A relatively new phenomenon for every company’s marketing arsenal can be found with search engines. In most cases, people think of search as a way to take advantage of a working transactional model. After all, it is hardly rocket science to build predictive models from conversion analysis of searchers visiting your web site. Most companies can tell you, with varying degrees of certainty, how much additional revenue should be generated from any increased level of search traffic.
It is even possible to ascertain the average number of searches across the major search engines for any specific keyword or phrase in a given month. Less common, but perhaps more important, is to be prepared for increased searches from other marketing vehicles driving search. It would truly be a shame to have competitors capitalizing on your other campaign drivers through search. In practice, this could be handled by dayparting increased P4P spending for the days and hours following the ad broadcasts.
The reason this doesn’t work so well in reverse is that search is mostly a “pull” mechanism for your clients. Today, television, radio, and direct mail are mostly “push” mechanisms for you. Considering campaign timelines, it is hard to imagine a pull mechanism like search driving a push mechanism like television.
A less quantifiable use of search is for branding purposes. Someone once said, “Brands are created like birds create nests”. In any given day you are exposed to numerous product advertisements, expert advise from family and friends, as well as, inquires you make using search engines. All these events makeup your perception of a specific brand.
Measuring the affect that search has on brand is challenging to say the least and some companies are more suited to utilize brand building techniques than others, but all companies can benefit by using search to better define their brand in one way or another.
It is safe to say that customers are not thinking about your products all of the time; however, during these times, there are numerous opportunities to present your company in subtle brand defining ways through search. A direct correlation between application content and transactions can be established using both quantitative and qualitative methods.
