Targeted Promotions over the Internet

• Encourage customers and prospects to add the marketer’s legitimate sending address to their personal “approved list/address book” and provide up-front instructions on how to do so in registration pages. Benefits vary by mailbox provider, but may include special icon designation and full image content/link rendering. Being an “approved” sender yields higher response rates and generates fewer complaints and blocking issues.
• Carefully consider the content and presentation of marketing messages, as recipients are increasingly labeling any e-mail communication that is not relevant or looks suspicious as spam. In addition, marketers are encouraged to create messages that strike a balance between images and system text, as many mailbox providers now routinely “hide” images in default settings.
• Follow established protocols such as authentication and whitelisting criteria to ensure that e-mail messages “pass muster” with mailbox providers. In addition, marketers should register for all mailbox provider feedback loops. In general, marketers should aim to keep complaint rates (total complaints divided by total delivered email) below 0.1 percent to avoid temporary or long-term blocks.
• Adopt good list-hygiene and monitoring practices that help facilitate message delivery. Monitoring campaign delivery, open and click-through rates is essential, as a low open rate or high bounce rate may indicate a delivery issue.
• Educate consumers and other stakeholders about anti-spam tools, technologies, laws, and industry programs developed to separate legitimate communications from fraudulent messaging.

OTHER INTERNET MARKETING BASICS

• Understand that spam is risky. Unsolicited e-mail, or spam, was once considered just another form of junk mail, annoying but harmless. Now, there are federal and state regulations restricting the use of spam, and those who spam may be accused of invading people's privacy. If you send unrequested online messages that are obviously targeted, you risk an invasion-of-privacy complaint. Sending online information only to people who want to receive it (who "opt in") is safer, as well as more productive.

• Define your target customer. Focus on the segments of the universe most likely to be responsive. For a B-to-B marketer, that might mean targeting the appropriate industries and company size. One of the pluses of online selling is that you can sell to customers regardless of where they are. But does that make sense for you? Do people need to be in a certain geographic area in order to be able to use your product or service?
  
  For a B-to-C marketer, such things as household income; number, ages, and genders of adults and children; professions; and hobbies are probably important. The more you know about your target customers, the more likely it is that you'll be able to reach them.
  
  
• Track your return on investment (ROI) for each channel. As with any direct marketing vehicle, you need to know whether your online marketing is working. How many leads does it generate? What is the cost per lead? How many sales result from the leads? What is the value of each sale? What is the potential value of each customer? You can outsource this work or purchase software programs and do the analysis yourself.
  
  
• Promote off-line. It may sound contradictory, but industry observers say it's vital to support your chosen online marketing channels with traditional off-line media. Put your Web address on your stationery and business cards and in print ads and direct mail pieces. You can even send a mailer that reproduces a page from your Web site. Each repetition helps drive more traffic to your site.

KEY DECISIONS

• Consider "opt-in" email lists. These are lists of people who have asked to receive information about a particular product or service. For example, when people fill out a form online, say, to request an email newsletter or register a product they have purchased, they can indicate that they would like to receive information on similar products or services. (Recipients may also "opt-out," that is, ask that their names be removed from the mailing list.) Because people have given their permission for marketers to send such mailings, this is also referred to as "permission marketing."
  
  When you send email to people on these lists, you're not spamming; they've asked for the mail. If you choose the list as carefully as you would any other direct marketing list, you'll have a well-qualified target group. Purchased email lists can be expensive. However, they eliminate the cost of printing and mailing. And the response rates are estimated at between 5 and 20 percent.
  
  
• Form partnerships. This is one of the most promising routes for marketers who have taken the trouble to define their customers. There are different types of affiliates or partnerships. A reciprocal link, for example, is a barter arrangement in which you link to a site that, in turn, links to yours; both partners benefit and neither pays a fee. B-to-B marketers might link to sites in the same industry or to other, complementary, businesses.
  
  There are also fee-based relationships. Again, your ad or offer appears on a site that is likely to be of interest to your customers or prospects. When those people click on the ad or offer, they are taken to your site. You pay a fee to the affiliate site for each lead or sale generated by the click-through. One of the best-known affiliate sites is Amazon.com, which pays a commission to other sites whose surfers click through a link and buy from Amazon.com.
  
  
• Focus on quality, not quantity. The more targeted a partner site or e-mail list is, the smaller the number of returns (leads or sales) will be. However, the leads or sales should be of high quality and thus likely to turn into long-term, profitable customers.

AVOID THE OBVIOUS

When trying to target your e-marketing effort, you may have to temper the use of tactics that otherwise might seem appropriate. For example:

• Limit your use of search engines. Even if you can get your site listed by a search engine, which is never a certainty, it's a scattershot method. Search engines are appropriate only if your customer universe is very large and diverse. But it's nearly impossible for a search engine to focus on a specific target prospect.
  
  
• Don't expect too much from banner ads. Yes, many companies use them. But because they're ubiquitous, Web surfers are less likely to pay attention to them. 

CASE HISTORY: WATERPIK

One company that found success with a targeted online promotion is Waterpik Technologies Inc., a manufacturer of personal health care products, pool products, and heating systems in Fort Collins, CO. Its “Waterpik Rewards” program was aimed at dentists, dental-office managers, and receptionists—basically anyone responsible for ordering supplies and equipment in a dentist’s office.

This B-to-B program was designed and executed by Don Jagoda Associates, a Melville, NY, promotion and marketing agency. Before launch, it was promoted via email messages to prospects and customers. The messages explained the program and told prospective members that they could enroll by signing up online.

Members earned Pik Points for purchasing Waterpik products, and they were alerted to their point total by email messages sent at least monthly. When members had enough Pik Points, they redeemed them for merchandise via an online catalog. There were four levels of prizes plus a bonus drawing.

The program was successful for a number of important reasons, chief of which is its ease of use and convenience for participants. Everything was available online, from initial ordering of merchandise, to receiving statements and updates, to reviewing reward options, and finally to ordering and tracking selected reward options.

CASE HISTORY: MAZDA

Mazda North American Operations, based in Irvine, CA, used a number of targeted online promotional elements in its consumer promotions. Working with advertising agency Doner Advertising, Detroit, for example, the automaker turned to Seattle-based GiftCertificates.com to provide an incentive element for a targeted promotion aimed at getting people to test drive the Mazda Tribute. Previously, Doner had worked with GiftCertificates.com on test-drive offers for Mazda's MPV, Protegé, and Miata.

Car buyers cashed in on the Tribute offer by going to a Mazda dealer for a test drive and selecting one of three gift options, including GiftCertificates.com's SuperCertificate, which was redeemable for original gift certificates to hundreds of stores, restaurants, travel services, Internet retailers, spas, and theaters. 

Here’s how the promotion worked. Doner created a direct-mail piece and sent it to potential Mazda customers, inviting them to test drive a new Tribute. The customer brought the direct-mail coupon to a dealer, drove a vehicle, and selected a gift before mailing the coupon back to Mazda for confirmation. Depending on the delivery method chosen by the consumer, GiftCertificates.com either mailed or emailed the gift certificate to the consumer.

ASSOCIATIONS

RELATED SMN ARTICLES

For information related to targeted Internet promotions, see 7024, Increasing Sales Productivity via Internet and Intranet; and 9557, Transforming Your Web Site into a Profit Center.