Chances are you won't get the answers, unless the campaign is online.
And even then, you can't expect your agency to provide post campaign results based on online components that were not 'looped in' to the marketing mix. This is particularly true for any sales impact measurements. Marketers ask for it, but few spend the time and investment on a full loop online marketing strategy. And for those who do, ROI is often many times better than that for offline spend.
Take Roche's slimming drug Xenical. The brief was to build an online platform where potential consumers would get information interactively.
Xenical wanted to provide value-added services for those who became product users.
That's how 5170.com.cn was born (5170 in Chinese sounds like 'I want to be slim'). For potential customers, it's a site of slimming information, presented in a way unique to the online media. This includes a body mass index weight to height calculator and a natural language based information finder.
Those who return after a purchase are encouraged to register as a 'light club' member. Membership is authenticated by two unique codes found on each pack of Xenical. The 'light club' section features online specific value-added services (presented by a virtual slimming consultant). The content becomes part of the product, an enhancement of extra services that comes with being a Xenical user, rather that just online versions of the marketing and sales material. Specialised diet menus, slimming tips, discounts for beauty and health products and services are updated and emails are sent bi-monthly to ensure revisits.
The Xenical promotional campaign fuelled a 5.8 times increase in average daily pageviews. The traffic resulted in 14 times more than the usual monthly average requests for information. The post campaign report also shows the increase in registered members, a very satisfying 5.6 time increase, of those who came back to the site after buying Xenical. All these figures lead to one powerful number - annual sales contribution - three per cent during 2000-2001, and currently at close to five per cent and rising.
In future, consider not what online marketing can do for you, but how far you are willing to go with it.
