- What is datanets?
- Pricing
- Production and Working Together
- Your Website
- Reporting
- Testing
- Terms and Conditions
- The Future of Marketing
- Q. What is datanets?
A. datanets is a highly innovative and unique cradle to grave sales generating system. It is designed to maximise the new sales and customer data acquisition opportunities now available on the internet through the move to customer searching. It is a flexible, tactical sales and marketing tool which can be built into a library of campaigns. Each campaign can be deployed time and again when appropriate and when needed on a turn on and turn off basis.
It has recently been launched by SCS Marketing with great success. It has already been deployed in many industries including Catering, Property Investment, Cosmetics, Leisure and Events, the Arts, Video Production and Retail.
- Q. What resources does datanets bring together?
A. datanets brings together online advertising including Google Adwords and Social Networking, with tailor-made landing pages, prospect contact data capture, lead management and sales closing techniques. datanets not only brings these powerful new resources together but designs all parts to be consistent and to work with each other to maximise the sum of the whole.
- Q. What are the benefits of using Google Adwords?
- Google is the most powerful search engine in the world. 85% of all purchases start with a Google search
- It is suited to most budgets from small to large; there is a near straight line relationship between spend and returns.
- Suitable for B2B and B2C
- Provides your product information to people actively searching at the key touch point at the right time
- Switch on, switch off
- Low creative costs allow multiple ads to reflect product and customer segmentations
- Excellent near real-time reporting at every stage allows problems to be identified, remedial action to be taken and campaigns to be seamlessly re-deployed
- ROI can be reported by appending cash value levels to measured goals
- There are no Google set-up charges to pay in addition to ours
- Costs are normally charged only on click throughs
- Google has a large number of partner sites which can also be used
A. There are many benefits to using Adwords:
- Q. Are there any problems using Google Adwords?
A. Provided you follow the good practice rules there should be no problems with Adwords. However, excellent performance does not happen by accident and campaigns need to be well planned, results monitored and all parts refined to maximise results. The most typical problem lies in what happens next and delivering prospects to a web page that does not exactly reflect the message of the ad will be very wasteful. Sales will not follow your clicks - only a bill from Google.
- Q. What is 'advertisement to landing page alignment' and why is it important?
A. This is a key principle, usually overlooked and which sits at the heart of datanets. The datanets landing page will be a purpose built page designed to be completely consistent with the particular ad that the enquirer has clicked on. There can be many ads based on different known segments and for each one of these will be a matching landing page. This ensures that every time a prospect clicks through they get relevant information on that click. datanets is a one-click solution, every time.
- Q. What types of situation is datanets best suited to?
A. datanets can be used across almost any market for a variety of objectives. The most typical situation occurs when consumers have already formed a view that they have a need for a type of product or services and they are researching what is available. These are your hot prospects.
- Q. How often will I need to change the designs?
A. You can change both ad and landing page designs regularly to maintain freshness at low costs. You will only need to change designs when your offers change or your targeting changes.
- Q. Will it support off-line retail businesses as well?
A. Yes. datanets is highly flexible in its applications. It can be used to increase traffic to both websites and retail premises. A typical technique to support retail business is the downloading of vouchers, redeemable within store. Voucher distribution can be tracked at all stages.
- Q. Can it use 'call me' buttons and other online comms such as webinars, web conferencing?
A. Yes. datanets, being a digital coded product, can incorporate and use all state of the art communication techniques.
- Q. Should I also consider other internet resources such as Facebook, Twitter and price comparison/shopping sites?
A. Yes. These are also powerful communication channels. They offer the two options of carrying your ads or in the case of social networking you can create your own pages and followers. However, once again, it can take hard work and the application of best practice to see returns.
- Q. Does it cost a lot?
A. Budgets can be as small or as large as you can afford and which are appropriate for your business. However, the minimum investment covering all creative work, programming and media set-up will be around £1500.00. (learn more)
- Q. Can I commission datanets to do everything or just part?
A. Since the datanets' principle is to design all parts of the process to work together, we really need to control the work. However, if you already have a member of staff or Google Adword agency that you work with, we are very happy to work with them.
- Q. How long does it take to create a datanets campaign?
A. Once you have signed off your requirements and given us the go ahead, it will take around 10 working days to include both creative and media.
- Q. What items of marketing collateral will I need?
A. We will specify exact requirements within your briefing notes but there is nothing unusual and items will include logos and other images in common formats plus outline copy ideas.
- Q. I already use Google Adwords, can I continue to do this myself?
A. It is advisable for us to do the Adword campaign creation and execution to ensure alignment of all the datanets parts. But if you already have a member of staff or Google Adword agency that you work with, we are very happy to work with them under our guidance.
- Q. Do I have to write copy?
A. No. You tell us the background to the campaign; we write the copy for your approval. We are expert copy writers.
- Q. What are the key steps when I can be involved in the decision making?
