There’s no mention of anywhere to go on the web to learn more, to fill out this form, or to do anything else. For me, and for many people, this is the point where the paper meets the bottom of my garbage can. But wait…maybe I’ll go online to do some research first
- So of course I go to Google – I type in “Best Home Speakers” as my search phrase. Bose does show up – they set up a Google AdWords campaign to list 2 ads for the keyword phrase “Best Home Speakers” Unfortunately for Bose, my eyes are immediately drawn to: 2013 Speaker of The Year at OrbAudio.com Best budget home theater speakers – CNET Top 10 Home Speakers just below Bose Lots of distraction – I’m forgetting about the nice offer that I got for 90 days free
- Bose 3rd Fold – Landing Page Just for kicks, there is more to the Bose mail piece. If I do unfold all the way, and scan to the bottom of the page – I can find a URL to go to. It is in black & white (to save money), the font is smaller than the 800 number (which is okay, but ultimately a futile exercise).
- Bose Landing Page The landing page Bose designed for this offer is pretty well executed. It has a nice image of the product, I have some options to see different views of the product, to watch a video about it, the price is prominently displayed. It is, however, lacking an important element – the offer that compelled me to research – 90 day free trial, is in tiny print below the “Add To Cart” button. This lack of “message match” can kill an integrated direct mail/online campaign. Overall – a pretty poor effort from Bose. I got a relatively lackluster piece of mail, I had to really work to find where to go online, and when I got to the landing page I didn’t immediately see the offer that drove me there.
- My daughter just finished her junior year of high school, and like a lot of kids, has found herself on mailing lists from many higher educational institutions. This arrived at our house recently, a nice, colorful large postcard inviting her to attend Summer Preview Days at Johnson State College in Vermont. I like the headline, it is pleasant, informative (tells me when). The first thing I see below the headline is a URL. Great job! They are telling me where they want me to go online to learn more. They are redirecting me from asking Google for information. There’s 1 problem: The URL is the home page of Johnson State College.
- Now I’m lost. I was excited to learn more about Summer Preview Days in July. This home page, like many home page, is serving many masters. Unfortunately the marketers promoting Summer Preview Days must be pretty low on the totem pole, as a quick scan leaves me with nothing. So I move on.
- I turn the postcard over and get more information. This is good. As I scan the postcard, my eyes are drawn to the “Sign Up Today” in large font and in green. Immediately below the Call to Action, I see a URL (different from the URL on the front of the card) as well as number to call. My daughter – who never does anything without her phone, can type in the URL. Her life would be easier if there were a QR Code to scan, but the URL listed is what we’d call friendly – easy to read, easy to say, easy to type.
- What we get is not really a landing page, but a “normal” web page with all of the Admission events, and all of the normal navigation of the full Johnson State website. The good news is that I can find the Summer Preview Days, which is 2nd on the list of Special Events displayed. The problem is that there are 38 different links on this page. 38 things that are asking me to take an action that has nothing to do with the reason why I came to this page – to learn more and/or to sign up for the Summer Preview Days. Summer Preview Days gets lost in the shuffle. This page is so busy that in no way can anything stand out. The other thing – and this is an entirely different topic – imagine navigating this page on a phone. Like my daughter does. With every web page she looks at. All landing pages need to be built using responsive design – which will render the page to be “thumb friendly” or “keyboard friendly” depending upon the screen being used.
- Here’s an alternative for Johnson State College that I did in less than 5 minutes. I created Which one do you think clearly communicates the offer? Which one makes Madeline feel like she’s not just another number? Which one will render on a mobile device? Which is more likely to entice my daughter to register? This is a really simple, stripped down version of a landing page. There’s no comparison with the www.jsc/visit page given to my daughter
- While we are on the topic of my kids, our final case study will be from another interesting solicitation, this time at letter offering summer employment for my son. As you can see, this appears to be a personal letter from the District Manager. My son is personally addressed, indicating that variable print technology was used in the production. The call to action is clearly stated at the top of the letter in bold type. They want my son to call them. Now. But, before my son calls anyone (he much prefers to text), he wants to do a little research. Since Vector hasn’t given him any direction, he turns to Vector’s good friends at Google.
- As you can see, this isn’t a “safe place” for Vector. The 2nd headline that Google has come up with for “Vector Summer Jobs” is “Don’t get suckered into their scam! VM is a bunch of con-artists!” Not exactly what the marketers at Vector had in mind when they reached out to Patrick. After seeing this, there’s no way that my son calls them.
- The Vector story is not yet complete. Shortly after receiving the letter from the District Manager, my son received another letter, from the same guy, with the same offer. This time, the marketers at Vector included a personal URL for Pat to go to. PatrickKelly38.VectorApply.com. Nice & simple, easy to type in. (again – a QR is an easy to add item that my son is more likely to take action on.) Rather than seeing a page that says “Don’t get suckered into their scam! VM is a bunch of con-artists!”, Pat sees the following:
- Here’s a pretty well done page – while spare, speaks to him directly with personalization techniques, gives some benefits from working for Vector, and gives him a very easy call to action – enter the zip code – to begin finding him a job. It also has images of some happy teens about his age. This is an experience that is “safe” for Vector. The marketers took a little more time to develop a direct mail & landing page integration that gives Pat what he needs, but shields him from the mess that is out on Google.