Marketing people from Digital Signage companies are quickly realizing that there companies advertising plans are in the dark (with a large portion of there budgets still allocated towards offline marketing) and not enough for online marketing. Customers today demand an offline and online strategy. This “convergence marketing” strategy make sense not only to give clients what they expect, but be more effective marketing our businesses.
On a given week we talk to many digital signage companies. Some are privately held companies, start-ups or Fortune 500 companies. Many are looking for the “big fish” or the shot in the arm (call it what you will) and due to the media’s awareness now many have recently been told by CEO’s to make it happen.
Those that are requesting information about online advertising are asking the wrong questions. Digital Signage is still a highly targeted market and you can spend thousands of dollars on pay-per click (old school circa 2001 advertising) and print advertising AND still not get the results you want. In the digital signage industry you want and need targeted traffic with a well thought out plan for online and offline integration of your advertising requirements. In simple terms, make it work together. It is like matching your pants with your socks and what I mean by targeted traffic is a site where people come to as a resource for help and assistance. Not necessarily an industry site, even though industry affiliations are nice, but a site that they can search for solutions and get answers. The old pay per click method key factors with online initiatives means “pay for performance”. You get a click …you pay. You’re paying for traffic…and the people come to your site. But what kind of traffic are you paying for? Are you paying for your competitors to repeatedly click on your link because they know it will cost you money? Are you paying to be grouped in a site with the very same looking text ad with other people within your industry who are also utilizing pay per click words? And because the wording is sensitive and critical are you on every digital signage site that people have solely created just so they can be a publisher of the google ad words program and are hoping to make a few bucks?
Generally, the old consensus was that if you’re not online, you’re missing business. I am here to tell you if you are not advertising online on a site with targeted traffic you are also losing big business. Right now 85% of our leads are from companies looking for digital signage solutions. That means they are surfing online for information, before they buy. They didn’t find everything they needed in a magazine or a resource guide or didn’t even know a publication existed. Some of the resource directory guides are just proof that we have been good at marketing to each other but not good at getting to the end-user. In fact, we know people who look at them just to see if their competitor is there and how big there ad is.
And if you want to sell “Generation Y’ers and Echo boomers”, you can be assured they will do research over the internet. These generations look for you to “share freely” with information and knowledge, and being “competent” out weighs “schmoozing”. They are often entrepreneurs or often have a lot of decision maker influence in a company that will deploy small to medium digital signage projects without the same old baggage of “we need a measurement standard philosophy” They look for good information, good pricing and only deal with very responsive people.
What does that mean to you as a digital signage company?
Answer emails quickly and cultivate a system to convert leads to sales.
Sadly, we find not all leads are even followed up on, let alone worked properly. So, obtaining leads is important, but how you work them is equally important.
What questions should you ask potential publishers of websites that sell advertising to Digital Signage companies?
How long does a typical visitor stay on your site? This is very important and proves the relevancy of a site. Ask them if they have a statistic program to prove the length of time as well.
Ask how many members they have? A strong member base that not only serves the industry but end-users is very important. Can you see proof of this in black and white?
How many unique visitors and hits do they have per month or per week? Usually Friday Saturdays and Sundays will be lower traffic days for a news media digital signage website. Unique visitors are new visitors that have never visited and total hits are a combination of returning visitors and new visitors. Having a good number of both is equally important.
What percentage of traffic is typed in traffic? This percentage should be at least 50 percent. Typed in traffic means a visitor actually typed in the website address, this number shows popularity and should coincide with the return visitor traffic.
What percentage of traffic is search engine traffic? This number should be at least 30 percent.
What pages are the most popular pages? A news and media website should know what pages are the most popular and be able to prove it. You should pay attention to this. Of course the landing page is going to yield the highest results because that is a visitor’s door into the site. But what pages are frequently used?
Do they have an agreement of who will do what and when? Getting a successful banner campaign off the ground takes teamwork. Who will send your companies graphics when? Who is responsible for releasing press releases in a timely manner? Also, how quick can a media company get your banners up and running? This should be 24 to 36 hours or less after you have paid and submitted your information.
What is the editor’s background in the industry? If a site just has editors that are good with words and webmasters who just place banners on a website this may not be desirable advertising for you. You want someone who has some background in the industry because if not, they will not recognize a lead or opportunity that may help you.
Can we afford not to advertise online if we want to be successful today, and especially, tomorrow? If you expect someone to buy a digital signage network from you or advertise their goods on your network, how can you not advertise where you would get the targeted traffic to make that happen?
The bottom line is commit time and energy to an online presence and strategy, designate part of your marketing budget to online advertising and have support from everyone involved when the campaign is implemented. Be highly proactive and assign a contact person to send graphics, press releases and information to the company you paid to help you.
Thank you!