Prospector Advertising

Are You Tracking?

We track every campaign we do, so we know where someone came from and how much it cost us to "win."

We know what works and what doesn't. We know where we want to spend our ad budget. We know a lot of things because we do a very simple thing. We think ahead. 

Whenever we do a campaign, we think it all the way through. First we look at the strategic stuff - Who are we going after? What is a win? Then we tackle the details - What should the ad look like? Where are we taking them? What do we want to do with them later? etc.

And, from the start, we place ways to track our campaigns so it's easy to determine the effectiveness. Often we review a spreadsheet that displays our campaigns, what they cost us versus what we "won." Then we compared them and made decisions about where to spend more money and what to drop. Pretty simple, huh? 

- Josh Dorrell

The Landing Page

Stop! Before you post that click-hungry interactive ad, take some time to think about where that ad should take prospects and what path you want them to take as they take a step closer to becoming your customer. 

The first thing a prospect sees after clicking your ad is extremely critical, so today we'll talk about Landing Pages and work to maximize the benefit of that click, for the click-er and the click-ee.

It goes without saying that your landing page has to deliver what your banner promises. That is a given. But here are a few quick do's and don'ts for landing pages.

Things successful landing pages have or do:

Inspire customers to do something (click again, learn more, register for newsletter...something, anything - inspire me please!)

Have a single-purpose/action

Have a customized message based on where the user came from

Gather customer information (just a little now, you can get more later)

Separate the wheat from the chaff (more on this below)

Things your landing page should not be:

Your HOME Page (unless your home page follows the rules listed above, few do)

All things to All People

Keeping landing pages simple and straightforward is the better for everyone. Unfortunately, we're human, and we try to think of every possible scenario and satisfy every potential customer. We try to say so much that we end up saying nothing at all. We work so hard to get everybody that we end up getting nobody. Simple wins. 'Nuff said.

Did I really say that your landing page should get rid of some click-ers?! Yep, I did. Most businesses follow the good ol' 80/20 Rule, you know the one that says 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. Wouldn't it be great if we could only attract customers that were exactly like our 20%-ers? That's what separates the good marketers from the great ones. How many times have you said or heard, "If this campaign gets me just a couple customers, I'll consider it successful." 

If that's really true, why do we wimp-out and go for quantity, not quality? I guess because it's tough to have the time, the patience, and the systems to track a customer through our ad, to our site, to our sales process, to an order. It's also tough to have the guts to stand up and say we're not trying to get everybody, we just want the most qualified. Sure it's tough, but not impossible.

One way to separate the serious prospects from the lookers is to offer them something in exchange for a little information. Access to tools, newsletter with helpful tips, or even a trinket as a trade for an e-mail. Then you have a little info and from that you can get more exposure and information (as well as further filtering your list!).

The bottom line is that it is not as hard as you think to build a good landing page.

- Josh Dorrell

Generating Clicks

Do you want your online ad to generate click-throughs? If so, you'd better ask for them.

Click-throughs, right or wrong, have become the measure of an online ad's effectiveness. And while most people judge their ads by the number of click-throughs they acheive, few are designed to generate them. In fact most ads are spiffed-up logos, not necessarily a bad thing, but they aren't ASKING for a click.

Simple enough. Now how should you ask for a click? 

This is the fun, creative, and HARD part. Or so it seems. It can actually be fairly easy and effective if we design for basic human nature. Let's talk about two simple ways to increase click-throughs:

Buttons: If you give me a button I'll push it. For some reason we all have an overwhelming urge to push buttons (especially if they are large, red, and say, "Do Not Push"). Sounds ridiculously simple doesn't it? Check out the page we have on Alternative Resins Search. The button makes me want to push it and even tells me what to expect. Which leads me to Calls to Action.

Calls to Action: Hey we all need a little push. Seriously, tell me what you want me to do, and the chances are much greater that I'll do it. It's the whole, "Click Here To..." thing. And while that is not the most professional delivery, it makes the point. In fact in most cases you can just drop the "Click Here To" and you've got a decent call to action. Here are some examples: View a Demo

• Learn how SuperPolymer makes BMW lighter, stronger and faster!
• Sign up for the free Molding Troubleshooter
• etc...

