Actions Speak Louder than Clicks; or, The Prodigal Brand

My last ad:tech session of the week was Actions Speak Louder than Clicks: Exploring the Laws of Relationship Marketing.

Okay, relationship marketing. I hope you've got a pair of Chuck Taylors on hand.

Executive VP Mark Taylor of Wunderman has a motto that he's been so tenacious as to trademark: "It's After the Click" that counts. The running idea is, a click doesn't mean a purchase. It may not mean anything at all.

"A click," he menacingly adds, "might drive a customer away."

Assuming your site has intuitive functionality and an agreeable design, a big reason why customers may click through from a search engine, but not convert, is they may not be finding what they need.

A quick and easy solution to this problem is to tailor unique landing pages to each of your keywords.

This is a tedious job, particularly for people who've accumulated keywords in the thousands, but trust me: this small change alone can pay off significantly.

To illustrate, if your consumer is looking for "red chuck taylors," don't guide them to Converse.com (managed by Zaaz, a firm owned by Wunderman), which currently features all sorts of overwhelming abstract shoe designs (Picasso would be stoked).

Guide your little consumer-to-be directly to a unique landing page featuring, hold your breath, red Chucks. In an ideal world, this dream page will also include unobtrusive alternative options that further educate, rather than drive that person away.

For example, a subtle side link can bring your consumer directly back to the homepage, where those Picasso-esque Chucks are actually customizable. Suddenly s/he's gone from thinking "red," to thinking "band logo!" or "my initials!" or "yellow triceratops!" And get this: he or she thinks it was his or her own idea.

Suddenly the sky is the limit!

So the point is, unique landing pages are a big deal. Even bigger is the notion of learning a consumer's behavior and why that person searches, then meeting him or her halfway.

For example, learning that Converse consumers call Chuck Taylor "Chucks" made a huge difference for the marketers and creative people involved.

Believe it or not, knowing your target demographic's street vernacular can impact search and help bring consumers where they need to be.

The moral of the story: let your customers run away with the brand. Find out what they did with it. Adopt their terminology.

Then guide them back to you.