I agree with Ken Magill’s comments regarding the inability of Internet vendors to articulate concisely what their products and services do (iMarketing News, March 26). I, too, have been to many Internet marketing and e-commerce trade shows over the past few years, and this fact is so evident in speaking with trade show booth representatives.
If I can’t understand their “brochurespeak,” and I’m in the business, how would a prospective client make sense of their product offerings enough to come to an intelligent decision? I suspect that many clients, in despair, just give up.
However, I disagree with Magill over the issue of bigger, more intrusive ads. I think this is a thoroughly bad idea, born of desperation and ignorance, by those who should — but don’t — know any better.
So, standard banner ads are declining in click through and conversion to sale, right?
OK, let’s make them even bigger and more intrusive (i.e., annoying), and then maybe we’ll get some return on our money. This approach is so typical of the mentality of the mass media crowd that has been so influential in managing, or rather mismanaging, the development of the Internet so far. It is another example of why Internet marketing and e-commerce need to be rescued by solid direct and database marketing practitioners, if they are not to become marginalized.
This solution is analogous to telemarketing. Nobody wants to be bothered by a telemarketer’s phone call at 8 p.m.? OK, let’s call them three times a night and every day of the week until we finally get their attention, right? This should really force them into a state of abject surrender, right?
Bigger, more intrusive banner ads are not the answer to the declining effectiveness of online advertising. Better and more comprehensive solutions are required.
Anthony Stagg, Director, business development, Abacus, a division of DoubleClick Inc., Broomfield, CO