I'm sure you can come up with some really good ones that fit your products and customers.

The bottom line is that you can get a solid click-through rate if you design your campaign around that goal. 

- Josh Dorrell

Fun Wins!

A while back I went to a sales seminar by Jeffrey Gitomer. If you haven't seen him or read him, you're missing out. He is a helluva salesman and I promise he is unlike any other business speaker you have ever seen. Here is his upcoming public seminar calendar: Gitomer's Public Seminars 

One thing he preaches, and practices, is having fun doing what you are doing. He has fun and he wins. And I don't mean he wins on some fluffy emotional level, I mean he wins sales. Lot's of 'em. So I got to thinking about how we could apply this fun concept to ads and marketing in the plastics industry.

What if our ads were fun? I don't mean silly or corny, but just fun. I've seen thousands of ads this year, and the only fun one I remember was an ad for Conair Resinworks (actually it is one of the only ads I remembered period). It's a centralized drying and distribution system...not super fun and exciting, right? Well, the folks at Conair made their ad fun and got their point across. You can check it out here: Conair's Cool Ad

See, it's not goofy or silly and you don't think to yourself, "I would never buy from those jokers." Instead it makes you want to learn more. Everyone who doesn't have a centralized dryer and distribution system probably sees a little of themself in the first part of the ad, and you can bet they would rather be like the people who installed Resinworks. 

Ads are about branding and image, but they can also be effective icebreakers. And the best icebreakers are the ones that make you smile. If you make me smile, you are 1000 times more likely to get me to do something. Whether it is click on an ad, call you up, or take out my wallet.

And don't worry, your sales team will remind your customers about how serious your company is and how much value you add. You can work on changing that after you prove that your fun ads work.

So let's have some fun, make people smile, and turn friends into customers!

- Josh Dorrell

Ads That Are Tools

At some level, all ads are tools. Tools that help gain your company business. But what I mean here is ads that are tools your customers can use. That's right, it's a double whammy. You'll get the brand exposure because you are in the right place at the right time (you are, aren't you?) and you'll get a whole lot more from your audience because you're helping them do their job. 

Imagine an online ad where a customer could type in a competitive material name and the ad shot back your equivalent. Or how about an ad that was a self-contained material selection wizard? 

Some of our advertisers are regional economic developers. How cool would it be if you could type your zipcode into their ad, and a report popped out with a side-by-side comparison of their area to yours? The information is helpful, plus it makes me think they are a creative and professional group that I might want to learn more about. 

So what tools can help your customers and position you positively in their eyes? 

Think fast, because chances are someone is already a step ahead.

- Josh Dorrell

Adding a Resin Selector to Your Website Shouldn't Be Painful

As a Prospector user, you know that IDES is all about technical datasheets.

But did you know that you can use IDES datasheets for your own website? 

Your team, customers, and prospects expect that your datasheets will be easily found on your website. 

• Are your datasheets easy to find? 
• Is it easy to manage your product information? 
• Is it easy to change information about your products?

If managing and displaying your datasheets has become a headache for you, IDES can help. Here are some of the benefits our customers enjoy (be sure to check out live examples through the links provided at the right):

Rapid deployment

This is what we do everyday, so our search tools are very refined. You have peace of mind knowing that they’ll work correctly and we deploy them very quickly for you.

What does “quickly” mean? Within two weeks (sometimes faster) you’ll be looking at a “beta” site with your materials and your search interface.

Simple integration to your website

We provide you with a hyperlink to the service and you place it on your site wherever it makes sense. Literally, this should take you our your webmaster no more than a few minutes.

Channel updates

When you make a change to your datasheets, the change is updated everywhere. Your website, your distributors who use IDES on their site, and Prospector are all automatically updated, so thousands of people will see your latest and greatest information the moment it’s available. Using IDES means that you no longer have to worry that your sales channels are out of date.

