Online and Offline Marketing Strategies

Pacific Pillows operates a $20,000 monthly advertising budget for both online and offline media advertising. The company continually tries different marketing techniques to test the return on investment (ROI) of each method. When the target ROI has been achieved, Pacific Pillows continues to increase the dollar amount for that particular marketing method.

Email MarketingNewsletter

Not only do you have to generate new customers, but you need to create recurring customers. The monthly email newsletter (see Figure 10.8) has proven to be a great advertising avenue to develop customer retention and attract new customers. The customer email database is collected from only past customers. Pacific Pillows purchased emails list in the past, but this did not prove successful. Sending a coupon code with a significant discount in the monthly email newsletter has been a very effective way to get customers to continue to purchase products.

Figure 10.8. An email newsletter that includes coupons and special offerings is sent to customers monthly.

Pacific Pillows uses Campaigner by Got Marketing as its email newslettermanagement program. Campaigner enables you to seamlessly create, track, and manage your email newsletter with the Yahoo! store. Customer email accounts are easily and automatically imported into the email newsletter program.

Using eBay

Pacific Pillows also offers 70% of its products on eBay (www.ebay.com), as shown in Figure 10.9. eBay has accounted for approximately an additional 20% in sales. Pacific Pillows outsources the management and listing of the products on eBay to an individual. Revenues from eBay not only pay for the salary of that person, but they account for a good portion of total company sales.

Figure 10.9. In addition to the Yahoo! store, Pacific Pillows opened an eBay store to increase exposure.

Tip

You can find individuals who are willing to post and manage your eBay product listings on a commission basis. You can post a request on sites such as Craigslist (www.craigslist.com) or find one of those local drop-off centers that will post your listings for you.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-per-click marketing has been by far the most successful form of advertising. Pacific Pillows manages more than 1,000 targeted keywords across the GoogleAd and Overture (now Yahoo! Search Marketing) network.

Tip

When signing up with price-comparison sites such as PriceGrabber.com, ask them to waive the setup fee. Most sales reps have the capability of waiving certain fees as an incentive for you to use their service. It doesn't hurt to askthe worst thing they can do is say no.

Marketing through price-comparison websites such as www.shopzilla.com, www.bizrate.com, www.shopping.com, www.pricegrabber.com, and www.nextag.com has also been successful.

Using pay-per-click advertising has allowed Pacific Pillows to directly reach targeted customers who are specifically searching for an exact productand it's "pay on performance."

Print Marketing

Print advertising in magazines has been the least effective form of marketing. Pacific Pillows has currently ceased all print advertising campaigns.

Television Commercial Marketing

Television has also not been successful. Pacific Pillows spent more than $18,000 worth of television ads, but they resulted in only a few orders. Advertising media might not be fruitful. Hopefully, you do not have to shell out $18,000 to test it, but you never know until you try it.

Affiliate Marketing

Pacific Pillows uses Commission Junction (www.cj.com) as its affiliate software system. Yahoo! store has partnered with Commission Junction to allow Yahoo! store customers to seamlessly integrate the affiliate software. You can sign up with Commission Junction by simply going to the Affiliate Program link in Store Manager.

Seventeen percent of sales is generated by affiliates. Pacific Pillows has hired PepperJam Management (www.pepperjammanagement) not only to manage its affiliate campaign (pay affiliates, tech support, create banners and links, and so on), but also to recruit super affiliates. Super affiliates are those affiliate marketing gurus who usually make up the majority of your affiliate sales. These super affiliates are serious about helping you generate sales and also know how to send you traffic. The average affiliate simply puts an affiliate link on its site. Super affiliates create advanced online marketing strategies to increase your traffic. Initial Pacific Pillows budgeted a total of $8,000 for the service but now spends $5,000 per month because of the effectiveness of the campaign and PepperJam's capability to perform.