The conversations about media plans and performance marketing have gone off course. We hear so much about benchmarks and metrics, but much of it is centered around marketing. The conversation we should be having, the conversation GroundTruth is most interested in, is how we use our media plans and marketing to drive real business results.
Last week, we partnered with Adweek to have that exact discussion. Hosted by GroundTruth CMO, Brandon Rhoten, the webinar included four esteemed professionals to discuss how they built their media plans to drive foot traffic and make an impact on their bottom line. The panelists included Brad Haley, CMO at Dave’s Hot Chicken, Gregg Spiegel, SVP Strategic Planning & Analytics at Source, George Ellis, Owner & Creative Director at Bandolier Media, and Francisca Moliere, Integrated Media Supervisor at DNA Creates.
If you missed Are Your Digital Ad Dollars Driving Foot Traffic, we pulled together the top three learnings you can use right now to increase in-store visits and conversions.
1. Think About the Entire Funnel
Because our panelists represented experience in huge brands like Dave’s Hot Chicken, Ulta, and TikTok, just to name a few, one of the greatest takeaways they offered was how to push people through the funnel with media.
Often, brands who are well known do not execute their performance media layer well. Their connected TV (CTV) ads, for example, helps to differentiate themselves from competitors, but lacks the right messaging to bring people in-store. As Rhoten said, companies need to “close the loop to know who you’re advertising to and then measure if it’s working.”
How do you do this? Moliere suggested leaning into audience segmentation to develop the audience personas. Ask yourself who are the people that are engaging with your brand and what do they value about your products. Use that information to build performance marketing creative and messaging to convert awareness to foot traffic.
2. Get Creative About What You Say and When
The panelists then discussed how to execute and improve performance once you’ve launched your campaign. Rhoten started the conversation by saying that companies can often take for granted that people forget. They need reminders about your products, your offers, and services.
Ellis added that partnering with creative agencies can help create a variety of reminders when your team lacks the bandwidth. He said, “Give your marketing team and your agency team something to work with, something new to say, they can find new ways to connect.”
Moliere also mentioned that it’s important to avoid ad fatigue when the goal is to get people in-store. She suggested companies find the sweet spot between reminding your loyal audiences and ad fatigue. She said, “There has to be a sense of urgency in your marketing if your goal is foot traffic and it keeps the messaging fresh.”
3. Make Sure You’re Measuring and Testing for the Right Metrics
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the panelists discussed the importance of marketers being the bridge between their team’s efforts and the real business results that their company is looking to achieve.
Spiegel said, “Make sure to bridge media KPIs with business KPIs.” He mentioned that using GroundTruth helps his team show a line from viewed media to in-store visit. Before, his team would have to rely on disconnected marketing metrics and traffic numbers. Now, they can show exactly how many observed visits happened because of the media they saw.
Haley concurred, mentioning that as new locations open for Dave’s Hot Chicken, the team relies heavily on the metrics GroundTruth provides to measure both their awareness campaigns as well as their campaigns for foot traffic. Those numbers helped, in part, for DHC to become one of the fastest growing restaurant chains in America.
Watch the Entire Webinar On-Demand
If you want more strategies and insights from our expert panel, you can watch the entire webinar on-demand. Just click here! Or if you’d like to get started with GroundTruth, schedule a demo with our team. We’d love to help you drive real business results, like in-store visits.
