The Other Way to Advertise By Jason Holland
Managing Editor
Image advertising -- the realm of big corporations with million-dollar budgets -- gets all the accolades and attention. (Think Super Bowl commercials.) But quietly, in the background, another type of advertising -- one that does far more than build brand awareness that hopefully will lead to sales -- is doing $1.2 trillion in business worldwide. And the cost of entry is low enough that it's perfect for small businesses. Even one-man start-ups. In his essay today, Michael Masterson explains how to do it right. -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended----------------------------------------------------- "Fast Responders" Get it For FREE If you act right now to claim your copy of Ready, Fire, Aim... you qualify to receive the special offer we're reserving exclusively for "Fast Responder" readers... folks who are used to getting in on the best ideas early... and having the opportunity to make money from them the fastest. Respond today and you'll be rewarded right away. You'll receive Ready, Fire, Aim absolutely FREE of charge! (Others will have to pay $27.95 to buy it at a local bookstore.) But please keep in mind: this special offer could expire at ANY time. So it's important that you act quickly to lock in your FREE copy of Ready, Fire, Aim. Let me show you how...
"Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving." David Ogilvy The other day I saw an ad one of my clients had posted on the Internet. The copy was weak. It lacked an "Aha!" idea. Its lead was wrongheaded, it had insufficient substantiation, and no social proof. I mentioned this to my client's marketing exec. "I agree. It's not very strong," she said. "But it has been doing very well." "That's interesting," I replied. "Can I see the test results?" "We didn't test it," she said. "But the numbers are better than those we usually get for this advertising slot." Coming to the conclusion that copy is "working" without having tested it indicates a complete lack of understanding of the basics of the direct-marketing business. Because the wonderful thing about direct marketing is that you can measure response and predict -- with statistical certainty -- the outcome of your future efforts. But unless you have completed a valid split-test and received statistically reliable results, you don't have any idea whether a promotion worked as well as it should have. If this were the only time I'd encountered this error I wouldn't be writing about it today. But I have seen it a hundred times. It is amazingly common in the world of Internet marketing -- and that is especially disturbing because the Internet has made testing much easier and quicker. And that is one reason why the Internet is perfect for direct-response marketers. However, if you don't truly know the game, your Internet business could be in jeopardy. Let me explain. The Illusion of Temporary Success The Internet was such a hot medium for nearly a decade that almost anybody who stuck their hand into the World Wide Web bowl came out with a golden apple. Some of us who were already direct-mail pros when the boom began in 1999 saw the remarkable results and jumped in. Others hesitated. Perhaps it was because the numbers looked "too good to be true." Those of us who went forward didn't yet understand much about the technical aspects of marketing on the Net. We left that to young people who were already modestly Internet savvy. They knew how to "surf the Web." They were smart. So we hired them. We created the products and wrote the promotional copy. And they posted our copy on websites and created lists of e-mail addresses to send it to. Everything worked. We were happy. Many of those youngsters eventually went out on their own. They went out into the virtual world and sold themselves as marketing experts. That seemed odd to us, because they didn't seem to know anything about direct-response marketing. But their lack of understanding didn't matter for them or their clients. Everything that was done turned out either good or great. Over the past two years, though, that has changed. If you've been marketing your products via the Internet, you know exactly what I mean. A Challenging New World Gone are the days of easy pickings. The bubble was huge. And now it is rapidly deflating. Response rates are crashing Refunds are rising. Bad debt is soaring. Sell-through values are plummeting. Problem is, everyone and their mother-in-law have gotten into Internet marketing. They learned how to knock off successful Internet businesses by taking courses proffered by those young "experts." And Google (and a thousand companies that service Google) made the process easier by providing them with hundreds of tools for monitoring their competitors. But what they learned were "outside" tricks and techniques that have nothing to do with the valuable inside knowledge necessary for long-term success. The young whippersnappers touting the latest gimmicks don't know the fundamentals of direct marketing. And what they don't know, they can't teach. As a result, their "students" have no idea of what really matters: how to build a strong relationship with your customers so they come back to buy from you again and again. A Thousand Vanishing Experts Bill Bonner recently remarked, "Ten years ago, we had a dozen viable competitors. Today, we have a thousand." He is right. But 990 of them don't understand the science of direct marketing. And that is why now -- with all this competition and an increasingly jaded marketplace -- results are crashing and hardly anybody knows what to do about it. Well, I know what to do about it: Get back to the basics. If you don't know how to test scientifically -- or if you do know but you think it's not necessary -- your Internet business doesn't have a chance. What You Need to Know Now To be successful from now on, you will have to develop expertise in direct marketing. And that means mastering the following skills: - Creating "irresistible" offers
- Structuring statistically valid price, term, refund, and premium tests
- Determining the true lifetime value of every new customer
- Calculating "allowable acquisition costs"
- Measuring responsiveness by media source
- Figuring the "doubling date" or "half-life" of new offers
- Creating "gauntlet" and "pummel" programs for new customers
- Purging unproductive prospects
- Discovering your "optimal selling strategy"
- Brainstorming for the "Aha!" idea
- Understanding the Architecture of Persuasion
- Using The Four-Legged Stool Test
- Implementing The Rule of One
- Designing effective Peer Reviews
- Efficiently managing The CUB Critique
If you don't have these skills -- or if your key people don't have them -- consider your business to be in trouble. The market is tough now, and it will be much tougher as every month passes. What You Can Do -- but You Have to Act Quickly! I know half a dozen world-class copywriters who have great programs that teach half of this stuff -- the creative half. But there is only one program I know of that teaches the science of direct marketing. I'm talking about the program published by Early to Rise (which is owned by the most successful direct-marketing information publisher in the world). If you are serious about staying in the game and are not totally confident that you have mastered the science of direct marketing, go here. By the way, in case you are wondering what happened to that marketing executive who didn't understand scientific testing... Ten years ago, I would have told my client to fire her. Instead, I suggested that he put her and the rest of his marketing team through an intensive direct-marketing program -- the one I just recommended to you. Find out more at the link above. -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended----------------------------------------------------- 1000s of USA Citizens Now Drawing On Hidden "Home Equity" (Better Than a Loan Since You Don't Have to Pay It Back)
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