How Internet Marketing Came To Be The New Direct Response Marketing

admin    Website Marketing Resources     Came, Direct, Internet, marketing, Response

Before the dawn of Internet marketing, there was direct response marketing. It involved sending long sales letters by postal mail to customers about a certain product; the direct response marketer wanted the customer to fill out the order form and mail it back to the address posted with his/her order information included.
This was (and still is) a very effective form of marketing, but was (and still is) quite expensive – sending out just 1,000 letters can cost you at least $2,000. It also takes good to great sales copy in order to convert those prospects into customers; if your sales copy falters, your financial loss will be that much larger, as you won’t recover much of the cost from sending out those letters.
With the advent of the Internet, a new direct response marketing was born. Using the Internet, marketers could now quickly and inexpensively send thousands of emails at the click of a button to potential customers, instead of relying on slower and more expensive snail mail.
Prospects can open the email, read the sales letter of the website you are promoting, and order the product using the “order button” on the website.
And while traditional products, like books and CDs, can still be sold over the Internet, a new type of product also emerged – digital products, including ebooks, MP3 files, and software programs. These digital products can be sent to the customers immediately after payment, just by redirecting them to the download area where they can download those products.
Due to the emergence of digital products, people’s appetite for instant information continues to increase. The power of the Internet allows information marketers to be able to fill that need instantaneously.
Information marketers who do business on the Internet (a.k.a. Internet marketing) have great advantages over those information marketers who only do business offline:
- You can set up an online sales page in just a few hours.
- You can deliver the product(s) to your customers instantly after they complete their transactions.
- You can create digital products at far less cost than traditional books and CDs.
- You get your payment before you send out your product(s).
- You can automate the online sales process, allowing it to work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Orders can come in anytime, even while you are asleep or away from your computer.
Conversely, offline marketers have to
- spend more in order to create their books and CDs.
- have to have retail space to store their inventory.
- advertise in magazines, newspapers, and other print media.
- have someone working for them to make sales, whether it’s themselves (costing them time) or someone else working for them (costing them money.)
Online marketing is also becoming a richer industry because more and more people are coming online each year to make their lives easier. Tens of billions of dollars are spent online each year. The amount spent will keep growing each year for the foreseeable future, as Internet marketing isn’t likely to go away or be surpassed by anything anytime soon. This is evident by the growing number of emails we get in our inboxes on how to solve every problem we have, from Internet marketing to weight loss.
Thanks to Internet marketing’s accessibility to every one with an Internet connection, lower costs of doing business, and quicker delivery of products, it has become the “direct response marketing” of the 21st century.

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8 Things That Motivate Web-audience Response

admin    Website Marketing Companies     Motivate, Response, Things, Webaudience

It’s always a good idea to stick to the basics. When businesses stray too far from the fundamentals, problems arise, but sticking to the basics doesn’t mean boring people into a state of unconsciousness. If Web-visitors’ eyes glaze-over upon entering your site, you’ve lost them before you’ve begun.

Web success is based on creative implementation of the basics, and that’s where your Web-marketing presentation should begin.

1. Web-Audience Response Demands Communication

The Web has a lot in common with television but there are fundamental differences; it is important for Web-entrepreneurs to understand these differences and similarities, and learn from them.

Television and the Web are both communication environments, but television, like magazines and newspapers, are primarily advertising platforms. Of course there are plenty of websites around that follow the advertising financial model, but for the average business website, depending on third party advertising not only dilutes their marketing message and brand, but it also makes for a confusing and cluttered visual presentation.

Just because your website presents information, doesn’t mean it’s communicating it to your intended audience in any meaningful way. The manner in which you communicate your message is as important as the message itself. The medium is increasingly becoming the message, and even in situations where it isn’t, it definitely shapes the message.

2. Web-Audience Response Demands Content

You have repeatedly heard the comment, ‘content is king,’ but we think, ‘communication is king’ because without communication your content is meaningless. But here’s the dilemma, your information is basically advertising, after all you’re in business, and business is about selling something – a product, a service, an idea, or your know-how. So the real underlying purpose of your website is to make that advertising message worth listening to, and to do that, you need to turn it into content.

To turn advertising into content you have to accept that sales take time. You have to be patient. You can’t hurry a sale, you first have to build confidence; stop rushing the close and start thinking of selling as a courtship. You would never ask someone to get married on a first date, so why would you expect to get an order from a potential Web-client on their first visit.

3. Web-Audience Response Demands Courtship

No one is going to make a substantial financial commitment without reaching some level of comfort with who you are and what you do, and that requires some repeated contact: a courtship, or negotiation if you prefer.

Therein lies the similarity and difference between websites and television: the success of a television program is based on habituation. If you get people to tune-in every week on the same night, at the same time to see their favorite program, you will be able to keep delivering your marketing message through the commercials that pay for the content. In the same regard, if you can make your website interesting enough through the compelling presentation of content, you will get visitors to return again and again, each time gaining confidence and respect for what you do and what you sell.

