A few considerations
The following list of digital media opportunities is based on an understanding of the general company's objectives – which are, driving traffic to the site ("acquisition") and increase online sales ("conversion") at the same time as 'establishing a online branding proposition' distinct from the high street retailer ("branding", Online Value Proposition OVP) – and some insights on the identified primary target audience – wine lovers, more 'knowledgeable' and 'adventurous', who already buy wine by the case, online or by phone.
Specifically, to drive traffic to the site, I have reviewed opportunities with acquisition-specific digital activities and channels such as search, affiliates, aggregators.
For branding/communicating an OVP we can look at both display advertising/sponsorship.
For increasing sales online (through conversion but also repeat purchase/retention), I have looked at email marketing.
Driving traffic:
- Search activity
Search clearly is the first and perhaps most important acquisition-specific media to reach and drive any online wine buyers/ prospect to the website.
While reaching the general audience showing a generic interest in buying 'wine online' (the 'secondary' target audience) can turn very expensive, search budget can be optimised and ROI maximised by prioritising and/or focusing on more specific search queries (eg. specific wine names, specific countries of origin) which denote already a 'higher' degree of sophistication of the buyer and/or a different stage in the purchase funnel. For example, we can assume that a searcher looking for a 'red wine' has already expressed some preferences and made some decisions and he/she is now in the stage of 'narrowing' the preference set by looking for different red wines/retailers offering red wines; equally, a searcher looking for a "French Chardonnay from Burgundy" is probably closer to purchasing/converting than any other searcher looking for 'online wine' and therefore more valuable to drive to a relevant webpage than a generic searcher.
The same applies to SEO/natural search – with the website ideally optimised for more specific keywords which are more effective (decreasing CPA by reducing wastage) and efficient (increasing conversion rates and accelerating conversion) attracting more valuable/likely to convert searchers/shoppers/prospects.
- Affiliate programs
Affiliate schemes can contribute enormously to drive traffic to the website efficiently, boosting the reach of the target audience at very competitive prices. In a way, running affiliate schemes is relatively risk-free (as the company only pays for valid leads/purchase), when backed by a sound 'brand policy', which among other things prevents affiliates from bidding on brand terms, hence avoiding jeopardising the company's own SEM/SEO budget and efforts. Eg. Oddbins runs an affiliate scheme through AFFILIATE WINDOWS offering 5% commission on sales to advertisers/publishers, protected by a brand policy.
There is a wide list of different established affiliate operators which offer highly flexible and customisable schemes to meet advertisers' needs and objectives: eg. TradeDoubler offers a "pay-per-call" pricing scheme where advertisers only pay for sales or lead generated through call to the customer service, suitably tracked through specific software.
In many cases 'affiliates' are formed by niche' sites which also add special 'editorial' and coverage to standard text links and display ads, as a way to maximise responses for the best advertisers (thus increasing their own revenue streaming).
WWD can benefit hugely from a sound affiliate scheme not only by reducing its customers acquisition costs but also because affiliates represent the most viable way to reach the 'long tail': the thousands of niche blogs, forums and communities where our identified target audience (more 'knowledgeable' and 'adventurous') is most likely to be found, reading and exchanging independent wine reviews.
- Price comparisons sites – aggregators
WWD has already a presence on mass-market price comparison sites and aggregators (eg. Pricerunner, Kelkoo), thus guaranteeing that the brand is there wherever/whenever there is an opportunity for users' to search for a related product/service.
However, the focus on 'best price/offer in the market' typically characterising these aggregators and similar platforms is probably not very suitable for the decision/buying process pertaining the more 'knowledgeable' wine buyers, whose decisions are driven more by 'quality' than pricing, hence ideally resources to be allocated to these platforms should be relatively smaller than other vehicles.
- Third-party list email campaign
Finally, email can be used to increase the database using third party emails list (including, membership of specific highly targeted sites such as Epicourous, TopTable, etc). Opportunities vary from 'solos' features, to cosponsoring some specific promotion/content, to simple advertising into the newsletter. The more relevant and trusted the source, the higher the chance that customers open the email and visit the featured site/sponsor.
Branding – OVP:
- Display advertising and sponsorship
For branding/communicating the brand value, clearly display ads and/or sponsorships are the best vehicles and the latest rich media ads format which are highly interactive can also be deployed to generate users' response/leads and/or even expand the reach through built-in viral mechanism – thus maximising media spaces (branding and acquisition all-in-one).
