Sometimes, DRTV agencies striving to create the best possible online presence wind up going head-to-head with the
brands’ internal advertising divisions. Osborn says his firm is
currently dealing with that dilemma with a large brand’s internal
division that is “larger than our entire company.” And while the
team appreciates the ideas and ingenuity that a boutique agency
brings to the table, Osborn says competing with those internal
capabilities is always a challenge.
Getting brand clients to break with tradition and the norm
is another hurdle, says Osborn, who seven years ago contends he
developed the model of streaming video and the upsell as a way
to allow consumers to order online without using a shopping
cart. “Programmers looked at me like I had two heads,” recalls
Osborn.
The fact that 50 percent of the TV viewing audience is still
using dial-up Internet connections can also put a kink in a marketer’s online plans. “You can build the most elaborate site, but
know that a big chunk of the audience is not going to be able
to see it,” says Osborn. To avoid that challenge, he says Liquid
Focus strives to build sites in the “lightest way” possible.
Greenstone says some of the more technical issues associated
with E-commerce must also be overcome before an online campaign can run smoothly. Take cybersecurity, for example. With
identity theft grabbing many headlines these days, consumer
information must be protected vigilantly by the companies that
use and store it. “Data security is huge right now,” says Greenstone, whose firm employs several full-time compliance officers
to handle the task.
With the financial crisis and real estate meltdown still in full
swing, Barnthouse says the age-old issue of trust also comes into
play when marketers take their campaigns online. And while
an increasing number of consumers are buying online every year
(eMarketer estimates that 63.4 percent of the U.S. population
uses the Web at least once per month, and that nearly seven out
of 10 Americans will do so by 2013), he says both brands and
DRTV-only marketers must adjust to meet the new challenges
brought on by events like the global financial crisis.
“The issue of whether people trust the online channel for
buying is slowly going away,” says Barnthouse, “but it’s still
there, and marketers across all industries have to do what they
can to cultivate that trust.”
Getting Social Online
As a growing number of brands and DRTV marketers leverage the Web as a sales channel — and as technology continues
to evolve at the speed of light — one has to wonder, what’s
next? According to Barnthouse, it could be a more heightened
interaction between company and consumer using what some
might consider an unlikely tool: social networking.
Many people see online social networking tools as a fun di-
version where individuals make friends, find romance and locate
long-lost classmates. While it’s true that sites like MySpace and
Curious about how many sales you’re missing by not having an
online presence to go with your DRTV campaign? According to
the Census Bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the
estimate of U.S. retail E-commerce sales for second-quarter 2008,
adjusted for seasonal variation, but not for price changes, was $34.6
billion, an increase of 2. 9 percent over first-quarter 2008.
By comparison, total retail sales for 2Q 2008 were estimated at
$1.03 trillion, an increase of 0.9 percent over 1Q 2008. The second-quarter 2008 E-commerce estimate increased 9. 5 percent from
second-quarter 2007, while total retail sales increased 2. 5 percent
during the same period. E-commerce sales in 2Q 2008 accounted for
3. 3 percent of total sales.
Facebook have come to the forefront as “the sites to be on” for
people looking to connect socially online, those two sites plus
myriad others have proven themselves as useful business tools
for marketers looking to increase their online presence in a very
“viral” nature.
One of the best aspects of social networking is the fact that it
can be via an existing Web presence. In other words, firms don’t
have to start from scratch online when they want to start taking
advantage of this useful way to promote themselves, find new
clients and connect with existing customers. Add in the fact
that sites like You Tube are growing in leaps and bounds, and
it’s clear that a single-minded Web approach won’t fly for much
longer.
“Some people say that 25,000 people viewing your video on
You Tube is better than a million people seeing it on TV,” says
Barnthouse. “That’s because those 25,000 people who saw it on
You Tube most likely received it virally from a friend, relative or
co-worker, and actually looked at it instead of just forwarding
through it on their DVRs.”
Going forward, Barnthouse expects marketers to take advantage of the cost-effective, viral nature of social networking and
other online tools that allow firms to reach existing and potential customers without having to shell out additional production
or media bucks in the process. By augmenting those efforts with
a solid DRTV campaign, he says, companies can effectively leverage the power of the Internet and TV in one fell swoop.
“Look at the most visited sites right now, and they are
MySpace and Facebook,” says Barnthouse. “That’s where the
Internet is at right now, and the marketer who can get people
to interact with their brands through these channels will be the
one that hits gold.”