The difference is people accept television commercials as the price they pay for free TV programming, but the same cannot be said for the Web. People want free information on the Web without the irritation and bother of ads; so the challenge for website owners is to turn their marketing message into compelling programming that creates habituation which is just another form of negotiation, or courtship of potential clients.

4. Web-Audience Response Demands Consistency

You hear the word strategy bandied about with little relevance to its precise meaning. In marketing terms, strategy is a big idea, a sustainable concept that you can build a business around.

Successful companies rarely change their strategies, a concept that should not be confused with tactics, which are the various methods used to implement strategy in order to secure the ultimate objectives.

Business has to be resilient and open-minded enough to adapt to an ever-changing business environment by constantly updating tactics, but strategy needs to be a constant, a touchstone or benchmark for implementing action. Staying on course requires confidence in the strategy with a vigilant eye on the big picture.

Websites that are nothing more than brochures or catalogs of product that anyone can purchase at the local mall or box store is a tactic that delivers little relevance to today’s Web-savvy consumer. And the same can be said for the blatantly obvious direct marketing sites based on old magazine subscription techniques. The new multimedia communication-based Web requires new presentation tactics in order to successfully implement marketing strategy.

5. Web-Audience Response Demands Expectation

Successful marketing is not just about persuading people that what you have is what they need, it’s about creating a series of deliverable expectations.

If you expect a product to be easy to use because that’s what the marketing communication states, then that product better be easy to use. Effective marketing presentations not only prompt action but just as importantly they create a set of realistic, deliverable expectations.

Ask yourself, why do people mistrust politicians, car salesmen, and telemarketers? We all know the answer: many will say, and promise, just about anything to get your vote or order, and the result is a disgruntled, cynical voter or customer. Read my lips, no false expectations!

6. Web-Audience Response Demands Trust

When customers’ expectations are met, you begin to create trust, and trust is one of the hardest things to achieve on a website that lacks any kind of human connection to the audience.

I can’t tell you how many websites I’ve visited that make no effort to humanize their presentations, and consequently their businesses. When you go to a contact page and all that’s there is a form to fill-in, with no contact name or phone number, it says to people, ‘I really can’t be bothered talking to you.’ Hiding behind email tells people not to trust you, and if they don’t trust you, they are not going to do business with you.

Business is about connecting to people, whether they are consumers, purchasing agents, or suppliers. If your website doesn’t have some kind of human element like a video Web-host, audio message, or even a contact name and phone number, how can you expect to connect and build confidence, and trust in your intent to satisfy their needs?

7. Web-Audience Response Demands Personality

By building trust with your Web-audience you are also building your brand and defining your corporate personality. Here again we have a bit of a dichotomy since personality is a human-based characteristic, so how then can we create a personality and instill human characteristics into an inanimate entity like a business?

Corporate personality does not derive from a logo, packaging, or your website’s aesthetic qualities. Corporate personality is the sum total of the collective experiences your audience has with your company. In the brick and mortar world, corporate personality is a result of dealing with people, sales people, receptionists, and telemarketers; in short personality is derived from interaction with real human beings.

Clever, well written website copy can help create personality as long as it is written in a distinctive human voice, but we know that 70% of all website text is never read; people skip to bulleted points and captions. But the same material delivered by a real person either through Web-audio or video, not only delivers the marketing message in the most memorable and compelling fashion, but it also defines the business personality and humanizes the website.

Two caveats: avatars are not people, and unless you can afford to hire the creators of the Simpsons to develop your animation, you best forget it; as well, using yourself or a non-professional as a spokesperson or Web-host is a dangerous practice, and speaks more to ego than it does to effective business development.

8. Web-Audience Response Demands Motivation

Lastly your website must communicate content that excites and motivates people to do business with you. The ability to motivate people isn’t about what you’re selling; it’s about how you present it.

Motivational speakers, whether in the business, entertainment, personal coaching, or sports arenas, all deliver a similar message; but the ones that truly stimulate people to act, are the ones that know how to present their ideas in the most exciting and compelling manner. If you want to motivate your Web-audience to respond, your presentation has to be delivered by a real human being: a professional with charm, charisma, and a distinctive character.

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Marketing Insight – How to Double your Response in Google Adwords

admin    Google Optimization     Adwords, Double, google, Insight, marketing, Response

The #1 mistake that costs online advertisers thousands

95% of advertisers make this mistake. As discusses in my other article titled “How Google evaluates Your Adwords Campaign”, Google works very differently from other search engines concerning pay per click campaigns.

So what’s the #1 mistake that costs the average advertiser thousands? The answer is encompassed in two simple words – “Content Network”. Google will probably never tell you this because they make too much money from unknowing novices spending more than needed, being unaware of their “Content Network”.

