Internet Direct Marketing Tip of the Day

The traffic patterns on your site are probably different from one month to the next. Sure, there are patterns I’ve noticed that can and often do last for years. But new patterns and themes sprout up regularly, too. For example, on my Internet Resource Directory at www.wdfm.com, I notice the Copywriting category gets fewer visits now, while other categories have moved up in popularity. I also see many more people entering the site through articles down the right hand column of the home page, since those articles consistently rank high in search results, which is partly due to press releases heralding their existence. Comparing what changes on your site can tell you the shifting interests and intentions of your visitors. At the end of the day, a good Internet direct marketer wants to understand those intentions and interests in order to react accordingly. If you don’t “get” what your visitors are about, you’ll be talking in one direction, whilst they are listening or looking for something else. This disconnected scenario is the marketer’s “Tower of Babel”, which is the state of much of marketing overall.

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If you market or sell information online, you know you have to spend much time framing and titling your information products. Focus and specificity usually helps convince true prospects. If you’re vague in your framing or titling in order to hopefully capture a wider audience, you may well dilute your messaging and product down so much as to mean very little to a lot of people. With each passing year, the subject lines of Web Digest For Marketers get more and more specific. Both subscribers and advertisers love this because they know instantly how relevant each issue is to their situation. The more we’re all inundated with editorial and commercial messages, the more specificity wins the day.

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It’s better to say nothing than feel obligated to communicate without substance, since that type of communication will send the wrong message to your audience. You want to condition your audience to see your name and know there is something in it for them, be it a solo email, paper catalog, sales letter or search results snippet. There is something called muscle memory. If people get trained to hit that delete key when they see your email, it will seem more natural as time rolls on for them to simply kill your message rather than to really consider whether to open the message. The same is true for direct mail and TV ads. You want your audience to say “Oh, it’s the Apple commercial,” or “My LL Bean catalog for spring is here. I’ll stop what I’m doing and look at this.” That’s a tall order to fill. But anything less than that type of anticipation could prove fatal to the success of your campaign. In short, whether it’s editorial or advertising, aim to delight your target audience.

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Every house mailing list has a certain number of people on it who respond to nothing, or stopped responding to your offers somewhere along the way. Try segmenting this group and give them a special offer to re-engage them. You might even do something as risky as ask them to re-subscribe to your list. You may give them a special financial incentive by way of a special sale or bonus. If they still don’t respond, you may consider taking them off your list entirely.

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If you’re a fashion retailer, weekends may be your prime time to send your email because readers want to spend time with your message, the same way they might read a fashion magazine lazily on Sunday. If you’re a B2B marketer, chances are your best send time will be during the week. It it’s summer and you send on Mondays, try sending your email a little later than usual to allow people to decompress from the beach. What I’m saying is – think before you send, and then watch the numbers.

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You hear lots of big talk about social media, mobile advertising and other newish venues that in my mind haven’t proven themselves yet. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test new ways and channels. Usually, new channels haven’t been budgeted for in most media plans. It’s a good idea to dedicate some small piece of your budget to testing these venues. Since few are buying ad avails in the newest media, you can get them for dirt cheap. Think of it as a learning-curve cost. If you find good returns on your small investment, it could well be worth increasing that channel’s budget sooner than later. Twelve years ago, a search engine gave me exclusives on all category keywords in the travel and automotive categories for my clients in those respective lines of business, just for committing $250,000 for each buy. Some response rates doubled; some response rates tripled; some response rates even quadrupled, all due to the relevance of those keywords. The exclusive right to these keywords was a value-add for the duration of the campaign, just for spending that $250,000. This was back before our competitors thought about buying keywords. This competitive advantage lasted for less than a year. But while it lasted, we enjoyed a very prosperous media flight.

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The ultimate thing a direct response message seeks to accomplish is to get a response, right? Then why is the world full of garbage marketing? Much of the problem lies in trying to get readers to pull the trigger before they’re ready. Nothing can kill a sale like asking for it too early. Sometimes it’s better to ask prospects what they want that they cannot find or for their opinions first. Asking an opinion is a baby step on the way to a two-way exchange between buyer and seller that quite possibly can lead to a sale later. It’s obviously very useful in B2B marketing, although it has its purposes in B2C marketing as well. It can help with product design and help qualify a lead as a hot prospect or a tire kicker. In the times that I’ve asked questions of prospects by Web form, I’ve always picked up other concerns or product features I would have never thought of on my own.

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Face it, not everyone is ready to make a purchase when they visit your site. Sure, you want to close those who are in the buying zone. But what do you do with those who aren’t there now, but may be soon? Some marketers call these not-ready-for-buying-time prospect candidates for the “warming tank”. Maybe there’s a follow up phone call warranted, if it’s a b2b or high-end btc purchase. Some may be induced by an offer containing an incentive to pull the trigger sooner rather than later… giving a “you’re going to miss out unless you accelerate your buying decision in order to take advantage of this exploding offer (one that goes away shortly)” offer. I find so many PPC’ers or marketers in general ignore this basic truth: Not everyone is ready to buy when you’re ready to sell. If timing isn’t everything, it sure is critical to that transaction you’re looking for, no matter what line of biz you’re in.

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Want to get more inbound links to your site? Internet marketing veteran Lee Odden suggests you create a useful “widget” (tool) for people to use in their blogs. In that tool, you rightfully can embed a link to your own website. Seems only fair, since the widget you’re providing at no cost offers so much utility. The more useful your widget, the more sites will employ it – and by extension, point to your site.

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