Advertising ROI in question as retailers fail to track response and close sales

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Advertising ROI in question as retailers fail to track response and close sales.

Retailers wanting to improve ROI on their marketing spend need to ensure their offline advertising is measurable, accountable and incorporates a way for the consumer to instantly respond anytime, anywhere, tactics which are now easy to implement, according to m-commerce experts at txt2buy.

 
Measuring the effectiveness of adverts with promotional codes and suchlike is fairly standard in the world of direct response advertising, but until now has been challenging to implement and under-utilised in offline advertising campaigns.
 
Failure to incorporate tracking methods in offline adverts will lose you future sales and customers. Through understanding the buying behaviour and measuring response to different media and campaign messages, particularly in the current climate where every piece of marketing has to be optimised to ensure survival, companies can maximise their existing spend and ROI, claims marketing and brand expert Gordon Ellis-Brown.
 
"Consumers are exposed to marketing messages in more ways than ever before, from adverts on tubes and buses through to promotions embedded in computer games and iPhone Apps. Any savvy retailer mindful of budget and ROI needs to know which strategies will work for them and which won't. Additionally, they must ensure all advertising has the ability to close sales ahead of their competition," says Ellis-Brown.
 
To help retailers plan marketing more effectively and gain better conversion rates from offline advertising, Ellis-Brown is part of a team of m-commerce experts launching a new service to UK retailers called txt2buy. The service allows every retailer to easily add a txt2buy call-to-action to all advertising, enabling the customer to respond and purchase instantly and securely by simply sending a text anytime, anywhere, 24/7. Once a customer sends the text, the retailer can then capture this information, analyse response, optimise future marketing spend and build a valuable mobile database with massive cross and upsell potential.
 
The first consumer adverts incorporating the txt2buy call-to-action are due to appear in mainstream advertising later this month, with further retailers set to roll out their adverts over the coming months.
 
Ellis-Brown says, "We know a well executed advertising campaign can fuel the consumers' desire to purchase, but often the advert is viewed when they can't act on impulse, therefore not only do retailers lose the sale but with no instant response mechanism, measuring the effectiveness of that ad is virtually impossible. Solutions like txt2buy are a much needed addition to any communications strategy and will help retailers to gain immediate traction from advertising, wherever and whenever they interact with their audience, giving better insight for future advertising campaigns."