We seem to be having this conversation a lot lately. Do we do a branding ad or a direct response ad? Should it be aspirational or something with “teeth”? It’s a frustrating argument because there is never a winner. The DR group puts out an ad that generates high short-term response rates, generates a lot of leads that convert poorly and is ultimately forgotten quickly. The brand team puts out an ad that drives engagement and makes everyone feel good, but doesn’t create leads.
Well, thankfully, Vic Drabicky already gives us his take on this Direct Response vs. Branding battle which he correctly describes as worthless. I want to focus on one specific area that Drabicky points out and one that a traditionally hard-core DR company has a particularly difficult time getting past.
•Don’t put revenue over the brand. This is a big one, and one so many people miss. Why do people spend tons of time and money to develop beautiful websites with beautiful photography and an overly fancy user experience, but allow their search programs to have less-than-flattering creative, allow their network banners to end up on seedy sites, and not even bother to make sure their SEO meta data is in line with their brand.
These may be “direct response” campaigns, but I guarantee you every part of these campaigns has a huge effect on your brand image.
One of our team members often refers to many of these ‘direct response’ campaigns as crack. They are great for an initial short-term lift, but without the staying-power earned through effective branding, the results begin to erode. So a new strain is needed. It gets rushed and short-cutted because we have to have it NOW. The creative is cobbled together from old ads with varying levels of performance, no one pays much attention to where the banners wind up, and God knows what the SEO impact is. Complaints start coming in and the response on the next ad is lower, causing us to try hard to make the next one harder hitting. It’s a vicious cycle. If I drew pretty internet pictures, there would be one right here.
And branding isn’t without blame here either. All of the lovely looking websites, advertisements and content can’t do their jobs if there is no call to action. We can make people feel all warm and fuzzy about the brand, but if we forget to ask the prospective customer to do something, don’t offer them some value to be gained from getting more information about our company or fail to inspire them to action, the job is half done.
Thankfully, we have a team of people that are all well-grounded in both sides. Sometimes it feels that one or the other is “winning the battle” and behind closed doors we might celebrate those victories, but the fact is the two sides have to work together. Without a brand, there will be nothing for the DR side to hype, without DR, the branding team will forget to generate sales.
So we work together and try to strike that perfect balance. What kind of things do you do to make sure your team is giving equal footing to each side? I’ll save my thoughts for future posts or responses to your comments.
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