Use search engines for your “branding”
For many companies, search engines are the source of many sales. However, few people know that these can not only generate online or in-store sales, but also positively influence brand awareness. This article deals with a new approach that could transform the Internet strategy of many: “branding” by search engines. So let's move away from targeted visitors, sales and return on investment (ROI) to focus on the influence that search engines have on the brand.
When we look at the numbers (213 million searches per day in the United States), there is no doubt that this place is conducive to influencing Internet users. Nevertheless, it is not enough to be present in the engines to succeed. You must, in fact, define the new objectives of your campaign (in this case the "branding") and thus rework it to achieve good results.
Concretely, this means no longer evaluating a campaign by direct results alone. If your goal is to generate sales and you notice that a keyword is performing mixed for that purpose, you might be tempted to remove that keyword from your strategy. On the other hand, even if the ROI of a keyword is low, its positioning in the first results may have a positive influence on the brand and it may be beneficial to keep this keyword active.
For example, Sony has decided to use 20% of its budget on paid search engines. during a campaign for its Vaio laptops recently. The goal? Create a buzz around the product. All campaigns pointed to a single page that focused on the product, but lacked a real call-to-action to help convert visitors. The antithesis of traditional landing pages.
The results speak for themselves. Despite investing five times less in the search engine campaign compared to banners and other displays, the search engine campaign generated more than half of the clicks to the landing page and 88% of the product sales from this page. The strategy was therefore most effective.
In order to integrate search engines into a “branding” strategy, you must first evaluate your campaign and define the keywords that could be associated with it. The number of keywords will certainly be greater than during a campaign aimed at conversion, especially since words that are not “profitable” will be used. For example, a company running a service quality campaign might decide to buy words like “warranty” or “repair”.
At the level of text advertising itself, it is necessary to use catchy words that are directly related to the campaign. The reuse of slogans and words used in banners or in a traditional campaign is also appropriate.
In closing, it is important to remember that such a strategy is not suitable for all portfolios. Indeed, using a large number of keywords significantly increases costs.