News

You already know that more of your website visitors are arriving via mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Even if you don’t study your website’s analytics, you surely know that your own activity is increasingly done on devices other than a computer. The website may remain the hub of your digital presence, but social media, email and your presence on other websites are all important components of your organization’s marketing.

Car with sign on roof is early example of mobile advertising.
Old school mobile advertising

We routinely see data showing client websites receive up to   half of their visitors via mobile devices. That’s true on specialty sites receiving few visitors and sites that receive thousands of visitors every day.

Up to half and growing is an important number.

Google is meeting the trend by creating “call-only” advertising campaigns that should be part of every local retailer and service company’s strategy moving forward. The mobile feature launches with the ability for your agency to start scripting messages and landing pages directly for mobile. And that means you can save significant amounts of advertising expenses by optimizing a mobile-only ad campaign.

Mobile advertising has been available for years, but mobile-only is a giant step for the world’s leading search engine company. Remember that almost all Google profit comes from advertising so Google mobile advertising is not a casual test. The company says that “70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from search results.”

If only a fraction of that number is accurate, your organization needs to be using this new feature fast. Talk with us about call-only advertising if you’re a client or think you should be one.

 

Source: Charge up your phones with call-only campaigns – Google Inside AdWords
Image: Mobile Advertising by Ardfern via CC 3.0

Articles

How Unusual Pricing Can Slow Sales

One of the strangest promotions I’ve seen in a long time is buying a drink at McDonald’s for one dollar.  The kicker is that you choose the size without the price changing. Would you like a small or a large for one dollar?

One conversation went like this:

I’ll have a small Coke.

The person’s friend whispered, They’re all one dollar. Get a large.

No, a small is fine. I’m not that thirsty.

Soda calories and waste  notwithstanding, the person could have saved part of her drink for later. She also could have shared some of her drink with her companion. Or she could have simply asked for the large size in case she turned out to be more thirsty than she anticipated.

The bigger point is this: a moment of wary hesitation is caused when pricing doesn’t seem intuitive to a purchaser as they scan the offer for a hidden catch. The McDonald’s offer is strange and its results are a marketing psychology paper waiting to be written.

I saw the same phenomenon at online grocer Peapod. As grocery shoppers, we’re conditioned to understand that a larger bulk size often results in a lower unit price. That’s been a retailing axiom for decades and created the rise of the warehouse superstores.

But on this particular day, the larger size was once again less expensive than the smaller size. As you can see below, the unit cost for a larger box of Raisin Bran was lower as one would expect. This difference was so great, however, that anyone buying a smaller box was paying a premium at the unit cost level and at the total price level.

Almost no one understands that without first thinking about the issue.

Buying an extra 4.8 ounces of cereal (25% more) reduced the total cost by $1.29 (34%).  And that just doesn’t make sense to people. We understand that the unit cost is and should be lower, but the 45% decrease made buying more cost less.

There was undoubtedly a good reason for this price just as there are reasons why someone might prefer a box of cereal that is 25% smaller. You’ve already thought of several reasons for both when you read that sentence.

And that’s the problem.

Display of two prices

 

 Pricing should never make someone think, “Why is this deal different than the pricing I’ve come to expect?”  More of something does not normally have a total cost lower than less of something. Yet that’s exactly what happened. At least the drinks were the same price for a larger size. The cereal actually cost less.

Your takeaway as a business leader is that pricing outside the norm of expectations  without an explanation leads to hesitation when a prospective buyer searches for a hidden gotcha. That kind of pricing slows and possibly risks the entire sale because anything unexpected slows down a sale.

I understand when the local bakery posts a sign late in the day that says “Oops, we baked too much” or why Broadway-savvy theatergoers buy tickets the day of their show. Those are norms we’ve learned as American consumers.

Ask someone unfamiliar with your pricing strategy to see if they can look at your prices and articulate your pricing strategy. If they can’t, you’ve got a potential sales objection that may leave prospects wary of doing business with your organization.

Unwritten Marketing Rules Cost eBay $200 Million
News

eBay is a big company that makes a lot of money, but it recently ran afoul of some rules that all businesses must follow. Industry expert Danny Sullivan recapped eBay’s most recent earnings call  and the results detailed in his “Search Engine Land” article weren’t pretty. Sullivan reported that eBay’s penalty from breaking Google’s unwritten marketing rules may have cost the online giant $200 million.

All the Different Rules

We all must follow different rules.

Federal law states that the US flag may not be used for advertising or embroidered on clothing. I’m reliably informed no federal penalty exists for doing this because any penalty is determined by a state or  the District of Columbia.

An HR executive I once worked with used to wash his hands of wrongdoing when an executive asked a tricky question about an HR law:

The speed limit on the highway is 55 miles per hour. My job is to tell you when you’re driving 55, 65 or 100 miles per hour.  Your job is to drive the car.

This passing-the-buck sentiment kept him out of trouble, I guess, although it wasn’t his job. I once tried the same line as a young director working for same CEO, Thousands of unfulfilled orders sat in a warehouse, I told him, but the credit cards had long been charged. The FTC specified that we were supposed to ask each customer for permission  to delay their order. He started and simply asked, “What’s the penalty?”

I stammered, admitted that I didn’t know the penalty. He told me to return when I knew, and in a moment of expediency, told me to call our attorneys to learn the answer.

Breaking Google Law

These days my answer and advice about legal issues is much simpler. I’m not an attorney so if I think a client needs that advice, I simply suggest they speak with an attorney.

But there are other rules out there now that can cripple a business.  Google, Bing, Facebook are among online giants publishing “guidelines”. Marketers have hair-splitting debates about each word.

Monthly, I tell at least once a customer that they are in danger of a serious problem with one of these companies, invariably Google. It’s not that Google’s rules are worse or better than anyone else’s. They simply control about 70% of all search in North America. Mess with them, even inadvertently, and your website and the online reach of your business will be harmed.  We eventually stop working with the companies who ask us about the penalties.

Your takeaway as a small business leader is to push just a little bit when your agency or online marketer tells you that something on your website risks a Google penalty.  Make them explain the penalty so you don’t hear the copout of breaking a rule.  But when your agency is adamant, informed and seemingly well-versed in the issue, you ignore their advice at your own peril.

Silver Beacon has now saved two organizations from these penalties. One is on track now to receive well over one million pageviews. The other is doing fine too.  We talk with our clients about their stories not to brag, but to warn of the dangers involved in breaking a severe Google law.

Your attorney can hand you all the books with all the laws, but that doesn’t mean you should give yourself legal counsel. We can also give you all the guidelines for the big web companies, but only a trained marketer knows which “guidelines” are bad for your traffic and which could have the company manually remove your website from its listings.

Resources

“Google Penalty Hits eBay’s Bottom Line” – by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land
“4 U.S. Code § 8 – Respect for flag” – Cornell Law
“Google Hits eBay with Manual Penalty…” – by Matt McGee, Search Engine Land