In the last issue, we talked about a major blunder direct marketers commit when they don't consider the three primary postage options: metered mail, printed indicia or a precancelled stamp. We explained that a precancelled stamp would increase your response by a full 12% to 15%. But another major blunder is using standard class delivery for your in-house prospects (or clients). In-house prospects are qualified, potential buyers and will likely produce a higher response than a rented mailing list. So this is one situation where you don't want the post office dumping or destroying your mail. The unfortunate truth is that 5% to 15% of all standard mail vanishes during the delivery process. The major benefit of precancelled stamps is that postal employees think it's first class mail...leading to greater care and respect.
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In the last issue we talked about the danger of using a corporate website for marketing purposes. The last thing you want to do is have your prospect or customer see your corporate website, since most corporate websites are antimarketing. Another common website misstep happens in paid searches. Paid search is when your company purchases search keywords through Google or Yahoo! that relate to your product or service. The advantage of paid search over organic search is that your company is placed on page one of the search results, usually to the right hand side of the organic search.
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Always remember compelling, powerful, motivational copy will anticipate the questions of a prospect and answer the question before the prospect even has time to worry about it. Before you write a word of online or offline copy, start by tapping into your prospects' concerns: What do they need? What is keeping them up at night? How can your product or service make their life easier? And most importantly...why should they choose your product or service over your competition? If you can't answer all these questions, your campaign is bound to suffer. In direct marketing, you must anticipate your prospects' apprehensions and answer their questions. Once you have the answers, you're armed to craft great copy. Here are 3 examples of sentences in which the prospects' questions are being answered:
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Testing the variables of your offer is a crucial step in maximizing the profitability of your campaign...and avoiding huge losses. It doesn't matter if the campaign involves email, direct mail, website, radio or TV. It's a good idea to test one or two variables to see which creates the greatest response. One of the best variables to test is the offer. There have been situations where I've suggested that the marketer test the price: for example $29.95 instead of $39.95 And just by making this change, the offer had a dramatic increase in response. Test: Recently a test was conducted to compare an offer for e-book sales. The webpage posted an offer of $47 for a particular report and another offer, which included two reports, for $99.
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One of the most overlooked but important factors in direct mail response is postage. The very first things your prospect will do when he or she gets an envelope is: - Look at the name.
- Look at the return address to see who sent it.
- Look at the teaser copy (if there is any).
- Look at the postage.
These are the key factors that determine whether your envelope gets opened or tossed.
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I have talked several times about the importance of having a direct marketing website. It is critical to achieving maximum response to have a specific site for your products or services rather than just relying on the corporate home page to do the job. The fact is, using your corporate home page as an entry point for all your different products and prospects is death to response. It's an obsolete trap hurting many marketers. Microsites and landing pages are individual websites geared toward specific products and promotions. For example, one page may seek to capture emails for further contact based upon a promotion, another may focus on showcasing a particular product based on a different promotion. The Importance of a Microsite Studies show corporate home pages are stagnant billboards that are navigation nightmares, whereas microsite pages that have direct response copy and art selli
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One of the major direct response copy blunders is writing from a corporate or company point of view. This is true for direct mail, website, email and any marketing communications. It breaks not only one, but two golden rules of direct response copywriting: Write from one person to one person...and the importance of “you”-driven copy. Chances are, if you’re writing from a company perspective, it’s “we” directed. The fact is, writing from a company point of view is colder, more distant and ensures depressed response. To generate outstanding response, write copy from one voice, such as a spokesperson or company president. It humanizes your copy and presents an authority to your prospect. It also injects personality into your campaign.
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Successful direct marketing should always involve testing. One bonus of the Internet is the ability to continually test a website campaign and make changes based on your response. You may have spent weeks testing your search terms, but how much time have you spent testing your page headlines?
