Print speaks. But quality print shouts!

It isn’t often you find a product that’s worth making a big noise about. But this is one of them.  A friend showed me some mini-cards from moo.com today and I was blown away for the first time in ages.

Digital print doesn’t always mean quality print. In a highly competitive sector where speed and price often come way before quality, moo’s minicards are printed on mega-thick stock for a chunky, classy feel. They’re not cheap… but they come at a very reasonable cost. Delivery isn’t particularly fast… but it’s so worth the wait. And you can personalise every single one of them.  

Moo also does a complementary range of digitally printed mini-masterpieces, designed to help direct marketers, brand champions and creatives make an impact so strong it’s almost audible. I give them a wholehearted and completely unsolicited 10 out of 10! 

Here’s a link to moo‘s minicards page.

As a direct marketer I don’t feel comfy unless I know exactly how much profit my marketing campaigns have made. To the penny! 

Offline marketing is traditionally divided into above the line and below the line campaigns. Below the line involves un-glamorous media like direct marketing and cheapo Direct Response TV. Above the line is fluffy stuff like glossy magazine ads and big budget TV brand building.  

You can always calculate ROI, cost per response and cost per sale below the line. But the profitability of above the line work is harder – if not impossible – to quantify. There’s a definite correlation between, say, a high visibility TV branding campaign and an increase in brand awareness. But you can’t really pin down its actual monetary value.  

There are some interesting parallels online.

Direct response campaigns like email marketing generate measurable returns. As does SEO, which visibly increases physical visitor numbers. 

Social media marketing is a different kettle of fish, similar to above the line marketing. You can tweet until you’re blue in the face but it isn’t always possible to relate your spend to actual income.

Having said that, Twitter and co are slowly coming into their own as far as relatively ethereal stuff like reputation management and brand building is concerned.

I plan to hang fire until the medium’s first major financial coup is announced. Once I can see a crystal clear connection between social media marketing investment and return, I’ll consider joining the party!

My clients almost always use email as their main communication medium. Me too. I much prefer it to the telephone. It’s less intrusive,  more efficient and effective. And it helps me keep accurate records.  

A few weeks ago I decided to remove my mobile number from my two freelance copywriting websites altogether.

As soon as I did, email enquiries abruptly stopped. Which wasn’t a problem. I was on holiday anyway so wasn’t keen to spend precious leisure time glued to my PC. 

Two weeks later I still wasn’t getting any enquiries. Not one. And I usually get at least two or three a day. 

So I reinstated my telephone number on-site. And work started flooding through as usual the next day… like turning on a tap!  

A few useful things to bear in mind:

1. just because people don’t usually contact you by telephone doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate having a choice of  response mechanisms
2. there’s a strong possibility that including a phone number on-site boosts credibility and fosters trust
3. sometimes making changes to your website can cause havoc with response and conversion. Keep a sharp eye on both every time you amend your site and you’ll be able to back-track fast if things go dog-shaped! 
4. archive old versions of web pages so you don’t have to recreate them from scratch if you need them again

The long versus short copy argument has been rumbling on since the 1950s. And it’s still going strong.

In reality there’s no hard and fast rule. Successful direct marketing is much more subtle and intelligent than that. 

The best way of deciding whether to use long or short copy to sell your ebook is to apply common sense.

Your ebook might benefit from longer sales copy if: 

• it covers an unusual or commonly misunderstood subject that needs explaining in depth
• it is about a completely new concept that people aren’t familiar with
• you’ve priced it high - in general the more expensive a product, the harder you need to work

On the other hand there’s no point rambling on and on when your ebook is:

• short
• cheap
• and simple, covering a subject that doesn’t need detailed explanation

Some say that there’s no such thing as long or short copy, just good or bad copy. I agree. As a general rule your sales copy should be exactly as long – or short – as it needs to be to do the job.

If you absolutely must write a great, long rambling web page to sell your ebook, don’t put up with that horrid, formulaic rubbish you find on so many ebook sales sites. Find a proper copywriter.

Hysterical punctuation and messy formatting puts readers off!

If you want to make sure visitors get to grips with your website’s message instantly, keep it cool.

Direct Marketing is powerful stuff. But some traditional DM techniques don’t translate well online, where attention spans are even shorter and instant gratification’s the bunny.

Avoid things like:

• making yourself sound hysterical by sprinkling your content with multiple exclamation marks!!!
• causing a sense of desperation with random underlining
• forcing people’s attention to flit around too many conflicting coloured headers 
• interrupting readers’ flow with rash emboldening
• creating the visual alternative to a hiccup with an over enthusiastic use of italics
• SHOUTING at people by WRITING IN CAPITALS!
• Confusing Buyers’ Vision With Camel Case
• making visitors go cross eyed dealing with bands of highlighted text
• exhausting the eye as it jumps between multiple font sizes and styles
• putting people off with long, dense paragraphs
• using old DM favourites like ’PS’ and ‘PPS
• writing and constructing your web page like a letter using ‘dear…’ 
• making on-screen reading even more challenging by using a serif font like Times Roman

Using a handful of the above on a web page is bad enough. Take the lot of board and you’ll create an ugly mess that’s almost impossible to read!
 

