To keep spam filters from blocking Direct Marketing Update from your Inbox, be sure to add craig@cdmginc.com to your list of safe senders now.

Dear Direct Marketing Friend,

Welcome to this week’s Direct Marketing Update with more tips and strategies to help you increase your response rates and profits.

In this issue…

• 10 ways to make your sales sizzle this Christmas
• Web strategy: Overlooked ways to increase your profits
• Copy tip: Explore the 5 U's for more powerful copy
• Postal increase denied for now...Mailers: 1, Post Office: ?
• Testing corner: Online submission form vs. personal email

10 ways to make your sales sizzle this Christmas

Is your online Christmas campaign working hard to promote your product? Here are 10 ideas that can help you boost sales from now through the end of the year.

1. Use “Merry Christmas” in your marketing.

Being politically correct can cost you. Studies found that retailers who aren’t shy about using “Merry Christmas” prominently in their marketing efforts have seen their sales rise as a result.

2. Create a gift center on your website.

Everyone needs gift ideas—or at least the reassurance that what they’re looking for would make a great gift. So, use a prominent icon that leads to a gift center to improve response.

3. Make it easy for customers to find what they want.

If you have multiple products available throughout the Christmas season on your site, enable customers to sort by variables such as category, price range, age and interest.

4. Showcase “most popular gifts” or “unique gifts” sections.

These sections give your customers more confidence in their purchase when they know others are rushing to buy the same product.

5. Offer gift cards to boost profitability.

According to the 2010 Visa Gift Giving Survey, 65% of people would prefer a gift card to a “nonessential” holiday gift—a statistic that has pushed it to #4 on the list of most popular gifts.

6. Encourage people to do last-minute Christmas shopping.

Use email or other types of quick communications to let customers know your company can still deliver the goods in time for Christmas. Also, be clear about the cutoff date and when they can expect their gift to arrive—and how much time they have left to take advantage of any special discounts.

7. Give customers good reasons to shop with you.

Be clear about why they need to buy your product and reinforce the message with testimonials and benefit-rich copy.

8. Make sure your paid search ads are relevant to your landing page.

You won’t generate sales if customers click through and can’t find what they checked on. Your landing page needs to make it clear that they came to the right place.

If you don’t have a specific landing page for your paid search ads, try linking ads to a product-specific page instead of your generic homepage.

9. Double-check your offer, guarantee, shipping and return policy.

Most customers want to clearly see 5 things on your website: Free shipping, plenty of product details, easy return policy, prepaid shipping for returns and multiple product images. You might also want to let customers know when stock is running low.

10. Review your online shopping cart.

As we’ve talked about in previous issues, it’s critical to simplify your shopping by using at the most two click-throughs so you don’t lose orders or leads.

Plus, in case you haven’t started your marketing efforts yet, there’s still time. Email me at craig@cdmginc.com or call me at 310-212-5727, and let’s talk about how you can see greater profits with a new marketing campaign.

Web strategy: Overlooked ways to increase your profits

If you’re like most marketers I help, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table, primarily because your company isn’t using advanced upsell and cross-sell strategies to make more sales.

Increase your lead-generation efforts.

Let’s say you’re doing lead-generation on your website. In this scenario, the shopping cart offers an important opportunity once prospects have filled in their information.

It’s the perfect time for you to direct them to another related product…or another action, such as picking up the phone and calling.

Boost direct sales on your website.

If you’re a marketer selling products or services, the online shopping cart is the perfect way to create interest in other products without coming across as too pushy or aggressive.

This is something online clothing retailers do extremely well. When a customer adds a sweater to the shopping cart, the bottom of the page displays several other items and accessories that could be purchased to complete the outfit.

Here are two tactics to try on your own site:

Profit Booster #1: Bundling. Offer your customers the opportunity to buy two or more related products together in a bundle for one low price. (This should be done in conjunction with a discount.)

Here’s another upselling example: Offer the basic or low-priced product by itself and charge an additional amount for an add-on or extension to the product.

For example, customers who purchase a 1-year newsletter subscription for $39 should also be offered a 2-year subscription at $72 using extra premiums as bait. This not only increases your initial profit, it lengthens the time you have to prove the value of your product and helps ensure your customer buys from you again.

