6 Quick Tips for Lifting Response Rates

1. Leave Your Landing Pages Up Longer

Users click on offers in newsletter ads and dedicated solo email messages in unpredictable ways. For example, they might not click on call-to-action buttons until many months after the time of transmission.

This means you should look at the response rates long after transmission. No need to obsessively watch them daily or weekly if the message went out months prior. But, do check in to see the increased number.

People will save an appealing offer. Or, they might bookmark the landing page for when they have more time. If you held a real-time Webinar, put a link to that event's archive on your landing page for latecomers.

2. Unexpected Value-Adds Prevent Buyer's Remorse

Give your customers and clients something more than what you promised them. Let them be delighted at finding the extra value, be it a gift certificate, or a bonus ad in a media buy.

Without fail, I do this always when selling ads and solo email drops. People are people, whether they're operating in a B2B or B2C marketplace. That delight in discovering the additional value puts to rest any lurking thoughts they might have about having spent the money.

If it's a B2B sale, that person can show the extra value-add to his/her boss or client making him/her look like a hero. A real win/win situation.

3. Make a Vid for SEO Juice

Remember, the major search engines have moved towards Universal Search, which delivers blended search results. So you see videos, podcasts, pictures, plus press releases, websites, etc. in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

This means the search engines want to deliver multimedia options to the user in the quest to heighten user experience. For them it's a branding thing, in part.

Give the search engines what they want. You know they're now looking for multimedia files. Make it available to them. Yes, it's more time and money to create sound and picture files, but c'mon, we're not talking big money here.

Do it, and make sure other sites know about it and point to it.

4. Write Copy that Mirrors What's Happening

I've seen advertisers rewrite copy and even create a new offer in order to resonate with something going on in the industry or in the world. When copy is timely, it can blow the doors off response rates. I've seen it many times in Web Digest For Marketers.

On the other hand, I recently saw an ad in a newspaper with the headline, "Time to Indulge." At the time of this writing, I assure you many people are not thinking about indulging. They're thinking about how to cut back.

The "Time to Indulge" was part of a larger campaign from this firm: "Time to Relax," "Time to Meditate" and so on. The ad was created a long time ago and slated to run before times got tough. It stood out like a sore thumb, and I seriously doubt it did well.

The lesson here is to monitor the environment in which your ad is running and pivot on a dime to take advantage of changing times. Nimble ads that respond to these changing times could get you great response rates.

5. Stand By Your List

Lots of firms have house email lists and send messages out to them regularly. But how many of these firms really pore over the numbers? Who are the heavy responders? Who responds to what?

When you regularly review your email stats, you learn more about your audience. I spend hours looking at past transmissions of Web Digest For Marketers. Different subscribers react to different types of content and ad offers.

Recent subscribers tend to be very active, much the same as someone just entering a trade show or party room. I've spotted very well known people responding to both editorial and ads in my newsletter. I see competitors clicking on other competitors' ad offers, and then requesting ad rates from me.

It may seem tedious to go over such data on a regular basis. But you'll be surprised what invaluable marketplace feedback there is from your email transmissions. It's time very well spent.

6. Get More Qualified Leads from PPC Campaigns

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.