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Your envelope is the first sales piece your prospect lays their eyes on. It determines if they are going to read your sales letter or toss it in the trash. The copy that goes on the outside of the envelope needs to be convincing enough to make your prospect want to tear open the envelope and read what is inside. But besides the copy, there are several other aspects you need to consider, such as—do you want a return address on the upper left-hand side? Will you include any pictures or graphics on the envelope? Do you want to offer any free reports or other benefits? In direct marketing, you test. We often test two or more envelopes. You will often be surprised at the results.
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Some people forget that although marketing on the web involves technology, human psychology hasn't changed with this technology. This is why you have to be careful to apply the same direct marketing strategies on the web as you do to your direct mail campaign. It has been observed that there are 4 very common online response depressants marketers cause with their email, websites and online initiatives. Here are 4 tips to avoid those specific blunders and make your online direct marketing campaign a success:
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Oddly enough, one of the strategies that can really help incrementally increase response is numbering the pages of your sales letter. Here are simple rules to follow when numbering: - If it is a 1- or 2-page letter, do not number it.
- If it is a 3- or 4-page letter, only number pages 2 and 3.
- If your letter is 11x17 folded, do not number the pages.
- Some of the most successful sales letters have been more than 4 pages long. If your sales letter is more than 4 pages, number each inside page; do not number the first and last page.
- If it is a magalog, number page 2 but don't number the first page (cover) or the last page (back cover).
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As you know, I am an advocate of adding a video component to your direct response website. If you have been to my website, www.cdmginc.com, you have seen an example of how I have incorporated video to my site. Want to enhance your direct marketing website by adding video? Email me at inquire@cdmginc.com or call me at 310-212-5727. We can take care of the script and production.
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When you sit down to write your direct response copy, it's poison to think of writing to just any group of people. You shouldn't write to a group or a company, you should only write to an "individual." How do you write to the individual? In the business-to-business world, consider what is their position in the company? What is their income? What about their family life, their work life? Their hobbies? What are the pressures and stresses they feel at work? Are they male or female? How old are they? How long have they been on the job? You need to speak directly to them.
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Indenting is one of the many proven tools available to direct eye flow when creating direct mail (it also works for email and websites). By indenting a paragraph within the body copy of your direct mail piece or on your direct marketing website, you are calling attention to a particular piece of information. Most of the time the indented paragraph will be in second color; for example, if the body copy is black, we may use red for the indented paragraph. Using second color reinforces what you are trying to emphasize to your prospects.
Make sure the information you indent is copy that will entice the prospect to read the rest of the website or sales letter. Give your prospect enough information to get the main idea, but not so much that there isn’t a need to read the rest of the copy.
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In any direct marketing piece, your challenge is to gain the prospect’s trust in a matter of minutes. Once you get the prospect to open the envelope, read the email or visit your website—your copy needs to do its job of building the trust between you and your prospect. This is why it is critical to offer specifics to support your product or service. The fact is—generalities kill response, but specifics increase response. Giving detailed information makes you more credible and trustworthy. It gives your prospects the assurance they need to believe in your product or service. Here are three examples of sentences without specifics and with:
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How can you improve your website conversion rate? Here is a test of a landing page. The test involved a 2-week time frame of the responses. The test consisted of these two web pages: Landing Page A and Landing Page B.
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In direct mail, when you follow certain rules you increase response, but when you break the rules you suffer a declining response. Many of these rules are what a casual observer would think of as minor or inconsequential. But that is false; they are significant and they do impact response.
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A direct marketing website can have a variety of purposes. Most marketing sales websites will have an objective of collecting email addresses in their database for future marketing campaigns. Here are 6 tactics that I recommend:
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Should your budget be increased for January? For marketers, this is the best month of the entire year for direct marketing response. Traditionally, the day after Thanksgiving, known as “Black Friday,” is considered the busiest retail shopping day of the year.
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When you write your direct mail letter, magalog, website or email copy, you need to follow an important direct response copy rule. This rule is to use an “active voice.” Here are 3 examples of active voice versus nonactive voice:
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