Is Your Brand Killing Your Search Campaign? - The Right Place for Branding
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So when you're starting a search campaign, you need to get the idea of branding out of your head. Search text ads will not serve the purpose of branding well. In order to brand something, you need to be in control of the conversation, and you aren't in control at the beginning; “The search page is defined by the searcher,” as Hotchkiss rightly points out. Search text ads are not about branding; they're “about starting a dialogue with a prospect,” according to Hotchkiss.
If you manage to convince the prospect to continue the dialogue, then you can start – cautiously – promoting your brand. Stated in terms of a pay-per-click campaign, you've succeeded in convincing the prospect to continue the conversation when he or she clicks through to your landing page. I've written on the topic of landing pages before (and will again, soon), so I'm not going to recover that ground here.
Even on a landing page, however, your prospect always maintains the option of clicking away. You still don't fully control the conversation; at best, you share it with your prospect. This means that you had better address her needs first on your landing page, or she'll click away to find someone who does. As Hotchkiss explains it, on your landing page, you regain full control over your message, but you still must keep the anticipated needs of your prospect in mind as you get that message across. Your prospect knows that you're going to try to sell them, and they consented to that when they clicked through, but they can change their minds in an instant. “It's a delicate dance of permission to be persuaded, a dance that can end abruptly with just one click,” Hotchkiss explained.
Photo by Seattle Municipal Archives; use permitted via Creative Commons license.
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