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Driving Qualified Traffic, Creatively
By Angelo Biasi, General Manager of
SMART Marketing Solutions, LLC
([email protected], 239.963.9396)
Marketing Hooks Em in and Sales Reels Them In
I have several clients that confidently proclaim “If I can only get in front of a new
prospective customer, whether it’s online or in-person, the likelihood of converting them
to a sale is high (60% and greater).” sound familiar? Therefore, the pressure on
marketing to drive qualified sales leads, or traffic, to the sales function, has never been
greater or more critical to business success. Marketing to specifically drive qualified
traffic becomes a strict “numbers game” for satisfying sales, profitability, and customer
acquisition/retention goals.
It’s important when developing your strategy for driving qualified traffic to understand:
- which customers are most likely to convert, or pre-qualifying your target audience
- what marketing channels do they reside in (i.e. periodicals, mobile, social
networks, etc.) or how can you best reach them
- what do your customers respond to (i.e. offers, incentives, free or other)
- what is your competition doing
With today’s plethora of available online and offline tactical marketing options to drive
online and offline traffic—traditional, search, direct, social, mobile, etc.—focusing efforts
on creatively and efficiently driving qualified traffic is paramount. Not only do you need to
know what your customers respond to and how they react but also be able to separate
your strategy from competitors. Innovation plays a big part in the results you receive.
Creative examples of driving foot and online traffic:
Example 1: My wife received a Barnes & Noble Nook wi-fi electronic reader for
Christmas. Being an avid book reader and rabid magazine devour-er, (correction)
consumer, as well as a journalism grad from Penn State, she immediately fell in
love with the device. One of the selling features of the Nook, as compared to
other eReaders, is the ability to browse full-text books and magazines for free
while within Barnes & Noble stores. I thought this to be a brilliant move for driving
qualified traffic to stores in an effort to “sample the goods,” and get customers on
their turf; where they could inevitably serve sales offers and other incentives and
convert more electronic book, magazine and other sales.
Example 2: Retail giants Sports Authority and Macy’s are using Shopkick, a
mobile phone solution that supports cross-retailer rewards for simply entering a
store. How it works: A consumer opens the Shopkick mobile app on their
smartphone and it identifies participating stores within their vicinity that are
offering Kickbucks, the Shopkick currency for entering that store. Once in the
store, additional Kickbucks can be offered for specific actions such as scanning a
2D bar code in a dressing room or walking in during a specific time period.
Kickbucks are then collected and redeemed for store gift cards and other
products or services. Sports Authority has noticed a qualified traffic increased as
much as 70%.
Example 3: In December, a SW Florida local car dealership, Devoe Volvo, drove
Facebook traffic by offering a philanthropic contribution to the sponsored driver
who brought in the most ‘likes’ to the Devoe Facebook site. Sponsored Devoe
Volvo customers were encouraged to promote their charitable cause to their
network; made up of similar minded (or pre-qualified) potential new customers for
the car dealer. This initiative acted as a pseudo referral program to not only drive
new qualified traffic to Devoe Volvo but also portray the car dealer in a positive
philanthropic light.
Example 4: Curtis Kimball who owns a business that serves crème brulee in San
Francisco, CA via a traveling cart, uses Twitter to post his current location and
the flavors of the day to over 5,400 followers. This form of word of mouth
advertising drives qualified traffic wherever Curtis is and encourages viral
referrals to drive more traffic and followers.
Example 5: Shakey’s Pizza, a restaurant chain, promotes a discount for
customers to opt-in to a mobile text-based program (i.e. “Text PIZZAPARTY to
shortcode”) and then pushes limited time offers (i.e. Free medium pizza from 35PM, or Salad Bar $0.99 for today only) via text messaging. The effort has
accounted for as much as a 10% traffic increase to its various locations.
Ask any retailer on how they drive foot traffic and you may get similar responses that
include: Have a grand opening or other promotional event, use incentives, have a sale
and/or promote an educational seminar or workshop. Where the above examples
include contemporary channels for reaching and influencing a target audience including
social, online and mobile to drive qualified traffic, the overall strategies are not that
different from traditional retailer ones.
Whichever creative, qualified traffic generating strategy and tactic you choose, be sure
to closely track your efforts, pay attention to expenses and return on investment (ROI)
and take note of customer behavior. In the process you may uncover a new business
opportunity or way of communicating with your customers.
About the Author
Angelo Biasi is General Manager of SMART Marketing Solutions, LLC, a leading fullservice integrated marketing company in Naples, FL since 2001. He has helped create
and execute marketing plans and integrated marketing solutions for companies such as
Playtex, Bic, Rogaine, Tauck, and over 35 colleges and universities, to name a few.
Angelo has an MBA in Marketing from the University of Connecticut and has taught
Marketing at New York University for over five years. For more information or to learn
more, email him at [email protected], visit www.smartmarketingllc.com or
call 239.963.9396.