Direct Marketing

Archive for June, 2010

Both involve a customer buying more stuff from you than they’d originally intended. But cross selling and up selling are very different. 

• cross selling involves selling related goods or services. If you’re in the process of selling someone a wedding outfit you could also offer them a matching hat, shoes and handbag
• up selling involves selling a more expensive or exclusive version of the same thing. If you’re in the process of selling a £99 tent you could persuade your customer to buy the next model up for £120     

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Everyone gets into bad habits. I tend to over-do the exclamation marks and use the word ‘all’ too much. But because I always double check my copy and strip out the extras before sending it to clients, my bad habits aren’t a problem. 

Other people habitually spell the same word wrongly time after time, get their apostrophes in the wrong places or repeat a tired suite of favourite superlatives time after time.  

You can only mitigate bad habits when you’re aware of them. If you’re not sure whether or not you have any, it makes sense to get someone honest and sharp eyed to check your DIY website content first.

People often ask me to take a look at the copy they’ve created and report back with my recommendations. I’m always happy to do so, no charge, and give a sensible quote for getting things into shape. No strings attached and no obligation. Just honest, straightforward advice.

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Are you taking full advantage of your email marketing software’s autoresponder function?

The principle is beautifully simple. It’s all about intelligent cross-selling but autoresponder messages do all the hard work for you.

If you’re selling football kits you can cross-sell footballs, footie boots, socks, training gear and so on. If you’re selling flowers and plants you can cross-sell seeds, organic pest controls and decorative vases. You get the picture.

Autoresponders are a straightforward way to maximise your average order value. Many businesses achieve more than 30% extra revenue per order. Not bad for a few lines of direct marketing-led copy!

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It’s tempting to include every little detail up front on your website’s home page. But it’s best to focus hard on your core message and cover the fine detail elsewhere.    

Why?  Because it’s your home page’s job to inspire people to respond – find out more, ask questions, contact you or buy from you – not deliver War & Peace in one hit. 

That’s why intelligent, carefully considered index page content is so important.

• it should explain the benefits of what you do or sell clearly
• it should satisfy search engines’ needs
• and it should encourage sales by inspiring visitors to venture deeper into your site 

The same goes for direct mail letters and email campaigns.

Less is more. Be ruthless when you’re creating a direct mail or email campaign too. If you drown your sales message in detail you’ll lose readers’ attention. You stand a much better chance of getting a positive response when you go in hard with a short, powerful message rather than waffling on.

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The best insights come straight from the horse’s mouth.

Here’s an excellent set of answers to Google-related SEO questions, from Google’s staff:

http://www.labnol.org/internet/google-answers-seo-questions/

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