Key to success is the ad content (which must be relevant to the offer/brand and target audience), the media placement/environment, and other important factors eg. targeting, running time, frequency.
For instance, rich media ads with dynamic content featuring 'latest wine line' and/or link direct to the sign-up process or to the 'wine list/brochure' can be created and placed into highly relevant premium content sites, either supporting some specifically created editorial (sponsorship) or alternatively served based on users' browsing selections (behavioural targeting), or matching content (contextual), or on search queries (eg. a user on a recipe-specific website looking for 'accompanying wines' through the on-site search tool). Response rates/impact of display can be maximised by running the campaign in correspondence with any other offline/online advertising activity or PR events (wine featured in TV programs – eg. BBC "Saturday Kitchen", exhibition and fairs, in-store activities/ads etc.).
Most appropriate online environment for both sponsorships and display advertising are envisaged in 'inspiring' and highly branded sites in the food/gourmet/cooking publishing sector – eg. www.epicurious.com, www.toptable.co.uk
- Display ads through ad network
Although display ads run through ad-networks are not very efficient for acquisition or for branding purposes, bulk ad network buy could be particularly useful and cost-effective to reach/target and increase level of awareness among the 'secondary' target audience (eg. customers who know the brand but are not aware of the direct wine service).
Converting/increasing sales:
- Email
campaign using internal data
Email is the most suitable, effective and efficient digital tool to use to convert shoppers into buyers, first, and occasional buyers into loyal customers. To be effective, email communication must be perceived by the recipients as valuable add-on services which facilitate the decision-buying process (eg. acting as reminder, offering relevant editorial, etc) rather than being intrusive. Nowadays, customers expect digital communication and email especially to be highly customised (based on one individual preferences), timely (delivered at the right moment), relevant (the message/offer), useful (eg. a reminder, a market update), all of which can be achieved only through proper eCRM program which collect, segment and manage customer data to deliver and help establish personal engaging dialogue between the company and the customers.
Hence, it is necessary to persuade visitors/buyers to 'sign-up' and every opportunity for collecting email data/growing the database must be maximised, eg. through affiliate ads and/or display ads. Clearly the most important touch point is given by the website and this should be optimised to increase the number of sign-ups, first.
- Maximising acquisition through visitors' subscription
Currently, although WWD offers a sign-up service, there is not clear 'call-to-action'/'email value proposition' – basically, the reason and the advantages for subscribing. Also, the fact that the sign-up form is placed at the bottom of the page minimises its visibility and 'significance' compared to other functions offered in the website. Research shows that the volume of subscribers can be dramatically increased by moving the sign-up form at the top of the page, where is more likely to catch user attention, along with defining and communicating a OVP/advantages for subscribing:
Even after a visitor decides to register, there is no clear follow-up communication which pushes the visitors to take more action/'engage' in any manner with the website/the company (eg. 'view our newest wines', read our 'latest blog', offers, etc) – both in the 'thank you' page and especially in the welcome page:
Figure 1 Thank you page - hardly distinguishable from home page
The welcome email could be exploited especially to either drive the customer to the website, but also as a way to collect more data from customers after first registering (eg. allowing customers to express their preferences for future communication):
Figure 2 welcome email
An example of optimisation of online visitors' acquisitions/conversion and retention: the BBR website
Berry Bros & Rudd use the website not merely for transactional purpose but as a relationship-building tool. The site is content-rich, highly customisable, and opportunities for engaging with customers/visitors/wine lovers alike are maximised by not only the relevant content but also by the website layout/architecture:
Figure 3 - Emphasis is on the sign up/account log in and on establishing a 'dialogue' with visitors through relevant content
Conversion and retention is then increased through the offer of highly customisable personal account services, which include feature such as 'wish list', 'recommendations' etc which facilitate the buying process (for the customer) and eventually the selling process (for the company):
Summary
To summarise, driving traffic to the website can be achieved though different digital tools/activities; however to meet the objective of increasing sales and reducing CPA it is highly recommendable to use extensively yet appropriately email communications, backed by sound eCRM strategy, and maximise the opportunities to 'engage' with visitors/buyers online through relevant content, including User generated content (forums, ratings, feedbacks, wish list, blogs).
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