ihopto has come up with an innovative solution that solves this with one simple icon/image that is displayed on an advertisement. This image includes a easily recognisable icon – a blue space hopper, and a word or phrase that when typed into a http://www.ihop.to/ search site will direct users directly to web pages linked to that registered word. This could be to anything – possibly web pages featuring the advertising campaign, to social media profiles, or perhaps to the company blog.
Advertisers are increasingly coming up with ways to engage their customers from their “offline” advertising and drive them “online” – whether this be directing them to “Like” their Facebook page, direct them to the company homepage, adding a QR code to direct them to a web page, or displaying social media icons letting them know they have a Twitter or Facebook account.
ihopto questioned how effective these methods were. From their research on a set of Sunday newspapers, they discovered that 80% of URLs displayed do not drive a user, without the user having to click 2 or 3 more times, to a web page that is directly related to what is being advertised. Also in the majority of cases the social media profile name is not specified so the user still has to do a search to get to the correct profile. QR codes are static, take time to use and only useful where the audience can use a smartphone.
Having a word or words in the icon/image is the secret to making this work. Firstly it is easy to see which words are already claimed and registered by searching on ihopto’s website. Secondly words are easy for an audience to remember, if they see or hear the advert and don’t have a computer in front of them at the time. Even if the word is not entered directly into a http://www.ihop.to/ search site, it can be used to search in Google to ensure the words used match your adwords, making SEO spend more effective.
Terry Benge – CEO of ihopto says. The great benefit is the fact that the URLs linked to a registered word can be dynamically changed meaning advertising copy does not need to be changed if new web pages are created or new social media profiles have been created.
After all advertisers panacea has always been to have a memorable brand, combined with an easily remembered slogan, so it should be essential to have memorable way to drive the user to the right place online.
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