October 05, 2005 | Wednesday

Engagement marketing: Just in time

By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in Marketing

Alan Moore, co-founder of engagement marketing firm SMLXL (who spoke at Latitude’s inaugural Strategy Forum on October 6), has a very good post that explains why ‘just in time’ marketing - which search engine marketing fully represents - trumps ‘just in case’ marketing.

Bound for Glory: America in Color 1939-43 presents an oddly startling world of small towns and country roads ablaze in the vivid hues of real life. In it is a drugstore, its clapboard sides covered in typographic descriptions of the store’s contents: baths, pans, beds, tobacco etc. In many ways it seems so curiously innocent. This little drugstore waiting for people from the surrounding countryside to pass by and enter the store to buy something. Its just in case marketing model seems apt and non-invasive.

But just in case communications becomes destructive and intrusive, like a B52 bomber dropping its payload over a vast area just in case you might be there.

In contrast, ‘just in time’ marketing means reaching those potential customers who may already be looking to make a purchase. That is the essence of why SEM works. At its most effective, search puts potential customers who are as far down the buying cycle as possible in touch with those companies who can give them something of value. The ‘just in case’ methods of carpetbombing people with your message and flashing your logo in front of as many eyeballs as possible ignore niche and do not consider relevancy.

How well do you do relevancy? If you’re not sure, the answer can probably be found in the return on your marketing spend. And, let’s face it, if the return is poor, you’re spending rather than investing.