Sometimes old wisdom brings fresh insights.

Online marketers are waking up to the value of traditional direct marketing. And they’re hitting gold with one of the oldest and best DM principles – testing.

So what’s it all about?

Testing is a key component of effective direct marketing. Its principles hold as true online as they do for any other advertising or marketing medium.

In the olden days, before t’internet, we’d test ourselves silly. We’d litho print a run of 100K, splitting the creative four ways using different headlines. We’d mail the different creatives to different customer segments. We’d find out which approach worked best then we’d roll out to vast databases of millions, with reasonably predictable returns. 

Obviously it was never foolproof. A campaign that’s a roaring success in the summer might bomb if rolled out in winter. I’ve seen that happen. I’ve also spent months planning an intricate, highly targeted campaign, backed up with plenty of apparently rock solid test results, only to find that the non-segmented, non-targeted ‘control’ chunk performed best.
Bummer.

Nevertheless, testing is valuable ammunition. It lets you hone your messaging, copy and special offers. It helps you plan your SEO. You can target your business firmly at the people you know want to hear from you most. And because you know what they want to hear, you can let ‘em have it!

Online, testing has huge potential. Unlike print, a website header can be changed in seconds at little or no cost. New chunks of copy can be pasted in with negligible effort. New offers can be dropped into place. Content can be shifted and re-arranged. New images can be uploaded instantly… all at a fraction of the cost of traditional direct marketing’s re-artworking, plate making, proof checking and vast, smelly machines.

Not only is it easier to test stuff online. It’s also much simpler to track response. Webstats make campaign analysis a dream.

The reasons for response – or no response – are as multifactoral as they ever were. But a bit of wisdom and insight in the face of heavy competition has to be worth a shot.
John Caples, grandfather of direct marketing and inventor of split run copy testing, we salute you!

The mindset of online readers is different from any other medium.

TV adverts interrupt the programme you’ve chosen to watch. The same goes for press ads, direct mail, poster campaigns… they’re distractions, imposed on you rather than chosen or sought.

In contrast most websites are found via a search engine, driven by someone looking for a specific business, product or service. Searchers have objectives firmly in mind. They’re task-oriented, intent on finding what they want.

So to be effective, website headers and subheads should address the needs of people who know exactly what they want. Which is very different from writing for traditional marketing, for instance press ads where you’re trying to steal readers’ attention from the editorial.  

The bare bones - a visitor arrives at a website with three questions in mind:

• Is this the right place?
• Can I find what I’m looking for here?
• Can I do what I want here?

In search of answers visitors unconsciously scan the screen, absorbing visually prominent elments – the headers and subheads – before deciding whether to read on.

So it makes sense for website headers and subheads to answer visitors’ three key questions clearly, frankly, fully, succinctly and confidently.

EXAMPLE: Planet Cocoa, a fictional online chocolate shop.

What can people do there? Browse, test-taste and buy the world’s most exclusive hand made chocolate.

Off the top of my head, here’s one way to answer visitors’ questions succinctly, honestly and creatively. It makes clear up front that visitors can find out about, test and buy chocolate via the site. So their initial questions have been answered and, provided they’re in the market for exploring, tasting and buying chocolate, they’ll read on!

• Header: Explore, taste and buy from the world’s greatest chocolatiers
• Subhead 1: Browse a wide range of exclusive hand made chocolate
• Subhead 2: Apply for your free ‘Choisir le chocolat’ taster gift box
• Subhead 3: Buy the world’s finest chocolate (free UK delivery)

Internet marketing’s exciting, fast and cheap and, if you do it properly, extremely effective. But any marketer worth their salary or fee will also consider integrating offline campaigns seamlessly to maximise a budget’s impact.

It’s a clear case of whole being greater than the sum of the parts: traditional direct marketing is powerful stuff.

Take snail mail campaigns. It can be a challenge to be heard above today’s intense communication noise. Emarketing, evolving fast, is on everyone’s agenda and many businesses are using less traditional direct mail. Which provides the ideal opportunity to stand out by dropping a pertinent, succinct, beautifully targeted piece of print onto customers’ and
prospects’ doormats.

It needn’t be complicated. You can integrate a good value piece of print with an online offer, powering extra site visitors and making your business more tangible to the target market. Or use a simple but well-designed postcard as a device to drive general business to your site.

Direct mail needn’t be expensive. Here’s an example ‘on a shoestring’: It cost around £50 to print 250 postcards on 350gsm stock. Sent to a carefully selected hand-built database of 85 local businesses in Brighton’s creative community, it prompted a response rate of  10%. All responders converted to sales with an average sale value of £500. That’s a total of
£4,000 new business for a total outlay of £75.60 (inc. postage).

I designed and artworked the card myself. Most people will need to use a professional designer, who shouldn’t take more than two hours to design you something this simple. And
use a professional copywriter!

If you’ve got a great offer to make, which you target carefully to a relevant audience using attractive design and compelling copy, the numbers might well stack up!