I am working on my laptop with a pretty good broadband connection past 10pm in the night when i decide to go to a local news site to see current events. As I'm reading through the articles, something catches my eye. Its an advert from Safaricom advertising the pricing of their blackberry cellphones. (See screen shot, right hand side of the page)

Being a marketer, I'm more interested in seeing where the advert will take me more than buying the phone. I click on it and this is the page i land on...(brightermonday.com)

Now, I feel that something is very wrong here! I know for a fact that advertising on nation.co.ke would cost you more than KSH 30,000 (about US$ 394) for a simple banner ad like the one shown on the first image. I also know that Safaricom is a mammoth company with a huge advertising budget so can afford to splash some cash around but the guy handling their advertising on the Internet is not doing a very good job.

1. The ad on the news site gave the impression that if i clicked on it, I wold most likely land on the Safaricom.co.ke website but i find myself on Brightermonday.com . This can confuse a potential customer and cause some mistrust to develop because of the inconsistency.

2. Now that i have landed on Brightermonday.com, I see the photo of the two blackberries and the pricing. So what does Safaricom want me to do now? I notice the small print reading as "..Available at all Safaricom retail outlet on PostPay and Prepay.." So does Safaricom want me to walk down to their retail outlets to buy one? The ad clearly has no call to action.

Surfers are a very impatient lot and most likely would close the page and move on to something else..making a Ksh 30,000 investment go down the drain

Suggestions and improvements

• Ad Improvements - The ad on the news site needs to be worked on. We need to have a call to action text like "Click here now". People subconsiously want to be directed on what to do next. If space allows, the ad needs to have the benefits of having a Blackberry laid out instead of listing the features of the phone. People buy stuff based on emotion then try to justify themselves with logic
• Landing Page Improvements - Once the potential client lands on your site, you need to reiterate the benefits of your products eg how it will improve their social life, how it will make it easier for them to manage their time etc. Like i said, people but stuff based on emotions then will try to justify themselves logically.
  
  Also, in the example above, Safaricom would have put in place an email capture mechanism like a form where the client would give them his/her contact details so that they would follow up on the client on how they can get him/her the phone. Should the customer lose interest in buying the phone, the company still has his/her email address which they can use to update them on other products and services through their newsletter.
  
  Imagine building an optin email subscriber base of one million potential customers? One of the main advantages of building your own mailing list it that it will help cut down on your advertising budget since you already have a list of people who have signed up to receive email marketing messages from you.
  
  In the case of Safaricom, they can easily get ready feedback from their mailing list regarding new product launches or current product feedback by running surveys on their site and wont have to rely on expensive firms to do it for them.

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