How to win in online selling

Small and large businesses alike face an uphill battle to stretch their marketing dollar ever further.

Chances are, even if you have browbeaten a media placement rep or negotiated the best contra deal of all time with your community fair, you have not covered every possible promotional angle.

Today, the number of spaces and methods you can use for marketing are limited only by your imagination.

One option is to pull off a public relations coup unlike any other. For example, Dunedin company Ellis Fibre sent a "passion duvet" to Madonna for her wedding.

Although the pop diva hasn't got back to the company yet, orders are flowing in from all corners of the globe, prompting managing director Glenn Alexander to surmise that he had "definitely been put on the bedding map."

For most others, however, online marketing is one of the most cost-effective, "future-proof" strategies for building brand profile.

But traditional companies do not always understand the best methods of getting online and know even less about what they should be doing once they get there.

The answer to this most modern of problems is a little bit of old-fashioned marketing wisdom mixed with new-fangled understanding.

Almost all direct-marketing methods, including - and perhaps especially - online methods, make a customer's experience with a brand more personal.

As an article in the McKinsey Quarterly pointed out, if a consumer buys a lipstick from a retailer and has a bad experience, she is likely to blame the retailer.

But if she buys a lipstick from the company's website and is dissatisfied, it is the brand that will cop the fallout.

So, clearly understanding your brand values before leaping into cyberspace is a good idea, having those brand values represented in your on and offline dealings is important, and making sure your efforts do not undermine one another is a key.

Clicks and mortar businesses can successfully integrate a digital marketing strategy.

Kerry Bradburn, marketing manager of florist Wild Poppies Direct, believes no one understands this better than she does.

About eight years ago, the Wild Poppies chain of flower shops had five retail outlets. But the owners noticed that each year phone sales increased and over-the-counter sales dropped.

The success of phone sales dovetailed into internet sales when Wild Poppies went online over three years ago.

The chain now does about 35 per cent of its business online and has whittled down its stores to just one.

But it is the store's marketing methods that have gained it a loyal following - methods that incorporate both on and offline media.

Phone and e-mail customers receive suggestions for three "add-on" products with each purchase of flowers, which means such sales tend to be larger than over-the-counter purchases.

Wild Poppies also offers speciality packages through a smattering of print media.

The real gold comes from e-mail marketing to an international client base, which uses Wild Poppies to send flowers to relatives in New Zealand.

"At first we tinkered ourselves with e-mail, but we found overseas customers getting a bit scratchy as they were bombarded with lots of e-mail marketing regularly from everyone," says Ms Bradburn.

The company signed up e-mail specialists MessageMedia seven months ago to get "more power, and better manageability" of its mailout list.

It is a "big business with small-business needs," and is always looking for innovative ways to communicate to its clients.

One way it does that is to regularly remind its loyal customers about events such as Father's Day and birthdays, sending all products throughout New Zealand from its Auckland base.

"Flowers are such a personal thing [that] it's really important to get a little bit of knowledge about your customers before you contact them, because otherwise your campaign will be fraught with disasters," says Ms Bradburn.

A company with a far less personal service but which has successfully used its website to create a new brand from a traditional business is Fletcher Building.

The building division of the old Fletcher Challenge conglomerate is set to list on the New York Stock Exchange next month and has enlisted the aid of IT Capital-owned communications company Terabyte to help formulate a brand strategy to promote the company to United States investors.

The Fletcher Building website went live on Friday.

"The most important thing we had to do was understand stakeholder needs and provide them with all the detail that could not be included in other types of advertising," says Terabyte business development manager Matt Williams.

"Realistically, any New Zealand company looking to do business in the US needs an online strategy.

"But lots of websites are still just brochureware. It's important to find out what the requirements of your users are, rather than just being a part of technology."

"Cyber age" marketing, of course, can mean more than just websites. In Australia, big banks are now selling space on their bank slips spewed out by ATM machines.

Chinese authorities have given a green light to companies to advertise on the front and back of tickets for the country's popular Sports Lottery. About 10 million lottery tickets are sold daily.

Global computer manufacturer Compaq is talking to two British companies about sending internet online voice-alerts as well as 30-second advertising video clips to consumers on their pocket PCs.

But while these examples show the possibilities large companies have for exploiting the digital medium, small companies can take the lesson of brand building online without the expense, say marketing experts.

David Crown, managing director of Terabyte, says financially troubled small companies probably have not got any brand equity and therefore will not do a lot of damage by going online on the cheap "and there are lots of alternatives."

"First of all, [an information-only site] will enable them to test market demand and then justify further expenditure."

He says many small companies will have low volumes of high-quality goods which they can market overseas.

"Demand exceeds supply ... Nirvana in economic theory!"


Links


Wild Poppies

Fletcher Building