Internet Direct Marketing Tip of the Day

Sometimes it pays to go shopping before you really need to go shopping. If you shop with no intention to buy just then, you can survey the marketplace from a thoughtful distance.

Of course, if you find a fantastic deal that you think may not be available later, you can always change your mind. But if you window-shop in real space or browse online prior to the time of your purchase, you can get a better feel for terms and conditions of the intended sale.

From what I’ve observed, people who are about to buy something hardly look at the terms and conditions because they’re preoccupied with the actual cost of the service or item they’re about to buy.

This “discovery period” that I recommend is also helpful in revealing “subtle value,” which can have an impact on your final decision. It can help you make a better purchase and avoid buyer’s remorse. LC

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ComScore’s Andrew Lipsman points out that significant numbers of online shoppers abandon shopping carts when they get to the part about paying for shipping. In these tough times and super-competitive selling environments, customers don’t want nor expect to pay for shipping.

A significant number of them will simply go elsewhere. Gone are the days where etailers would use shipping as an opportunity for mark-up and profit. In other words, etailers have to make their money on the core product or service they’re selling. Maybe this will change back over time, but I doubt it. LC

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I know most marketers scratch their heads on what to do with Social Media.

Well, this Internet medium keeps morphing, but human nature stays pretty much the same. One thing about human nature is that people want to communicate.

So, when dreaming of your SocMed campaign, think about what you can offer that will cause your audience to want to interact with it. They might react directly to you, or pass your message or offering to someone else.

The point is, SocMed, or Web 2.0 pays off the interactivity of Internet marketing.

In a few short years, we will look back on today and think how quaint most of the SocMed campaigns were. Internet old-timers do that with campaigns from the 90′s. Don’t worry about making mistakes. Gathering knowledge now will give you a competitive advantage later. Good luck. LC

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In many cases, the answer is yes. Questions, by their very nature, are interactive and draw in the reader.

People are often looking for answers on the Internet. But sometimes, you can raise a relevant question that the reader needs to consider before making a purchase of goods or services. In fact, raising the right question, at the right time, can “reframe” how the target audience is thinking about a given topic, product or service.

You have to know when to pose that reframing question. If it’s brought up prematurely, it can derail the buying process. This is where a good copywriter earns his/her keep. LC

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Emerging forms of Mobile Marketing are becoming apparent. Mobile Search is an obvious example. Creating smartphone apps is another avenue to consider. But I’m signing up for geo-sensitive mobile coupon campaigns.

Mobile coupons that are simple to redeem seem to be the most attractive because they take the least effort to get payback, both for the consumer and the retailer.

As a consumer, you can now walk down the street in most major cities and get a list of establishments featuring discounts and incentives within a few feet of your location on your smartphone. What’s not to like? You’re steps away from an immediate value proposition.

As an advertiser, you get instant feedback from the field if your campaign is successful. If it isn’t, keep changing the offer until you get the desired response rate.

This is still an edgy marketing frontier. You will probably get a pretty good media buy because there aren’t as many advertisers competing to buy ads. Go for it. LC

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Here’s a practice that’s as old as search itself. Ask the search engines to show you who is linking to your site. Then, ask who is linking to your competitors’ sites. Compare the list of those linking to you against those who aren’t.

You want to make tracks to those who aren’t linking to you and make nice-nice, somehow. Maybe you can just ask them for a link, and they’ll give you one. Maybe not. Having good content to link to can help your inbound link campaign. The more quality sites that point to you, the higher you should appear in search engine results. LC

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If you want to be sure a specific person or company finds your Tweet, put an @ (the “at” symbol) in front of the Twitter name. Example: @LarryChaseWDFM.

Twitter calls these “mentions” and tracks who mentions you and what they say. When you mention others using the @ symbol, those people will see your Tweet, even if they don’t follow you.

Likewise, you’ll see any Tweet that mentions your Twitter handle, even if you don’t follow that particular Twitterer.

Most Twitter clients build this “mention” function in when you reply to a Tweet, but you can add the @ symbol manually as long as you use the correct Twitter handle. LC

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One way to make your ad copy jump off the screen is to use words that are “hot” in the period in which your campaign is running. You might even consider building a campaign around what is hot at the moment.

Of course, what’s red hot now can be stone cold in a few months, but by then, you’ll probably have moved on to the next bevy of ads which use offers and words that are emblematic for that point in time.

Try it. When done right, your copy has a newsy immediacy to it and can dramatically boost response rates. LC

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Have you ever noticed a disconnect between an ad’s copy and the landing page it links to? Sometimes, one person writes the ad, and another creates the landing page. They should knit together seamlessly but often don’t.

When the landing page seems disconnected from the ad copy, it’s a good bet beaucoup conversions are being lost.

It seems almost too obvious to suggest, but walking through the complete user experience for a given ad is 100% necessary. If there’s a download on the landing page, then download that file. If the link to the download site comes via email, make sure that email delivers to your inbox, and that all the copy in that email message lines up with what you’re saying in the ad and on the landing page.

The bottom line is this: An Internet Marketing campaign has a lot of moving parts. All the niggling details need to be checked. If you don’t “conform” all the moving parts, you’re probably leaving money on the table. You can think of it as a form of ad optimization. LC

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If you’re reading this, my guess is you already have one. But if not, get one soon. Why? Because it’s a game changer.

Geocentric targeting (with user opt-in) and Mobile Ecommerce will undoubtedly change how we move through life, transfer funds, Twitter, buy stuff and more.

Many traditional direct response and brand marketers as well as publishers denied the huge changes underway in the early days of the Internet.

Internet Marketers shouldn’t make the same mistake by underestimating how huge a shift Mobile Marketing represents now.

When you actively test smartphone GPS-enabled apps, what mobile search can do, and how effective simple text couponing can be, you will get a front row seat into what’s coming down the pike. LC

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