Direct Marketing With A Twist
The best model for website sales letters is direct mail. Why? Direct response marketing is all about getting an immediate response, not building an image. Direct marketing strives for maximum measurable returns on a minimum investment - every time out. With your online sales letters, you should also strive for a sale (or response) right away.
If you fail to win an immediate reply, chances are the prospect will forget about your offer and never order at all. In direct mail, however, the prospect has your letter, order form, envelope, brochure and lift letter in hand. It's something he can easily place on the coffee table and pick up again later, when he's ready to seriously consider ordering. Each piece in the package has the capability to grab interest, increase desire and convince the prospect to buy.
But online, you don't have that luxury. For the prospect to go back and read your letter, he must either print it out on his own paper and using his own ink and burning his own money... or he needs to make a conscious decision to return to your site later.
So the main disadvantage of online sales letters vs. off-line, is that they only exist as pixels on the user's screen - unless or until the prospect decides to print it. Even then, your sales letter gets printed on familiar paper -- usually of the plain white variety - so there's no chance of creating the same 'feel' or special effect that a multiple-piece direct mail package can.
But the obvious advantage is the cost savings. Online there's no postage, traditionally the single most expensive element of any direct marketing campaign. Since your sales letter exists only in cyberspace, there's no printing cost whatsoever. Additionally, you never have to worry about how much material you can stuff into an envelope without exceeding standard postage costs.
Online, the amount of space available is virtually unlimited. You can include as many pages and go into as much detail as you want. The challenge is that the online prospect has a limited attention span... so your letter needs to keep him on the edge of his seat or he's gone elsewhere.
It's no surprise than that so many have been attracted to the Internet as a means of marketing products and services. For some, the web has become a massive new avenue for advertising. They attempt to entice people by delivering a barrage of messages in the hope that one 'sticks'. Or they employ glitz and flash with the mistaken belief that they can somehow 'trick' people into paying attention to their message and buying their product.
Truth is... this approach would never fly offline. It would be a complete waste of money to even try. But because it's so cheap to set up shop on the web, some take a 'let's try it' approach. They simply don't understand the online environment and the low tolerance of users for such an approach.
If you fail to win an immediate reply, chances are the prospect will forget about your offer and never order at all. In direct mail, however, the prospect has your letter, order form, envelope, brochure and lift letter in hand. It's something he can easily place on the coffee table and pick up again later, when he's ready to seriously consider ordering. Each piece in the package has the capability to grab interest, increase desire and convince the prospect to buy.
But online, you don't have that luxury. For the prospect to go back and read your letter, he must either print it out on his own paper and using his own ink and burning his own money... or he needs to make a conscious decision to return to your site later.
So the main disadvantage of online sales letters vs. off-line, is that they only exist as pixels on the user's screen - unless or until the prospect decides to print it. Even then, your sales letter gets printed on familiar paper -- usually of the plain white variety - so there's no chance of creating the same 'feel' or special effect that a multiple-piece direct mail package can.
But the obvious advantage is the cost savings. Online there's no postage, traditionally the single most expensive element of any direct marketing campaign. Since your sales letter exists only in cyberspace, there's no printing cost whatsoever. Additionally, you never have to worry about how much material you can stuff into an envelope without exceeding standard postage costs.
Online, the amount of space available is virtually unlimited. You can include as many pages and go into as much detail as you want. The challenge is that the online prospect has a limited attention span... so your letter needs to keep him on the edge of his seat or he's gone elsewhere.
It's no surprise than that so many have been attracted to the Internet as a means of marketing products and services. For some, the web has become a massive new avenue for advertising. They attempt to entice people by delivering a barrage of messages in the hope that one 'sticks'. Or they employ glitz and flash with the mistaken belief that they can somehow 'trick' people into paying attention to their message and buying their product.
Truth is... this approach would never fly offline. It would be a complete waste of money to even try. But because it's so cheap to set up shop on the web, some take a 'let's try it' approach. They simply don't understand the online environment and the low tolerance of users for such an approach.
