Attention Internet Marketers Part Four
Attention Internet Marketers:
4 Steps to Testing
Offline Creative on Google
and 3 Easy Ways to Use Direct Mail
to Drive Customers to your Website
Dear Business Builder,
Wow, what a great conversation we have going about the powerful combination of direct mail and the web. Over the last three weeks we’ve covered quite a bit of ground on the topic … and the questions and suggestions just keep coming. We could easily keep it going for weeks … perhaps we will.
If you’ve missed the issues and you’d like to catch up, check them out in my archive.
Direct mail is without a doubt my professional first love. Brian sent me an e-mail last week thanking me for mentioning that I once owned a mail house … he said it boosted my credibility and added weight to my ability to speak on the topic. Thanks Brian … and I’ll try to tackle your DM math question in a future issue.
Brian’s e-mail set me on a trip down memory lane …
I’m actually a pretty well-rounded direct mailer lucky enough to have spent over 15 years working in both B to B and B to C.
I’ve been on the client side and the vendor side.
I’ve done mailing list brokerage and mailing list management as well as mail planning and list selection. Need a list to promote a book on Lepidoptera? That’s easy … just rent a list from the Lepidopterist Society. For those of you not familiar with Lepidoptera, it’s the study of butterflies and moths. Sorry, it’s the side effect of having worked for an academic book publisher.
I consider myself an expert when it comes to print production and mailing … in fact there was a time when I could spout postal regulations as easily as reciting the alphabet. And for those of you that spend any time keeping up with the US Postal Service … you know that’s no easy feat. Plus, I spent many a late night in printing plants all across America watching my jobs roll off the press … in one memorable instance I even got to yell “STOP THE PRESSES” at the top of my lungs.
And lastly I’ve brainstormed creative concepts, developed full scale multi-channeled marketing campaigns and written copy … my all time favorite part of this job and the majority of what I do today.
And I’ve been charged with spending marketing budgets into the hundreds of millions of dollars all told. I must say, when you’ve seen as many hundred thousand dollar checks as I have, you start to lose all sense of the value of money. Sadly, none of these checks had my name on them. Yet, many had Clayton’s name on them … bastard! 
Awww, good times!
But, now I have a new love … the Internet. Never in a million years with direct mail could you send an e-mail at 9:00 and break even by noon … and then roll out by 1:00. That’s the power of marketing online. The ability to watch those orders roll in one after the other … marching forward to a positive ROI with an imaginary little cha ching in my head after each one.
Yet, I digress. After last weeks issue, there were still questions. I’d like to address them before we move on and also give some kudos.
Testing Direct Mail Creative Online Through Google
Everyone that weighed in really liked the concept of being able to test direct mail creative cheaply online … giving you the ability to hedge your bets before you move forward with your more expensive direct mail budget. Testing online first is definitely a risk reliever.
I mentioned last week that it has mainly been my experience that direct mail copy will work equally as well online and vice versa. And a really great place to start is with Google PPC.
John (the inspiration for last week’s issue) asked me to run down a track for testing creative concepts through Google …
Then knight in shinning armor (and a direct marketing expert in his own right) Eric Grimstead weighed in with a very solid plan (it was also similar to Apryl’s plan). His example is testing the creative for a full page print ad (costing $30,000) on Google first. Here is his plan:
Step 1: Create 3 versions of a full-page ad.
Step 2: Convert those one-page ads into one-page landing pages with specific call to action.
Step 3: Set up multiple Google ads to drive traffic to the landing pages.
Step 4: Every 3rd visitor is served up a different ad - Google can handle all the ‘behind the scenes’ scripting to handle this version of A/B and in this case /C split testing
Result: At the end of the test one ad should outpull the others & one page should convert better than the others.
You can test your headlines in the Google ads themselves to see which mini headline and intro copy pulls the highest CTR (click-through rate).
Then on your landing pages you can test your full headlines, your offers or completely different letter versions.
In my opinion this is a sound plan. Just be sure to run an equivalent amount of impressions to each ad to measure the ad’s strength and measure your conversion with an equivalent amount of clicks to each page.
The ad with the highest click-through rate and the landing page with the highest conversion would be the winner.
Depending on the end result, you could either continue to test new creative against the winning ad and landing page (the control) to see if you can get a lift. Or, you could roll out to your control which simply means you’d increase your budget so you’re getting even more impressions. Personally I’d do both.
Once you were comfortable that you had the best converting landing page creative, you could then start testing it via direct mail or more expensive channels with some measure of confidence.
Eric’s example is for full-page print ads. Glen to answer your question … this same concept could work for newspaper ads, postcards, direct mail and more expensive dedicated e-mail promotions as well.
Dale had some concern that my suggestion of renting e-mail lists (as a precursor to testing snail mail lists) could be considered spam. He was also concerned that his business reputation would take a hit because of it.
