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Gifts and online advertising
(0)An industry which virtually almost completely depends on online advertising is the ‘Gifts industry’. Each one of us has faced the dilemma of what gift to buy a friend, a spouse, a child…Especially if the gift has to be given annually – an anniversary gift to a spouse, for example. It is a huge challenge to select a gift that will appeal to the recipient. Ask a married man how he tears at his hair when he has to decide an anniversary of birthday gift for his wife!
But we don’t need to panic. The internet not only helps you select a gift, but also helps you with the gift idea! Just enter Gift Idea into google and you’ll find the following keywords –
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Gift idea for men
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Gift idea for her
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Gift idea for dad
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Gift idea for boyfriend…
The list is endless…
The process of buying a gift starts and very often ends on the internet. There are so many gift ideas that exist out there that we don’t know of. And only the way to get creative with gifts is to throw a generic search string and spend time on the web looking at various gifts and gift ideas that the internet throws up.
Online advertising in context of gifts goes beyond the conventional. It helps a person get creative. It provides gift ideas. Can I get as many gift ideas in a shop as I do on the web? Certainly not! In fact, buying gifts in the shop is dying. This is the one industry where the internet has virtually overrun retail (not obviously including online retail).
Advantages of the Gifts online are numerous –
Gift Ideas
The internet provides a plethora of ideas for the user. It is a part of the creative thinking process that is employed in arriving at a gift type
Targeting
Like I mentioned earlier, online gifts is a part of our psyche. In this scenario, sharply focused targeting is possible within this market. For example we have –
Gifts for children under 10
Gifts for children under 10 in India
Gifts for children under 5
Gifts for children under £1
The choice of keywords is limitless.
Demographic
It is possible to target virtually every demographic in the gifts market. Gifts for men over 50 in the UK for example.
Choice of keywords
There are innumerable keywords around the word ‘gift’ available. And this is a constantly growing list because a number of retailers are either launching a gift range of re-positioning existing items as novelty gifts!
I would love to hear from others on some interesting gift related keywords!
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Online Lead Generation in finance markets
(0)In an earlier post, I had spoken of the finance industry and online advertising. I had mentioned how credit card companies, banks etc rely heavily on the online to increase registrations, get new customers, create emailing lists etc.
Another area where Finance companies find online advertising handy is generating leads in a debt management (DM) context.
In countries like the UK and US the personal debt figures are staggering. Let me quote some figures –
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Total UK personal debt at the end of May 2010 stood at £1,460bn. Individuals owe more than what the whole country produces in a year.
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Total US consumer debt stands at nearly $2.5 trillion dollars. That works out to be nearly $ 8,100 in debt for every man, woman and child that lives here in the US.
It’s a no brainer, therefore, as to why debt management companies thrive in these markets. It is quite safe to assume that across the UK/US, there would be a number of families who have fairly substantial sums in outstanding personal debt. For example, the average household debt in the UK is £ 8,716/-.
UK and US are, therefore, very fertile markets for DM companies. The average DM company would be in perpetual quest of good leads. And given the fact that debts are endemic to these markets, DM companies would be looking to target virtually every household with a DM message.
The challenge here is to get a ‘good lead’. A good lead is one that not only has accurate information but represents an individual who needs immediate help and is willing to engage.
DM companies look to target on a regional basis with a ‘I am a local company’ message. Thus you have a campaign run by a prominent UK based DM organization that targets based on postcode.
Lead generation in the DM market can be done in two ways –
- A Company specific lead generation campaign
- A generic lead generation campaign
Let me explain these two models in detail.
Company specific Lead Generation campaign
In this scenario, a DM company contracts directly with a network to generate leads specific to their need. For example, therefore, a DM company might want leads that fulfil the following criteria-
- Debt > £/$ 5,000
- More than 3 unsecured loans
- Disposable income per month £/$ XXXX
In this situation, the DM company provides the creatives to run the campaign and works closely with the network to monitor quantity and quality of leads.
A generic lead generation campaign
The seriousness of the debt problem and the opportunity it represents has spawned a market of ‘Lead Generation companies’ in the UK/US. Such organizations generate leads fulfilling certain generic criteria using a wide variety of methods, online being one of them.
In this situation, the Lead Generation company runs a banner campaign targeting individuals with debt problems. Leads generated from such campaigns are sold to DM companies.
While online advertising has gained firm root in the financial markets, there still is a huge untapped market in areas like Debt Management. The more focused targeting that networks can do the better they’ll be able to monetize these opportunities..
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