Internet Direct Marketing Tip of the Day

The next season of the inside 1960′s Madison Avenue show is still under wraps, but its cable home, AMC, is continuing to host the clever microsite <a href-”http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/madmenyourself/”>”Mad Men Yourself,”</a> which promotes the classic, cynical series.

This site lets you create swanky ’60s-style avatars resembling characters from the show for your iPhone, Facebook page or Twitter image or to decorate your computer desktop.

In the second season, Banana Republic offered suits inspired by lead character Don Draper, which was ironic for a store that started out selling safari-type threads. You could even get a Mad Men tie clasp. When’s the last time you saw someone wearing a tie clasp?

For a while, tuploaded clips on YouTube deubbed in modrn-day dialogue into exisiting scenes from the 1960s. One showede account exec Campbell Twittering about Nancy NoodleHead, in the hopes of making the campaign go viral…a far-out thought for 1961. This is what you call brand loyalty. LC

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I’m always amazed by wishy-washy Website copy that never makes it clear who is behind the copy on the page. I find myself fixated on trying to figure out who is talking and what their agenda is. This undermines the copy because I’m not focused on what, but rather, who.

The same is true for lots of solo email “from” fields. I have to look at the extended header or the email service bureau or some sub-domain to guess who is trying to convince me of what. Again, this sort of communique loses credibility because it isn’t up-front in what is normally a pretty transparent medium.

The Internet isn’t one medium, but rather a bundle of media that employs different modalities: Web pages, emails, blogs, RSS feeds, Twitter streams and so on. The variety will only increase in time, and there will be some confusion about who is talking in any one of these channels for some time to come. It can’t hurt to be more clear about who you are and your intentions. LC

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I’ve noticed that offer copy often gets good response rates when it employs the same spoken language of the reader.

Copy that “speaks your language” has a certain amount of credibility. When I see copy that I think isn’t right on the money, I often ask clients how they’d explain it to me themselves.

A large percentage of the time, what they say in the first person is more natural and to the point than the original written copy.

So, if you want copy to resonate with your readers, listen to them and/or explain your offer to someone before formally writing it down. Then, capture what you just said spontaneously, and write it down immediately thereafter. LC

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If you want to see how many people click on your Tweets, use a URL shortener like bit.ly or tr.im.

Not only do these URL shorteners free up characters in the 140-character max posting format, but they also track clicks on your links, retweets and page redirects.

It’s a quick and easy way to measure what topics your followers respond to and which ones they don’t. This might affect what you write about in future Tweets. LC

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Whether you have B2C customers or B2B clients, it can only help to add value above and beyond what is expected.

When tough times come around, you want to have ready practices and programs that delight your patron. There’s nothing like adding value to say, “We value your business.”

Think of such loyalty programs as insurance for tough times, which inevitably happen every so often. When customers and clients cut their budgets, value-add programs can help you make their newly revised short list. LC

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I often get asked when is the best time to send out email newsletters. The answer is that it depends on you and your audience.

Common wisdom says consumer-targeted email newsletters often do better on weekends, while B2B newsletters should go out during the workweek. But, your mileage may vary.

The truth is, the answer is often found in testing different dates and times. You also want to know when your competitors send their newsletters. You might choose to transmit when your competitors do not.

I normally send out Web Digest For Marketers on Mondays, as it allows for a longer shelf life in the inbox. When Monday is a legal holiday in the U.S., the newsletter goes out on Tuesday. LC

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Having an opt-in email list is an assumed cost of entry for any serious Internet Marketing campaign. The email channel is just too big to ignore.

But, just because you have opt-in subscribers doesn’t mean they’ll stay with you or even continue to pay attention should they not bother to unsub from your list. List vitality is key.

A critical way to keep a list invigorated is to offer hot content. It may be commercial content for your house offers. It could also be editorial content for which you pay real money.

The point here is if you want your subscribers to respond to you and your email communications, you have to respond to their needs first and foremost.

When they see your name or your company in the “from” field, you want them to say “Oh, boy!” or “I’ll save this for when I can really concentrate on it.” In short, subscribers have to value your communiqués, even before they open them. LC

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Direct Marketers know that regular, small (even imperceptible) changes can increase response rates. In other words, a reader might respond to something he/she didn’t respond to previously, just because the layout is a little different.

Some small changes will have noticeable effects, while others won’t. The ones that work well, you’ll want to keep. So, in addition to testing big things, make small changes to your Website, email newsletter landing page, or what have you. Then, watch how response rates change from one week to the next. LC

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Conventional Direct Marketing wisdom says that making two offers in a single ad can lead to lower response rates. That’s because providing two offers gives the reader more choices than you intended: to think about it later or make no choice at all. Very often, “I’ll think about it later” translates into “never.”

However, I know of at least one scenario in which you can make two offers in order to boost response rates. I call it the “Straw Dog” offer. This is where one choice is a no-brainer for the reader to reject in favor of the other. For example, “Pay for Your Subscription Now” versus “Sign Up for Your Free Trial.” The first offer should drive more responses to the second offer. LC

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In my interview with comScore’s Eli Goodman, he confirmed what I suspected, that the longer a user’s keyword search phrase, the more likely that user will be a qualified lead.

Think about it. If you know the exact product number of a running shoe, for example, the better educated you are about said shoe. This means you’ve spent time online or offline researching what you want.

With time invested in finding out the product number of an item, the more likely it is you intend to buy that product.

So, in your PPC keyword selection, consider buying those product numbers as keywords. You’ll get less traffic, and while you may pay more for such specific keywords, they are more likely to convert into a sale for you. LC

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