Profit Booster #2: Community cross-selling. This strategy plays off the interest shoppers have about what other customers are buying from your site and what products have worked for them.

When using phrases such as “Customers who bought items in your cart also bought” or “Customers who shopped for this product also viewed,” you can gently encourage customers to consider additional options while satisfying their curiosity about the habits and preferences of their fellow shoppers.

This approach enhances your credibility and builds customer trust right from the start. Basically, it acts as an implied recommendation from other shoppers, which can be much more powerful than using a phrase such as “May we recommend.”

For additional insights, look no further than Amazon.com for inspiration. Try a search for your favorite musician and you’re likely to receive an entire list of bundled items as well as related merchandise.

Put these techniques to work for you to increase visibility for the rest of your product line, or upsell your customer for even greater profits.

Not sure how to start upselling or cross-selling on your website? Call me and my team of copy and web design experts at 310-212-5727 and we’ll give you a hand. Or simply email me at craig@cdmginc.com.

Copy tip: Explore the 5 U's for more powerful copy

Before you roll out your next marketing campaign, take a look at this quick checklist to make sure your copy has the 5 key elements needed to make a sale.

1. Unusual approach. Every day, your prospects see dozens, if not hundreds of messages in their daily mail and email in-boxes. If you want to get noticed, do something different. Try a powerful headline that speaks directly to your target. Highlight an unusual, but strong offer. Or provide a guarantee that stands out from the rest.
2. Urgent feel. Unless you can convince your customers to take immediate action, you’re at risk of losing them forever. To convey a sense of urgency, give the product or service you’re offering a limited window of time in which to buy. Also, be sure to offer valid reasons for the urgency, not just an arbitrary deadline.
3. Useful and valuable information. Your email or letter should include some intrinsic value. Based on what I’ve learned over the last 30 years, offering real value to your audience can only increase response.
4. Unique Selling Proposition (USP). What makes you special? Why should a customer buy from you over your competitor? How is your offer better than anything else on the market? Your USP differentiates you in such a way as to make you the most obvious choice for your customers.
5. Ultra-specific and details. Test after test after test proves it…specifics outsell generalities every time. Use specific numbers (odd numbers do better than even). Provide facts supported by percentages. Use names of authoritative figures when appropriate. Avoid vague copy and provide details that sell.

Want a FREE critique of your latest direct mail piece, email campaign, insert, print ad or website? Email me at craig@cdmginc.com. I’ll let you know what you’re doing right and other things you could be doing to improve response.

Postal increase denied for now...Mailers: 1, Post Office: ?

If you’ve been following the news, you may already know that at the end of September the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) unanimously denied the USPS request to raise postage rates in January beyond the rate of inflation.

But what you may not have seen heard is that the ruling came due to the commission’s understanding that the Postal Services’ recent financial difficulties were caused by a flawed business model...not by the recent recession as the service had asserted.

Then on October 22, the U.S. Postal Service filed an appeal to the denied request with the U.S. Court of Appeals, asking the court to review the regulator’s interpretation of the 2006 postal reform act. This law allows the U.S. Postal Service to file an exigent—or immediate—rate case based on “extraordinary circumstances.”

Not surprising. As I have been saying right along, the system is broken. The post office ended 2009 with a $3.9 billion loss and reported a $3.5 billion loss for the third quarter of 2010.

The only way to stem the problem is to change the business model by removing the post office’s monopoly status once and for all. If you have not done so already, I urge you to take a few minutes and read articles that I have recently written for DMNews and DIRECT magazine, two industry-leading publications. I encourage you to click on the links to read the DMNews article and the DIRECT story. Let me know what you think, email me at craig@cdmginc.com.

Testing corner: Online submission form vs. personal email

Thread Logic is a company that creates logo embroidery for business apparel and accessories. The company had a logo submission process in place that was working well, but they were looking to improve their conversion rates.

Prospects who came to the company landing page were asked to submit their logos for a free evaluation on how the logo would convert to embroidery.

This was in place because the company had found that many business owners were concerned up front on how their logos would translate and needed reassurance that the logo would look good before committing.

The original process allowed the prospect to click on a free logo evaluation link and then fill out a form with additional questions about the process of logo submission, adaptation or creation.

While the link almost immediately attracted traffic, the company was not satisfied with the quality of responses they were receiving from the form.

