Brand Retargeting (at a Cocktail Party)

Next time you are at a cocktail party and you meet someone new, try this: speak to them for a while, then go back up to them an hour later and introduce yourself again. Let me know how it goes…

Standard Brand Messaging vs. Banner Retargeting

Often I have clients who run the same standard brand  creative on the TechTarget Network as they do for our Retargeting offering. Yes, they are both brand elements, but they are also two totally different tactical elements  and as  initiatives with two different objectives, the same creative just won’t do for each.

From a brand perspective, running general brand banner on our contextually relevant sites is a great idea. We know this, we have seen the data that shows the importance of brand recognition to facilitate content downloads and vendor consideration. The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) has told us that buyers are 13x more likely to buy from you when you’ve built a high brand connection and 30x more likely to pay a premium when you’ve built a high brand connection.

However, for a Retargeting campaign, the objectives are different, the audience is slightly different, more targeted and downstream. Now you are speaking to people who already know your brand, like the ones you met at that cocktail party, so as a result delivering creative to them that is more downstream is going to be most effective.

Choosing the right call-to-action for your messaging

As a marketer, you have to assume based on the amount of research they are doing already, that they know your brand and so now is the time to take them to that next step.  If you have limited creative resources, it could be as simple as changing the CTA from Learn More to Watch Demo. Consider offering content that is more downstream, tell them why your product is the best offering with comparison pieces, explain how your product can help with a common pain point. Better yet, offer up three different types of assets and let them decide what they want to see from you.

Here are some more resources for building effective banner messaging.

One of the first things you learn in B2C creative is to consider the placement. A creative that works on a print ad may not translate well to a billboard or a bus sign. We have the same concept here in B2B. Considering the audience and where they are in the buy process, a straight brand ad just may not be the most effective creative to use. Try it and let me know how it goes…