2006 - Year of the Convergence?

[Lee Mark Thomas]

2006 is being hailed as the year of convergence between offline and online with regards to the way consumers use the internet and the way they perceive the sites they use to purchase products.

Branding has become even more paramount to win over consumers with many advertisers already using cost effective branding tools to support Google AdWords campaigns. Be sure to look out for the GAP (Google Advertising Professionals) title for whoever you are using for your adwords, these certified professionals are less likely to take you for a ride and since Google changed the way agencies get paid commission - you can be certain that your money is going to get pushed a bit further to help their pockets.

You will more than likely already be utilising your brand via search marketing, but regardless of your creative, offering & bid price without brand recognition you are nothing more than another listing, faceless against big branded companies.

So how do people here feel about exploiting their brand via other mediums in a cost effective way? How much would businesses be willing to part with on a monthly basis outside PPC? Are we talking £20, £30, £40 pcm?

Just like to gain an understanding on where the smaller SME market stand on this matter with regards to playing ball within predominantly brand driven blue-chip world.

Lee.

[directmarketingadvice]

Lee

You talk a lot about "brand".

I'm curious, what do you mean by "brand"?

Steve

[crus]

Im curious, are you a GAP,

personally I have found adwords can be costly and very spammy with multiple ip addresses not being filtered out. This is probnably due to the low volume but is a pain!

I have for the moment moved away from Adwords and continue to explore elsewhere.

D

[Lee Mark Thomas]

Hi Steve & Crus - thanks for your replies. When mentioning 'brand', I speak in literal terms of business representation and how brand values should help build your reputation and expressed to your customers through your service and offering. Steve I guess from looking at your site, which is a great resource - you'd understand the constraints of marketing without brand impact.

Crus, I am not a GAP but work closely within the ppc/online marketing arena. A great resource can be found here: http://www.whoisagap.com for you to find out who is & isn't a GAP.

Out of interest Crus - what other forms of marketing are you now looking at and what sort of monthly budgets are you looking at?

Lee

[directmarketingadvice]

Hi Lee

I keep hearing people talk about "brand" and don't really know what they're talking about.

You said:

"business representation and how brand values should help build your reputation and expressed to your customers through your service and offering"

which might mean that by "brand" you're talking about "a unique selling advantage which is consistenly promoted within your marketing and business communications".

In which case, that's something I understand. And, whe it comes to building a reputation based on the unique benefits you bring to the marketplace, it makes sense to me.

However, I also hear people talking about "brand" and they're just talking about "name recognition" and trying to give yourself a "reputation" (e.g. "Number one for carpets").

And that's something that I personally don't believe can be achieved directly without throwing a whole load of money against the wall and hoping that some of it sticks.

So, I tend to shy away from the word "brand" as it seems to be one of those terms that's used very differently by different people without them explaining in simple, real world terms what they're talking about.

Anyway, this is a bigger question and I'm not going to continue to highjack your thread.

Steve

[GaryReid]

Lee,

I think you make some valid points. Certainly in the bigger agencies what you are saying is true.

However, the concept that people 'choose' a product based on what they have stored in their mind about companies within the products frame of reference isn't something that has taken hold in many SME's yet.

Google has harnessed the long tail to their advantage with AdSense, which is a huge experiment in showing just how many companies want to target people 'at point of purchase' and the majority of PPC users do little to get any message into the minds of people who are not at point of purchase.

Because that's what we are talking about here, do we only want to communicate with people who have their credit card in hand ready to buy. Or, do we want to implant our message into the minds of all potential users so when they reach point of purchase they will choose us?

As more smaller web ventures get good at implanting a message then those who rely on PPC will find life hard, because the users don't need to search, what they need is already stored in their head.

PPC is a great tool but on its own it can become a money pit you are locked into, as it becomes the only way you get customers.

Just my 2 cents.

Gary