Engagement Sells: How Online Content Can Move Product

Marketing organizations face challenges in measuring the valuation of short-form and long-form content. Often, content programs (custom magazines, newsletters, microsites, etc.) are evaluated based on the amount of time a prospect or customer spends with the information, either in print or online.

In the past, marketers used research that was almost identical to readership studies produced by traditional publishers. The time spent with the content product was also related directly to the amount of time that person was NOT spending with the competition. This measurement was how marketers determined the success of their efforts.

A better scenario is showing that the time customers spend with an organization’s content is directly attributable to either a buying activity or their propensity to buy.

Carol Farnsworth, senior director for Keynote Systems, presented an interesting study on the value of microsite content at the 2008 Online Marketing Summit (unlike traditional Web sites, microsites focus on a key product or industry issue). Keynote Systems researched three separate automotive microsites and directly tracked the respondents’ behavior on each of those Web sites.

Among many findings, the study showed the more time visitors spent on the microsite engaged in the information, the more likely they were to make a purchase (more than two times more likely, in fact). Even if the prospect was initially determined to have a small likelihood of purchasing before entering the site, that probability greatly increased after just a few minutes on the Web site.

More importantly, Keynote found that the microsites’ information had a much stronger effect when a prospect was further along in the decision-making process.

There are a couple of important points here. First, relevant and valuable online information significantly affects a purchase. Second, a prospect who isn’t necessarily ready to make a purchase can be positively influenced and moved closer to a purchase by engaging in online content.

It’s also important to note that online engagement in content isn’t usually a one-time event. Success with microsites and other online products such as eZines and online magazines are predicated on the delivery of consistent and ongoing streams of content.

A look at what Procter & Gamble (P&G) is doing these days confirms the validity of the microsite and online content. P&G has seen incredible success with two content microsites, homemadesimple.com and beinggirl.com.

Home Made Simple, a Web site dedicated to simple solutions for the kitchen, has racked up nearly one million opt-in users. P&G leverages Home Made Simple as its personal online focus group and is integral to its product development efforts for Cascade, Dawn, Febreze, Swiffer and more.

Being Girl, sponsored by P&G brands Tampax and Always, is a microsite and social community dedicated to females confronting such issues as PMS, dating, and other adolescent challenges. Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff recently reported that the investment P&G made in Being Girl was four times as effective as a similarly priced traditional media program.

Jim Stengel, CMO for P&G, recently told PC World magazine “Time is the most precious asset right now. If we can be worth their engagement, that’s the highest benchmark for advertising.”

From the looks of their online content strategy, P&G is betting on this…and not just by driving traffic to these sites, but the right kind of traffic.

Online engagement is important because it either sells product or actively facilitates that process of turning prospects into active customers. Traffic levels are one thing, but creating relevant and valuable online information that engages customers is another.

The chasm between simple online content and relevant, targeted content is wide. Those companies that truly understand the informational needs of their customers, and develop content to speak to those needs, are the ones that will profit from the new media opportunity.

Joe Pulizzi is founder and chief content officer for Junta42 (http://www.junta42.com), a custom publishing/content marketing marketplace. Joe blogs almost daily at http://blog.junta42.com.