OPINION: Delay no longer; now is the time for online advertising

An ex-colleague of mine with vast experience in the ad business recently admitted that in the early days of colour television, he recommended to his clients not to run colour television ads. The reasons he cited back then, were that the vast majority of consumers still owned black and white telly sets; that there were no case studies to prove that advertising in colour was any more effective to justify the cost and effort; and while there was huge potential in the medium it certainly wasn't going to hurt by delaying its use for a couple more years. History has a habit of repeating itself! There continues to be a lot of similar stories when it comes to using the Internet as a marketing channel. Generally, for most advertisers the question is not, 'Should I be considering the Internet?' but 'When is the right time to opt in online?' And, 'What are key points to consider when going ahead?' Let me try to bring some perspective from my own experiences. - Forget the website One reason often cited by marketers for not moving ahead with online advertising is that they don't feel they have a strong enough website. Actually, there's no golden rule that says you need to even have a product website. Most traditional marketers aren't selling products online; often there's actually little reason for consumers to choose to want to go to a company's product website; and its expensive to drive traffic to your site. More microsites (mini websites of three to five pages) which have specific promotional objectives are better. Marketing your brands on other web publishers' sites that have perfected the art of attracting millions of consumers each day is the bigger opportunity. -Bed-wetting Alternatively, having made a significant investment in building a website and not promoting it is a crime. I call this the bed-wetting syndrome: you get a nice warm sensation that only you know about. There are now over 2 billion Web pages on the Internet. People are not going to visit your site unless you put specific marketing effort into driving traffic. Online is the most direct and efficient medium to increase visitors. - All the numbers you'll ever need I've heard some people suggest that there isn't sufficient research on the Internet compared to traditional media. Not only is there substantial data on 'Net marketing, but it is more dynamic and actionable. For example, in a banner campaign, not only can we identify individuals by demographic profile and interests, but are also able to filter and only pay to reach that desired group. We can serve specific creative on specific sites to specific individuals and then measure if they actually buy your product. We can alter a campaign in midstream to improve its performance and cost effectiveness. - It isn't a cure for cancer Of course the interactivity and measurability elements are wonderful, but I have to admit the Internet isn't going to fix every marketing problem on its own. Being fairly new, it is still going through the mandatory teething process to which all other mediums were subjected at the beginning. But then I'm not advocating putting your complete marketing budget online. I'm talking about initiating an integrated marketing exercise to marry the best of online with offline, to achieve your end objectives. And bearing in mind that it is possible to add more depth and presence to your overall marketing efforts by deploying between 5 to 10 per cent of your total budget to online activities. - Who needs more awareness For most established brands, awareness already exists and marketers are more focused on generating preference and loyalty leading to more sales. For dotcoms that spent significant funds on high profile awareness building campaigns earlier this year, ultimately their business now needs to settle into the real business of creating revenue and driving eyeballs to their site. In the US, 36 per cent of dotcom advertising budgets is placed online. Conversely, in Asia, few dotcoms have yet to employ a focused online marketing strategy. - We tried it, but it didn't work Guess what? There are good online campaigns and bad online campaigns. Just as there are good and bad ads, sales people, products and services. Spending the money on the Internet is an opportunity to gain a marketing advantage, not a guarantee. Normal marketing rules apply. You still need a clear strategy; you still need to execute sexy creative; you most definitely need smart media planning; and you need to measure the effect. - You need money to make money A budget of under HK$20,000 is not going to achieve that much. Having a clear expectation of performance delivery against the budget is important to measuring a campaigns effect. - Summary As for when should advertisers consider Internet? There are now 75.5 million Asian consumers online. The time to implement an online campaign is now. The Internet waits for no one ...

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