Call me a cynic, but I’m astounded at the number of firm’s that after having invested a significant amount of time and money to develop a successful web site are then willing to forfeit the very element that brought them their success in the first place, if you had guessed I’m talking about their traffic – you’re right. With the explosive expansion of the web, and an ever growing proliferation of web sites, the ability of sites to a) Attract Visitors and b) Retain Visitors is of greater significance now than ever before. Web Traffic has become a commodity, bought, sold, traded and brokered for “pennies per click” by firms looking to promote their client’s goods, services or causes to the very same demographic profiles that make your web site successful in its own right.
3rd party Banner Ad’s have but one function, and that is to divert portions of web traffic from one site and deliver it to another. For this reason alone, we don’t advocate that our clients take on outside advertising on their sites after having made significant investments in attracting visitors to their sites in the first place. It simply doesn’t make sense to provide your visitors with a potential invitation to leave your site the second they arrive.
As our firm deals mainly with small to mid sized firms, we would rarely, if ever, recommend to any of our clients that they take on 3rd party banner ads on their sites as a means of generating additional income. Our advice, to our clients interested in using banners, would be to run their own, on their own site, to market and promote their own products to their own visitors.
In addition to recommending the development and use of “internal site banners” we would also recommend that our clients consider purchasing banner space on “selected sites of interest” if the sites were able to:
- a) Deliver the specific demographic we were interested in attracting for our clients.
b) Have the ability to display our client’s banners based on the input of specific keywords or phrases.
With respect to designing and deploying internal site banners on your site – there are numerous factors that should be considered, and understandably, each of these factors will contribute either positively or negatively to the success or failure of your program.
First and foremost, it is important to understand that Click-through rates (the percentage of people who will see your message and click on it) will vary and are inevitably bounded by the number of visitors your site receives and the relevance each of your messages has in relation to the needs of your visitors. Having said that, here is a quick checklist of factors you’ll want to consider before deploying your own internal site banners.
- a) Research your visitor’s needs and understand how your business can best address them.
b) Focus your energy on the development of your messages rather than on the development of the graphics used to deliver them.
c) Promote products and services your firm is capable of delivering in a way that helps build value in the mind of your visitors while at the same time differentiating your business from your competitors.
d) Develop a series of messages that present the benefits of using your products or purchasing your firm’s services. Use the opportunity to leverage the relationship you have with your visitors by educating them on what it is you offer and the benefits associated with their use.
e) Integrate your messages into the design of your site rather than just plunking them at the top of the page. Redesign your web site’s interface if required to accommodate your banner messages.
f) Animated messages (even simple text animations) do a better job of capturing your visitor’s attention than that of static messages. If you are not familiar with how to create or are incapable of creating animated messages, ensure that your messages use bright colors or high contrast graphics. Remember, your ultimate goal is to ensure your messages look like they are an integral part of your firm’s web site rather than an afterthought.
g) Develop content to specifically support your banner message efforts. This content does not necessarily have to be available to your visitors via your site’s regular navigational system but, if properly engineered, it may also aid in bolstering your firm’s ranking on the web’s most popular search engines.
h) Rotate your messages regularly to avoid burnout (a condition where your messages become less effective over time as a result of over exposure).
i) Lastly ensure that each of your messages contain a strong call to action, i.e., Click here, CLICK HERE NOW! are mandatory. Ensure there is no misunderstanding as to what you want your visitors to do. It is also recommend that your call to action be located in the lower right hand side of your messages as this is where the eye is naturally drawn when reading. In closing, use banner messages on your site to help build value and promote the benefits of doing business with your firm as opposed to allowing 3rd parties access to your traffic for the promotion and sale of their products at your expense.
Simon Rolfe, is a Senior Partner with Creative Genius Communications, a full-service Advertising Agency located in Ottawa, Ont. Canada. He frequently writes articles relating to Marketing, Advertising, Promotion and the Web. You can contact him directly at (613) 566-5506 or via e-mail at: ideas@creativegenius.ca
