Offline, promotion reinforcement across multiple touchpoints is mandatory. Unfortunately, it is still a luxury for many online marketers. But only when marketers can take control of certain areas of the site for promotion purposes can they guarantee that the right people are seeing the right promotion -- and that they're seeing it often enough to positively influence their buying decisions.
Think of offline ad campaigns: we place ads in magazines, on billboards, on TV and radio, creating an integrated campaign to reinforce our message at multiple points with consumers. Ideally, this leads them to the ultimate destination -- the store -- where we again highlight the promotion and coax them to buy.
Yet online, we often find that a promotion -- free shipping, for example -- on the home page is so watered down by competing messages or by lack of reinforcement that by the time a visitor reaches a product detail page, the promotion has no power left to propel the visitor the last leg of the journey (to the checkout page).
Reinforcement of promotions can be relatively simple. For example, if you're offering an audience-wide free shipping promotion (the same promotion to every visitor) it's easy to include the free shipping messaging on category pages, product detail pages, and the shopping cart.
The next level, reinforcing a visitor's affinity, is slightly more complex. For example, if a visitor comes to an online pet store looking for dog beds, you obviously want to land them on the most appropriate page for that particular product. But as they browse, you can reinforce their affinity for dog products (as opposed to cat or fish products) by showing other dog-related messages ("10% off engraved dog bowls!").
The true challenge comes when you're running a series of promotions. Say you're offering:
A. Free shipping to anyone who hasn't bought in six months
B. 10% off a single item to first-time buyers
C. Special price reduction on certain items only for your best customers
You want: Group A to see this, this, and this on these pages; group B to see that, that, and that on those pages; and group C... etc.
This is the point where marketers throw their hands up in frustration, and the process stalls out. That's because the level of involvement between various teams, but chiefly between marketing and IT, becomes prohibitive.
But there is a solution: marketing must, to a certain extent, have the ability to put content on the site. This doesn't mean that marketers need to be in control of every bit of every page -- only that marketers be able to designate specific areas on specific pages for promotions, and to be able to change those areas on their own without requiring an investment of time from other departments.
When this happens -- when promotion reinforcement online becomes as mandatory (and possible) as it is offline -- promotions will truly be a powerful tool that positively and consistently influence buying decisions.