There are a lot of lists out there that could be considered borderline spam lists. These lists are typically compiled through sweepstakes, surveys and other lead-gen tactics that participants often forget they even filled out. The problem with these types of e-mail lists is that people often don’t realize they opted themselves into receiving third party offers. Because these people opted in, this is not spam … but I’m not suggesting you rent this kind of e-mail list for your offers.
What I recommend is doing what is called an endorsed e-mail. You rent the e-mail list of a company that has a direct relationship with its prospects and customers. These opt-in lists are typically customers that bought a product through an e-mail promotion, are e-zine subscribers or prospects that have requested to receive information of some sort.
When you rent this type of list, your offer comes from the list owner thus is immediately recognizable to the recipient and is not misconstrued as spam. The e-mail promotion will typically carry a message that indicates the offer is from a partner or a third party advertiser.
Now, let’s march on to today’s topic …
3 Ways to Use Direct Mail to Drive Website Traffic
Surprisingly there are still a lot of direct mailers that haven’t made the switch to the web. In many cases they have a website and can take orders online … many even have e-zines but they haven’t quite gotten their DM customers to opt-in to receive it.
If you still find yourself lacking lots of customers without e-mail addresses listen up … you’re missing a tremendous opportunity to make a huge improvement to your bottom line. Ongoing e-mail marketing to your own customers is virtually free … no printing cost and no postage.
Here’s three easy ways to make this the year you get your customers e-mail address:
Sweepstakes – You don’t have to give away a 7-day Caribbean cruise to have a successful sweepstakes … I recommend you give away your own product as the prize. Create a sweepstakes that your customers must go online to enter, make sure to disclose that when someone enters your sweepstakes they are also opting in to receive your information by e-mail … better yet make them opt-in. Stuff the sweepstakes promotion in everything you send out … inserts in product boxes, inserts that ride along in house promotion envelopes, inserts into print newsletters, inserts into invoices … any outgoing correspondence you send to your existing customers.
Event Invitations – Planning a free teleseminar or webinar for your online customers? Don’t forget to invite your customers that aren’t online. Send a postcard to your house file customers that don’t have an e-mail address on file. Drive them to the web to register for your event. As I mentioned above, be sure to let them know they are opting in to receive additional information from you via e-mail. Wah-Lah … you’ve added another e-mail address.
Surveys – Surveys are a fantastic way to not only learn exactly what types of products and services your customers are looking for … but they’re also a great way to get an e-mail address. Like sweepstakes above, you’d put your survey promotion in all of your outgoing customer correspondence. I like to add an incentive for people to fill out the survey online by offering a free report or adding a sweepstakes component to the promotion. And just like that … more e-mail addresses.
With all of these types of tactics, the goal is to get your customers to your website so they can actually see all the great information you have to offer. Take the opportunity to give them links to other pages and to enjoy other content they might have not seen otherwise.
Have any questions? Post them to the blog. Have a creative way to use direct mail to drive website traffic? We’d love to hear about it!
Post your advice and in the trenches stories to the blog and help a fellow marketer out.
Until next week,
Julie McManus
Editor, In the ‘Net Trenches
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™
And Web Media Goddess
P.S. Are you in the ‘net trenches? Do you need help? Send
me an e-mail to AskJulie@MakepeaceTotalPackage.com and
I just might answer your question in an upcoming issue.
P.P.S. Have you checked out The Total Package affiliate program lately? We’ve added tons of new creative to help you earn cash on any new subscriber you refer and we’ve opened our archives up for the pilfering … Click Here to check it out NOW!
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3 Comments »
Join the Discussion!
Let us know what you think. Or ask us anything. Or offer your own sage advice.
The only rule: RESPECT THIS HOUSE! Postings that contain abusive language and/or personal attacks will be cheerfully VAPORIZED. One cross word and – POOF! – your well-thought-out post will be gone in a puff of smoke.
– Clayton
Comment by Glen Kohlenberg — February 8, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
Thanks Julie for the advise! We have a customer list of 55,000 we direct mail to once a month[existing customer base] I am trying to move this group over to e-mail newsletter but getting there email is like pulling teeth.
Any good advise/Ideas on making this happen easier and faster?
I use a $25 walmart card that cost me $4 now but would be nice to save $$$. Thanks again everyone your priceless!
Comment by Suzanne Ryan — February 9, 2008 @ 11:15 am
I am intrigued by this idea of testing offline sales copy with google!
Do you think this is doable for catalog mailers (which tend to be a little bit different from their online counterparts)?
If yes, how do you recommend doing it? thanks.
Comment by John Brooks — February 10, 2008 @ 5:48 pm
I was interested in the comment on motivating people to sign up and wanted to know if there were any recommended sites with high percieved value premiums at a low cost?