Upgrade-ability

We make it extremely easy to add functionality to your site. Many of our customers start simple, then add things later. All you have to do is pick up the phone and in a few days you have the new features you want. Plus, we continually work to keep up with technology to ensure your material search service is cutting edge. You’ll never have to worry whether your product selector will work on a new browser.

The little things

There are a million little details when you want to do search and display of technical data. Things like Unit System Switching, searching on Shore A vs. Shore D hardness values, and just keeping your datasheets in synch with your searchable properties. The devil is in the details, but with us we’ve already worked out all the little things so you don’t have to worry about them. Since this is what we do best, you can focus on what you do best, selling more materials.

More and more of your customers are using the internet to find materials. Shouldn’t you be using a service that gives them powerful tools and makes it easy on you? Contact me at 800-788-4668 or 307-742-9227 ext. 220

Josh Dorrell, IDES
800-788-4668 or 307-742-9227 ext. 220

Promoting Your Presence at NPE

We’re already starting to see the NPE Globe in a lot of ads, along with booth numbers.  That’s good because it helps people connect you to the event and let them know where you’ll be.  The tough part is getting people to take the next step and put it in their show planner, or remember your booth number from the ad.  One way to get them to take the next step is to use your advertising to promote the cool things you are doing for the show. Things like booth-inars (seminars in your booth), special events, special people, new product releases, etc.  That’s at least one step better than pasting the NPE Globe on your existing ads.

But how about taking another step?  What about giving people the opportunity to sign up for a booth-inar or a meeting before the event?  It would help your planning and their planning, and allow you to communicate with them in the weeks leading up to the show.  After all, it’s a big show and I don’t know about you, but to me, molten plastic is so exciting that I tend to lose myself for hours watching machines run (I’m not joking).   But if I sign up for something and the company does a good job reminding me, I’ll be there.  

Well, the next question is, “How do we get them to sign up for these things?” 

• One one way is to incorporate a reward into the giveaways or promotions you are already running.  For example, run an online ad that asks people to sign up, with a carrot that they’ll get more chances in the drawing for the plasma TV (or whatever) if they register AND visit your booth/event.  
• Or how about giving away special prizes for those who register online for a booth-inar, then attend the booth-inar.  Maybe everyone gets in the drawing, but only those with special certificates (that they printed out after registering) get the Free Pocket Specs for Injection Molding Book.  That’s one of the things we’re doing. 
• You could also do a gift that you give before the show that would remind them of where you are and what they signed up for.  Maybe it’s a small notebook/show planner that has your event(s) pre-penciled in.  There are tons of great ideas out there, the trick is getting on your horse and riding.

I guess the bottom line is that we can all do some really creative things with our advertising to make NPE 2006 more effective. The winners will be those who turn that creativity into action to help their customers.

- Josh Dorrell

Phone and / or Email Support?

So if you offer only email support, why would you show a picture of people with headsets?

Top Reasons Why People Unsubscribe from Newsletters

This chart is from MarketingSherpa’s email summit, happening today in Miami. In the opening session, they spent some time looking at the challenges facing email marketing.

Year after year in their email benchmark survey, the top challenge is identified as ‘Inbox clutter’ and its effect on all email communications. “Delivering on the promise of relevance to our list” comes in a distant second (17% compared to 36% for clutter). So, marketers seem to agree, but are they right?

Click to continue.

Two rings... or less!

The other day I had Internet access installed in my new home.  In researching providers, I narrowed the choice down to two services: Bresnan and Qwest

Who did I chose?

Within two phone calls, my decision was made.  When calling Bresnan, I was led through an automated disaster and didn't have the time to eventually speak to a representative.  Then I remembered Qwest's somewhat new slogan "The Spirit of Service." I called and was pleasantly suprised that I was able to quickly connect with a helpful, knowledgeable and freindly representative through a very simple and intuitive automated service (particularly with no message saying that I should listen carefully as menu options have recently changed...). I chose Qwest.

At our company, we try to take it even futher. Since we are a small, nimble organization, we strive to answer the phone with a real person within two rings (preferrably one). Customers are quite suprised at this small action towards providing them with a higher quality of service, which as you know is hard to find these days.