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One thing I will say about SEO and ROI, though, is that my clients are always delighted with the fact that they get direct reports on the performance of keywords, visitor (traffic) numbers, conversion rates, etc.

In traditional marketing, there is an joke that goes “I know that half of my marketing budget is responsible for 100% of my new sales — the problem is, I don’t know which half!” In the search engine marketing paradigm, this joke thankfully no longer resonates.

First of all, I don’t think branding can ever be dead, online or offline. IMO, branding is simply a business term for something that’s a natural part of human nature. People can’t help but form a GUT FEELING (Marty Neumeier’s definition of a brand in “The Brand Gap”) about other people, companies, products, etc. When someone mentions or asks you about this person or that company or that product, you already have an opinion/gut feeling about that person, company or product, assuming you’ve had some expereince with it/them directly or indirectly.

The other relevant fact is people are just different. Some people buy brands BECAUSE they’re brands. Some people don’t care about brands. They want the best price. Roy Williams wrote an excellent post on the subject recently (http://www.brandingblog.com/2004/12/monday_morning_.html) in which he made the distinction between transactional customers and relational customers. IMO there will always be (at least) these two types of consumers, so there will always be a need for investment in both branding and DM.

Branding folks may tout the superiority of their craft while DM folks do the same. But the reality is, as marketers, we need them both. Lets not be too hasty in killing off one or the other.

Thanks again for the question Bob. I love my copy of The Copywriter’s Handbook as much as my copy of The Brand Gap.

ROI-driven direct marketing has it’s limits - just like snail mail direct marketing or any direct marketing. People online are perceptive to when they are directly marketed to, and if they dont like it, your plan backfires. ROI is important to gauge how well you’re doing, but to eschew branding and go to strictly ROI-driven is nonsense. It’s possible to lean more towards ROI-driven, but within that frame, you need to build your branding in there. Pure ROI is like those guys that go door-to-door selling promotional coupons to homes or businesses - it works, but you can’t rely entirely on it.

So no, online branding is not dead - and anyone who wants to say that guarantees that they are wrong and will be humiliated.

2. Branding and efficient direct response are not contradictory: Great advertising leads to brand building AND positive direct response ROIs.

3. eBay and Google both are great examples of experiental brands - the equity is build through the USP users actually experience.

I think CEO’s will be asking for and getting these kinds of letters as online becomes more and more entrenched in the world of advertising and marketing:

From the “trackers” group:

Dear CEO:

Last year you allocated $100 million to our group, which we spent in various online activities and other places that we could track. We can without question say that our efforts resulted in $750 million in direct orders, 32 million email newsletter subscribers added to our database, 139 new dealers added, and much more (detail attached). Please increase our 2005 budget to $500 million.

Signed, The Trackers

From “The Trackless” Group

Dear CEO:

Last year our budget was $1 billion and we spent it on TV, magazines and other media (see scheduled attached). Our branding studies show people remembered our slogans, recalled specific ads, and in some markets we could tell that the needle moved when big campaigns were run. How much it was moved as a result of our ads, we really can’t say. But our bean counters tell us we’re selling more beans so it must be as a result of our work. Please double our budget to $2 billion.

Signed,

The Trackless

As a CMO of a company that produces offline-to-online tracking software and systems, we see how the ability to track all media (i.e. which worked better, $100K spent on a TV campaign, $100K spent on direct mail, $100K spent on Google or $100K spent on banners) is critical in this day and age of media fragmentation. The Trackless group will be hard pressed to keep their budgets from being taken by The Trackers. Anyone experiencing this now?