Internet Direct Marketing Tip of the Day

“Snippet copy” refers to the 40-75 words you see after each site listing on search result pages. The strength of this copy is frequently the difference between a searcher clicking through to your site versus going on to the next search result. Yet snippet copy is often overlooked.

To see what your snippet copy says, search for your company using various search engines. See which piece of copy (and how much of it) each search engine picks up. Then you can figure out what to say in that copy that will get more people to click through. What to say depends heavily on your line of business, but generally, snippet copy should be more informational than marketing hype. Be straightforward. Don’t be cute.

You often have to balance the needs of visitors to your site with the needs of snippet copy. Sometimes they’re one and the same, sometimes they’re not. If they’re not the same, ask your webmaster about “server-side includes”. LC

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Typically, your headline or subject header features an intriguing proposition or offer. More often than not, that proposition or offer is paid off immediately in the first paragraph of body copy, but not always.

If what you’re offering is really good, you may want to “bury the lead”. This means you place the explanation of the offer further down in the copy so the reader gets a fuller picture of what your product or service or value is all about. In order for this to work, you need a very strong lead offer – strong enough for the reader to read on to find the buried payoff.

In direct mail, you can sometimes go for pages and pages before you get that payoff. In online copy, I notice the distance between the initial offer and the buried payoff is significantly shorter. Maybe this is because people tend to read or skim faster on screen than they do on paper.

If you do try burying the payoff to the lead, just make sure the copy you write leading up to that payoff is directly relevant to the reader’s interest, or else you’ll lose her. LC

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Most marketers prepare marketing materials with demographics in mind. Women, 18-34, with graduate degrees, is an example. But what most marketers aren’t thinking about is the frame of mind their audience is in when conducting online searches or visiting websites.

Are your visitors ready to buy or just gathering research? Are they buying for themselves or someone else? Do they want to buy and get off your site asap or do they really want to be tempted with cross-selling offers? The fact that most sites lose visitors on their home pages tells us something.

The fact that more buyers abandoned shopping carts than not in most cases also tells us that websites are missing the mark more often than not. Write your copy and design your site with the intentions of your prospects in mind. Don’t try to sell them before they’re ready. But also be careful not to delay asking for the sale or you may lose them altogether.

So how do you know what the intention is? Well, you can ask them via email, focus groups, telephone, etc.. Give them an incentive to participate in your discovery process. You can test multiple pages to see who reacts positively to what. Pay attention to your web metrics numbers.

You’ll never know 100% of what there is to know, but you can certainly know more than you know now. You may find that different sites for different groups produces your best results. But you won’t know without trying it. There is no failure in this process, only understanding to be gained. LC

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Especially watch those infomercials that have been around in one form or another for years. This means they’re working, and you want to know what’s working, even if it isn’t in your category.

Real direct marketers let experience teach them more than hearsay. So these infomercials have much to teach us. I notice how often they repeat key points and head off potential points of doubt. I notice the trial closes and the final close.

I see how important testimonials from users are in infomercials. Do I ever get sucked in and buy what is being featured? Once I did. It was a hair trimmer. Something in the fulfillment process on the phone caused me to abandon the purchase. Don’t you know I got a postcard in the mail weeks later offering me a twofer – two hair trimmers for the price of one – if I would complete the sale, which I did. I use it still. LC

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You probably know that keeping the subject line of an email message short helps insure it gets seen in full by the target audience. But keeping it short has more value than just screen real estate. Short subject lines force clarity and makes every word count.

Of course, when writing copy, making every word count is a dicipline needed far beyond the subject line. LC

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Everyone has a storyline or narrative running in his or her head all the time. It gives oneself that necessary perspective on what’s going on in the world outside.

In order to write effective direct response copy, I urge you to become very aware of your own narrative, moment by moment. Track your associative pathways. Observe how one emotion or thought connects to the next.

When you become conscious of your own storyline, it will give you insight into the storyline(s) of your target audience. In short, it will help you get inside their heads so you can write relevant copy that really “speaks” to them. LC

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You don’t need me to tell you that one of the most important parts of your site are those buttons you want people to click on. Yet so many sites don’t think about the labels they stick on those buttons.

Some buttons use “Submit” or “Click Here”. Try testing other labels and see if you get a higher response rate. Try “Sign Me Up Now” or “Subscribe Me” or “Buy Now”. I periodically change the copy on my buttons. Currently, “Sign Me Up Now,” beats everything else when it comes to the subscribe button for my Web Digest For Marketers email newsletter. LC

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When you look at search engine optimization through a direct response lens, it looks very much like the list business.

People who respond to snippet copy in search results are similar to responders on a rented list of names that share an affininty. Maybe it’s camping tools. Maybe it’s email servers. People express their affinity or interests by subscribing or joining certain lists, just like they search for keywords when searching for items or services of interest to them.

The expression of interest and reactions to relevant copy, be it snippet or direct response copy, is at the core of all direct marketing.

Traditional direct marketers who “get” online, and onliners who “get direct marketing” are the ones who emerge the winners. LC

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Everyone has a mental calculator. If you’re considering an annual car or home mortgage, you’re apt to use your mental calculator to divide by 12 to see what the monthly payments will be. People might divide a monthly charge by 30 to see what the daily cost will be, and so forth.

A good direct copywriter knows to get that mental calculator cranking in the reader’s mind. It often is the first step to the reader becoming involved or engaged in your offer. The trick is knowing when to break down the numbers for your reader and when to let that reader do it for herself so she sees what a great deal you are offering. LC

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Try searching for the exact same thing a few times in a item on Google. You will often find you’ll get different results. You may be accessing a different server or it may be because Google seems to purposely change its search priorities frequently. But the exercise is instructive in pinpointing the types of things search engines look for when they rank you. Then search for your competitors repeatedly. Don’t just search for their names. Try using link:Competitor.com and see who’s pointing at them. Then take the time to visit those sites to see why they’re pointing at your competitor’ site and not at yours. Is it an ad? Maybe you should be advertising there, too. Is it a press release or a blog mention? The point is, Internet marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are millions of moving parts and variables, many of which you can’t control – but some you can. So before you optimize, recognize the fluid environment you’re in, and react accordingly.

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