Why you should shift media investment to your owned platforms
Have you ever considered using some of your media spend to invest in your owned platforms? With advertising spends continually increasing in Australia, we often forget that the next place consumers visit is likely your website or mobile application, writes Tom O'Neil.
There is more competition for consumer attention than ever. Getting cut-through is becoming difficult and brands will face even more challenges if their online platforms are not up to scratch.
Consumers are becoming more demanding and expect perfection, including from your website, mobile application, product, and service. This isn’t news to many brands, but how many are actually doing anything about it?
Whilst a website may not be the right medium for all products and services, for a large number of brands including e-commerce websites, the experience has to be seamless.
Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash
This is why brands need to ensure their platform meets the expectations of the consumer, clearly communicates exactly how their product or service will benefit them, and that from communications to website to sale is seamless.
According to CMO, Australian ad spend is expected to grow in 2019, but if we are not getting the leads, customers, and brand impact required, then we are going to be looking at a bleak ROI, especially with mediums such as TV becoming more expensive.
The best marketing in the world cannot fix a bad product and let’s face it; it’s not exactly a tough gig for potential customers to go to a competitor in the 21st century when they’re ready to purchase.
If a brand’s platform is fast, seamless, intuitive, and leads consumers to a great product, all advertising will drive better results. But most of all, we may even get consumers organically talking about how great the product is, be it online or offline.
I believe now is the time for brands to get their foundations in place and ensure their owned platforms are driving action, not just visits. Owned assets and in particular websites still appear to be a checkbox for a number of brands despite it being the storefront for their product or service.
Brands need to stop thinking about their platforms as separate from their brand and marketing operations and start thinking about it as the gateway to their brand and their product. It is not only an opportunity to significantly improve the perception of the brand or product, but it is where most consumers are likely to purchase.
If companies continue to focus on just awareness metrics and neglect their owned assets, they are helping competition and potentially losing a life-long advocate.
Branding will always remain crucial in longer-term growth, but we also need to trigger a direct response and get consumers buying the products or services we offer when they are in-market.
Unfortunately, most brands stick to a website refresh every few years, rather than continually striving to understand their audience, learn, iterate, test and ultimately improve the website to drive more sales or leads.
Improve platform performance
Brands see fast platforms as a bonus/low priority, despite consumers expecting it. Imagine getting to a store and the security guard says “sorry, you’ll have to wait 10 seconds”. Consumers do not like waiting.
Don’t believe me? Amazon calculated that even if their page load speed was just one second slower, it could cost them $1.6 billion in sales each year.
Learn about your users
If you understand who is on your owned platform and what they are doing whilst there, you can learn why they are not buying your product, what content is missing, which information is drawing their eye.
Are consumers not seeing that ‘Apply Now’ button? Does that ‘Free Shipping’ information need to be more prominent? Are users leaving just before they purchase?
You can turn more visitors into customers by understanding this.
Create content that your users want
Brands often create content that they want, not what their users want, and assume that the consumer has a full understanding of their business and its product offering.
Every user on your platform is likely to have a different motivation, need, or purpose for the visit. From product information to testimonials, if you understand the person behind the visit, you will find it easier to create content that matters to them.
From better communicating the unique selling points of your product or service, to improving the speed of your platform by a second, the changes do not always have to be drastic to reap the rewards.
If you are looking to increase your media spend in 2019, you may want to make sure your platforms do their job. After all, visits do not pay the bills.
Tom O’Neil is a digital experience manager at Blue449 Australia.
Although Blue449 seems to shovel Tourism New Zealand’s money into Plista which is owned by GroupM. A bit of a contradiction.
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Digital experience manager says invest more in digital experience.
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The puffiest of all puff pieces
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If it’s a channel delivering results for the client, why does it matter who owns it? It’s not like Blue 449 is the one benefiting from Plista, unlike IPG with Cadreom, Group M with Xaxis.. so what is the contradiction here?
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So true. Most would agree that customer experience is the new battleground for marketers and brands should focus on what they can control, first. There’s no point in spending all this cash to drive eyeballs to your assets if they’re not optimised to convert.
Owned. Earned. Paid. Shared. In that order.
You wouldn’t have a physical store without inventory that required customers to climb through a window to get in. Your digital presence shouldn’t be any different. It’s why we believe so readily in using the Growth Driven Design methodology. Work out what your users are doing, then optimise to maximise actions.
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Barber says you need a haircut
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Much like the comment here…
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can the contradiction be any clearer when reading an article titled ‘why you should shift media investment to your OWNED platforms’?
Sound to me like an agency once again talking the talk but being unable to walk it very well.
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Comments on article
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Should you be wasting your time on Mumbrella M? We’ve a mission to finish.
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Meet me in the laboratory 007, I want to demonstrate my new laser watch before the mission
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This is a case by case basis for clients, and many have different audiences and different environments. What is needed for Tourism New Zealand might be very different from what is required for a life insurance brand.
I would like to believe that agencies don’t operate on a ‘one size fits all’ basis, and can offer different solutions for different challenges.
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This is why i love our industry
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“Sounds great, love the thinking! Here’s $6.50 to make it happen. Now, let’s use the rest of our budget 12 figure budget to create a TVC and support it with radio.” – 80% of the Aus marketing industry
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You do realise that this is a statement about shifting “some” ATL budgets to owned media. Not a statement saying 100% of Blue billings is advised into SEO and DEX… please tell me you got that from the article.. “Damn you Blue 449 for saying this and spending 20th Century Fox money on TV!!”, dude come on…
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007 come back to bed and break my heart
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I hate to do this on your comment trying to pump up your digital credentials but the link to your website isn’t working
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Ha. Spot on. Who needs data quantification and a better user experience when I can get taken out to the MCG in a box seat and a boozy lunch every quarter..
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