When setting up any pay per click campaign in Google (Google Adwords), there are three main areas in which you can display your ad:

• Google Search

• Google Search Network

• Google Content Network

Google Search and Google Search Network normally deliver relevant searchers. By default however, Google already has their Content Network checked for you on their ad set-up page. But how closely matched is the Content Network to your Adwords? Usually it’s not well matched at all. You will get lots of clicks from responders to these extended relevance sites, however, the quality of this traffic is horrific at best. Not only is the traffic terrible, your click rate will be much lower when including the Content Network. What’s worse, if you remember my last article, one of the key factors that affects your ad position is your “average click rate”, so this can be a double negative whammy. By just de-selecting “Content Network” (in the “Edit Campaign Settings”) you can significantly improve the click rate of your campaign which will then also give you better ad positioning.

Remember, the better your click rate, the higher your ad will be positioned. If your click rate drops below about 0.5%, your ad will rarely display at all. On the other hand, if you have a click rate of 2%, 3% or even higher, your ad will be positioned much higher than if evaluated by price alone.

One more negative alert – click fraud within the “content network” is much greater.

Another great way to improve your ROI and lower your cost per click is to examine where your traffic is coming from within the Google Search Network. If you determine that a lot of traffic is coming from partner sites like www.ask.com for example, you could eliminate the “Search Network” targeting as well and save some additional money. Advertising on these partner sites directly will save you about 50% for each click. The downside, of course, is that it will take more time to manage the extra campaigns. It also depends on your overall budget. The more you invest, the more it is worth looking at the option of eliminating the Search Network as well and setting up separate campaigns on sites like ask.com.

The bottom-line is that, just by deselecting “Content Network” you will dramatically improve your results and save huge amounts of money.

Look for our next article, where we’ll look at the 2nd biggest mistake when doing Google Adwords. Sign up for our “Marketing Insight” ezine and be one of the first to view it.

The article is brought to you by Peter Grundner at P&T Enterprises

For more information please visit www.how2succeedonline.net or www.myedconline.com

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Direct Response Marketing and Search Engine Marketing (sem) Principles

admin    Website Design Resources     Direct, Engine, marketing, Principles, Response, Search

I produce Pay Per Click how-to training sessions geared to help online marketers increase their search marketing ROI. As Chairman for PPC Summits, I meet online marketers from around the world, and there is one common theme that seems to reoccur frequently: the myth that SEM is some kind of rocket science. What most marketers don’t understand is SEM falls under the category of Direct Response Marketing.

SEM is just another form of direct response marketing and many of the same principles apply. Successful marketing messaging resonates with the intended audience and the same controls apply to search marketing campaigns.

Here are some direct response marketing principles that should also apply to your SEM campaigns:

• It takes work. Successful marketers have to constantly test response rates: copy, keywords, placement, pricing, messages, landing pages…

• You have to test. In direct response marketing, testing rules is never-ending. Just like testing in direct mail, the cost of the campaign can be justified if the lift in the conversion rate is enough to offset the expense. If the lift in conversion offsets the cost of optimizing the pages, keep testing and roll out new ones.

• You have to track results. Just as savvy offline marketers can tell which piece of mail and from which specific message a customer converted, you have to be able to tell which keyword, message and referrer drove your sale. Tracking is easy to do on PPC, harder on search engine optimization, but critical on both.

• Creative is key. Google rewards those with high click-through rates on PPC by better placement, and the way to get high CTRs is to write great copy that resonates with your audience. Similar to an offline campaign, online creative (i.e., your search listings) should be tested frequently.

• It’s all about the benefit. Successful marketers sell on benefits, not features, and look for the messages that play on their customers’ emotional responses to their product or service. Over time, you will discover offers that work only online, but like offline marketing, it comes through the same test-and-learn discipline.

• The “Lead to Sale” conversion rate is important. Just as in the offline world the key to conversions from search is providing the right hook in your listing at the right phase of the buying cycle, and then converting that lead into a paying customer with the right offer on your landing page.

• Analysis is your friend. Like any good offline campaign, you learn a great deal from analyzing your testing and conversions. One set of keywords can perform significantly better than the rest; but because even changing a keyword from singular to plural can have dramatically different results, you have to test and analyze each variable separately.

• It’s all about CPA or CPL. All search engine marketing campaigns need to be analyzed by cost per acquisition (CPA) or cost per lead (CPL).

• Create customer loyalty. Search engines are looking more and more at how many websites link to yours.. You need customer evangelists driving more sales, and links can provide that.

Direct response marketing skills and experience are some of the key drivers in SEM campaigns. There are some nuances of SEM that you can only learn by experience, but if you go into it with the mindset that these rules apply you will demystify the whole experience.

PPC Summit Boston March 3-4, Vancouver March 31-April1, London April 14-15, San Francisco May 19-20, and Los Angeles Sept. 2008.

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