Direct Marketing News

If you’re involved in marketing products, services and coaching programs for niche markets, one of the best strategies to screen your company from the nation of tire kickers is using the two-step marketing approach. The two-step increases your ability to work with serious prospects that are more likely to become loyal paying customers. This also reduces the time you waste with energy zappers.

What is the two-step?

In a nutshell, instead of making the sale on the first contact, you instruct your targeted market to jump an extra hoop. The ones who do would become your best customers. These are the ones you want to spend your time with. These are the ones who look to your company to solve their problems. And they are the ones who will buy more from you again and again.

Here are some examples of how the two-step system is used today…

1) If you’re an affiliate marketer: you can use the two-step in e-zines and blogs where the prospect clicks on a link to a sales landing page, an audio or video presentation that can be forwarded to friends, or in an article that tells the whole story behind your amazing product. This way, they won’t overload on information. It’s really not a good idea to throw the whole enchilada at the prospect at first contact.

2) If you’re promoting a high-ticket product or coaching program: the two-step can disqualify those prospects who wouldn’t make a good fit for you. And who might later cause more problems that could tarnish your reputation or put a black mark on your merchant status. You know them because they’re usually the ones who buy from you and then quickly take advantage of your guarantee by returning the product.

3) If you’re promoting through direct mail, you can use the two-step to pre-qualify customers by asking them to send one dollar (to cover shipping) to get a special report or C (more…)

By numerous accounts, Dick Benson was the most successful direct mail marketer of all time.

Put simply, Dick Benson’s view of direct mail marketing is quite simple: The promoter’s goal is to get prospects to raise their hands and say they’re interested in what you have to sell. Secrets of Successful Direct Mail emphasizes this lesson and everything Dick Benson learned in over 40 years in the business.

Benson never gave a seminar and never advertised for clients. Actually, he didn’t need to. Most of his clients put him on permanent retainer. Clients included Time Inc., Dow Jones, Hearst Magazines and World Book, to name a few.

Benson advised on effective testing, creative, timing, pricing and premiums. One of his main tenets was that direct marketers spend too much time on the appearance of packages and not nearly enough time on lists or testing. He also drove home the power of effective creative, noting that even minor changes in the offer, copy, envelope contents or appearance of the letter can make a big difference in response and must be tested more than once before each new roll out.

And while he focused on the ROI of direct marketing, it wasn’t his only focus. He emphasized that marketers test also to learn. The more learned, the better marketing can be done to segments that emerge as marketing programs evolve. To that end, he encouraged marketers to place a value on the information they learned through direct marketing tests and campaigns.

Benson’s 25 Principles

The following outlines Dick Benson’s 25 core principles of direct marketing, demonstrating the core ideas he proposed in his writings and consulting efforts with clients:

1. A two-time buyer is twice as likely to buy as a one-time buyer.

2. The same product sold at different prices will result in the same net income per thousand mailed.(more…)

All you want is customers so why are you buying leads? I bet you ask yourself that question every time you sit down to write another check for a sales lead order. Even a simple work at home business opportunity needs sales leads,but now there is a better way. Buy your customers instead of wasting your hard earned dollars on trying to gather a hugh lists of names and addresses of questionable leads hoping to salvage a few potential buyers.

I just read in a recent study that email lead response rates are between 1-2% so for every 1000 people that you send an email you may hear something from 10-20 sales leads who “might” be interested in your service or product. Not exactly great odds if you are trying to build a business. More than likely you will get 4-500 responses from other marketers autoresponders trying to market you with the hope that you may be interested in their goods and services. If you are buying these kinds of leads you are buying a ’shot in the dark’ and it can still cost you about $50.00 per month.

Next is the so called ‘verified sales lead’. These leads can cost upwards of $10 each and contrary to the claim ‘verified’ may not be what you think is verified. How many of those kind of maybe a sales lead or maybe not a sales lead can your already tightly stretched budget hold? If I could show you a way to bypass the lead process and get right to the customer, would you be interested? Of course you would. In the beginning I was like you, spending a lot of money on purchasing leads, sometimes as much as my car or mortgage payment.

I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. It was right in front of my eyes after all it fits everything that we look for in a good business. It is in one of the best affiliate markets, it is a simple work at home opportunity with some terrific bonuses such as a cooporative business plan. That mean (more…)