Track How Effective Your Online Marketing Efforts are Offline

Tracking offline conversions has been a challenge for businesses for years. As long as the Internet has been widely used to drive business, tracking online marketing efforts to offline purchases has been no easy feat, but while there is no silver bullet approach, rest assured, there are ways to make it easier.

For brick and mortar businesses, obviously a large percentage of their conversions take place offline, despite an amplified online presence and rigorous online marketing tactics. As local search continues to sprout new innovations, one can only assume that the web will continue to drive offline purchases better and better. With some consumers going to their smartphones more than their PCs for online shopping research, businesses are seeing more mobile customers who may be more apt to swing by a physical location while they're on the go.

KeyRelevance President Christine Churchill once wrote, "Measuring offline conversions and proving on paper that the online marketing triggered the offline conversion is difficult, because you can’t often directly measure the process from start to conversion." Therein lies the problem. Out in San Diego at the Online Marketing Summit this week, WebProNews spoke with Salesforce's Global Head of Search, Lauren Vaccarello about this subject.

Google and comScore once conducted a study, which showed that 63% of consumers who conduct product searches online buy the same items offline. It's been a while, and that number may have changed by now, but what hasn't changed is the fact that people are still finding products online and buying them offline.

At an SMX Advanced conference, she recommended in-store surveys to find out the ways people are arriving at their purchases. In addition, online coupons and offer codes can be tracked offline. At that same conference, Ryan Gibson of the Rimm-Kaufman Group suggested introducing "actions of value" on a site, such as allowing people to order a catalog or sign up for emails.  Specifically, ad-spend, return on ad spend return on investment, and cost per order/acquisition) are all things to consider tracking. Rich Devine, ZAAZ's director of search also recommended assigning dollar values to things other than the main conversion. 

When it comes down to it, without a way to track an offline sale, it's going to be difficult to tell how effective your online marketing efforts are.

Marketers Identify Social Networks As Top Priority

Social networks may become home to a lot more marketers this year.  The Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) surveyed a number of senior marketing execs, and found that many of them have made social networks and applications their top priority in 2010.

Indeed, a whopping 45.4 percent of the people involved in SoDA's Digital Marketing Outlook study indicated that they consider social networks and applications to be a top priority, and although this isn't quite a majority, significantly fewer people said the same thing about digital infrastructure, search optimization, and everything else.

Extremely few marketers consider social networks and applications to be irrelevant, too.

These are likely to be good signs for Facebook, MySpace, and perhaps Twitter in particular (since it's still in search of a steady source of revenue).  Even users shouldn't mind the corporate participation, since an ad from a mainstream company is likely to be better received than something promoting a random dating site.  And social media campaigns can be better still.

Of course, SoDA's information is a bit odd in light of the fact that people speaking for both Facebook and Twitter have said the companies won't IPO this year.

Have You Read This?

> Facebook Investor Promises "No Near Term IPO"

> Twitter COO Effectively Rules Out 2010 IPO

> Facebook Page Owners Getting More Stats

(Private) Facebook Shares Up 42% In Four Months

Some time ago, Mark Zuckerberg began allowing Facebook employees to make a quick buck by selling their shares through private channels (as opposed to waiting for Facebook to hit the Nasdaq or Dow).  Since then, many have done exactly that.  The interesting thing is that the price of Facebook's stock has risen a whole lot in recent months.

Brian Womack talked to Adam Oliveri, a managing director at SecondMarket, and discovered, "Facebook shares are currently selling for about $21 each . . . .  That's up from $14.77 in July."  Which works out to a gain of 42 percent.

The Dow, by comparison, has risen about 23 percent in the same period.  And the Nasdaq - which, with all its tech stocks, makes for a better point of comparison - is only up 20 percent.

So why all the interest in Facebook?  Well, its growth rate has been spectacular.  And it's not like similar companies are going unnoticed; just yesterday, we reported a big transaction involving Xing.

Still, it looks like folks are again expecting a Facebook IPO.  Paul Bard, a Renaissance Capital analyst, told Womack, "The fact that the stock on these private exchanges moved - I'm sure that has to do with the fact that people think a deal is coming sooner rather than later."

Have You Read This?

> Facebook Catapults Into Third Place Among Video Sites

> Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More For Google/Bing Rankings

Dirty Trick #15: Show ‘Em What You Got!

Are you ready to “let it all hang out” to get your product selling? If you are, then Dirty Trick #15 is just what you’ve been waiting for!

The basis of this little sneak is to show your customers what they will be getting with the use of professional looking graphics. Things like ebook covers, software boxes, and an attractive page layout may be just the thing to spice up your digital product.

It’s a fact that people like to see what they’re buying before they shell out the cash for it. Yes, even digital products need to “show the goods” before someone will gain enough interest to plop down the dough.

Ever heard the saying, “A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words”? Well this dirty trick is truly based on this saying. But in this particular case, a picture could be worth a thousand dollars!

However, using a less than professional looking image could result in just the opposite and shut down your sale quicker than you can say “see ya”! So, do use a professional image anytime you use them.

Not only can you use ebook or software cover images, there’s also another type of image that can really put your sales into over drive.

And that is using the “profit proof” images. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Let me explain it to you. I promise by the time I’m finished you’ll be saying “Oh yeah! I’ve seen those before!”.

Okay, a “profit proof” image is one that shows exact earnings of the person selling the product in question. These will either be scanned checks or payment statements from processors such as ClickBank or PayPal.

These are very useful to get your prospects excited when they see your figures and start believing that they too can do just what you did and really rack up the profits.

Use this dirty trick whenever you are selling an intangible, or digital, product that could use a professional image to kick up your profit margins. There are some products that don’t require an image though, such as a conference call, etc. so be choosy when you use this dirty trick.

Any product that has earning money as the main subject could benefit from using the “profit proof” graphic images though. But be sure you “blur” out your customer’s information or you’ll be floating in that hot vat again!

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