This Vice President of Marketing shares her thoughts on online advertising from a corporate standpoint and some of the dreaming and scheming that goes on behind the scenes.

For more than 36 years, Toll Brothers has specialized in the construction of luxury homes. With businesses currently in 21 states, the corporation’s leaders have used the Internet to advertise Toll Brothers’ services since 1996. In this interview with iMedia, Kira McCarron, Vice President of Marketing, shares the proactive approach this company takes toward advertising online.

Meet Kira at the iMedia Brand Summit, September 21 – 24 in Tamaya, New Mexico.

iMedia Connection: Has your company executed any online campaigns recently?

McCarron: We’re actively involved in a variety of online campaigns. We continue to do tests of new creative and media and continue to refine existing campaigns. I think what makes the campaigns that we keep running successful is that we are staying narrowly focused as much as possible on sites that attract the particular demographic we’re looking for which is targeted in three ways. One is geography because we build in certain locations around the country so we’re trying to find people who are interested in those locations. Two is the right level of household income which is over $120,000 a year. And three -- and this is the hardest -- an interest in buying a house. These are the three criteria and ideally we’d like to have all three. And that’s what’s making our advertising successful because we’re staying pretty narrowly targeted.

iMedia Connection: Can you choose one campaign and discuss it briefly?

McCarron: One we’re doing is the launch of a new feature called “new home buddy.” It’s an automated robot that operates on our Website that enables users to ask questions in natural language to really learn in an instant messaging kind of way about all of our offerings. Even though we have a very large database that people could search through in a more traditional way, we found a certain percentage of people weren’t really using the database and just wanted to have a conversation in an instant messaging kind of way. So we set up this automated robot to fulfill that need. For those people who don’t really take the time and the energy to drill down in our Website in the traditional way, it provides an alternative. It’s a good second path for users to our site, and I think that’s what makes it successful.

iMedia Connection: Have you learned any lessons from all your online campaigns?

McCarron: As to the media side of it, we have some pretty tight test windows so we’re not reluctant to pull the plug on a campaign if it doesn’t seem to be performing relatively quickly. Things are either performing or they’re not, and the ability to pull them quickly after a fast, snapshot evaluation is one of the wonderful things about the online space because feedback is so immediate. I have learned that we really won’t do anything without tracking because there is no point. We used to think for various small buys that it didn’t pay because the tracking is almost as expensive as the media buy, but then we decided if it’s not worth tracking, it’s not worth doing.

iMedia Connection: How can online marketing mature to overcome corporate reluctance?

McCarron: I’m a corporate person, and I don’t really see much corporate reluctance. Because of the testing that we do, I think it’s one of the easiest things to defend because something either works or it doesn’t and it’s very black and white. I think the results speak for themselves. The things that work, you stay with, and the things that don’t you pull and reallocate those dollars back to something else. It’s very cut and dry. In terms of corporate review from a budget standpoint, it’s a very provable media and therefore one that the bean counters can really support.

iMedia Connection: What does your company have planned for the future in order to approach the interactive space in different and unique ways?

McCarron: We continually dream and scheme on ways to enhance the user experience. This new home buddy, this automated bot that we just released a month ago, is an example of how we took a first-in-industry position with this. Obviously, we’re not the people who invented the technology, but we’re the first to apply it in our industry. We like to take a proactive approach when things make sense. We don’t use technology just to use technology. But in cases where there’s a really easy-to-prove use, we’re more than happy to be experimental assuming that the cost outlays are not out of sight. We have lots of new initiatives but none really that are public information at this point.

iMedia Connection: Are you increasing online spending?

McCarron: Yes, we’re increasing spending.

iMedia Connection: Have your goals in the online world changed from last year to this year?

McCarron: I wouldn’t say the goals have changed. The goals are what they’ve always been. In terms of the Website itself, [our goals] are to continue to refine and enhance the user experience, to work on speed improvements and continually improve navigation and usability. In terms of the media and promotion side of it, we continue to devote resources to finding new sites to test and new creative to test as well. We’ve dropped a bunch of things and are trying a bunch of new sites. We’re [building] a lot more relationships with media where there’s featured editorial content as well, which is certainly an area that benefits us.

We have a complicated sale. It’s a house that has an average price of $500,000 so it’s not like an impulse purchase, fast sale. It’s a complicated, deep sell. It’s also that the sale isn’t consummated online. The goal of all of what we do is to get people to our Website and ultimately to get them into our on-site locations around the country so that we can sign a contract with them to build a house from scratch. It’s a very long window, and it’s a huge cost. So we’re kind of in a little bit of a different situation compared to many of the consumer product manufacturers that do a lot more fast and furious kind of promotions.

iMedia Connection: How do you perceive rich media? Have you used it in campaigns?

McCarron: Yes, I think we perceive it as certainly an exciting future, but given the fact that the statistics seem to be varying and seem to be showing that only about 30% of people are on high-speed access, it seems to me still a mistake to put too many eggs in that basket until the majority of users are high-speed. The nature of rich media seems to be hand in hand with using it and having people be able to enjoy the experience, and I don’t think the world is there yet.

iMedia Connection: Do you think the benefits of rich media make up for the cost?

McCarron: The other project that we’ve done is with PointRoll. We do a bit of that because we have a complicated sale. We need to use all the enhancements that we can so we do use it. We’ve invested in various PointRoll banners, but they’re so limited in the sites that can take them that it is always a cost/benefit analysis because it’s not like we can advertise the cost of development across many media sites. We only have two or three sites that it makes sense to advertise on that we would be able to use the PointRoll on. We do use it because it’s so rich in the information that it can present, but it’s also a little bit frustrating in that our ability to roll it out more globally doesn’t work or at least it’s not there yet.

iMedia Connection: Have you tested out any of the emerging technologies such as wireless, iTV etc?

McCarron: We’re not really there. We’re finding that most people are cruising during the day from work at least on our sites. We’re selling to, for the most part, business executives. There is an application in our business for people to check from their Internet capable phone, but the economics just don’t seem to make sense yet, not for us anyway.

iMedia Connection: Is there any knowledge you can impart to traditional advertisers that may be hesitant to enter into the online space?

McCarron: I think that finding a good online agency partner to help them through the initial hump of transitioning into it for the first time is a very good idea. Ultimately, they may decide to hire all that talent internally. But from the starting point, it probably makes sense to hook up with a good partner that can guide them through the pitfalls of getting started. They should do it, they shouldn’t be afraid. They’ll either do it now or pay the price of being even further behind. They might as well bite the bullet and get going, and I think it’s possible that some corporate people are reluctant because it’s not their area of expertise, it’s not what they learned in school, it’s not a language they feel comfortable with. But it’s here, and it’s coming even more so.