NONE: ONLINE ADS>> Direct mail postcards
ONLINE ADS>> Direct mail postcards
Al Bredenberg (ab_at_copywriter.com)
Fri, 6 Jun 1997 23:14:05 -0700
Lynn McCausland <lynn_at_moneyclub.com> wrote:
>What are your experiences with direct mail postcards for getting people to
>visit web sites? I've worked with my direct mail house before - just not
>for web sites.
>
>The web site is free and has a lot a great information about multiple areas
>of personal finance (banking, credit, insurance, real estate, etc.). My
>objective is to get consumers to visit and look around.
I've done the creative for a combination postcard and Web site promotion
for a publisher. And I've done consultation to help another company put
together a marketing plan for this kind of promotion.
The success of any direct mail campaign rests on three legs: offer, list
and creative. Besides these three, format of the mail piece can play a
critical role, depending on the promotion.
1) Offer. In this case, you are apparently offering plenty of great free
information at your Web site. Is this a compelling enough offer so that
your target audience will keep the postcard and have it next to them the
next time they go on the Web? Will they go to the trouble to type in the
URL and pay a visit?
2) List. Who are you mailing to? Where is your list coming from? Are the
recipients Web users who have an interest in personal finance? And are they
the target audience that you're trying to draw to your Web site? (You
haven't said why you want them at your Web site. What's your objective?
Direct sales at the Web site? Building a marketing database? Or are you
just trying to drive up your visitor count?)
3) Creative. Assuming you have the right list and a compelling offer, your
direct mail piece has to be conceived, written and designed effectively to
get a response -- in this case, to drive your target audience to your Web
site.
The great thing about direct mail is your ability to test and track
response. You can test to compare the response rates of various lists,
different offers, multiple creative approaches (which pulls best, the red
postcard or the green? the regular size card or the oversized one?)
A simple "low-tech" way to test the response in this case is to set up
multiple entry points into the site. They can be identical pages but with
different URLs. For example, your red postcard can carry the URL
www.moneyclub.com/aaa/ and your green card can carry
www.moneyclub.com/bbb/. Use your site stats to determine which card pulls
best. You can do the same to test different lists.
As a collector of direct mail pieces, in recent months I've noticed more
and more postcard mailings designed to draw traffic to Web sites. It's
impossible to generalize about 'whether it works or not.' You have to look
at the response and the costs involved in generating that response. How
much does it cost to get one visitor to the site? And once the visitor gets
there, how much is that visitor worth? Run the numbers. Test.
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Al Bredenberg - consultant, writer, copywriter
COPYWRITER.COM - Internet and Web copy specialists, Web creative
Al Bredenberg Business Reports - online ordering
The NETResults News Service - delivered free by e-mail
Cornwall, Conn., USA 860-672-0382
ab_at_copywriter.com http://www.copywriter.com
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