A. We involve our clients at every stage that they wish to be involved in and this will be agreed beforehand. All work is on line and can be viewed and commented on by the client.
- Q. How do you manage the work flow process and can I easily see what stage the project is at?
A. We use a work flow system called Basecamp to manage all aspects of the datanets production process. This covers tasks, deadlines, messaging, approvals, alerts and archive filing. It is online and provides us with single access point capability from any remote point in the world.
- Q. Do I need to change my established website?
A. No. datanets works completely independently of your existing web sites. It can carry a 'learn more' button routing to more web pages or your main website.
- Q. Who hosts the new web pages?
A. We do. We will purchase a unique domain URL for your datanets campaign. This will allow us to make rapid changes to the design in response to our real-time evaluations (of which there are many) - direct access to the product enables us to do this in minutes. While a datanets campaign can be established on your existing domain/host it is not ideal, as access through third parties (i.e., your current web team) can lead to severe delays. Remember, success on the internet and business today is often about speed to market and speed of response.
- Q. When and how will I know that it's working?
A. The first indications of a campaign's efficiency appears within minutes as Google reports on a multitude of measurements. These include numbers of click-throughs to your landing page, click-through rates, keyword rankings and ad variation ranking. This enables us to make improvements from the first day. We can also embed goal measurement such as orders taken, request for contacts or ROI. This type of reporting lags by 24 hours.
- Q. Can I measure my return on investment?
A. Yes. For rapid indications, we can embed code that will place a value against a specified outcome. If you know that on average an enquiry is worth £100 to your business, the system will report this as a campaign value which can be measured against cost. Ultimately, we can track enquirers generated by the datanets through to sales through a prospect and customer database.
- Q. When can I bail out, if it's not working?
A. Unlike traditional advertising, we will know through the reporting systems how well the campaign is performing. It will take a few days depending upon response levels to remedy weaknesses or to conclude we cannot. We can easily test campaigns before increasing spends.
- Q. Can we test different approaches?
A. Yes. The system allows multiple approaches to be created and tested at little extra cost. The information reporting enables us to quickly select the most efficient approach.
- Q. Can you tell me in advance what level of response I might get?
A. Yes. We can run campaign simulations which will give you an idea of the click throughs/visitors to the landing page.
- Q. What are your terms and conditions?
A. We require 50% of the design and production contract value on commissioning. The balance is invoiced to you when the campaign go-ahead is signed off by you. Each month's media budget is payable in advance. We are required to pay media costs as they are incurred. (Privacy Policy)
- Q. How big is the internet?
A. It is the largest and fastest-growing communication network on the globe. It affects all walks of life and particularly business/commerce. Of the 6.7 billion people in the world, 1.6 billion (24%) use the internet. Google is now the most powerful search engine and claims 200 million searches a day. 85% of all purchases start with a Google search.
- Q. How big is the internet in the UK?
A. In the UK alone, there are 42.1 million users, 71% of the total population and now nearly 30% of the population has broadband. In 2008 almost £2 billion of retail sales occurred on the internet.
- Q. I run a small business, is the internet relevant to me?
A. Almost certainly! When consumers make a product purchase decision, product information gathering is one of the main uses of the net and users are much more influenced by functional factors such as price, product specification and delivery. If your product offering is good, the internet provides a more equal playing field for all businesses and users will find you if your approach is right.
- Q. What are the main forms of advertising on the internet?
- Site sponsorship
- Banner advertising
- Participation in loyalty schemes such as ipoints
- Pop-ups/pop-unders
- Pod casts
- Blogging
- Creation of social networking e.g. Twitter
- Links
A. The most powerful form of paid-for advertising is Google Adwords. This is a very sophisticated system designed for online set-up, execution and reporting. It incorporates many advantages over traditional forms of advertising.
Other internet advertising includes:
- Q. What changes is the internet bringing to marketing?
A. It is making fundamental changes to the way people make buying decisions. Marketing is moving away from a traditional broadcast 'pushing' of information to prospects, to one of information provision which the customer can find themselves i.e. a 'pull' method. The internet is an integral part and main driver of this process change.
- Q. Do these changes matter to me?
A. The move by consumers to search for information is largely independent of company size or brand reputation. All companies can improve their marketing effectiveness by understanding this simple principle. Make product and service information available to people at touch points where they are looking for it at the time when they are making a purchase decision and any business will benefit.
- Q. Should I use an agency to create my online advertising?
A. Most companies will use a marketing or advertising agency. They do so to benefit from expertise and from buying economies. But, this is a personal decision and should be based on all relevant factors including the level of your own expertise, your own resources, the other pressures on your time and feedback from a shortlist of agencies you can request pitches from.
- Q. What should I look for in an agency?
A. This is not rocket science but cover every angle! Look for understanding of your business, a relevant track record and excellent applied creativity. Meet the actual team that will work on your business and assess real enthusiasm from people that you can look forward to working with. Finally, generally speaking, small agencies are better suited to micro/SME businesses and the costs should be affordable.