The Retail Website as a Marketing Platform

Attention Retail Chief Marketing Officers: your single most effective marketing platform may not be TV, newsprint, radio or the Internet in general. It may be your website. The logic is simple. Virtually any visitor to your site is there by intention....interacting with your brand by choice. While this is true of anyone reading a direct mail piece or a newspaper insert, the effort required to actually be there is much greater for your website....and so is the corresponding consumer involvement. A bigger difference exists. When visiting your site, the consumer is engaged in the shopping process. We're not precisely sure where on the continuum between "interest" and "intent to buy" any one consumer is upon arrival, just that they are actively in some stage of that journey. The same is NOT true of the direct mail or newspaper insert, where the activity is "getting the mail". NOT shopping. Distinct advantage to the website as a marketing platform.

The website employs technology which enables you to deliver a multi-media message and experience. Again, this is true of television. The website has several advantages over television. First, the television audience you may be reaching is NOT composed of opt-in consumers perfectly targeted. There are a lot of useless eyeballs being paid for. Second, the activity the consumer is engaged in has nothing to do with shopping....it's being entertained. Third, the delivery of your message is actively avoided and resented by a majority of the viewers. Last, the willingness to interact with your message is limited to 15 - 30 seconds. Contrast these factors with your website. The consumer is perfectly targeted, having chosen your brand to engage with. The audience is not only "opt-in", it's activated. The messages begin delivered by your website are not resented, they are desired, and in fact, your inability to deliver guidance is a common resentment! Last, consumer viewing habits on the Web allow for message delivery in excess of THREE MINUTES.

Huge differences and advantages. Oh....there's one more.....you don't have to pay for the right to market to these consumers.....you already did that at some point in the past. So....the website AS A MARKETING PLATFORM is more powerful, better targeted, more flexible, and the audience is relatively free. Wow.