In it he points out that most national advertisers are good at brand building but miss opportunities to actually connect their target audience with the local offices and/or stores where transactions will ultimately occur. Why is that important? Because, as Greg points out, the vast majority of commerce is conducted a) locally and b) offline.
Auto manufacturers are prominent on the list of top national advertisers within Greg’s post. We’ve written in this blog before about how they can do better, and as a company we have a tremendous amount of experience in the auto industry. To drive home Greg’s point with another example, let’s pick on the Insurance industry…
State Farm Insurance may be a national brand but if I’m inspired by one of their “like a good neighbor” ads to purchase auto insurance, how easy is it to get to where I’m signing the paperwork and writing a check? Try it for yourself! Inspired by an ad, go to www.statefarm.com. From the home page you are directed to “Get a rate quote now”. Enter a zip code and get a form to fill out with the heading “Completing your quote should only take 10-15 minutes depending on the number of vehicles for which you need coverage.”. UGH!
I’ve not done this, but I bet if I called 100 State Farm agents and asked whether they would prefer a) a few fully completed and validated forms from the State Farm website or b) a much larger number of live conversations with consumers visiting the State Farm website for the express purpose of getting a quote — almost all would opt for the live conversations. True, processing the quotes might require a little more handholding by the agent but what about the overall close-rate and amount of revenue generated? Isn’t that the real measure of advertising success? So why not do a better job of connecting consumers inspired by an ad to the local resource with whom they will ultimately transact? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Solutions? Well, you’ve probably guessed already. ContactAtOnce! was designed specifically to move more website visitors into live conversations with merchants with special features to support aggregator/directory type websites. ContactAtOnce! has been proven to increase conversion substantially while simultaneously improving the consumer experience, enabling them to “Contact At Once”.
Classified type websites already understand and appreciate the value of solutions such as ContactAtOnce! and, I predict, national advertisers will be close behind.
Connecting National Brands with Local Buyers
Local search guru Greg Sterling had a great post on his blog yesterday entitled “Most Advertising is Ultimately Local”.
In it he points out that most national advertisers are good at brand building but miss opportunities to actually connect their target audience with the local offices and/or stores where transactions will ultimately occur. Why is that important? Because, as Greg points out, the vast majority of commerce is conducted a) locally and b) offline.
Auto manufacturers are prominent on the list of top national advertisers within Greg’s post. We’ve written in this blog before about how they can do better, and as a company we have a tremendous amount of experience in the auto industry. To drive home Greg’s point with another example, let’s pick on the Insurance industry…
State Farm Insurance may be a national brand but if I’m inspired by one of their “like a good neighbor” ads to purchase auto insurance, how easy is it to get to where I’m signing the paperwork and writing a check? Try it for yourself! Inspired by an ad, go to www.statefarm.com. From the home page you are directed to “Get a rate quote now”. Enter a zip code and get a form to fill out with the heading “Completing your quote should only take 10-15 minutes depending on the number of vehicles for which you need coverage.”. UGH!
I’ve not done this, but I bet if I called 100 State Farm agents and asked whether they would prefer a) a few fully completed and validated forms from the State Farm website or b) a much larger number of live conversations with consumers visiting the State Farm website for the express purpose of getting a quote — almost all would opt for the live conversations. True, processing the quotes might require a little more handholding by the agent but what about the overall close-rate and amount of revenue generated? Isn’t that the real measure of advertising success? So why not do a better job of connecting consumers inspired by an ad to the local resource with whom they will ultimately transact? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Solutions? Well, you’ve probably guessed already. ContactAtOnce! was designed specifically to move more website visitors into live conversations with merchants with special features to support aggregator/directory type websites. ContactAtOnce! has been proven to increase conversion substantially while simultaneously improving the consumer experience, enabling them to “Contact At Once”.
Classified type websites already understand and appreciate the value of solutions such as ContactAtOnce! and, I predict, national advertisers will be close behind.