Clerical Officer

While we are on the topic of a call to action, I want to talk about one type of ad campaign where you rarely see a call to action. This is called branding campaign. Usually they appear on national television by large companies (McDonald’s, Nike, Starbucks, Target). In these instances, efforts to build a brand that will cause you to think about my first business when you are interested in buying their products. For example, when you’re hungry, you think MacDonald’s. You need new sneakers, you think Nike. You’re dying for a cup of joe, so you think Starbucks, etc.

Although there is nothing wrong with branding campaigns, they are tougher to track than the campaign with a specific call to action (Sale ends Saturday, call before Friday to receive a free gift, etc.) They are also called the campaign a direct response because you’re asking customers to respond directly. Direct response campaign can be tested, so you have a good idea what works and what does not (and can be tweaked according to campaign). And, if the campaign does not require the seller to get involved (ie if a call to action is for customers to whip out his wallet there) will only run the campaign itself (and make money by itself).

(One note: You do not need to do more than adding a call to action for a strong response direct campaign, but that does not negate the power of a call to action can bring to your campaign.)

Branding campaign is almost impossible to test, track and tweak. They look good for work or do not appear to work. And if they do not appear to work, it is very difficult to start tweaking to improve response rates.

However, branding is still very, very important. As a business owner, you need a good brand and you need to communicate effectively with the brand. And sometimes it makes sense to run a branding campaign.