The test:

Optimization efforts began by testing the logo submission form against a personalized email response.

In the test, prospects sent an email with their logo attached to a personalized email address instead of filling out a form.

The results:

While it might seem as though the email process would require more from the prospect, the results tell a different story.

The conversion rate for the email response outpulled the traditional response form an average of 404 to 273 per month during the test period. Even better, there was an overall conversion increase of almost 107%.

The email’s higher conversion rate suggests that the more personal email approach helps to make the prospect feel more comfortable and connected to the process—making the added inconvenience of having to send an email worth the effort.

In addition, the company found that the personalized form created an unexpected benefit. According to the company founder, “People won’t write a message on an anonymous form, but they will write a message to me. The personalized email encourages them to provide more information, and that, in turn, helps us provide better information back to them.”

CLICK here for a FREE subscription to Direct Marketing Update

If someone forwarded this issue to you, you won’t get the next important issue of Direct Marketing Update unless you click above and subscribe FREE.

Please click above to forward this issue to fellow marketers, business associates, coworkers or anyone who can benefit from the latest direct marketing alerts, tips and strategies.

About Craig Huey

Craig Huey is the #1 authority on accountable advertising.

He’s recognized as one of the top direct response marketing experts in the nation.

In addition to publishing Direct Marketing Update and the industry newsletter Direct Response, Mr. Huey is president of Creative Direct Marketing Group, Inc., a full-service direct response advertising agency, and InfoMat, Inc., a postal and email list brokerage and management company.

Email Craig at craig@cdmginc.com.

Need clean double-opt-in email lists?

Let InfoMat help you make your next campaign more successful

InfoMat can help you find the email lists you need to make your next email campaign more successful. We’ll help you find email lists with prospects that not only match your target audience but have also given the permission you need to get your emails through the filters and into your prospect’s in-boxes. For more information on how we can help, call InfoMat at 310-212-5944 or email listmgr@infomatbiz.com.

Did you miss the last few issues of Direct Marketing Update?

Catch up here:

• 9/14/10
• 8/24/10
• 7/1/10

Click to subscribe

Direct Response is the nation’s leading direct marketing newsletter. In each issue, you’ll catch up on the latest test results, breakthrough strategies and techniques to get you the most return for your dollar.

You’ll discover…

• 15 critical video marketing rules
• How click-to-chat can lower costs and boost conversions
• 3 ways to strengthen your offer without going broke
• Recession outlook: A reality check for retailers
• Little-known secrets to international marketing
• Twitter: 5 rules for beginners

Direct Marketing Update subscribers can save $15 on a new subscription. Click here to subscribe now.

Here are just a few of the clients Craig has helped.

B2B

800 DIRECT
Compusource
SurfControl, Inc.
The Weather Channel
See more B2B clients

Consumer

Baby Lulu
Chevron Oil
Hooked on Phonics
Weight Watchers
See more consumer clients

Health and Wellness

Blue Cross Catalog
Health Alert
Metagenics, Inc.
Sun Chlorella
See more health clients

Publishing

Agora Publishing
The Hollywood Reporter
VNU Publishing
See more publishing clients

Investment

Barry Kaye Associates
The Motley Fool
Standard & Poor’s
VectorVest, Inc.
See more investment clients

Fund-raising/Political

Biola University
Athletes in Action
Jews for Jesus
Save Proposition 13
See more fund-raising/ political clients

Direct Mail

Intelligence Digest
The Dines Letter
TheStreet.com
See more direct mail clients

Paid Search

Constitution Mining
Retirement Watch
The CHEAP Investor
Vestopia

Websites/Microsites

FamilyLife Canada
Downey Savings
Mommie Helen’s Bakery
RealMoney.com
South Bay Back
Spectrum Holdings
See more website clients

TV/Infomercials/Viral Videos

Swiss Confidential
Dr. Bruce West
DTN
Fawn’s Secret Stock
Variel Health Spas

Radio

Education Connection
Reagan for President
Saturday Night Singles
Sun Wellness

Connect with Craig Huey now at 310-212-5727 or craig@cdmginc.com to discuss how he and his team of marketing professionals can create the same profit-exploding results for your next campaign.

Return to top
CLICK HERE