What Works Best for Selling Online? Email or Web Pages?
Good question right? I always thought so! That is until I
went through my little learning curve. I can save you from
the same lessons if you have a few moments...
You see, I do a ton of classified advertising on the net. I
utilize ezines, AOL, newsgroups (carefully thru my sig),
and many web sites. I also use targeted direct email
although I'm extremely picky in this area.
So why is it that all everyone talks about is banner ads?
Click thrus, CPM, page impressions, etc., . How about
the folks like me that can't afford to slam down a few
thousand bucks each month to have my banner pop up on Yahoo
every time someone types "Internet Marketing".
Now don't get me wrong here, banners are great and I rely
on banners to drive traffic to my site too. But the fact
is, a large part of my marketing campaign revolves around
simple effective classifieds and I am not alone. It's cheap
and it works.
That's why I've decided to pass along the results of my
"research" as I like to call it. (Learning curve is a
little more honest!)
My question was this: Should I be using my URL, or my email
address when advertising with classifieds and direct email?
Before my web site existed it was pretty much a no brainer.
I used my email address in my classifieds until I smartened
up and got some autoresponders. AR's made much more sense
for two simple reasons: They allowed me to do MUCH less
work and my prospects received my sales letters almost
instantly, which always results in more profits.
Then I finally migrated to the World Wide Web and had a URL
to use in my classifieds. I immediately "upgraded" my ads
to allow people to find my new web site. (Maybe I was a
little too proud of it!) I figured why bother with
autoresponders any longer when I could show them color,
sound, and graphics.
A valuable lesson learned.
My response dropped and I found out the hard way the there
are literally millions of people who use email but DO NOT
surf the web. Many simply do not care to surf the web and
there are a good number of folks who do not have access to
it.
My autoresponders immediately went back into my ads and
since I was paying for each word or line, I decided to
stick with ONLY the AR's. The extra few bucks to add my web
site address was probably not worth it, I guessed. Wrong
again.
Luckily I had my own email newsletter to do a little more
experimenting. I changed my ads so they contained BOTH my
autoresponders address AND my URL.
Bingo. The perfect mix. My total inquiries (autoresponder
plus page hits) went up by about 20% and remained there as
long as my ad contained both contact methods. Along with
these increased prospects came increased profits. Another
valuable lesson learned.
I know, a lot of you are saying hey, that's not a tough
decision. Well to you I say take a look at the classified
ads in almost any ezine on the net. Count the number of ads
that have both an AR and a URL. You'll find that about one
out of every three of them qualify. Point made.
I hope I've managed to shed a little light on YOUR
marketing campaign today. If you're not marketing with both
AR's *and* a URL, you're missing out on some revenue!
Remember, as many have said before me, marketing is now,
and always will be, a numbers game. The more numbers you
reach, the more numbers you'll count!
I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.